Random Ray - 2000 Topps HD

Topps HD was only made for a few years in the early 2000s. It was essentially an attempt to duplicate Stadium Club's photography with ultra-thick card stock. The base set cards were fine, but I originally got into this set for the autographs. The autographed cards were on acetate card stock. I am almost sure that this was the first acetate set that I really enjoyed. There are only four autographed cards in Topps HD.  I have the complete set.  

My favorite card.....

Rick Ankiel hitting back when Rick Ankiel was a pitcher. The other autographs are Adrian Gonzalez, Todd Helton, and Mark Quinn.  

Back to the base cards and Ray Lankford.  

This is the front of the Ray Lankford card from the 2000 Topps HD set. While it's not exactly Stadium Club, the photography on the front of this card is very nice.  I like how Topps did the design on the player name box on the side of the card.  

The box is discolored to standout, but if you look at the batting box lines and back of Lankford's card, it does not fully interrupt the action shot of Lankford. That astroturf looks terrible. I am glad there are not many astroturf fields left in the Majors.  

Back of the card.  

I like the back of this card for several reasons. I will start small and work my way up to larger items. First, I like that the player information box on the side mirrors the player name box on the front of the card in terms of shape, location, and orientation. The stat box is not really all that deep, but I like the white background with the black print. The stat box pops and the numbers are easy to read. The most obvious feature is the color photograph in the background. A little weird to see McGwire in the on-deck circle with Lankford batting. Usually McGwire hit third, Lankford hit fourth.  

Overall, this is a quality baseball card.

Cards I Love Part 16 - 1979 Topps Ozzie Smith

In my last post, I showed off my 1986 Topps Vince Coleman card.  It was my dream card in 1986, and I worked hard to track down a copy of the card.  Actually, I just opened a bunch of packs throughout the summer until I got one. 

I did have one card I wanted badly as a kid, but never managed to track one down.  In fact, at some point it became sort of an after thought.  I skipped over getting a copy year after year.  I am not sure how this happened, but I did not own a copy of an Ozzie Smith card until 2006. 

It's true. 

I was living and working in Durham at the time I picked up the card.  The school I worked at was not too far from a card shop in Durham that was on Duke Street.  I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the shop, but when you went inside, it was mainly filled with Magic and Pokemon card players.  Still, they had a decent number of single cards and baseball boxes. 

I had gone into the store with the intention of purchasing a 2006 Topps Heritage box one day after school, but my plans quickly changed when the employee running the store noted that I was wearing a Cardinals jacket, and they had some Cardinals singles they were looking to "unload".  That was the term he used.  When I think "unload", I take it to mean you are going to give me some sort of discount or deal.  I still listened to his pitch, flipped through the cards.  Base Topps and Upper Deck Pujols rookie cards for $100 is not really following through on "unload" though, so I passed. 

Except, there was one card that had a price that interested me. 

There was an Ozzie rookie with a sticker that originally read $80 in black ink, but there were several red lines marked through the price.  The new price was $25.  It was in really good shape.  I bought it. 

A little off center, but not too bad.  Great price for a great card, but my budget for the 2006 Topps Heritage box was obviously blown.  The shop did have several older boxes of cards that were marked 50% off, and some of them were decent products.  One of them was a 1999 Topps HD box marked all the way down to $35.  That's $60.   

I have pulled one Derek Jeter autograph in my life, which is somewhat incredible given the number of autographs he has signed, versus the number of packs of cards that I have opened during that time frame.  The one autograph?  

It was in the box of 1999 Topps HD.  

Pretty good day.  

Complete Set: 2001 Topps HD

Second complete set of the week.  I am on a roll with my reorganizing project this week.  Today I am going to show off a set which I completed in part way back in 2001 which was a first for my collection.  I have never actually had the base for the 2001 Topps HD set until this week when I completed a trade to pick up a handful of commons to finish filling in the wholes in my set.  So, let's have a look at the set:

2001 Topps HD Derek Jeter

The 2001 Topps HD set is a 120 card set which features some heavy card stock and great photography.  The product was actually introduced in 2000 and ran for two years before Topps pulled the plug.  I believe that Topps intended for this set to be sort of a high end Stadium Club set, but I do not remember the boxes being that expensive (70ish range at the time of the release) and even today can be found cheaply on the secondary market.  There is a mix of rookies and veterans in the set, but there is no Ichiro and no Pujols, so for a 2001 set the rookies are not really that important.  

2001 Topps 20/20 Roberto Alomar

There were a few straight forward inserts in the Topps HD set including Images of Excellence and the 20/20 set pictured above.  The Images of Excellence set features Hall of Famers and the 20/20 set is a die cut featuring current players.  Both sets can be found cheaply on Ebay and have some great photography.  Worth a look.  

My Favorite Cards:

I usually pick a single card, but for the Topps HD set I could only narrow it down to a list of two.  Five or six years ago the list would have been longer and it was also tough for me to ignore the Images of Excellence Nolan Ryan card featuring a sweet picture of him in a rainbow Astros jersey.  So, I will go with the lesser of my two favorite cards first.  

2001 Topps HD Rick Ankiel

Why were there Rick Ankiel cards after 2001, but before 2007?  Definitely a player with a few too many cards floating around, but after his stellar rookie season Ankiel was deserving of seeing a few cards.  I always really liked this Topps HD card which did a great job of capturing Ankiel in the middle of his wind up.  It was fun to watch Ankiel pitch for a year and half, strike out more than a batter an inning, and generally dominate his competition until his famed meltdown in the 2000 NL Divisional Series.  Luckily, Topps actually put a second cool Ankiel card in this set which also needed a little bit of time on my blog.  

