Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Gallery of Greats are pretty great

It's been well documented on this blog that I'm a sucker for black refractors. A couple of my more foolish collecting goals are completing 2004 Topps Retired black refractor autos and 2004 Topps Chrome black refractor parallels.

The Gallery of Greats inserts from 2015 Topps Series 1 (--btw, how the hell did they not continue this into Series 2? Dumb move on Topps' part to abandon it--) might not exactly fit into the definition of black refractors, but they're pretty darn close, with a black (or at least very dark grey) matte framed border and a refractory background to the photos. I admired them on the blogs from afar for a while. Finally landed myself a couple...

Hard to top Tony Gwynn and Hank Aaron
I got these 2 cards from a seller to take advantage of free combined shipping, I believe thrown together with the 2004 Chrome-Town Heroes Barry Zito relic I recently picked up. I was so smitten with them that I decided I might as well try for the entire 25-card set, and ended up winning an eBay lot for a few more to help me get a good foothold:







Looks like a lot of rainbow sunsets, plus one guy about to get taken under by a tidal wave.

I've got dupes of Clemens (Mr. Hoyle, do you need one?) and Hanley.

Would love to round up the 17 other cards I'm missing from this insert set. If you've got any available, please let me know. I've added my needs to my wantlist. I probably won't go as far as to say that I collect black refractors across the board.. but.. if you have any that need a home, feel free to send them here.

Thanks!

6 comments:

  1. Those are amazing. I hadn't seen those before. I am like you and feel the refractor type cards. Anything shiny I say!

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  2. That Hank Aaron is a great looking card. I'm a sucker for the black bordered cards myself, so these definitely appeal to me.

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  3. Cool. Gavin. I would love the Clemens

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  4. Topps might drop the ball every now and then... but whenever I get frustrated with them... I think about their framed cards like these inserts and of course their GQ stuff. These look awesome!

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  5. It is a pretty cool set, I picked up the Griffey card after they came out. I am a fan of the bordered cards.

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  6. That was my favorite insert set from Series 1. I like the Aaron the best.

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