A Quick Glance: 2013 Topps Turkey Red

Topps released it's second product of this year this week in the form of their Turkey Red product.  This is a relaunch of a product for Topps who used this brand name in the mid 2000s and dropped the label after a few years before picking it back up this year with a couple of changes to the line.  The first few Turkey Red releases by Topps featured a mid range price point with the possibility of an autograph per box along with about two relics.  The base set wasn't hard to assemble, nor difficult to buy on the secondary market.  The mid 2000 Turkey Red releases were also available at retail outlets which greatly increased the number of cards produced and drove down the price on the secondary market.  This year's Turkey Red is completely different.

2013 Topps Turkey Red Adam Wainwright

The boxes of 2013 Turkey Red cost around $40 give or take depending on where you find the box.  Each box is essential one pack with ten cards and one autograph.  It's a high end formula, one pack per box, with a slightly lower than normal price.  The base cards are nicer than the mid 2000s issues of Turkey Red, but you can tell from my Adam Wainwright above that they are essential a very similar card.  The base set is composed of 100 cards which means it will take a minimum of 10 boxes, or $400, for a shot at a complete set.  The price point and limitations on completing a base set have actually made the base cards pretty valuable on the secondary market.  However, the real key to opening a pack per box product is always the autograph.  There are always some good and not so good cards that can come out of these boxes that can make or break your purchase. 

2013 Topps Turkey Red Felix Hernandez Autograph

In my box of Turkey Red cards I was able to pull a Felix Hernandez autograph which made this product well worth my $40.  The card has a print run of 20 and is selling nicely on Ebay.  Haven't seen any for trade yet, but I think this one might stay right here with me.  My only suggestion for improving the product would be to have the autographs be signed on-card.  Turkey Red used to be a $70-$80 box, or a $2.50 retail product with on-card autographs.  Now it's a $40 pack per box, one autograph product and we get sticker autographs?  Charge me $50 and get the players to sign the cards.

2013 Topps Turkey Red Zack Greinke 

Overall, this is a really nice product and given the value of the base cards at the moment collectors can easily break open a box and get their money back if they desire, or feel justification for their money spent if they are adding to their collection.  For collectors trying to build a set, a box might be a good starting point to a good challenging set to assemble.  I really like these cards and Topps is 2 for 2 in my book for the year.  

A Pair of Pumas

Baseball starts tomorrow for my Cardinals tomorrow when they play their first spring training game.  In a few weeks they will begin their regular season and a quest for the 12th World Series Championship in the franchise's illustrious history.  The last championship for the team occurred in 2011 and last season the team came within a game of returning to the World Series falling to the Giants in the National League Championship Series.

The Cardinals have generally left the roster alone this off-season making a few small moves to add or subtract players.  In my opinion, the biggest move this year was the the subtraction of first baseman/outfielder Lance Berkman.  Understandably, Allen Craig has established himself as the everyday first baseman and the outfield is crowded with Jon Jay, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, and uber prospect Oscar Taveras.

While the team is in good hands for the future and Berkman only played one healthy season, with the 2011 World Series team, during his time in St. Louis, the presence of the Big Puma will be missed.  My favorite Berkman moment came during the sixth game of the 2011 World Series.  While many people remember the show that David Freese put on tying the game in the 9th inning with two outs and two strikes, and then later winning the game on a walk off home run, I will always remember the Berkman at-bats that made it possible.

First, in the ninth inning Berkman walked in front of Freese and scored from first base when the Cardinals third baseman tripled to left field.  The Rangers came back in the tenth and took a two run lead when Josh Hamilton hit a two run home run.  That home run set the stage for the Cardinals second at-bat of the night taken with two outs and two strikes.  My favorite Berkman highlight:

Of course, I also knew Berkman for the many years he played on the Astros as the Cardinals rival.  While I was not pulling for the Astros to win, their teams featured classy players and were much easier to watch and enjoy than the mid 80s Mets teams, or frankly any Cubs team from any year.  So, even though the Big Puma has taken his talents to the Rangers for the 2013 season, I am still going to add more Berkman cards to my collection.  Especially ones where he is wearing the birds on the bat.  

