Tribute Thoughts

Yesterday was a first of kind type of day around the baseball card hobby.  I first saw rumblings of a recall of Topps Tribute sometime late Thursday night and into Friday morning.  I stopped to check my email sometime around noon yesterday and saw that rumor had come true along with a statement issued by Topps:  

Personally, I am not really a stakeholder in this matter because I never buy boxes of Tribute.  That seems like a great product for someone else to open and for me to buy and trade for the single cards that I like in the set.  Still I had a couple of thoughts on the matter I would like to share.


1.  I have said it many times on this blog space:  The greatest challenge Topps faces as the sole license holder for Major League cards is its quality control.  Do they have a quality control department?  I am not sure, but I do know that they do dry runs and samples of these products before they are released.  I know that there are people responsible for proofreading and editing the information on cards.  Still, it seems that every year the company faces some sort of quality control issues.  This is early in the calendar year, but how does this get out onto shelves?

I understand that there are always going to be some errors and some problems with products.  It's inevitable and no company can be perfect, but when I saw the images of the Tribute cards being posted by collectors who rushed out to break open the product I was not really all that shocked given how the Tribute cards looked last year.....

Some of the autographs in last year's product were also shaky, but I am not sure that Topps did anything for collectors last year.  No?   I like my former Durham Bulls players, so I am still happy that I went after this Zobrist autograph, but still it's not a great autograph.  Especially coming out of a high end product.  I guess my point is that there was a lesson in quality that Topps could have learned from the production of this product last year and improved Tribute for collectors this year.  Maybe I am being hypercritical.  Maybe not everyone is into reflective thinking with an eye on self-improvement at work. 

2.  Topps did the right thing.  I know the response was not perfect and there are case breakers and Ebay auction winners who have been screwed over, but I am not sure there was a perfect answer to the problems of the Tribute product.  For example, most people are aware of the fading autographs from the 2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot set.  It's pretty terrible and it's been a problem from almost the get-go for the product.  Here is one of mine:

There is still a little bit of Adam LaRoche's autograph on there, but not much.  I know collectors who have spent a lot of good money on this product and they have lost almost every dime of their investment due to poor production on the part of Upper Deck.  Does anybody remember that Upper Deck did to remedy this situation for collectors?  Nothing for the most part.  However, if you take a little bit of time to search out autographs from the Sweet Spot products that followed the disaster of 2006 you will find a lot of great looking baseball cards with nice signatures.

Where to from here?  The most important thing that Topps can do here is learn from their mistakes.  I often see collectors who sweat the future of the hobby that is currently controlled basically by a single licensed card producer for all sorts of reasons.  I am not sure I share all of their concerns, but I do know that I have been really worried about the quality of the product for some time.  The best thing that Topps can do for collectors at this point is to take their time with the rest of their 2015 baseball card products, make sure that the rest of the releases go smoothly, and come back next spring with a great looking Tribute product.  Anything less would should be taken by collectors as a sign that Topps will likely never learn their lesson about quality control.

Friday Five: Top 5 1980s Topps Sets

Last Friday Five countdown for the decade of the 1980s.  If you missed my take on the Fleer and Donruss products feel free to click the links.  Next week I am onto some 1990s cards.  Of the three brands that released products throughout the decade, this list was my favorite to put together.  It could be that much of my focus as a collector during this decade was on the Topps sets, or it could just be that these five sets would be best sets of the decade when matched up with the other brands.

Of course, I still think the 1989 Upper Deck set is the best set of the decade.  Here are my favorite five Topps sets from the 1980s.....

1980 Topps 

I have worked on this set for awhile and am going back and replacing some of the rough cards that own in this product.  I am not sure why I like this product, but it's one of my favorites from the decade.  Really the other four sets on this post were slam dunks and this set is better than the rest of the products in my opinion.  I am sure that a lot of people would have included the 1987 set instead of this one, but I feel like it's a bit of a knock off of the 1961 set.  Meanwhile, this is a decent design, but it has some good cards in it of some 1970s and 1980s stars like George Brett and Nolan Ryan.  It also has a really important rookie card....

I picked up my first Rickey Henderson rookie card some time during the height of Dwight Gooden-Mania.  How do I know?  The Henderson rookie card cost me my copy of Dwight Gooden's rookie card.  At the time Gooden was easily the best pitcher in baseball and I think the card had some pretty significant value.  My Rickey Henderson rookie, shown above, has some dings and creases.  However, it's still one of my favorite cards in my collection.  Besides, I have another nice copy of this card hanging around my set and it's even in a top loader.  

