2021 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 3

I am not a huge fan of dual autographs.  It's not really my thing.  Blake Snell has not signed many dual signature cards and I have not added any of them to my collection.  For me to like a dual signature card, there needs to be a strong connection between the two players.  I prefer the players to be on the same team and comparable pieces.  I know one of the dual signature cards Snell has is with Brendan McKay.  Same team.  One of the players was the American League Cy Young Award winner, the other has been on the Durham Bulls injured reserve list for 2 years.  

So, what would move me to buy a Blake Snell dual autograph after passing on others?  

Dual.  Durham.  Bulls.  

Here is the card.  

Snell and Cronenworth were never on the Durham Bulls at the same time, but they are both two of my favorite former players.   Obviously on the same team at the moment with the Padres.  They are actually pretty close in age, but Snell was drafted out of high school and Cronenworth went the college route.  Cronenworth was also not a very highly regarded prospect, but there is nothing more Rays than turning a former college relief pitcher into a super utility player.  Snell was a first round pick.  

As for the card, this is from Dynamic Duals, which was a Topps On-Demand product.  I don't buy Topps directly from Topps.  I still have not moved on from my curved Aledmys Diaz rookie card.  

I am not sure how much these cost when buying direct from Topps, but I waited out a seller on Ebay and got the card at I price I felt comfortable paying.  Mind you, it has Cronenworth on it, so it cost more than the typical Snell autograph.  Since I am only 3 Snell autographs into 2021, I decided to splurge.  It's also a dual sticker autograph, so I was not going to splurge too much.  

Back of the card.  

Meh.  

If they had mentioned that they were both on the Durham Bulls, I would have been really impressed.  That did not happen.  

This Isn't The Card You're Looking For....

Bowman has been out for a few weeks, and I have barely touched any of the cards.  I am cutting back on sets, but since this is more or less a Minor League product, I am all over it.  I saw the checklist a few weeks back and was really excited to see some of the names from the Cardinals system, plus a few Durham Bulls/future Durham Bulls.

It was a happy time, and then people started opening packs. 

I understand that there will always be some level of prospecting, but this year seems to be ridiculous.  Three and four digit prices for guys who are playing in the Florida State League?  The Cardinals prospects are not that bad, but they are not great either.  I am being patient, and the prices seem to be coming down a bit. 

In the meantime, I was not really looking for any NC State players, but I found one that was inexpensive. 

Deatherage was a tenth round pick by the Tigers last summer, and played Rookie League, and two different A Ball stops.  He hit really well last summer, and I was actually guessing that this would be a card that would be out of my reach to start.  Deatherage hit over .320, had almost 20 steals, and more than 20 extra base hits, in 60 games. 

He's off to a slow start this year, but I am still happy to get a copy of this card. 

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 4

This one probably should have been up awhile ago.  It might also be the Snell autograph I post for a bit, unless I can find one from a previous year that I do not already have in my collection.  Not going for duplicates, but Snell has also not popped up in any of the recent baseball card releases.  No Inception, nor Gypsy Queen. 

Here's his autograph out of Topps Heritage. 

There is also the red version, but I am not going to break the bank for one of those.  Probably means that I will not end up with one of them. 

Back of the card. 

There is a whole bunch of Durham Bulls on the back of this card.  That 2018 stat line is pretty impressive too.  

Back To The High Tek.....

I remember when Topps Tek first came out in 1998.  The set idea was somewhat simple.  If you collect baseball cards sets there are only 90 cards in this product.  The set idea was also somewhat complex.  If you collect cards of an individual player there are 90 variations of each of the 90 cards.  I like sets and have a copy of each of the 90 cards in the 1998 Topps Tek set.  I player collection Ray Lankford, but I do not own all 90 variations of his card in the set.  Maybe one day.

I like that Topps has brought this product back the last few years.  It's been fun to see newer collectors trying to track down all of the different variations.  Topps has made the product a little bit better the second time around by adding in autographs.  I have picked up quite a few the past few years and posted them here in this space.

This year there is a Bowman Tek, prospects, and Topps Tek, which is veterans and retired players.  I have picked up a few the past few weeks the cards have been out, but the first card I want to share from this year's set has been one of my favorite cards that I have had sitting on my office desk in awhile.

It's player who appeared in the original Topps Tek set.

I wish I could tell you it was Ray Lankford, but I can't do that.  It is a Cardinals player though.  Well, he was a Marlin in the original.  

The checklist was chopped down after 1998, so while Tek ran for a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Renteria did not make the cut when the set shrunk to 45 cards.  So, 19 years later after appearing the original I finally have another Renteria Topps Tek card.  

