Twin Vins for the Win

One of my most prized cards-- in contention for the title of "my favorite card" if I were forced to pick-- is my Vin Scully autograph. If you ask me, he's one of the game's all-time greats up there with Babe Ruth and Harold Baines. I recently doubled down and picked up another one.

Now that's a fine looking card! It's from 2016 Topps Five Star Baseball.

Always nice when there's more of a back to a hit than just "Congratulations!" Five star career, right there!

Here are my boys together. Same photo, but it's a nice one.

Both are the 36th card in the print run! How 'bout that. Topps Mint is /99 and Five Star is /50. The last card in the '16 Topps Scully auto trilogy I still need is the Transcendent, which the "base" version is /52. Hmm... I'll have to keep an eye out for number 36/52. lol

Time to play "custom / not a custom"... here's the rest of my Vin Scully PC. Only the two rightmost cards are actual real cards. I really wish Vin would be included in more card sets these days. How has he never been included in Allen & Ginter?! He would fit in wonderfully with products like Topps Archives and Goodwin Champions too. We've got a living legend in our midst, and card companies aren't paying nearly enough attention. Autographs would be great, but hey, if he doesn't feel like spending his twilight years signing his name, that's fine too.. just a base card would be great.

 Long live Vin Scully! Thanks for reading.

2018 Topps Archives hobby boxes

In the past, I've gone all-out with my posts of Topps Archives hobby boxes, putting on little plays with my old childhood toys (2014 part 1, 2, 3, 4). But these days, I just can't get as excited about it. Topps Archives is the product that I give the credit for getting me back into the hobby. The past few years, I've pre-ordered a hobby box or two each year. Aside from hitting the jackpot with a 1/1 Griffey auto a couple years back, I haven't pulled much of note from the product, but it's still a fun rip.

So let's get to it: A pair of 2018 Archives hobby boxes.

The autos I pulled were fine, but sadly nothing "big" or even any PC hits for me. Ouch. The Mike Timlin is one of the few hobby-only autos, though, so that's something. (Felix Millan was supposedly retail-only per Beckett, but that's obviously not the case, as I pulled him from a hobby box.) And the Merced is a grey parallel numbered /99. All four of these are up for trade, so give me a shout if you're interested in working out a deal for any of them.

Three base card parallels here. Goose is a nice PC hit for me. Newcomb is a handy trade chip for my bud Bubba who collects him. As for the Salvador, I can't even remember the last time I traded with a Royals collector, so sadly this nice-looking /25 blue parallel-- the lowest numbered card I pulled from either box-- doesn't do me much good. But it's available if anyone wants to trade for it.

Numbering.

Some Rookie History reprints. I pulled a Kaline from each box and figured they were dupes at first. Then I realized one had blue foil.. turned it over and saw it's #'d /50.. so that's kinda cool. Any of my Tigers-collecting trader buddies want to call dibs on it? No offence to Mr. Tiger, but I wish it had been the Trout reprint that was numbered instead. Oh well.

Looks like the Sandlot inserts are 3 per box. Seeing as I've previously completed this set thanks to trades and blasters, these six are all available. Feels like that Bertram Weeks card was double printed or something.. I think this is my 3rd or 4th friggin' copy of it.

Seems these Turn Back The Clock cards are 3 per hobby box, too. Nice selection here.. all dudes I've got PCs going for.

I was pleasantly surprised to find all these Coming Attraction inserts in my hobby boxes. They apparently aren't in blasters, so I was thinking maybe they were exclusive to value packs. But nope, I pulled a bunch of them.

Some horizontal highlights.

I pulled an Ernie Banks card from each box, then eventually realized they had different photos. Turns out the in-game shot is a photo variation. From looking at eBay sales, it's not all that scare/valuable, but still a neat pull.

To make sure I didn't miss any other variations, I strained my eyes reading all the tiny code numbers on the backs of all the base cards. But nope, came up empty. About 15 minutes of my life wasted. #ThanksTopps

Here are a few highlights from my tall stack of "keeper" base cards. Last year and/or the year before, my two hobby boxes basically had the same base cards in each box, with only the inserts being different. Thankfully there were much less dupes between my two boxes this year. But if you gotta pull dupes, hard to be upset with Trout, Soto, and Ohtani.

New additions to my Willie McCovey PC! How great is it that Topps included tribute cards with him on the A's! Haha-- no, I'm only joking-- those cards on the sides are customs I recently whipped up.

As my "free bonus item" with the order of the boxes, I went with this 2017 Leaf National Sports Collectors Convention VIP 2 Card Set. Happy to add another card to my Vin Scully collection. I don't have much interest in the Mayweather/McGregor card, so that's available for trade.

Also got tons of other 2018 Archives cards not pictured that're available for trade. Anybody working on the set, or a team set, or what-have-you.. please get in touch and help me thin out my stack.

In summary, I'm not thrilled with how Archives went down this year. I pre-ordered my boxes way back in April when they were scheduled for August. Then the release date got bumped to September, then way back to late October, even though the retail version of the product came out earlier. Topps gave no explanation for the delay, per their usual poor customer relations. There were no cool surprises in the hobby version to make it up to collectors or anything (besides maybe the Karen Allen Sandlot auto, which is a pretty tough card to pull [the shitty-looking grey #/99 parallels are more plentiful than the base!]). After all that wait, the estimated value of cards I pulled came nowhere near the price I paid. Not that that's a surprise, but a solid hit would have taken the sting out of the delay. The whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth and at this point I'm leaning toward not buying any Archives hobby boxes in 2019, just calling it good with a blaster or two. But we'll see how I'm feeling in a few months. Really though, I think I'm losing interest with modern cards, and have been enjoying vintage set building more these days.

