More Goodness from the Topps Vault

Last night I shared a cool proof card of former Cardinals outfielder Ray Lankford which had been picked up originally from the Topps Vault.  If you are not familiar with the Topps Vault, it's basically an Ebay store that Topps uses to sell off its old pictures, proofs, and player contracts.  Some of the items are really fun to look at and every once in while I will pick up a card or something else from the store.

Most of my purchases from the Topps Vault would be best described as unique baseball cards I do shop the store for unique items too.  Mainly I am looking for cool items, which fit into my collection, and would look cool displayed in my man cave.

A few years back I picked up a set of photo proofs from the 2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame set from the Topps Vault:

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame George Sisler Photo Proof 

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Jim Bottomley Photo Proof 

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Frankie Frisch Photo Proof 

 


There a pretty cool item that I decided to buy, for less than $10 each, after reading the descriptions of the photo proofs.  Each photo proof is roughly 4 x 5 and is a piece of transparency with a color picture printed on top of the clear material with a heavy piece of white cardboard dropped in behind.  I am not sure what the transparency paper is exactly, but as a teacher, it is stiffer than the transparencies you might have seen around a school back in the day.  The top of each plastic piece has a label which reads Kodak EPY which is a Tungsten based film used for slides.

Again, I am not sure what steps Topps takes in making their cards, so I am not sure where these cards fit into the process, but the cards do have labels underneath the pictures that are curious.  The labels identify the card year, player, team, and card number.  The last line is the curious part of these proofs which is the artist line.  Each artist line is dated, but the last two cards have a date listed in 2006, which is after production.  The Sisler card has a 2002 date.  I am not sure what to make of the dates on the last two cards, but it is certainly been a detail I have always found curious about those two proofs.

I have really enjoyed having these three items in my collection and have each of the proofs framed and hanging up in my man cave.  I put each in a nice black frame and have them hanging on a small wall right inside the door to the room.

A Dozen Alternatives To Triple Threads Pt. 2

In the first part of this post I took a look at six sets that fans of the Triple Threads releases should take a look at for their collection.  This thread will continue with six more and include my favorite out of the bunch, the 2003 Topps Tribute set.

2012 Topps Museum Collection Jon Jay Dual Jersey/Autograph

2012 Topps Museum Collection Matt Holliday Quad Relic

2012 Topps Museum Collection Matt Moore Autograph

7. 2012 Topps Museum Collection- See the description of the 2010 Topps Marquee set too.  This set has some Triple Threads looking cards with a different package.  I did really like the white cards with the autographs though.  Generally young players, but good card design with clean space for signing.  There might be 400 of them, but I have always loved this Matt Moore autograph.  

2005 Topps Pristine Aaron Boone Autograph

8. 2005 Topps Pristine- Always a hilarious high end set in my opinion.  There is more than one issue of it.  The cards had packs of cards within packs of cards when you bought the boxes and the cards were always "limited".  One must realize that when Topps uses the word limited, it means that the card is slightly hard to find then toilet paper.  For example, this cool Aaron Boone autograph has an "Uncommon" label in the corner.  It means there are 247 of them.  

2010 Topps Sterling George Sisler 6 Piece Bat Card

2009 Topps Sterling Carlton Fisk 4 Piece Bat/Autograph

9. Topps Sterling- Like Triple Threads I didn't put a year.  This set actually has cooler relic pieces than Triple Threads and they tend to have some cool Hall of Famers.  See George Sisler.  However, that Carlton Fisk card is destroyed by the sticker autograph. 

2012 Topps Tier One Mike Morse Autograph

10. Topps Tier One- This card set is really nice.  Topps put the autographs on card.  There are some really good players out there too.  This set is one of the better ones on this list.  

2003 Topps Tribute Sparky Anderson Dual Jersey/Autograph

11. 2003 Topps Tribute-This set featured a lot of Hall of Fame players with on card autographs.  Tigers fan, or no Tigers fan this card is really cool.  Topps has continued to issue the Tribute cards, but they continue to tinker with them.  For awhile, they went to sticker autographs.  Nice cards, but not nearly as nice as the card above.  

2011 Topps Tribute Barry Larkin Bat/Autograph

Of course, Topps switched back to on card autographs this year, but they are in card containers and some people (Matt Kemp) haven't signed their redemption cards.  

2009 Topps Unique Scott Rolen Patch

12. Topps Unique-Really cool idea with really small patch cards.  There are autographs, but they have stickers.  If you are looking for a jumbo chunk of someones jersey, this is your set.  

  

This Week's Trades Part I

I have made several trades this week, but haven't had a chance to post any of them on my blog, so I am going to spend this evening and tomorrow showing off my trades from the past week.  Sunday I will show off a few collection pieces I have put together over the years involving a lot of cards I picked up in a trade earlier this week.  

This evening I am going to focus on three different trades that I made earlier in the week.  The first trade involved a dealer from St. Louis.  Living and collecting baseball cards in St. Louis for most of my life I've noticed that the market for Browns cards is non-existint at times.  It's true that the Browns were a terribly run franchise and were unpopular for a good reason, but they did have a few good players during their history.  George Sisler might have been the best of all the St. Louis Browns.  In fact, he owned the American League hits record until 2004 when Ichiro Suzuki broke it.  In the process of breaking the record, Ichiro studied up on Sisler and grew to appreciate the Hall of Famer so much that he visited his gravesite outside of St. Louis during the 2009 All-Star Game.  I snagged this card for a pair of Pujols and Holliday relic cards.  

2010 Topps Sterling George Sislger Bat Card 

The second trade was completed on Facebook.  I traded a few Red Sox and a Matt Moore autograph for these two awesome cards.  The first card is more of a curiosity and I've always wanted this card.  It's a 2006 Topps Alex Gordon cut out card.  This card came in the pack this way.  The long story short is that Topps had some sort of contractual problem and printed these cards too soon.  They needed to get Alex Gordon off the cards and this was the solution.    The other card I received in this trade was a 2011 Topps Ozzie Smith bat card.  Always great to get some Ozzies.  

2006 Topps Alex Gordon Cut-Out

 2011 Topps Ozzie Smith 60 Bat

Last trade for tonight.  A local one.  Josh Hamilton cards are really easy to trade in these parts.  There are many people that have stories about how they saw Josh Hamilton play in high school, or Legion, or their uncle's backyard.  I believe Athens High in Raleigh might have outdrawn the Pirates, and perhaps the Reds, while Hamilton was in high school.  I pull out a few Hamiltons, listen to some stories, and walk away with some sweet cards in the end.  A few Hamilton jerseys and a pair of Hamilton Heritage Chromes and I got.....

2012 Topps Museum Collection Matt Moore Autograph

 2012 Topps Museum Collection Allen Craig Triple Jersey Auto