Completed Refractor Run: Eric Owens

Here's another collecting project I completed recently: every Eric Owens refractor. All the variations and everything.

Background: Eric Owens was a fan favorite for a couple years on bad Padres teams at the turn of the millennium. He was a scrapy guy who played hard and would deliver an exciting highlight here and there to help keep the season interesting in San Diego. He had already hung up his cleats by the time I returned to the hobby, but going back and collecting his cards brings back fond memories of watching him play, and in turn memories from those days, meandering my way through community college with plenty of freetime to watch Padres broadcasts all summer long. Good times.

So yeah, he's a guy I like to collect, and am somewhat compelled to supercollect. But with all my other active collecting goals keeping me busy, I'm reluctant trying to supercollect anybody besides maybe guys with less than 50 total cards like Dan Walters from last post. TCDB says Eric Owens has 259 cards, and I'm tempted to log my PC one of these days, but I'd be unlikely to ever land them all without putting in significant effort and money (he has some 1996 Select Certified Edition "Mirror" [foilboard] color parallels that can get pricey due to low print runs), so just focusing on refractors seemed like the way to go.

I went through Eric Owens' TCDB checklist and made myself a list of just refractors. The "refractor run" took some patience, but I eventually tracked down them all. Luckily, the final Chrome set he was included in (2004) was the last one before 2005's premiere of the superfractor as we know it, and so there were no 1/1's I had to worry about. Barring anything that slipped by me and/or TCDB, I can now say there isn't an Eric Owens refractor that I don't have.

Without further delay, let's check out all of Eric Owens' refractors.

1996 Finest kicks things off, with both peeled and unpeeled examples.

The Limited Exposure parallels in 1997 Donruss Limited utilize "Holographic Poly-Chromium Technology" though they weren't able to come right out and call them refractors, as Topps has the trademark of using the word refractor in regards to branding trading cards, as is my understanding. But yeah, I'll count this in my refractor run. It's kind of a dumb set, though, with another player on the other side-- some chump named Trey Beamon (Padres) on the back of this one. Actually Eric is on the back, evidenced by the legalese along the right side and card number at the top. He got his first solo Padres refractor in 2000 Chrome. (He was briefly with the Brewers between his stints in Cincinnati and San Diego, but no refractors document that stop.)

In 2001, Owens was included in that year's Topps Chrome set as a Padre, and then after crossing the country to Miami, appeared in the 2001 Topps Traded & Rookies set as a Marlin, both of which had "retrofractor" parallels. Retrofractor seems to just mean Heritage-style refractors where the back of the card is rougher cardboard, which is a nice pairing to the plastic fronts from a tactile perspective. The Topps All-Time Fan Favorites refractors I've been chasing (over 95% complete now!) are also like this.

2002 Topps Chrome has 2 refractor parallels: gold and black (/50).

2003 Topps Chrome trumpets Eric's return to Southern California. Here's our first legit "rainbow" grouping, as Topps started adding more parallels this year. Blue, Silver, Gold, Black, and X-Fractor (the latter of which I've got both factory-encased and freed). This same posed shot is also in flagship 2003 Topps, but of course I'm just interested in refractor parallels here. I really only mention it because they included him in Traded that year, too...

Not sure why Topps bothered, but Eric shows up in 2003 Topps Traded & Rookies even though he was already pictured on the Angels in the main set (both flagship and Chrome), and he definitely wasn't a rookie by that point. Chrome parallels were mixed in with base (paper) for the Traded & Rookies packs that year, with both refractor and X-fractor parallels available. I've again got the X-fractor in both raw and encased ("uncirculated"), which is made more impressive by virtue of it being a /25 card (and sadly, no, neither of my copes is the Christmas Card). Honestly I didn't really set out to get both peeled/unpeeled and encased/unencased variations of Eric Owens refractors where available, originally fine with either, but as the project went on, it just kinda happened and so I leaned into the overkill.

Eric's 2003 season in Anaheim was his last MLB action, yet he shows up in 2004 Topps and 2004 Topps Chrome with this pre-game stretch photo. In reality, he was stretching for the Mariners that spring training, but didn't make the squad, then played for Detroit's Triple A club that year before wrapping up his playing career with a year in Mexico. Anyways, the refractors in 2004 Chrome are base (white), gold, black, and red x-fractor. Of most interest to me are the black refractors; My ambitious longterm set-collecting quest for them is down to a baker's dozen remaining to complete the whole set in black refractors. I had to pick up a dupe Eric Owens for the Refractor Run.