2013 Topps Chasing History Lance Berkman Jersey

First up this evening is a Lance Berkman from the newly released 2013 Topps series one set.  The card hails from the Chasing History set which features a small piece of Cardinals road jersey and a blurb about a record the player has, or is chasing.  In this case, the card recognizes Berkman as the National League's all-time OPS record holder for a switch hitter.  I was quite surprised that he ranks ahead of Chipper Jones, but he does indeed hold the record.  

2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman Jersey

Last one for the day.  I also picked up a 2012 Topps Triple Threads Lance Berkman jersey card.  This is my second Lance Berkman Triple Threads jersey card from the 2012 set, but I like this one since Lance is sporting his shades.  Look through a stack of Lance cards, or just watch him the next time you see a Rangers game on and chances are good that Lance might be rocking some really cool sun glasses.  

2013 Topps Cy Young Commemorative Bob Gibson

The first series of 2013 Topps has now been out several weeks and I am still interested and adding more cards.  That has not happened in awhile with a base Topps set.  Over the past four or five years there have been good parts of Topps set, but this is the most complete product that Topps has slapped their flagship label on in years.  So, there are still a few Cardinals cards and inserts which are floating around and I am still hoping to add to my collection.  Earlier this week, I crossed one of those cards off of my list.

2013 Topps Cy Yong Commemorative Bob Gibson 

Last weekend I had posted my Chris Carpenter Cy Young Award card, but did not consider my collection of Topps cards from series one complete without this awesome Gibby.  Just like the Carpenter, this is an extremely thick card and the Cy Young award on the right-hand side is metallic and not plastic.  Very nice card recognizing the Cardinals Hall of Famer's legendary 1968 Cy Young performance.

2011 Topps USA Baseball Carson Kelly Autograph

I remember ten or fifteen years ago going out and trying to find all the cool Cardinals prospect cards.  The list included Joe McEwing, Bo Hart, Jim Journell, and many other not so fabulous names.  Hart played a great half a season.  So did Super Joe McEwing, but the Cardinals generally lacked real talent.  Even J.D. Drew turned out to be a bit of a flop.  I guess at least the Cardinals traded him for Adam Wainwright.

Times have changed for Cardinals and for collectors looking for great young players in their farm system.  The team has been on the rise for the last several years and are now widely regarded as the top minor league by several different well respected baseball sites.  Finding Cardinals minor leaguers on cardboard has gone from a crawl to a sprint over the last several years.  It seems like there is always a new name to look for and they are getting hard and more expensive to find.  Meet my latest find:

2011 Topps USA Baseball Carson Kelly Autograph

Carson Kelly was drafted by the Cardinals as a third baseman last summer by the Cardinals.  He is often listed as a pitcher on his baseball cards, but is sticking with the hot corner for his professional career.  It's a little bit tricky to get a good read on where Kelly will fall as a professional.  He ranks highly with several different prospect sites, but his numbers in the minors are not all that great.  For example, FanGraphs ranks him in the top 10 with a very highly ceiling.  They even go as far to compare him to Buster Posey.  Not sure I am ready to get too hyped up about Carson Kelly, but his autographs usually sell in the ballpark of $5 to $10.  If you are going to roll the dice on someone who is a high ceiling prospect than I suppose that is a small price to pay.

2012 Topps Five Star Jumbo Jerseys

There is an old adage that buying a brand car is a horrible investment since the second you drive it off the dealer's parking lot you've lost thousands of dollars.  Honestly, I like new cars and both of the cars I currently own I bought brand new straight off the lot.  They both had that terrific new car smell and are still both fun to drive.

 In many way baseball cards a little bit like new cars.  Last fall one of the last releases of the 2012 card year put out by Topps was the Five Star set.  Collectors loved this high-end product and flocked to buy up the wax.  Cards also popped up all over the secondary market and were really popular.  I picked up several along the way focusing mainly on the autographs.  Since they were low-print runs and on-card autographs, I figured that many of the cards would run dry after a short time on the market.  My favorite autograph I picked up was this Evan Longoria:

So, how does this all relate to driving a brand new car of the lot?  If you could move back the hands of time to the week that Five Star was released and set a goal to trade or purchase three jumbo Five Star jersey cards you would likely have paid fifteen to twenty dollars in trade for each of the cards.  Collectors opening wax were quick to throw the large jersey swatches up on Ebay and recoup some of their money.  I had three primary targets: David Price, Matt Moore, and David Freese.