It's autographed too.  

I am not sure that I like all of the new background patterns on the cards.  A nice picture of the former Cardinals shortstop with an autograph can make me overlook the fact that the design of this card looks like a kid took either a basketball or Death Star stamp to it.  

The patterns run consistent onto the back of the baseball card.  Although for an acetate style card, I think that Topps does a lot better job on the backs of the base set than these Tek cards.  

This is my second Renteria card of the year behind his Topps Archives autograph which I picked up earlier this summer.  Topps has included him in several other products this year too.  Edgar has signed a lot of cards this year.  I will have to spend a little time trying to pick some of them up.

I am happy to see Topps pick up a player like Edgar and put him back into some card sets.  He's not a Hall of Famer, but he had some important moments over the years as a player.  Most baseball fans remember his walk off hit in the 1997 World Series while he was playing for the Marlins, or his decisive home run in the 2010 World Series which gave the Giants the title that season, but he was always a clutch player for the Cardinals too....

but the Cardinals only made one World Series appearance while Edgar was their shortstop.  Unfortunately, the Series did not end well since the team did not hit outside of Renteria who hit .333 with a .945 OPS.  He ended up making the final out, which makes him the only player in Major League history to end a World Series 

A Short Little Post of Appreciation For A Short Little Player

There are a few modern players whom I have missed out on over the years.  There are very few players that I will actively skip over.  Does Josh Lueke have an autograph?  No, we are good.  Most of those good players that have been skipped over, or do not appear regularly in this space, are absent for many reasons.  None of them involve a lack of effort, nor active avoidance.  Save for Josh Lueke.

One of the players I have missed out on over the years has been Astros second baseman Jose Altuve.  The infielder is noted for his ability to hit for a high average and his short stature.  Most recently there was this picture of him standing next to Yankees slugger Aaron Judge.  Judge is quiet tall.  

One of my favorite Altuve height related things on the internet is the Twitter account for How Many Altuves.  It takes measurements of home runs, all sorts of other things too, and converts them into the measure known as Altuves.  Each Altuve is approximately 5 and a half feet tall.  

Which leads me to this: I have never ever put a Jose Altuve card on my site.  Like nothing, ever.  So, I was recently trading a few cards, looking through a photo gallery that a trading partner had posted, when I saw an Altuve card.  Normally I would have kept scanning the cards and passed it by, but the price listed on the card seemed a little too good.  It actually was perfectly in-line with what his cards sell for on Ebay.  

The point is, the Altuve card was cheaper than what I had honestly expected the card to fetch.  I took the dive and put the card into the trade.  Now, it is in my collection....

This is actually a lot nicer card than I thought it was going to be when I saw it online.  Tribute is always a nice product, but this year's cards have a nice smooth finish and seem to have a thicker card stock too.  Seeing this Altuve card, holding it my hand, may have led me to find a few other autographs from this set.  Maybe.  

What Brand Was This Again?

I picked up a Kyle Seager autograph awhile ago and left it sitting on the coffee table in my baseball card room.  It made it's way to my scanner and then into one of my boxes of autographs.  Honestly, I know I bought the card off of Ebay, but I am not quite sure when it happened.  It's no longer in my purchase history, so it's been here more than 90 days.

I really liked the card when I first bought it.  The card had a cool looking texture with a raised area for the signature and a blue cut out area on the right hand side of the card and a small cut out on the bottom left hand corner.  Here is a look at the card....

After all of the time away from this card I came back to the scan this week.  I flipped through my blog to make sure I hadn't started a draft on it somewhere, but had nothing.  That's when I noticed something a little bit odd about this card.  Even though it was out of my purchase history I went back and scanned through Ebay for another copy just to make sure it wasn't something wrong with just this Kyle Seager card.  Nope, they are all this way.  What's wrong?

This card is from the Topps Supreme set, but there is nothing that identifies the brand of the card.  Anywhere.  We just have the players name, signature, name, picture, and Mariners logo.  The last two years Topps has included something to identify this brand in previous years.......

Last year......

and the year before.......

Both cards have something to identify them as being from the Supreme product.  I thought it was an odd touch and cannot think of another brand that did not have some sort of text to distinguish themselves.  Still a really nice card, but definitely something different that stuck out to me after a long break from this card.

My Favorite Sets and Autographs of 2012

We are down to our last few days of 2012 and I have had a great time this year venturing into the world of blogging and sharing my baseball card collection with those who care to read about the different cards in my collection or that I add to my collection through trades or purchases.  I thought it would be fun to make a reflective post back over the past year and share some of the highlights of collecting year.  If I had more resources and time perhaps I could create a little statue mold of the bull sign and mail them to the people that traded or sold me the cards in this post.  Some would, of course, end up with the different brand managers at Topps.  Maybe next year.


