Closing out 2016's Scans with Cards from Cards on Cards

As I sit here this rainy, stormy Saturday morning -- the counties just south of Atlanta are under a tornado watch, for crying out loud -- I can't help but feel that American life has changed greatly in the past couple of days.

Yes, Topps is now incorporating social media handles -- here, Tulo's Instagram account -- on the backs of its 2017 flagship baseball cards.  These are truly dangerous times in which we live.

With this post and other than my COMC and eBay wins, this post will finally finish off the scans I made in 2016. There are still a couple of packages that I have to post that I did not get around to scanning until after the new year.

Today's cards come from Kerry at Cards on Cards. Kerry is one of the #SuperTraders, and I believe that is what led to this package. Thing is, though, that this one hit a few real softspots in my 1980s needs.

1986 Fleer Traded

By 1986, things had settled in for collectors and everyone had started to expect shenanigans from the card manufacturers to hold rookies back from inclusion in their main sets to put into traded sets. That, or the companies would put guys on dual-rookie cards and then give them their own cards in the traded set. These were well-established games that Topps and Fleer (beginning in 1984) would play.

So, to see Plesac, Sveum, Nieves, and Robidoux in the Fleer and Topps traded sets in 1986 was no surprise (Deer had cards in the main sets as a Giant). But, as a 14-year-old kid who made money cutting lawns and being a local-league umpire during the summer, my funds were limited as to what I could afford to buy. I chose to buy the Topps Update set rather than Fleer -- so all of these were new to me.

And a Base 1986 Fleer

Not sure how I didn't have two of these already. Now I do, and the entirety of 1986 Fleer can be crossed off my want lists.

1985 Topps Traded

Topps Traded was always -- and remains -- easier to find than Fleer Traded from the 1980s. At least it feels that way to me. I thought I had ordered this card on multiple occasions from Just Commons, but then it never arrived and I got one of those notes that their online inventory was not correct. Kerry took care of that for me, so I got to cross another team set off my list.

1988 Fleer

Strangely, these two guys together were hardly classic relief. I say that because most closers tended to be right-handers. Also, I think Plesac still had his braces on his teeth at this point. 

Once again, however, this card finished off another team set. 

1991 Topps Glossy Rookies

 

These glossy insert cards of first the All-Stars (appearing only in rack packs, I think) and then the Rookies were always fun to get. I would go through the rack at the grocery store to find the All-Star that I needed for my collection (since they were visible, I was not pack searching!). Maybe I should have kept some of those unopened.

No. No chance.

1995 Stadium Club

The 1990s in baseball cards are full of the jaunty graphics that ESPN2 tried to use to get the kids to watch their network. I think ESPN2 was the downfall of ESPN. It caused the company to stop focusing on the "S" for Sports and focus more on the "E" for Entertainment. Plus, it gave us Keith Olbermann in a leather jacket.

*involuntarily shudders*

2001 Topps Archives

In 1983, Topps reprinted its iconic 1952 set thanks to the huge interest in cards like Mickey Mantle and Eddie Mathews going stratospherically high -- a Mantle sold for over $4,000 in 1982, after all! Then, in 1991, the 1953 set got reprinted followed 3 years later by the 1954 reprint.

Why did that stop and the reprints of cards from 1988 start? 

Was it just the cost of trying to get clearance from former players and players' estates to reuse their images? Was it just too much work to do that? All those are plausible reasons, I suppose. But part of me would much prefer a 1957 reprint set over reusing the design for modern players. 

That might just be me, though.

More Recent Cards

Well, damn. The storms are starting to pick up a bit here and the light just flickered. So, I'd better finish this up before I lose power. This is nuts -- it's mid-January and we're having a weekend of thunderstorms and highs around 70 degrees.

I'd write-up something about Callix Sadeaq Crabbe, but that name is cool enough. From the Virgin Islands, high school in Stone Mountain here in the Atlanta area, and a 39 plate-appearance career with the Padres in 2008. He's now the proprietor of Crabbe-ology. 

Many thanks go out for the great cards to Kerry. 