1982 Topps Traded 

There is really only one reason to buy the 1982 Topps Traded set and it's the Cal Ripken rookie card.  He's featured in all of the major 1982 card releases, but for whatever reason this card seems to be more valued than the other.  It's nicer looking than the other Ripken rookies if nothing else.  In my opinion, this is the second most iconic rookie card of the 1980s behind the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey rookie.  Every other really popular, well thought of rookie card from this era, either features a lesser player than Ripken or someone tainted by the steroids era.  The rest of the 1982 Topps Traded isn't much, there is a Chili Davis rookie, but if you are going to pick up a copy of the Ripken you should just buy/trade for the whole thing.  

1983 Topps 

This is one of my favorite designs of the decade.  It's the first year that I collected cards too, but I am sure that I have disconnected my personal feelings from this matter long ago.  I have run into a ton of collectors who love this set just simply based on looks.  In fact, one of my favorite card blogs, The Cardboard Connection, recently did their own version of March Madness with Topps base sets.  The 1983 Topps set advanced all the way to the Elite Eight.  

It was the only Topps base set newer than 1980 to make it that far in this fan vote event.  It's a really cool set just to pull out and flip through, but it also offers collectors some pretty important rookie cards.  We've talked about 1983 products frequently lately, so you know....Gywnn, Sandberg, and Boggs.  I like the Gywnn card, really unique, but if I am not mistaken I also know that it was one of his least favorite cards of himself.  

1984 Topps 

It's probably safe to say that this set was probably more important when it was first released and the two important rookie cards in the set, Mattingly and Strawberry, were really big stars.  However, I have it on my list because of the design.  I love the looks of this set, and again, love taking these cards out every once in awhile and just flipping through the set.  It has that little picture in the corner like the 1983 set, but the team name going down the side has always stood out to me with this set.  And while Strawberry and Mattingly did not maintain their stardom throughout their careers.....

They are still two of the more memorable 1980s baseball cards.  Definitely not on the level of the Ripken or Griffey cards, but if you collected cards in the 1980s your collection is not really complete without these two cards in your collection.  

1985 Topps

This set has lost a lot of luster and value over the years because of the steroid scandal, but 1985 for a good year to be a Cardinals fan and it was one of my favorites as a kid.  Why did the Cardinals cards all have a yellow box around their name?  I am not sure, but I really like the looks of these cards.  I put together several copies of this set sometime after the Cardinals traded for Mark McGwire.  There are three really great rookie cards to own from this Topps base set.....

The McGwire rookie is probably the best known rookie card in the set, but the Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett rookie cards are also both pretty cool cards worth owning.  If you like this set you should check out the 1985 Topps Blog run by the one and only Night Owl.  

Great Gallo Graph

The longer I collect cards the more and more I have gotten away from collecting high end cards and autographs of elite prospects.  For every highly regarded prospect that makes it to the Majors there are always a handful of guys who languish in the minors and fizzle out.  To further complicate matters, about 75% of all the prospects who make the Majors, but fail to live up to the lofty expectations bestowed upon them in the Minors.  

Do not get me wrong, there are plenty of super prospects who turn into super good players, but not good enough to maintain their hobby value.  For example, Steven Strasburg cards were all the rage a few summers ago.  At the end of the 2010 baseball card calendar it was impossible to find a Strasburg autograph for less than $100.  Today there are dozens of Strasburg autographs that sell for less than $100.  In fact, there are currently Buy It Now auctions for Strasburg autographs for less than $40.  That's a pretty drastic drop in five years.  

Which leads me to my latest card.....

Gallo is a great power hitting prospect in the Rangers minor league system.  He enters this year, his fourth as a professional, ranked as the 15th best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America.  In three minor league season Gallo has hit over 100 home runs and has been promoted all the way up to the Rangers minor league team in Double A.  I have talked two people who have seen Gallo play in person and both had nothing but great things to say about the power hitting third baseman.  

The Rangers prospect has some pretty pricey cards and I have generally steered clear of going out and trying to add his cards to my collection.  While I do believe that Gallo will hit for power in the Majors, I am not sure he is going to be a player who lives up to his card hype.  Nothing against Gallo, but few players do.

ZIPS projects Gallo to hit more than 30 home runs, but only hit .209 in the Majors with the Rangers.  Honestly, I do not think Gallo will get enough at bats this season to hit that many home runs.  Either which way, this card frequently sells for around $75-80 and it's really hard to believe that the card will maintain that value over the long run.  

So, how did I end up with a Gallo autograph?  I would never actually pay for this card, but I am willing to bet that Gallo will turn out better than a few other high end prospects with expensive autographs.  In this case, I am hoping that Gallo turns out better than Mark Appel and an Albert Almora.  

