Dissecting a 2015 Topps Galley of Greats (Literally!)

Let's keep up the investigative curiosity of yesterday's post (playing cd-rom cards) and today get under the hood of a framed card.

I've been kinda working on collecting the 2015 Topps Gallery of Greats inserts from Series 1. It's a really nicely done little set featuring a matte black frame around a shiny picture of a prominent player. After buying a couple small eBay lots, I found myself with 3 copies of the Hanley Ramirez card, which I think is safe to say is easily the least valuable card in the set. It was a Friday night after a couple drinks and I was curious, so I decided to sacrifice one of them to find out what these guys look like with the frame stripped away.

There's the "before" picture.

The frame didn't exactly "pop right off" so the card got beat up as I worked to get it off.

This is like modern art.

Downright postapocalyptic!

Hanley got some bad acid, man. '95 Fleer ain't got nothing on this.

I should try selling it as an "eBay 1/1!"

As you can see, more of the bat is revealed, notably the full knob (insert penis joke here). There's also some squiggles around the top and bottom, as if the Gallery of Greats design from the border was partially imposed on this layer. So that's kinda interesting, but mostly it's just blank refractory silver under the frame.

Here are some of the other cards from this insert set I added recently:

I was happy to see an incarnation of these things pop up in 2015 Topps Chrome. I'd like to eventually work on that set too, but for now I've still got several of these Series I cards left to track down. Please check my wantlist if you can help.

Oh, and I also ended up with a dupe Kershaw.. but don't worry, I won't destroy this one! (I bet you can see more of his hand/glove without the frame.) It's available for trade.