Not Up To The Standards Of Jon Jay

We've reached the point during the calendar year where I have stumbled upon an acetate baseball card.  I am a long-time fan of acetate baseball cards, always have been.  Usually I find one of these cards earlier in the year, but without buying much current year product or even single cards, it is taken a little longer in 2021. 

Most of my acetate cards in the past were either parallel cards from the Topps base set or autographs from products like Strata or Clearly Authentic.  My first 2021 acetate card comes from the Clearly Authentic product in the form of a Scott Rolen autograph.  

The scratches are on the case and the autograph is not faded, the ink shows lighter on the acetate cards due to the translucence of the card.  Solid picture of Rolen and I like the design of the 1986 Topps cards.  Obviously, I wish this were a Cardinals cards.  Topps has made a ton of Rolen cards this year and they are seemingly almost all Phillies cards.  

Do Phillies fans even like him?

The back of the acetate card is one of the coolest parts of these cards for me.  

The blurred background behind Rolen does not look very good here.  The back of the acetate cards usually pop with a colored background and a reversed black and white image from the front.  This feels muted and drab.  Although, I always think the player signature showing through in reverse is neat.  

Like all acetate cards in my collection, I like to compare them to my 2014 Topps Acetate Jon Jay.  It's my gold standard acetate card.  It's not autographed, but the colors and photograph on the card are amazing.  

On the front of the card, I like the reds and greens on the accents of the Cardinals uniforms and the bleachers against the green wall and shrubs.  The look nice on the back of the card too.  

Look at the contrast with the black and white photo of Jon Jay and Matt Holliday on the colored background versus the card back above with Rolen.  It's not even close.  

I love the new Rolen autograph, but it falls short as an acetate card.  

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 25

Well, I have reached my goal of 25 Blake Snell autographed cards for the year.  

I couldn't have done it without all of you.  

Thank you for stopping by to read about all the autographs I have found over the past eleven and a half months.  

Also my wife for putting up with my baseball card collection, and my son for bringing in the mail most of the time.  

Here is the card.  

This is my third autographed card of Snell out of the Topps Clearly set.  I have the base autograph, the red parallel, and now the black parallel.  I like this better than the red parallel, but it's still not as good as the base autograph.  

Here is the back of the card.  

I really like the back of the Acetate cards.  The flipped image and the black and white player photo always look nice together.  I feel like black border on the front of the card does not offer the usual contrast with the design of the back, but I still like the overall appearance and design of this card.  

Now that I have reached my goal, that does not mean that I am done with Snell autographs for the year.  If there are quality cards at the right price I will consider adding them to my collection.  I also know that there is almost no way that I will get to 30 Snell autographs for the year unless someone goes crazy with cheap Buy It Nows on Ebay. 

I need to do this again next year.  Maybe with a different player.  

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 23

I picked up a copy of Blake Snell's red Clearly Authentic autograph, which is serial numbered out of 50.  I am not sure that I like this card as much as the base autograph that I posted here last week.  Here is a look at the front of the card......

My main complaint with this card is the red border.  I am hit or miss on the colored parallels, but this is one that does not really work for me.  Maybe I am stuck on having the white border on a 1984 style card.  Maybe the red border just does not look right on a Rays card. 

Here is the back of the card. 

This card back is the same the base autograph.  Two more to go.  

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 22

This is one of my favorite Snell autographs that I have picked up this year.  In fact, I have generally avoided picking up multiple parallels of Snell's autographs, but that might change with this card.  The other variations of this cards seem fairly reasonable, so I am sitting here watching them on Ebay.  We will see.

Here's the new Snell autograph, which brings the count to 22.

I know this is a rehash set of the base Topps set, and I usually gripe about those in this space, but this one is really well done.  In fact, I feel like I have really ignored the Topps Clearly set the last year or two when it is "clearly" up my ally. 

Why? 

My favorite Topps parallel the last five years has been the acetate, or clear cards.  They are numbered to 10, so they are tough to find.  Way back in 2013, or 2012, or whenever they started I posted a bunch of them.  Then they got popular, they are not here as often.  Very much worth the effort though.  This Snell autographed card is the same thing as the acetate parallels. 

Here is the front and back of an acetate parallel.

Someone at Topps loves Jon Jay.  He always has good cards.  

You've already seen the front of the Snell autograph from Clearly Authentic.  Here is the back.....

Same thing as the Jon Jay, which is not a bad thing since it is something that Topps does really well.  I have a feeling that the Clearly cards are going to help me reach my goal of getting to 25 Snell autographs this year.  My goal is within reach, but we are running out of calendar days and new 2019 products.  

Wrong Way

The 2017 Cardinals had a lot of help from the Memphis Redbirds.  There were nearly a dozen different Minor Leaguers who debuted with the Cardinals during the past year.  Some were successful, like Paul DeJong and John Brebbia, while others were less successful.  The Cardinals also had a few players who failed to met expectations.

