Archives Hits

A pair of posts coming up the next few days on the new Topps Archives product.  I have really enjoyed this product in recent years.  It's a great place to see some of the old Topps designs again on cardboard and it's also a chance to get some really cool autographs.  While I think that Topps can be really repetitive with their player selection on autographs, but the Archives product offers lots of new and different names.  There are a few Hall of Fame autographs sprinkled in the product, but the majority of the signatures come from some really good players who are not quite Hall of Fame players.  

With my first post on the product I am going to go ahead and look at the hits and inserts that I pulled out of my two boxes.  Let's start out with a really common insert in these boxes.....

I really like the look of these cards which are a copy of the 1968 Topps Playing Cards.  If you have never seen the originals they are pretty common and not too expensive.  It seems that these are about 3-4 per box.  Good looking cards.  

The most talked about insert cards in this year's Archives set is the Will Ferrell insert cards.  The actor/comedian appeared in a whole bunch of spring training games this year by hopping from game to game all on the same day.  The non-autographed cards have been selling for a few bucks each while the autographed versions of these cards (/10) have been selling for crazy amounts.  

That small print reads $1,999.95.  I am a little short on this card, or I am sleeping on the porch.  

I also picked up two colored parallels.  These are both silver and numbered out of /199.  The David Wright card is nice.  Fernando Rodney?  Sure.  Is he still shooting an arrow at the end of games?

Let's do a couple of more.  Still got to show off my best card and some autographs.  

Not sure how I feel about the inclusion of the Topps Original cards in the Archives product.  Topps has been putting these in their base set these last couple of years.  Not sure that putting them into more sets is cool.  Maybe it would be cooler if Topps would put some better names into the product.  Brent Strom?  Not excited.  

One more non-autograph to share, but I am going to wait to share that one....Let's do some autographs.   

This was my favorite autograph.  Vina was a nice player for the Cardinals in the early 2000s and helped lead the team to the playoffs several times.  Without looking I am going to guess that the Cardinals years were the high point of his career.  His signature has changed a little bit over the years, but it is still a nice autograph.  

Nice Bordick.  I am pretty sure that this is going to find a new home with a local collector.  

Franco is great card.  I would love to see this card with a Reds photo, but I can live with the Mets.  It's on card and the guy had a great career.  

and then there is this one.  I have become pretty cynical about Topps ever coming up with redemption cards.  Further, I am not sure I am a big fan of Yasmany Tomas though either.