2001 Topps HD Rick Ankiel Clear Autographs

Interesting that Ankiel got a sweet autographed card with a picture of him hitting long before he became a full time position player, but this is my favorite card in this set.  One of my first undertakings as a collector of autographs was to put together a complete master set of autographs and game used relics for a set.  I tried a few unsuccessfully during the 2000 calendar year, but first managed the feat with this set.  There are actually very few autographs and relics in the set.  More importantly, after buying one box of this product I pulled the best autograph in the set (at the time) belonging to Marlins prospect Adrian Gonzalez.  The other three autographs, Ankiel, Todd Helton, and Mark Quinn were pretty easy to find.  The relics too.  Most of the relics are younger players with a Steve Finley and Jeremy Burnitz sprinkled in to the mix.  Not a very difficult set to complete, but a great first stepping stone for my collection.  The autographs are on transparent cards with on-card autos.  The relics are also on clear cards.  

2001 Topps HD Ramon Hernandez Jersey Card

Unfortunately, I broke apart my relics set at some point in 2007 for a few trades.  I have not really attempted to reassemble the set, but might post that as a challenge for myself in the next week or two.  It would be fun for old times sake.  

A Dozen Alternatives To Triple Threads Pt. 1

I am still running on my Triple Threads posts for one more day and I promise I will move on to bigger and better things in my blog space.  After each of my posts in my Top 50 card sets I have offered a glimpse at a similar set which I did not include in my Top 50 countdown.  Today I am going to offer that same piece for the Triple Threads post except I am going to offer you a dozen card sets (broken into two posts) with some quality cards instead of the usual one alternative.  The sets are listed in alphabetical order and not in order of quality.  I will go ahead and tell you that the 2003 Topps Tribute set is my favorite alternative.  You will throughout many of these sets that Topps puts way too many sticker autographs in high end products.

2007 Bowman's Best Tom Glavine Autograph

1.  2007 Bowman's Best-Bowman's Best was always the shiny snobbier twin of the Bowman releases which focused on rookie cards of young minor leaguers.  Many collectors assemble these sets and put them in their closet, pull them out in five years, and see what they have.  Others go crazy of the here and now of 19 year olds in baseball uniforms playing in A ball and sink mad amounts of money into these cards.  I am more of the closet person, but I also know I pay a premium for some of these cards I could have had at cheaper prices (Not often).  The 2007 Bowman's Best set was cool because it actually included veteran players. The drawback for this set is the sticker autographs.  Common theme, get used to reading it in this thread.  How cool would this card be if it was signed on card?  See the 2003 Topps Tribute cards.  

2010 Bowman Platinum Jose Bautista Jersey/Autograph

2.  2010 Bowman Platinum-This set was similar to the Bowman's Best set except some of the cards were actually signed on the card.  Thank you, Topps.  Veteran players appear in this set too, but they are all on stickers.  The cards had a decent design and the jersey pieces.  In some cases patches.  Later issues of Bowman Platinum have followed the same pattern.  Veteran players and rookies with the former being on the stickers, rookies being on card.

2011 Bowman Platinum Shelby Miller

2004 Bowman Sterling Blake Hawksworth Autograph

3.  2004 Bowman Sterling-Bowman's Best was apparently not sparkly enough, so Topps brought us Bowman Sterling.  The cards always look cool, but they are almost always sticker autograph.  There are some on card autographs from Bowman Sterling floating around, but mostly from the 2004 set.  There are also sticker autographs in this set.  Think about the card below with an on card autograph.  Would be very nice.  

2004 Bowman Sterling Adam Wainwright Jersey/Autograph

2001 Topps Archives Enos Slaughter Autograph

4.  2001 Topps Archives-The greatest of all Archives/Fan Favorites releases.  There are cool autographs in some of the other Archives releases and Fan Favorites releases, but this one beats them all by a lot.  There is a great check list for every single team in the set.  My second favorite set on this list after the Topps Tribute.  

2008 Topps Finest Ryan Howard Autograph

5.  2008 Topps Finest- In my opinion the best of the Topps Finest autographs.  Again, a high end set needs autographs that are the card and not on a sticker.  Take a spin around Ebay or COMC and you will see some good names in this set with on card autographs including David Wright, Ryan Braun, and Cole Hamels.  Worth your time to find a copy of one.  The 2010 Finest set with the Letter autographs is cool too.  

2001 Topps HD Rick Ankiel Clear Autograph 

6.  2001 Topps HD- This is a 2001 Set without a Pujols rookie card, so you can find the boxes on the secondary market at really reasonable prices.  There are very few autographs and relics, but the design of the base cards is excellent with great photography and thick card stock.  This was the first autograph set and relic set I ever put together and still have all the cards.  The hardest card to find is a Todd Helton autograph which might set you back $10.  All autographs are on card and the jersey pieces are on clear cards too.    

2011 Topps Marquee Jeff Niemann Jersey/Patch/Autograph

2011 Topps Marquee Miguel Cabrera Quad Relic

2011 Topps Marquee Angel Pagan Autograph 

6. 2011 Topps Marquee- Tell me how this set is much different than Triple Threads?  It's not.  The cards generally feature sticker autographs, but there are a few non-stickers floating around.  There were plenty of cool relics cards too with multiple pieces of bat, jerseys, patches.  Basically, this set is Triple Threads with a different package.