#MyCardMonday

In 1999 there was only one card that I wanted to add to my collection: A Skybox Premium Autographics Joe McEwing autograph.  The Cardinals lost second baseman Delino DeShields to the Orioles in free agency after the 1998 season the team brought up Joe McEwing to fill the void.  The first half of the year McEwing, or Super Joe, hit .305/.350/.418 with 4 home runs, 3 triples, and 19 doubles.  Card companies were a little slow to add his cards into products, but eventually a few companies floated out a few cards.

The second half of the season McEwing hit the wall and was eventually traded to the Mets the following spring for Jesse Orosco.  His career ended up lasting a total of 9 years with most of his time spent as a utility player for the Mets.  

I still looked for this card after he was traded away from the Cardinals and landed a copy a few years back for a couple of bucks.  At one point, during the summer of 1999, card shops in St. Louis were selling this card for as much as $25.  It was pretty hard to spend that kind of money for a light hitting second baseman.  The card is not necessarily the easiest to find, only one copy on Ebay in the last 90 days, but they sell for less than $3.  

Manufactured Imperfection

I started collecting baseball cards in the early 1980s as a kid.  There were all sorts of cool things about collecting cards in that era.  There were only a few sets out each year and I spent most of my energy trying to put together the 792 cards for the Topps set every summer.  A few packs from the Dierbergs in Manchester and a few from the Ben Franklin and by the time school started up in September I had finished off my set.

The packs of cards had a completely different vibe back then.  Wax paper wrappers and the gum were the two biggest differences.  Of course those two items also meant lots of imperfections with the cards.  There are still plenty of unopened wax from the 1980s floating around if you have never experienced the awesomeness of opening a pack of cards with a stale piece of gum in the pack, but you were often left with stains, discolorations, and sometimes even dings and dents in the cards.

Today there is no gum in the packs and everything has foil packs.  There are still some dings and dents on cards, but the stains and discolorations are a thing of the past.  Well, for the most part.  In this year's Topps Heritage set Topps announced that they were inserting cards with bubble gum stains into the product.

It sounded like a cool idea and I was actually excited about landing a copy of one of these cards.  They were even supposed to be scented like bubble gum.  I guess you could say they were scratch and sniff.  So after opening two boxes of Heritage, a few retail backs too, I had plenty of cards for my set along with some short prints, relic cards, and variations.  No bubble gum stain cards.  But wait....

While I was sorting out my Heritage doubles to help out another collector this afternoon I found this....

and then I found this.......

Very slight difference and there was no difference in code at the bottom of the card, which is probably why I missed the variation the first time around.  I must admit that the manufactured imperfection of the bubble gum stain on the backs of the cards is pretty cool and a nice creative touch.  I was thrilled to find this card too before I shipped it off to someone else.  While I am not a huge fan of Andre Ethier I think I am going to file this one away in a box.  Cool idea by Topps.

Number 1000

My blog turned 3 earlier in the week and I am now hitting post 1000 in the same week.  It's crazy to think that I have written that many posts and even crazier to think that a couple of hundred people show up on this site on a daily basis and read my ramblings about baseball cards.  I said it earlier this week, and I will say it again now, thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by blog.

I had thought long and hard about what to do to celebrate my 1000th post.  I first noticed I was getting close sometime in December.  I considered a few different paths for this post, but I am going to make this post simple and focus on one baseball card which fits nicely into my collection.  I could have gone out and picked up something big, but instead decided to go for something more in the unique category.

Here's my card for post 1000:

First, I wish the scan were a little bit better.  I picked up the card from a collector in Puerto Rico and it is still en route.  I am actually using his scan of the card.

There have been 37 different posts about Ray Lankford on my blog before today, this makes 38.  I am guessing someone has a better Ray Lankford card then me, but I am extremely proud of my collection of cards of the 1990s Cardinals outfielder.  I have collected Lankford cards for more than 15 years, so I am basically at a point where there are very few cards left I need to add.  The list can be summarized as mainly printing plates and a few low serial numbered cards that are either nearly impossible to find, or too expensive.

Which brings me to my new Ray Lankford card.  I noticed this card floating around Ebay a few weeks back.  I had to do a little bit of research, but basically it's a legit card that was put out in 1990 after he spent the off season playing for the Indios de Mayaguez in the Puerto Rican Winter League.  Lankford actually had two cards in the set, the other will be here next week too.  This card is a League Leaders card celebrating Lankford for leading the league in triples.