As I said before, for a collecting standpoint it's lucky for me that he didn't stick around long enough to be included in 2005 Topps Chrome, because that's when the superfractor came into play (not to mention printing plates getting packed out by then), so hobby completists had to rethink the old "collect them all" philosophy.

As for Eric Owens' journey, the Angels liked his moxy enough to bring him back as a minor league coach for a few years. He returned to the majors as assistant hitting coach for the Blue Jays in 2015 and 2016. Since June 2024, he's been head coach of his alma mater's baseball team, Ferrum College, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of his native Virginia. Sounds like a sweet gig for him.

Thanks for reading.

Cards! (Is a "1st Refractor" a thing?)

Here are some more cards recently added to my collection that I've been meaning to show off on the blog. 

You know how The Last Dance led to a surge in demand for Michael Jordan cards? Well, on a much smaller scale, Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb compelled me to get him better represented in my collection (I talked about this more a few posts back with his '04 Retired refractor). This is his 2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Chrome Refractor. I love these things and want to snag a bunch more of my PC guys, but they're numbered out of 299, so availability and price are not always in the buyer's favor.

I also got his base card from the following year's ATFF set, filling up a Sportlots order from a couple weeks ago. And I knew I needed at least one example from his would-be swan-song short-term stop with the White Sox in '93 and thought going with O-Pee-Chee Premier was a cheeky choice.

If you haven't watched the doc yet and/or don't remember much of his career, spoiler alert: Like Jordan, Stieb returned from retirement and incredibly made it back to the top level after an extended stint away. As far as MLB pitchers, only Jim Bouton's 1978 comeback with the Braves makes for much of a comparison. Bouton dusted off his knuckleball for 5 games (all starts) after being out of the league for 7 years, while Stieb normal-pitched 19 games (3 starts) after 4 full seasons away. Sadly, doesn't look like the hobby got any cardboard documentation of his 1998 comeback besides a Syracuse Skychiefs minor league card which I was compelled to overpay for. According to TCDB, it's his last card before resurfacing with post-career cards in 2003: the aforementioned ATFF and an autograph in Topps Retired (He didn't have a base card in that first Retired set, just an auto and its refractor parallel [that I'm still on the hunt for].)

Kind of a tangent, but I predict collectors are one day going to start giving more respect to a player's "first refractor". I'm specifically talking about old-timers whose careers predated the refractor era (1993-present). Like, I could see a future where the earliest refractor card/parallel for a player is considered sort of a "1st Bowman" equivalent, or 1st Prizm card in other sports, or perhaps more like a modern "key card" complement to the player's vintage rookie card.

Or maybe not, but I don't care, I like them and plan to focus on refractors when it comes to building my "fan favorite" level PCs (HOFers are probably too expensive to worry about much.)

Anyways, Stieb's last year getting into mainstream baseball card sets as a player was 1993, and he didn't make it into Finest that year, meaning the card at the top of this post is his 1st Refractor™ (--or at least his 1st non-auto refractor; I couldn't find the release date for 2003 Topps Retired, but 2003 ATFF came out that May.)

Eric Owens is the first PC guy of mine I've singled out to try to collect all of his refractors. There's only 17, and this lot gets me to almost halfway. We've got another 1st Refractor™ here with his 1996 Finest bronze refractor parallel. (I'd like to get a dupe someday to peel off the protective film.)

Full disclosure, I'm not (yet) counting stuff like 1997 Donruss Limited "Limited Exposure" parallels as refractors even though they basically are, but not legally. Like how Panini Prizm doesn't actually have "refractors" but rather "prizms". At least for now, I'm just counting Topps/Bowman refractors. But chances are I'll eventually expand into other refractor-adjacent offerings and even colorful foil cards.

And then you've got sets like Archives Reserve and the first incarnation of Gold Label where all the base cards are actually refractors but they don't get referred to as refractors that often since that's all there is for those sets so it's redundant. But Eric Owens never appeared in either of those products, so it's moot in this instance. He does have a '97 Donruss Limited - Limited Exposure card that refracts, though.