I'm Thankful for a Package from The Home Run Apple

It has been an up-and-down time -- particularly in sports for me -- since I last wrote a blog post here. I watched on Friday as the Arkansas Razorbacks chose a poor time to revert to being Bert [sic] Bielema's little babies in not being able to run the ball and relying on a quarterback who was less mobile than a lamp post trying to scramble around for a comeback against Missouri. Bert's Backs' loss caused Georgia to be shut out of the SEC Championship game.

Then, there was Saturday's debacle against Tech. Despite a first half in which Georgia's two freshman running backs -- the incredible Nick Chubb and the speedy Sony Michel -- both fumbled inside the 5-yard line, Georgia had come back to go ahead of rival Georgia Tech with just 18 seconds to go. It's easy to second guess coaches, even if we all do it, but Mark Richt's decision to squib kick rather than kick it long on the kickoff goes down as one of his dumbest decisions as Georgia coach. It's right up there with his decision in his first year as head coach of running the ball into the middle of the line with no timeouts on the clock against Auburn...no touchdown meant no time left to try another play.  But that was, as I said, in his first year as head coach.

Gack.

From all that ridiculousness came the Packers incredibly impressive victory over the Patriots on Sunday. Aaron Rodgers is playing as well as any quarterback in the game, and it is a joy to watch him run the offense.

Into this roller coaster ride stepped a couple of packages that I got at Thanksgiving time. The first one came from Keith at The Home Run Apple. Keith's blogging has been interfered with by real life imposing itself on him. But, he found the time to send me some cards and a Topps Chip!

Let's start with the Chip -- which looks to be what Keith thought it was...a gold version of a Ryan Braun 2013 Chipzzzzzzzzz.

I have not sought out the Chipz or Ponch and Jon from Chips or any other chips actively at this point, but it is getting to the point that I need to figure out what I have and what I don't. Of course, I've also been lazy lately so I haven't updated my player collection lists for these cards yet, so that's not going to dig me out here.

As Keith said in his note, he also sent me some shiny Chrome surprises. Three of those surprises were Brauns.

You get the X-Fractor on the top right, the die-cut on the bottom, and the pretty black one serial numbered to 100 on the top left. That black-bordered one in particular is just awesome. As much as I get on Topps's case for all the parallels, many of them are very attractive cards. I just don't want (and tend not) to chase 30 or 40 parallels from one set for one player.

I'm a very bad supercollector, I guess.

Wrapping up the Bruans was this Triple Threads Purple Drank parallel serial numbered to 650 and inspired by JaMarcus Russell.

On the whole, I'm not 100% opposed to parallels. The parallels from the 1990s were not all that bad. I mean, two or three parallels are kind of fun. It's when we get to things like the prospects in Bowman, where we get 8 or 10 parallels of the paper card, 8 or 10 parallels of the chrome parallel, 4 or 5 parallels of the mini parallel, 4 or 5 parallels of the autographed parallel, and then some die-cut parallels of the insert parallels of the chrome parallel -- that's where things go off the race track.

Which is a segue, of course:

When I saw this Jaime Navarro card pop out of the team bag, I was starting to wonder if Keith was just reading my mind when I saw this motorcycle card on Dimebox Nick's blog. It's a good thing that is not the case -- no one deserves the misery of reading my mind! -- because Keith simply sent me a number of the 1995 Stadium Club Brewers.

In the past, I have said that Jose Valentin often got the best card photos by virtue of his being a middle infielder. Now I understand that those other cards were making up for what may be one of the least attractive cards I've seen in recent memory.

In keeping with the team-set theme, Keith also sent me a few of the 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Brewers.

JJ Hardy's card here is apparently an homage to the Jeff Cirillo 1995 Stadium Club from above.

Finally, Keith cleaned out some of his 2009 Topps 206 cards, including a couple of rookies who (in true 1990s Brewers fashion) turned out to be nothing but hype:

Sometimes the throwback cards work, and sometimes they don't.  These don't. But, they are from a major release set from Topps, and, as a result, they are needed for my collection.

After all, I could collect only the sets I really like a lot, but where's the fun in that? Without Topps's decision making process to second guess, the hobby would be a much more boring place!

Keith, thank you very much for this package. It was a surprise and it was and is greatly appreciated.