Another A&G With A Mini Me: Big Mini Unit Edition

 

Here is another mini parallel "mini me" post from the same group team box break that the last post on The Strass came from. With no fanfare here are the cards of The Big Unit and His Mini Unit (OK that doesn't sound quite right). First is the base card and then the A&G backed mini.

2023 Topps Allen & Ginter 26 Randy Johnson Montreal Expos

2023 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini A&G Back 26 Randy Johnson Montreal Expos

Expos Extra: Stadium Club Ultra and Gold

EXPOS EXTRA: Stadium Club Ultra and Some Gold

Alrighty then lets get this show on the road. This month I am cheating a little by making an Expos post. Hey my blog my rules. Actually one of the cards I'm showing is of one of the transition Expos to Nationals players but I'm only showing his Expos card. You have to read the post and/or view the images to find out who. HA.

I started the idea for this post with the thought of showing a couple of base cards with their gold variant and then decided to toss in a few cards that were in the same trade package that the variants were in. All 8 of these Expos cards are from 1999 Fleer Ultra and 2002 Topps Stadium Club 4 cards from each set.  

First I'll show a trio of bonus cards just the fronts:

A Montreal Trio Vlad plus 1

We have: 

1999 Fleer Ultra Baseball:

174 Dustin Hermanson

20 Vladimir Guerrero

2002 Topps Stadium Club Baseball:

27 Vladimir Guerrero

Next I'll show the meat and potatoes of this post the gold variants with their base counterparts.

Orlando Cabrera: 2002 Topps Stadium Club Baseball 40

Base and Gold Variant

2002 Topps Stadium Club Baseball: 40 Orlando Cabrera Base

2002 Topps Stadium Club Baseball: 40 Orlando Cabrera Gold

This card is a THICK one. 

Not as thick as some relic cards but at least double thickness compared to the base

RONDELL WHITE: 1999 Fleer Ultra Baseball 117 & 117G

Base and Gold Medallion Variant 

1999 Fleer Ultra Baseball: 117 Rondell White Base

1999 Fleer Ultra Baseball: 117G Rondell White Gold Medallion

Now the transition Expos to Nationals Player Jose Vidro

2002 Topps Stadium Club Baseball: 39 Jose Vidro

2002 Topps Stadium Club Baseball: 39 Jose Vidro

I hope you enjoyed these blasts from the past from the Great White North.

Expos Extra Episode 3: A Die-Cut Rock and an Unexpected Buyback

EXPOS EXTRA EPISODE 3:
A DIE-CUT ROCK AND AN UNEXPECTED BUYBACK

Been a while since I've done a dedicated Expos Extra post. I really should have been doing several per month since this is the 50th Anniversary of the franchise. It looks like at one time I was trying to keep the Expos posts as a special series so I will try to continue with the theme and try to catch up with the appropriate numbering of episodes.

Here's a story of a lovely lady couple of cards that came in a package of Expos cards that I had purchased from a fellow collector. Actually I'm not sure exactly which package of Expos cards it came from whether it was from a blogger or a collector from one of the forums, or from a blog reader. They were in a package I had gotten sometime late last year (2018). As I said I'm not sure exactly which one. I just recall that when I was doing my mail-day catch up posts at the end of last year or beginning of this year (OH Jeez I need to do one for this Year mid Jan through now UGH) I later noticed these two cards by themselves out of an envelope or box.

Normally I'm not too fond of the type of cards these are; a die-cut, and a stamped Topps Buyback. I make a big exception with these since they are Expos, although not players who ever played in DC, they retired before the move from Canada to Washington DC. When I first started this blog I wouldn't have mentioned them here. One of them is a Hall of Famer and PC player even if he never had been a part of the Expos/Nationals Franchise.

The Players Tim "Rock" Raines and Andres Galarraga both cards are of the 1989 Topps design, the Raines is a 2014 Topps mini '89 and the Galarraga is an original '89 but STAMPED "buyback".

In 2014 Topps inserted special mini 1989 design cards to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of those cards. I'm not to thrilled about minis anymore and even worse they decided to make the minis die-cut cards. The cuts follow the border of the design so they aren't too bad, but I am just tired of these specialty cards. So here is Tim Raines 2014 mini die-cut using the 1989 design card number TM-5 (TM=Topps Mini)

2014 Topps: 1989 mini die-cut: TM-5 Tim Raines Expos

Another specialty aka gimmick that Topps has been doing lately is stamped buyback cards. These are real vintage cards that made their way back to the Topps factory and years later Topps decides to include them as inserts for newer sets but they make a special value/condition damaging stamp to let you know your buyback "vintage" card is now worthless. Except to collectors who are chasing all buybacks. Some buybacks are given special logo stamps this one is one of those trickier "Rediscover Topps" buyback stamp.