More low-key guys I like to collect. That 1994 Finest isn't just Hendu's 1st Refractor™, it's his Only Refractor®. Seriously, do a search for "Dave Henderson refractor" and see if you can find any besides that one.

Ron Gant has a bunch of refractors out there, and I'll slowly pick up a few, like this one from 2000 Topps Chrome I got for a buck.

The Rod Beck is extra neat for me because my little hometown gets namechecked on the front. And I've now completed the rainbow of this map card-- "International parallel" as they're called:

Here's the foil (standard 1998 Bowman), plus the base parallel and refractor from Bowman Chrome. It was the last time Shooter made the Bowman checklist despite playing through 2004. That foil card is an example of why I clarified my interest in colorful foil cards, because drab, aluminum foil looking cards like this don't excite me much (nor do non-refractor Chrome cards like the middle card above, which just seem incomplete to me without a rainbow sheen to them).

Oh, speaking of refractor vs. foil. I was excited to hear Topps was bringing back their classic Black Gold design from 1993, among my all-time favorite inserts, in 2021 Topps Update. I won a couple lots on eBay, but haven't gotten around to picking up the last 10 or so I need (there are 25 total). Then I found out that they put Black Gold cards in 2021 Topps Chrome Update, too (30 total), and won one lot of those. The Chrome checklist is very similar but swaps out a couple players (and has a few added to the end), leading me to believe the Chrome cards were actually printed before the flagship Update cards based upon buzz of the players involved. Cody Bellinger is in Chrome, but his spot in the checklist goes instead to Jarred Kelenic in flagship Update (Bellinger had an awful 2021 season, so you can see why Topps would swap him out for a hot rookie). Luis Robert (who missed the entire 1st half of the 2021 season with an injury before returning with a great 2nd half) is in Chrome, but is replaced by teammate Andrew Vaughn (a rookie who made the club's opening day roster) in flagship's Update. Chrome cards take longer to make, as is my understanding, so it shouldn't be surprising that they had an earlier production deadline there, but just interesting to note. In the above pic, Chrome Update cards are on top. There are also parallels and autos, but I currently don't have the interest to pony up for them.

Neither version has the same magic for me as the originals (the non-Chrome version have a blotchy shiny layer covering the entire card for some reason; I guess they couldn't match the O.G. gold effect without resorting to shenanigans), but I like them enough to probably try to finish all 3 (base) iterations of this "1993 Black Gold" design eventually (still missing a few of the originals-- specifically Gwynn, Sandberg, Eck, and Big Mac). See also the 2019 Throwback Thursday cards using this design that aren't refractors and don't feature any foil, just straight glossy cardboard.

This post is getting a bit long, so I'll wrap up with some 2004 Topps Chrome black refractors. It's crazy, but somehow this is more or less a "front burner" setbuild for me these days (As is the case for many collectors, some sets just sit on my wantlist waiting for a heroic trader to come along and help me out, but some sets I actively search out cards for). And like with the other set I've been giving priority to lately, 1972 Topps, I recently crossed the 75% complete threshold. The biggest obstacle is looking like the Yadier Molina RC, with a PSA 8, I think it was, recently selling for about twice as much as I've ever spent on a card (and brother, I've spent a lot on a card a couple times), so looks like if I'm ever to complete this parallel set, it'll take a combination of a lot of luck and/or a severely burst hobby bubble. In the meantime, I'll secretly hope for Yadier to fall from grace due to an ugly scandal or something that would help make the card affordable, lol. But if I never fully complete the project, so be it; still fun to work on.

As for these latest additions to the build, the solid action photography looks great within the black rainbows, and you also get some old fashioned patriotism thanks to the American flag behind Eric Chavez plus Carl Everett's "Uncle Sam Wants You" pose. But the biggest name I've picked up recently:

Hall of Famer Roy Halladay.

And it's fitting this post is bookended by Dave Stieb and Roy Halladay, as Roy made his debut at the end of the '98 season just as Dave was saying goodbye (for reals this time). And there's a connection from the final day of the season that the Stieb doc highlights in its opening minutes, linking the pair of standout Blue Jay hurlers in a crazy way. 

That'll do it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Nice Boys (Guns N' Randoms)

Some more random pickups I've been meaning to show off.