Thanks for reading.

Tom Petty and the World Series

As a long suffering fan of the underdog (specifically the Padres, but really whoever), I'm happy we've ended up with a World Series matchup of the Dodgers vs. Astros. A team that's never won versus a team that last won 29 years ago. Either outcome, I'll be happy. But that said, my default is to root for the team that's gone the longest since winning, so I'm pulling for the Astros. (and as a Padres fan, I'm required to hate the Dodgers on some level.)

I've been meaning to do a tribute-type post with some of my favorite Tom Petty songs, so let's focus on some of my best Dodgers and Astros cards as we listen to the late, great Tom Petty.

George Springer - "Swingin'"

Big swingin' Springer led the Astros in strikeouts this season, but had a good year. I picked up this 2015 Stadium Club Crystal Ball insert back when I briefly considered going for the set. I dropped that idea, but I've still got this, easily my best George Springer card.


Adrian Gonzalez - "Don't Come Around Here No More"

A-Gone is a guy I collect because he had some nice years with the Padres in the past (and he's from the San Diego area, too). But honestly these days I could care less about him. He's out for the postseason with an injury, so he won't be a factor (just as he wasn't for the regular season.. if anything he negatively contributed to LA's embarrassing losing skid that marred their otherwise incredible year), but I guess it'd be cool for him to finally get a ring.

Clayton Kershaw - "I'm Depending On You"

I think the Dodgers' chances depend heavily on how Kershaw pitches. If he's his usual lights-out self, they'll have an easy go of it. But if his reputation of being beatable in the postseason catches up with him again, the Astros could take advantage.

Ken Caminiti - "Mary Jane's Last Dance"

Cammy, one of my favorite PC guys, spent much of his career in Houston, sadly not around to watch this series.

AJ Reed - "Yer So Bad"

One of my under-the-radar semi-PCs is young Astros slugger AJ Reed, who rakes in the minors, but is so bad with the big league club.


Vin Scully - "The Last DJ"

Vin Scully really was the last of the classic old-school baseball broadcasters. The #1 reason why I would possibly want the Dodgers to win the World Series is for Vin Scully. They choked it away during the twilight of his career, but maybe they can still bring home another championship in his lifetime, at least.


Well, I could keep going with more songs and players but I'm in a ton of pain thanks to this infected ingrown fingernail (really hope the antibiotics start helping soon), so I'll stop here. Rest in peace, Tom Petty. And here's hoping for an exciting series.

Thanks for stopping by!

Feast Your Eyes: Vin Scully autograph!

Yesterday I showed off the sweet Sandy Koufax autograph I just picked up. You may have caught the allusion at the end of that post as to what was coming next. Yep, I got a Vin Scully autograph!

Boom! This is one of those cards that when it shows up, it sort of feels like it gives your collection closure.. Like I could stop collecting right now and my collection would feel complete.

You might remember I got a box of 2016 Topps The Mint for my birthday a few weeks ago. The claim to fame for that high-end product was that it included the first certified Topps autographs of legendary broadcaster Vin Scully. (His first Topps card, period?). I was hoping to pull one, but came up empty.. not that I can complain about a pair of Mike Trout autos.

So I had been keeping an eye on eBay for reasonably priced opportunities, and placed some hefty bids that weren't enough. I nearly landed his auto from 2016 Topps Transcendent, though I don't really like the open-mouth photo on that one and if I ended up getting it, I'd probably make a custom overlay for it with a better picture. But eventually I came out on top for this card from The Mint. Thanks again to my bonus check helping mitigate the financial impact of this pair of splurges.

Obviously I don't identify as a Dodgers fan, strictly speaking. I've always considered myself a "Baseball Fan" #1, and then "Padres Fan" #2. The variety of cards I show off on this blog is proof of that. And Koufax and Scully are two guys that, if you love baseball, you love them.

Vin has been there since day one for all of us here on the cardsphere. He worked his way into pop culture.. I love his pseudo-appearances on The Simpsons (impression by Harry Shearer). I watched a lot of Dodgers games in the last couple years via MLB.TV, even more than I watched my own Padres, just to bask in the glory of his voice and storytelling as much as I could before his retirement.

It's going to be sad without him painting the picture unfolding at Chavez Ravine for us starting this season. He really was the last of the classic old-timey guys active in the game. But we've got to appreciate him keeping at it for so long. All the best to him enjoying his twilight years with his family. I'm very glad I was able to land this auto when I did to sort of commemorate the end to an era.

Hopefully he's included in Ginter this year, so people won't have to shell out a big chunk of change to make a similar gesture. He's gotten 2 or 3 Topps cards since the Mint card, but only autos in high-end products so far, which kind of sucks. I know he's got 2 or 3 Panini cards out there, but he deserves an appearance in a mainstream Topps set. It's surprising he didn't get a Topps Now card last year.

I know today is a big day in the card world, with 2017 Topps Series I officially on shelves, but I really have no interest in it. I don't like the design. Hate the truncated stats on the back. Yet more reprint inserts. Yet more buybacks. Yet more cards beating the dead horse that is the 1987 Topps design. I can't see myself buying any flagship this year. And I haven't really been impressed by the previews for anything else forthcoming either, including Stadium Club. I think it'll be easy for me to stick with my plan of not buying any new boxes this year besides Archives (which is mostly just out of loyalty at this point, since it's the set that got me back into the hobby-- or per the marketing Topps is shoving down our throats this year: it's the set that helped me REDISCOVER TOPPS®-- plus I pulled that 1/1 Junior auto from Archives last year, so...).

But man, oh, man, I love Vin Scully! Great to now have his autograph in my collection.