Snowbound and Stir Crazy

In case you missed it, Boston has received so much snow in the last few weeks that everything and everyone—including me—is at a breaking point. The MBTA doesn't work, the government is encouraging people to stay indoors and off the roads, and there are no signs that the cold and the snow will let up anytime soon. Which has given me plenty of time to stew in my thoughts...

I would really like to see colleges offer an intercollegiate stock car racing circuit, if only to see cars and fire suits covered in logos and emblems of universities and names of individual departments. Maybe the Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chair in Automotive Engineering?

I haven't bought any 2015 Topps Series One yet, but I'm digging the acetate parallel. It reminds me of the Slideshow insert set from 1995 Leaf. An idea's an automatic winner in my book if you need a functioning lightbox in order to enjoy the cards.

And while we're on Series One, the sheer volume of opened cards listed on eBay right now is staggering. Massive lots of hand-collated sets, "unsearched" (yeah right) lots of base cards, parallels, inserts, autographed cards, game-used swatches, and more. Didn't it just release a few weeks ago? It gets me thinking about collecting in Bachelor terms—here for "the right reasons" versus the wrong reasons. While all this stuff on eBay is great for cheapskate collectors like me who just want to see the cards, it's also off-putting. Why would someone buy so many cards in the first place if they're just going to try to flip them for pennies on the dollar? Is it really all about finding the case hits?

I finally put my 1969 Topps set in pages. Got me thinking, did Ultra Pro decrease the quality of its nine-pocket pages? The ones I bought seem flimsy.

Also put my Heritage High Numbers set in pages (with the rest of the Heritage set). Looks good. Wish I had disposable income enough to assemble Heritage every year.

Scott Crawford on Cards has a great idea about collecting over the course of a year: only focus on certain sets and interests during certain months. That way your individual collections each receive attention and your interest doesn't flag. For me, it would be

Jan/July: 1970s Topps basketball
Feb/Aug: Adding new players to my Red Soxlopedia
March/Sept: 2014 Topps Heritage Minis
April/Oct: 1969 Topps variations
May/Nov: Mega master set additions for 1978, 1986, and 1987
June/Dec: 2015 Topps Archives (only cards of players depicted in the 1976 style, and only those players who also had a card in the original 1976 set)

The much-discussed decline of blogging in the sports-card-collecting hobby is sad to me. There are literally scores of YouTube users who post box breaks but don't seem all that interested in the cards they find—unless those cards are serially numbered or autographed—or have anything to say about the cards. Blogging about cards allows for more than just posting images of the cards. It allows you to say what you like about the cards, about why you collect. It's important that this outlet doesn't disappear.

Lastly, with all these stamped buybacks, Topps has finally released the Archives: Commons set I predicted back in 2007.

A Card I'd Like to See in 2015 Topps Archives

Now that we know the base card designs Topps has chosen for its 2015 Archives set—1957, 1976, and 1983—here's a card I'd like to see in the set.

Updated Food for Thought: Hot Stove Edition

A few baseball-card-related thoughts as we approach winter...

If Jon Lester signs with a team other than the Athletics—which is how it seems things will shake out—does that mean we'll never see a card of Lester in an A's uniform? This probably happens a lot, but the two players who come to mind are Reggie Jackson (Orioles) and Don Baylor (Athletics), both in 1976. Another guy who could fit this bill is Yoenis Cespedes, the slugging outfielder the Red Sox obtained in exchange for Lester. The Sox have a logjam in the outfield and the feeling is that Cespedes walks after next year.

This also brings up an interesting take on the purpose of end-of-year series like Topps Update and Topps Heritage High Numbers. Topps Update is a showcase for All-Star cards, rookies, and guys who fell through the cracks in the regular set. Heritage High Numbers is chock full of rookies and other end-of-the-bench guys who didn't get cards in the regular series. Gone are the days when traded players get cards of them in their new uniforms. Were it up to me, High Numbers and Update would be a more traditional mix of rookies and traded players. This would solve the problem of guys like Lester, Cespedes, and Nelson Cruz (whose year on the Orioles probably won't be recognized in 2015 Topps Heritage)...

...An insert set that didn't seem to hold its value is the mini set in 2014 Topps Heritage. Despite being the case hit and each card being numbered to just 100, eBay prices have fallen in the last few weeks. All of this is good news for me, as I now have 47 of the 100 subjects...

...Is Topps's design for 2015 a subtle homage to 1990's design? It'll be the 25th anniversary of that set, which could mean a possible "no-name" error, right?...

...I promise this is the last Heritage item I'll bring up for now: I've decided that the ultimate card from the Heritage set is the Maury Wills Real One autograph card. For one thing, Wills is shown as a member of the Dodgers. Secondly, he wasn't included in the 1965 Topps set, so—barring custom cards—this is as close as you're going to get to a 1965 Topps Maury Wills card. 

...Are there great card blogs still out there? From what I've read recently, collectors are more interested in posting images of their "hitz" on Twitter than talking about the bigger picture in the hobby. Is that how others see it?