The card itself was really inexpensive costing me less than $5 shipped.  It's also why it is probably crawling in between Puerto Rico and North Carolina.  I was surprised to see how many 1980s and 1990s players have cards in these sets.  If you have a player collection of someone from this era these cards and sets are definitely worth a look over.

Post 999....Friday Five: Top 5 Donruss Sets of the 1980s

A little later on Friday than I like to post these, but for your entertainment....The Friday Five.  

Sets are in numerical order by year.  I did not give a runners up, or honorable mention, on these posts.  However, I will give a nod to the 1981 Donruss set.  It's not one of my five for a few reason, but it's still a really good set if you are looking for something beyond this list.  Like the good Donruss sets the cards had some good rookies and had a good 1980s card set feel, but the set was riddled with errors and almost all of the pictures in the set and taken in Wrigley Field or Comisky.   It's overly noticeable the first time through the set, but it makes it hard to flip through the set too many times.  Still I love some of the cards in the product, most notably is the Tim Raines rookie card.

1982 Donruss

I did not actually collect cards in 1982, but found this set sometime after college and slowly put together the complete product with a few boxes.  The 1982 Donruss set was an improvement over the 1981 set in almost every facet.  I always really liked this design with the baseball and baseball bat at the bottom, not sure why.  There is something really early 1980s about it all, that's probably not a good thing, but I still love looking at these cards.  The most important card in the set is the Cal Ripken rookie card....

In my opinion the 1982 Topps Traded Ripken is his best 1982 issue, but this has always been second on my list.  It's better than the 1982 Fleer, which is a distant action shot, and the regular Topps card which features Ripken on a prospects card with two other players.  If you did not want to shell out the money for the Topps Traded Ripken rookie card this a great alternative.  

1983 Donruss 

I think I would like this set a little bit better if Donruss had varied the design a little bit more.  The 82 set had a baseball bat with a baseball, the 1983 set had a baseball bat with a baseball glove.  Not sure the design team spent too much time here, but the 1983 Donruss set still has some really good qualities.  This was, again, the first year I collected baseball cards.  Interestingly I did not get any Donruss cards when I started collecting.  In fact, I did not really get into Donruss cards until the late 80s.  I did spend a little bit of time during the summer of 2003 putting this set together out of boxes.  I figured it would be a fun project to undertake twenty years after starting my collection.  

I feel like I have said this in about 20 different posts on this blog, but the 1983 products are always all about the big three rookie cards of Boggs, Sandberg, and Gwynn.  The Sandberg, wearing the blue pinstriped Cubs uni, and the Gwynn in the brown Padres uni are my two favorites.  There is a Wade Boggs, but meh.  

1984 Donruss

I like the design of the 1984 Donruss set.  This was the last of the 1980s Donruss sets that I assembled.  I think I have only had it in my collection for about five or six years.  Honestly, I collected the Topps set almost exclusively that year as a kid and when I went back later on I focused on the Fleer set.  There are a lot of collectors who love the Mattingly rookie card in this set and often put it first on their list of Donnie Ballgame rookies.  I am not much of a Mattingly person so I am going to take their word on that.  My favorite card in the set is the Joe Carter rookie.

Wasn't this card worth something like $30 at one point?  I remember it was surprisingly expensive for Joe Carter.  So, here what is cool about this card:

1.  Ivy

2.  Pinstripes

3.  1980s Mustache

4. A Rated Rookie Logo

5. Joe Carter

(Look away Phillies fans...you know what it is....)

 

1985 Donruss

The 1985 Donruss set had a cool design like the 1984 Donruss set, but the rookie cards (Clemens and Puckett) are much better.  I discovered this set at some point during the summer of 1985 while chasing McGwire cards.  There was a card shop in Creve Couer, outside of St. Louis, and the owner made me a sweet deal on this set.  It does not have a McGwire rookie card in it, like the 1985 Topps set, but I really like the Puckett rookie and love the Clemens rookie.  There are some other cards in the set too, including a nice Eric Davis rookie, but these are the two most important cards in the set by a wide margin.  

1987 Donruss 

This was the first year I picked up any Donruss cards as a kid.  The design leaves a little bit to be desired, but there are all kinds of cool rookies in this set including one of Barry Bonds.  There is also a Will Clark, Barry Larkin, Greg Maddux, and Rafael Palmeiro.  While I am not a huge fan of the design, it was pretty consistent with the style Donruss used throughout the mid 80s.  Some collectors will not touch Donruss cards past 1987 because the card company went off the deep end with the design in the years following 1987 and eventually ended up being pretty blah by the time the 90s rolled around.