Road Trip Cards

I spent a few days traveling to the far reaches of northern Michigan for a few days with my in-laws.  There are not a ton of people in Northern Michigan, but there is loads of cool scenery and I dig being in a small town for a change.  It's not like I can walk a few miles from my home in suburban Raleigh and hang out by Lake Huron.  I found a nice picnic bench with this view.....

I also managed to pick up a few cards while I was in Michigan too.  My brother in-law has been collecting cards for awhile now and we had done a little trading back and forth.  I picked up my part of our trades while I was in town.  A few nice Cardinals, a nice Rays autograph, and the last few 1989 minis.  And Ozzie......

A pretty awesome group of cards.  While it is not the most valuable of the cards, I really like the looks of the Wainwright card.  Topps has so many parallels these days it's hard to keep track of them all.  I have a couple other sepia parallels, but they were pack pulls and players I do not collect.  Has a really cool look.  I might have to go out and find a few more Cardinals card like that one.

Heritage Jerseys

I picked up two boxes of Heritage the other week when the product first dropped.  I have picked up an autograph or two and also pulled a relic card out of my box.  I set out to find a few Cardinals relics for my set and found a whole whopping one available on Ebay:

The Cardinals have always had several different relics in the Heritage set, but Wainwright is the sole Redbird in this year's set.  There is actually a Freese autograph/jersey that is apart of the Clubhouse Collection set, but Freese in now on the Angels.  In my opinion, Freese is also a player who has value in the hobby based solely on the 2011 Postseason.  His cards have been creeping down for the past two years.  I will pick it up at some point. 

 

I also picked up a copy of the Matt Joyce jersey card from the same seller along with a Jean Segura card.  Joyce is the only Ray in the set, so this completes my Rays set for the Heritage set.  The Rays do have several autographs in the Heritage set, so I will have to track down them down.  Here's a look at the Segura autograph:

 

Tier One Snoozer

We are most of the way through the calendar year for the 2013 baseball card releases.  Last week Topps issued it's latest Tier One product.  Like in the past, Tier One is a higher end product with some nice looking on-card autographs.  Like in the past, I went and searched trade pages and secondary sales sites looking for cool autographs from Rays and Cardinals players.  Big yawn.....huge.

There's Matt Adams, Alex Cobb, Chris Archer, Jon Jay, Allen Craig, Wil Myers.....the same seven or eight players who have signed for all the other Topps products this year.  I love Wil Myers and will collect his autographs, same with Allen Craig, Jay, and Archer.  Can I get a different Cardinals player? Why don't we get Trevor Rosenthal or Mujica to sign?  I'd take a James Loney autograph in a Rays uni at this point too.  Seriously.  Variety is the spice of life.  Big Yawn again.

So, pleading with Topps to change their ways is kind of like watching paint dry. It's going to happen, but worrying about when is not productive.  It might be a long time.  Throw on some coffee.

So, I branched out and decided to find an autographed card of someone missing from my collection who would be worth adding.  I searched the Tier One autographs high and low and came up with....

2013 Topps Tier One Jean Segura Autograph 

Caffeine kicking a little bit.  If you did not see the Jean Segura picture on the top of the page, or the link you clicked on to view this post, this card seems a little bit of left field for this blog.  This is about the most exciting card that I could of a player whose autograph I do not already own.  Segura is having a decent season, but there is just so little diversity in who signs for Topps products these days.  Sad.

While I was picking up my Jean Segura autograph I also picked up a favorite player autograph.  Again, this guy has signed for almost every Topps product this year.

2013 Topps Tier One Chris Archer Autograph 

I also understand that Archer is having a great rookie season for a contending team, but again, let's see some new players signing.  I have a few more Tier One autographs en route and will post them next week some time.  The caffeine has kicked in, time to go.