Finally, I almost forgot. Remember my post in November 2013 about the future of price guides? (Read Average Real Pricing: The Future of The Price Guide.) Well, if you subscribe to Beckett's online price guide, it looks like they incorporated something like average real pricing into their tiered offerings. They're calling it the Beckett Online Price Guide Plus (very original). If it's anything like my idea for average real pricing, this is a step in the right direction. Hey Beckett, you're welcome.

Let's Talk About 2015 Topps Archives

With the unveiling of the underwhelming design of 2015 Topps flagship—with its 25-year-anniversary homage to the 1990 Topps design, intended or not—and the prospect of collecting Heritage '66 next summer already uninteresting, Archives may be the set for me in 2015. 

So today I daydreamed about which old designs Topps will pull out of their storage closet for its 2015 Archives set. Here are my guesses.

1988 Topps Baseball
I happen to like the design of 1988 Topps. It's like a combination of the best elements of the 1966 and 1967 designs, with an easy-to-read orange back. Nine-year-old me bought a metric ton of 1988 Topps.

1983 Topps Baseball
Another hallmark 1980s design for a brand that so far has managed to miss it, despite using 1980's design twice.

1994 Topps Baseball
Honestly, not a great design, but the 1990s are sorely lacking from this set so far.

1978 Topps Baseball
What's the Archives brand without a token 1970s design? 1978 is one of the few they haven't cribbed yet.

1981, 1991, or 1970 Topps Baseball
I'm hoping the short-printed cards are in a separate uniform design, unlike in 2014's set, which used the same four designs from the base set. 1981 Topps would be a great choice, or 1970, or 1991.

The designs used for the insert sets have been a hodgepodge taken from all four major sports. I don't see 2015 Topps Archives being any different. Here are a few of the insert designs I'd like to see.

1956 Topps Football
1958 AB&C Footballers (UK)
1967 Topps Who Am I? (with disguises)
1968 Topps Baseball Game
1969 Topps Football
1979 Topps Baseball Comics
1981-82 Topps Basketball Super Action!
1983 Topps/Drake's Baseball Sluggers 
1986 Topps Baseball Tattoos
1990 Topps Baseball All-Stars
1990 Topps The Simpsons

The problem with all of this is that eventually Topps will run out of old designs to use for Archives. I've written about this before, but it really feels like every year Topps has to out-do itself in terms of designs to use in its Archives offering. At this pace, the well will soon dry. We can only hope that the Topps brand managers will have enough sense to stop while they're ahead.

The Wrong Kind of Star: Quirks in 2014 Topps Heritage

2014 Topps Heritage Mini - Zack Greinke

If you're collecting Topps Heritage this year, here's something you may not have realized. Just like in the sport it depicts, there are varying degrees of star popularity within the set. Here's what I mean. There are 13 different non-relic/non-autograph cards of superstar Mike Trout in the set. There are nine cards of Zack Greinke. By comparison, there are seven different cards of Alfonso Soriano. And just one card of guys like Mark Teixeira, Tim Lincecum, and Alex Rodriguez. And others, too. Paul Konerko has only one card. Matt Holliday and Shin-Soo Choo? One card each. Same for Jose Altuve, Anibal Sanchez, Josh Donaldson, and David Price.

Asking why there need to be so many different parallels and inserts for a set like Heritage is a question with no good answer. Instead, here are the different versions of non-relic/non-autograph cards:

1. Base card (500 cards)
2. Chrome (100 cards)
3. Chrome Refractor (same 100 cards as Chrome set)
4. Black Chrome Refractor (same 100 cards as Chrome set)
5. Gold Chrome Refractor (same 100 cards as Chrome set)
6. Purple Chrome Refractor (same 100 cards as Chrome set)
7. Walmart-exclusive Blue Border (25 subjects)
8. Target-exclusive Red Border (25 subjects)
9. Retail-exclusive Black Border (same 100 cards as Chrome set)
10. New Age Performers (20 subjects)
11. Base Action variation (25 subjects)
12. Base Logo variation (25 subjects)
13. Base Uniform variation (25 subjects)
14. Mini (100 subjects)
(I'm not counting the Black Back version of the base set, as every card on the base-set checklist is included.)

Some cards are easier to find than others. For instance, base-set SPs are seeded around one per three packs, while Mini cards show up one per case. And only some players are in some of the insert sets. For example, there are three cards in the Chrome sets that do not appear in the Mini set—Alfonso Soriano, Xander Bogaerts/Jonathan Schoop, and Nick Castellanos/Billy Hamilton. They are replaced in the Mini set by Jason Grilli, Austin Jackson, and Derek Holland.

So what gives with all this? Why are some players included in nearly every insert and parallel set, and others not represented anywhere? Well, Teixeira's been hurt. A-Rod's a pariah, banished for the season. And Lincecum has been mired in middle relief, a star in name only. But for the others—like the new-to-the-national-spotlight guys like Altuve and Donaldson—there are no good reasons for their exclusion. It's just a quirk of this year's set, one that will probably be corrected in 2015's edition.