The Expanded Topps Postseason Set

I have always really liked the Postseason cards that Topps has included in their products starting with the 2006 Topps set.  The cards always focused on the World Series winning team and often featured a mixture of autographs and relics.  My Cardinals won two World Series titles during that time and I was happy to add a few cards from both sets to my collection.  Topps has always done a great job of getting a good sampling of players from the winning teams too.  The 2007 Topps version of the Cardinals team had a Pujols card, but also featured some lesser names who made big contributions to the team winning the series.  One of my favorites...

 

Weaver had a rather lackluster career after being a pretty highly touted prospect, but pitched a bunch of big games in the playoffs for the Cardinals that year and was a key contributor in the team's World Series win.  While the older Postseason sets do feature role players from the World Series team, they have provided collectors great value.  It really does not matter who you pull from the set, the cards sell, and price out very well.  For example, I was interested in adding a copy of the 2007 Topps Ronnie Belliard card.  The Cardinals traded for him at the deadline that season and he filled a need and made some great plays for the team.

I kind of thought it might sell for $50, but did not see this card getting much past that.  I was in on this item, but lost it.  These are the types of cards that made the Postseason set great though.  Limited numbers of cards with content that generates a great deal of interest.  What Cardinals collector wouldn't want one of these cards?  Who cares if it's Ronnie Belliard, he won a ring too.  There are plenty of other players just like Ronnie Belliard on the checklist though.  Anyone remember Preston Wilson playing on the Cardinals?

The other World Series cards have been cool too.  I have a couple of non-Cardinals cards in my collection and I hold on to them for several reasons.  First, they are really cool cards.  Second, I am pretty sure that I can trade them pretty high up on their value.  The White Sox and two Giants sets might be my favorite two outside of the Cardinals, though the Red Sox from 2008 has a good look about it.  This is from the original 2006 World Series Champions set:

So, this year Topps has decided to add in cards of all the Postseason teams.  Meaning that besides the usual band of Red Sox cards, for winning the World Series, we also are blessed with cards of the A's, Tigers, Rays, Tigers, Braves, Cardinals, and Dodgers.  While the cards have a nice look to them they have really dropped in price.  I landed a Anibal Sanchez card in a Jumbo Box, but have held onto the card after watching the prices slide over the past two or three weeks.  Cooler card than the price they are selling for on-line.  

I know that Anibal is not the biggest name on the Tigers, but it's not like their setting the world on fire the value of their postseason cards either.  Let's just go ahead and look at Miguel Cabrera cards in the set.  The only active auction on Ebay is offering a card for $50, but more than a handful have landed south of forty dollars in auctions, including one that failed to reach $20.  

and while I am sure that many Tigers fans and card collectors would love to add a cool Miguel Cabrera relic, I am sure the postseason last year was not at the top of their good memories list.  In fact, knowing fans of all the eliminated teams, I think that their fans had all expected better.  In the long term I think that these cards will continue to underperform the Postseason cards from past years save for a few Red Sox and the Pirates.  In fact, if Topps wanted to add Postseason cards, some sort of Pirates postseason set would have been really cool.  Wildly popular too.