Scored another Hoyt Wilhelm hit with this neat old-timey jersey relic #/50. Grabbed it for a few bucks in the same big order that landed me the Yaz rookie (most of the cards in this post are from that order).

And some minor league oddball Hoyts! Not from his playing days, of course, but there's one paying tribute to greats from the history of the Minneapolis Millers (1978 Halsey Hall Recalls), and a couple cards from his coaching career. That middle card (1979 West Haven Yankees TCMA)... wow, what a bizarre photo. Did Elmer Fudd just blast his beak off? Not sure what's going on there. I checked, and it seems all copies of the card are like this. The card with the group shot (1982 Nashville Sounds Team Issue) also features Johnny Oates (his first managerial card) and Eddie Napoleon.

Included a shot of the backs in case anyone's interested. I wonder if any of those Arby's Tennessee locations are still in business.

Minor league cards of a couple notable Padres of the past, Bruce Bochy and Nate Colbert.

I also gave a big boost to my Eric Owens PC, throwing a bunch of draft pick and minor league cards into my cart.

The last 2 in this batch are especially neat because they're imported cards from his stints playing winter ball in Venezuela.

I believe the Mud Hens issue is Eric's "sunset card" as that was his last hurrah in affiliated ball. He played a little in Mexico the following year before going into coaching. He made it back to the big leagues as assistant hitting coach for the Blue Jays in 2015 and 2016.

We close today with a cool assortment of Garry Templeton oddballs. Love the 1981 Perma-Graphic Credit Card. While I generally shy away from oversized cards, I was happy to score one of those original Sportscaster cards. When I was a kid, I had some similar cards, but I think they were of planes and ships. Nice to take me back to my carefree boyhood days.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

The New Book Value (more from the card show)

When I go to a card show, I'm keeping an eye out for cards I need for my collection (guys I collect, set needs), and sometimes just random cards that interest me, and of course I look for trade fodder for my regular trade partners.

And sometimes I buy a card because I suspect it's a great deal. I spend enough time reading card blogs and such that I can usually spot a rare/valuable card hiding in a stack of lesser cards. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of variations and rare inserts that get by me (and plenty of stuff I don't know much about from the decade I stepped away from the hobby), but I'd like to think I'm pretty good at finding diamonds in the rough.

I rarely take the time to look up a card value while at a show, but once I get home, I'll look some of them up and try to determine my best deal of the show.

For me, the new "book value" is the cheapest one on COMC. I suppose another good way to find out what a card is worth is to check completed eBay listings for it, but that is a little more work and can have other influencing factors, such as time the auction ended and the seller's feedback. So while it's not infallible, I find looking up a card on COMC is quick and usually gives me decent idea what it's worth.

I think this might be my best deal of the show according to COMC. Brandon Morrow has been a key arm out of the pen for the Dodgers this year. This 2007 Bowman Chrome Prospects X-Fractor /275 cost me a quarter, but the cheapest on COMC right now is $15.25. Fifteen dollar theoretical profit!

Here's another "(Gold) Blue Label". After pulling a Cano auto recently, I'm tempted to get a little PC going for him. This one isn't on COMC currently. The Tim Anderson card falls into that "hmm, maybe this is a valuable card?" category and is a 2017 Topps Stadium Club Chrome refractor. It isn't on COMC right now either, but the regular Chrome parallel (non-refractor) is priced at $5.25, and I assume the refractors are tougher pulls. The Fisk 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes State parallel is a PC need. This White Sox card isn't on COMC, but his similar Red Sox card is $0.99.

A couple Beltres and a Brock. I've really enjoyed bumping up my Beltre PC over the past year or so. Finally pulled the trigger to kick it up further, which will be coming in a future post.

A nice Nolan Arenado trio.

Brown mustard Bowman RC parallels of Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas. These both run under a buck, but not bad.

A couple fancy Giancarlo cards. Billy was asking about those Bowman Platinum "Ice" parallels the other day.. yeah, when I was thumbing through the boxes, I pretty much zoomed passed any Bowman Platinum card unless it was a parallel, as generally speaking, I'm not into that line of cards (not a big fan of foilboard cards), but those bubbly cracked ice parallels look pretty cool in the light. This one goes for $1.25 according to COMC. It surprisingly beats out the /650 2013 Topps Triple Threads card available for only 89¢.
Dee Gordon /250 is also $1.25, while the Trevor Story goes for 95¢.