Best Set: Topps Five Star

2012 Topps Five Star Evan Longoria Auto/Quad Jersey Book

In my opinion this was a pretty easy choice. Topps put out about a dozen baseball products this year and I really liked several of the products for different reasons, but found many positives with the Five Star product.  First, the cards are very well designed, limited in quantity, and feature on-card autographs.  I did really well with this product by not opening the packs and instead strictly relying on trading and buying single cards on the secondary market.  I am sure that there are many people that have opened boxes of this product and had great fun in doing so, but I would probably end up with a few Vida Blue autographs, or Luis Tiant's, if I actually touched a pack myself.  No disrespect to Luis Tiant or Vida Blue intended.  So, for half a pack's worth of trade value I was able to pick up an Evan Longoria autograph/book last week.

2012 Topps Five Star Terry Pendleton

I was also really happy with the actual signers that Topps featured in the set.  As a Cardinals fan, I was able to add several nice Allen Craig and Jon Jay autographs to my collection early in the year with a few of the early Topps releases.  However, the pair were featured over and over again in sets throughout the year.  Five Star throw out some new names that collectors could target and add to their collections.  I really enjoyed tracking down this Terry Pendleton autograph two weeks ago.  While, he might be best remembered as a Brave, he spent the beginning portions of his career in St. Louis and he also has a limited quantity of autographs on the market.

Best Set Runner Up: Topps Archives

I will keep this one a little bit simpler.  I really enjoyed the card designs, especially the 1984 designed cards.  One of my favorite sets as a kid and I still love them almost thirty years later.  Topps did a spectacular job of copying every last detail into the design of the Archives cards.  Of course, Topps also used designs from the 1971 and 1980 Topps sets too in producing this year's Archives release. 

2012 Topps Archives Allen Craig

 The autographs in the set were also really cool.  There were many different players from different eras, and of differing star level featured in the set.  More on that later too.

2012 Topps Archives Jose Oquendo Autograph

Favorite Autographs of 2012
I am actually going to go with a list here.   I am also not going to limit this list to cards issued in 2012, but will open it up to any autographed card that I added to my collection during the past year.

2011 Topps Finest Mike Trout Autograph

2011 Topps Tribute Sandy Koufax Autograph/Jersey

2010 Donruss Elite Jordan Swagerty/Magic Johnson Error Autograph

 

2006 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Miguel Cabrera Autograph

2012 Topps Archives Ray Lankford Autograph

Pretty easy list to explain.  Mike Trout received a lot of attention this summer from collectors, and while I did not go out and try to find a Mike Trout card, I ended up adding one to my collection anyway.  The card has grown on me throughout the summer and hope that he can repeat his success again next year.  The Koufax card was just a nice addition and I do not own much in the way of Koufax stuff.  There also isn't a ton of it out there.  The last three cards were much more intentional additions.  The Magic Johnson/Jordan Swagerty error autograph is a card that I have looked for the past few years, the Miguel Cabrera autograph was my favorite Cabrera autograph I added this year (I add a lot of Cabrera cards this year), and the Lankford autograph was a welcome addition to my already existing collection of Lankford cards. 

2004 Fleer EX Ozzie Smith Autograph

I picked up a cool last week and was excited to see it arrive safely in the mail earlier in the week.  The card comes from the 2004 Fleer EX set which was a high end, one autograph per pack release with lots of cool autographs, patches, and jersey pieces.  This card looked rather ordinary at first glance, but I still kept looking since it was an Ozzie Smith autograph.  

In fact, I almost passed it by since it was a sticker autograph.  Ozzie has plenty of on-card autographs and I would really prefer to keep as many of my Hall of Fame autographs that way if possible.  The really cool part of this card to me was the jersey swatch.  It polyester, it's brown, it's from the 70's.  Sure, I like cool patches better than a generic piece of white or grey jersey.  However, I like when you can look at a jersey piece and tell exactly when and where it comes from.  Why aren't there powder blue Ozzie Smith jersey cards?  I am not sure, but this is clearly a Padres piece from early in Ozzie's career.  The autograph is a nice bonus, even if it's a sticker.   Have a good 4th!  

2012 Topps Tribute Sandy Koufax Jersey/Autograph

I am going to let the picture do most of the talking today.  Traded for this card at the end of last week.  This is the best card I have picked up this year.

2012 Topps Tribute Sandy Koufax Jersey/Autograph