 1989 Topps: 590 Andres Galarraga Expos: Stamped "Rediscover Topps" Buyback

OK so I had to make the Raines mini image medium sized to sort of keep the size difference perspective. After making this post I am a little softer on die-cuts like this one that make sense and aren't too outrageous. I am also a little kinder to buybacks as well. However I'm still not 100% sold on either "gimmick"

Expos Extra: Ugueth Urbina 95 SP Premier Prospects

1995 UD SP Premier Prospects Ugueth Urbina

I recently got a small 9 card lot of cards from Sportlots that had some vintage including a 1965 card for my Strive for '65 unobtainable goal and this Expos Prospect card:

1995 Upper Deck SP Premier Prospects 9 Ugueth Urbina Expos

(Front and Back)

I thought it was an insert die-cut but apparently the first 20some cards in this set were the "Premier Prospects" and all of them were die-cut. The strange thing is on The Trading Card Data Base for this set this card is listed as a "foil" and a different silver foil variation is shown as the scan of the "base" card. Some of the "sub-sets" for this set over there look a bit sloppy so I don't think in this case it is a good source. TCDB is usually a good place for info but like many community databases things can get mixed up from time to time.

I don't know if it is a regular base card or maybe it is the gold or maybe bronze variant? Oh well whatever. Anyway Mr. Urbina began his Major League career with the Expos, making his debut in May of 1995. His final game would be in September of 2005 with the Phillies. Other teams he played on were: Red Sox, Rangers, Marlins and Tigers.

Expos Extra: Showing My Dollar Tree Hand

Expos Extra: Extra Inaugural Edition

I got the idea for this feature while composing a post on my regular card blog. That post will be published simultaneously with this post. This new feature mostly for this blog is called Expos Extra. It will be for those older Expos cards of players that never called DC their home at least at first then I might start slipping and adding guys who transitioned onto the Nats in DC. I think now I can justify showing them off here at CWC. I know when I first started this blog I said some of those guys I wouldn't mention here, or show their cards. Well I will allow exceptions since they are all the Expos Franchise. I'm using the bloggers prerogative clause that states "My blog, My Rules... So there!"

On my regular blog in the last few days I mentioned the booty I got from a repack adventure at the Dollar Tree store near me (part 1, part 2). These are the Expos cards I got from the Repacks and well since the latest year of a card pulled was 2002 from the first pack NO Nationals just a few Expos.

This poker hand of cards are Expos ancestor cards of my Homie Team The Nationals. Since these guys never played in DC or called Washington their home I wasn't going to show the cards here at first. Finally I decided I would after coming up with the Expos Extra feature title. Plus it gives this blog some more potential which might help me post to it more often.

Now on to the cards:

1994 Pinacle 355 Ken Hill Expos

(Front and Back)

Pinnacle way back in the day made a very fine product. In recent years Panini (was Donruss) still makes a fine product including some in the Pinnacle name but without the official licensing from MLB so they can't use team logos or the team names. That means logos are airbrushed out, cropped out or covered up by card design.

1994 Upper Deck 274 Home Field Advantage Larry Walker Expos

(Front and Back)

It's all Upper Deck's fault. Yes there I said it, way back in 1989 they set a very high quality bar for the baseball card universe and now everything is in ruins but still very high quality. These Home Field Advantage cards are a sub-set within the main set. I have made a mental note to at least get all of them if not the complete main set.

1984 Topps 390 Tim Raines AS Expos

(Front and Back)

Mr. Raines was "The Rock" way before Mr. Johnson was, but both are cool. It is a shame that the Expos couldn't afford to keep the high salary high quality stars like Tim Raines on their roster. Had they been able to keep those guys in the early 2000s they would still be in Montreal and I wouldn't have a Homie team.

1997 Pinnacle 10 Jeff Fassero Mariners (Marked Mariners but in Expos Uni)

(Front and Back)

I have said before that I don't like this particular Pinnacle year's design because of the gold foil and being difficult to read the players names sometimes, especially when I first got one or two of these cards. When I first got this card I saw the Mariners name and logo and laughed a little. Then I studied the card a little more and discovered the weird picture border cropping they did to the profile picture on the back. I checked the other 1997 Pinnacle card I had gotten from that repack and it had the same weird "crop design". I don't like it. It doesn't do anything for the card.

1984 Topps 503 Elias Sosa Padres

(Front and Back)

The uninitiated are wondering why I have included this "riding into the sunset" (is that a Dimebox term?) Padres card on my Nationals blog in a post of Non Washington Expos? Well just check out who Mr. Sosa was playing for in 1979-1981. Yes Siree them Canadian Fellers up in Montreal.

Oh that's it I've shown my hand. Cash in your chips folks. The game is over.