Really third place is not cool in St. Louis, and if I were just going to strictly write a post about baseball, I could write a dissertation about why Matheny should be unemployed at this point.

One of the bigger names, who ended up going the wrong way this season, was shortstop Aledmys Diaz.  As a Cardinals fan, it was fun to watch the Cuban import hit his way into the line up last year.  As a card collector, it was fun to have another Cardinals player to collect.  However, this year was bad on the field, so guess what has happened to his cards?

They're are headed the wrong way.

Which can be good, or bad, all depending on what happens from this point going forward.  Last year I pulled my first Aledmys Diaz card from a box of Topps Traded after debating whether or not to skip the product to buy a single autograph of him.

Last year when I pulled this I had a fellow collector suggest that I sell this card, it was selling for roughly $30 last fall, because there was no way that Aledmys Diaz was going to maintain that sorts of card prices.  My brain might have known that there was truth in that statement, but my heart was happy to pull a card that I wanted out of a box of cards.  How often does that happen?

Even now that this card is selling for a fraction of that $30 price, it is still a great memory.  The card is staying for sure....

Now, that they are cheap and getting cheaper I am actually finding some great bargains on Aledmys cards.  A few weeks ago I wrote about two new cards of his that I had added to the old collection.  Today, I have two more.

First up....

Is a Topps Clearly Authentic card.  This is an acetate set, which I really love.  I also have a Luke Weaver autograph from this set.  Of course, the best part of the acetate cards are looking at the card backs.....

Very nice. Next card....

is an insert from Topps Chrome.  I usually have a pattern of sorts with Topps Chrome, more on that this weekend, and this card does not really fit the pattern.  I am not really a huge Topps Chrome person in terms of autographs.  Often I buy a base autograph, or two, and then call it quits.  I never go after the inserts, let alone the insert autographs.

Overall, Aledmys Diaz cards may continue to slide, but I am still having fun tracking down his cards and that's the most important thing.  Maybe he will bounce back and have a good year in 2018, or maybe he will be hanging out in Memphis, either way there are still some more cool Aledmys cards to find.....

It's Not Jon Jay Nice, Still......

I have really enjoyed some of the cards Topps has made over the past several years using acetate, some people prefer the term plastic, over card stock.  I think plastic and acetate are pretty interchangeable.  In some ways the whole acetate/plastic card media start long ago.  Topps has just picked the idea up in recent years and ran with it.  I think my first "plastic" set of cards that I really enjoyed collecting were the 1998 Skybox EX-2001 set.  These weren't specifically deemed acetate cards, plus the silver part and player picture is actually made out of cardboard on these cards.

These are a modern classic.  If you do not own one, I would highly recommend it.  I still take the cards out of from this set and look at them from time to time.  Fast forward nearly twenty years and we still have some nice acetate/plastic cards that are being produced. 

My favorite current patch of acetate cards are the Topps clear parallels that have been appearing in the base set for the past few years.  They are limited to a print run of just 10, so they can be a little hard to find, but they are really well done.  My favorite was the 2014 Jon Jay card.    

The colors on the front of these cards really pop out on the acetate media and the card backs are spectacular with the reverse image of the players done in black and gray.  

Just a really nice look.  Topps has had other acetate card products that haven't been as nice as the clear parallels, but still I have enjoyed collecting.  The Strata cards come to mind.  Nice looking set, not everything was acetate or plastic, but still very fun to collect.  

Not an obvious acetate card at first spot, but the backs of these cards have some of the same cool features of the Topps base card parallel.  Again, not quite as nice as the clear parallel.   

Here you can see the signature on the front of the card showing through to the back.  Which brings us to our newest entry into the world of acetate cards.  I was initially worried about this product.  Nothing would be more disappointing than promising collectors an all acetate set and then making it somehow really mediocre.  I seriously feared this when I saw the previews for Topps Clearly.  

It has it's plus and it's minuses.  Here is my first card from the set, there are more on the way.

First off, this is one of those products that you want someone else to open.  50 some dollars for one autograph?  Open away, I will buy your $5 Luke Weaver cards off of Ebay.  I am also a little disappointed that the cards are in magnet cases with a seal over the top.  What is so cool about these cards that they have to be in a case?  I get that Topps has done this with Archives Signatures and a few other products recently.  Let me hold the card in my hand.  Seriously thinking about taking this out of the one-touch.

and the best thing?  If you read my other acetate card posts you'd know it's always these cool looking card backs.....

Same basic idea as the acetate cards in the Topps base set, but I love that you can see the player's autograph showing through on the back of the card.  This card doesn't have a very clear background, but there is a color background with a Cubs player standing behind Weaver.  It's just not totally obvious at first glance... My other Topps Clearly card will be here in a day or two, looks like it has a clean card front aside from the player photo, curious how it will compare to this card.....

Still waiting to find a nicer acetate card than the Jon Jay.  This card is not Jon Jay, but still, it's nice.