The week of the Five Star release I had the opportunity to buy all three for around $65 delivered.  I did not like the number, so I waited.  While cards maintain there new card luster a little longer than a new car, the price eventually does float downward.  You just need a little bit of patience.  So, this weekend I was looking around for some cards when someone approached me with two Rays jumbo jerseys.

2012 Topps Five Star David Price Jumbo Jersey

 2012 Topps Five Star Matt Moore Jumbo Jersey 

I naturally picked up both cards and was able to swing a day later that day for my third, and final, jumbo jersey card from my target list.  David Freese.  All in all, it was a successful day and went a long way in wrapping up my collection of Five Star cards.  I have one more autograph I am trying to track down and I will be able to put this set to rest.

2012 Topps Five Star David Freese Jumbo Jersey

1998 Topps Tek Set Update

I am still working on completing my 1998 Topps Tek set with the goal to complete the set by the end of month.  That gives me a little more than a week to find and acquire the remaining cards in the set.  Let's take a look at where I was after the last update:

2 Kerry Wood, 3 Barry Bonds, 6 Frank Thomas, 16 Brady Anderson, 17 Vladimir Guerrero, 18 Dave Justice, 19 Chipper Jones, 21 Roger Clemens, 22 Mark Kotsay, 23 Tony Gwynn, 26 Andruw Jones, 29 Gary Sheffield, 32 Curt Schilling, 33 Robin Ventura, 34 Larry Walker, 42 Derek Bell, 45 Kenny Lofton, 51 Cal Ripken, 52 Jason Kendall, 60 Juan Gonzalez, 62 Jose Cruz, 64 Edgar Martinez, 76 Derrek Lee, 79 Jeff King, 80 Mike Mussina,  86 Mike Piazza

That's 26 cards left to go.  Last week was a slow week on the Topps Tek front.  I was able to locate several cards, but was only able to pick up a grand total of two cards.  One disadvantage of advertising the fact that you are looking for cards is that some traders will try to make the cards worth a little bit more than what they are really worth.  The two cards I was able to trade for are below:

1998 Topps Tek Brady Anderson 

1998 Topps Tek Derrek Lee

That would bring my checklist down to twenty-four cards except that does not include my progress from this weekend.  My fortunes turned around a bit and I was able to pick up an additional ninteen cards from my want list.  Throw in a trade from Twitter and there are 20 new Topps Tek cards on their way to my mailbox at the moment.  Leaving me with a scant four cards to find over the next week and a few days.  My new list now reads:

David Justice, Tony Gwynn, Jason Kendall, Juan Gonzalez, and Mike Piazza.

New Ray Lankford Cards

I've got to drop a Ray Lankford update in every once in awhile.  The last time I made a post with a new Ray Lankford card a Twitter follower asked me when I was going to post the cards that I normally post again.  I will answer the question early this morning and say: later today.  Every collector needs an interesting player or niche for their collection.  For me, I enjoy finding my Ray Lankford cards.  They are generally inexpensive and has been retired long enough that the cards are a good challenge to track down.  This past week I was actually able to add two more cards to my Ray Lankford collection.

1999 Bowman Chrome International Refractor Ray Lankford 

First up this morning is the 1999 Bowman Chrome International Refractor Ray Lankford.  The International Refractors are limited to a print run of 100 and differ from the normal refractor in the background of the card.  The normal Bowman Chrome card has the same picture of Lankford, but there is a dugout in the background of the regular card.  The International Cards have pictures or flags in the backgrounds depending on the year of the card.  I rather like the flags, but this is still a nice new card to add to the Lankford collection.

1997 Skybox EX-2000 Ray Lankford Essential Credentials 

I have picked up several of the Essential Credential cards for Ray Lankford over the years and posted them in my space here.  However, I had never picked up a copy of the 1997 version until this past week.  Skybox ran the Essential Credentials set as a straight parallel the first year they ran this set.  Meaning that this card is serial numbered 299 along with all the other Essential Credential cards.  The 1998 set began the leveled print runs.