A couple 2017 Heritage High Numbers here. Honestly, I was just looking to get any ol' Eric Thames Brewers card, since his start to the 2017 coming back over from Korea was just awesome. Turns out this is the action variation, so my 25¢ investment balloons to $4.57, if we're going by the gospel of COMC. As for the Carlos Asuaje, as I mentioned recently, I'm a sucker for any blue burlap parallel, but I was especially happy to find this one of a promising Padres rookie. This one isn't on COMC right now, but the cheapest blue burlap card of any player on there is $3.50.

A pair of shimmering mini Padres here. The Renfroe is /150. It's worth over a buck, safe to say. And while listed at over a quarter (no cards are for sale on COMC for under 30¢), the Austin Hedges might be my "worst" buy of the day, using our COMC guide, as it's listed at only 31¢. But heck, I like it.

And we'll close today with some more San Diego goodness (I refuse to acknowledge the Padres traded away Eric Owens to the Marlins). For what it's worth, the Lamet ice is on COMC for $3.75, the Colin Rea "Missing Black Plate" $1.13, and the Owens 2001 Traded refractor at 85¢. Really though, that Eric Owens may have been my personal favorite pickup of the day, if we're judging by how high my eyebrows raised and my mouth smiled when I saw it. Always love stumbling upon a card I need from a somewhat obscure player I collect.

Still another post or two from my quarterbox haul to go. Thanks for sticking with me! Have a great weekend, everybody.

And the rest of the box from Marcus

In a post last week, I started digging into the box Marcus sent me recently as he works to downsize his collection. Let's go ahead and plow through the rest of it now.

We start with autos, autos, and more autos.

Lots of good stuff here. Love that '87 Joyner. A bunch of Benes (including a couple oddballs). Denorfia on the bottom.

Ah, the Padres team of my youth. With this jumpstart, I wonder if I could put together a signed Padres team set of 1990 Donruss without too much trouble? That would be pretty neat for me since 1990 Donruss (for better or worse) was the first wax I ever ripped. Sentimental value, you know.

Some postcard-sized generic autograph sheets. This might be tough to identify, but let's give it a shot. I'd guess the first one is Nick Hundley (#4). Next is Nick Vincent (#50). The "D" name seems to be Dale Thayer (#55). "AG34" looks like it could be Adrian Gonzalez, but he wasn't #34. Ok, I just looked up #34 and it's Andrew Cashner.. cool! And #45 looks like "Greg B" but again, I can't find a match. Ok, looked up #45 and it's Anthony Bass. I originally thought the last one is was Eric Stults, but now I'm pretty sure it's Tim Stauffer.
I might trim these down to standard card size, perhaps doing something interesting with them like doing sketch cards around the signatures or something.

Howbout a football auto? This postcard sized Stan Humphries auto is pretty cool. Sounds like the Chargers will be sticking around for at least another season, so that's cool, I guess. But ownership has definitely been shitting the bed left and right, and it won't be easy to win back a lot of disgruntled San Diego fans such as myself.

Here's a nice dual screw-down with the Alomar brothers featuring minor league cards from 1988. Pretty sweet.

Marcus added some variety to the box with a few coins, including 3 actual money pieces. I've never been all that big on coin collecting (besides several bucks worth of 1976 drummer boy quarters I've been collecting since childhood), though I do have a few random foreign coins, so I'll throw these in with them.

Here are a bunch of oversized cards. Even that Sheffield in the corner is larger than a standard card. The Fernando(s) and Dale Murphy could be available if anyone needs them.

More jumbo cards and postcards.

Here we've got a Padres program from 2013, and then a few issues of Pocket Pages from 1993-1994. Gotta admit I wasn't familiar with Pocket Pages the publication, but they seem kinda cool. The best thing about them is obviously that they contain cards...

They even got some shiny on 'em. What do you guys think? Should I take these out and cut them up into individual cards, or keep the magazines intact? I'll probably cut them up unless someone yells at me not to.

There were a bunch of 1971 Topps cards, a few of which will likely be needs or upgrades for my setbuild, though I haven't checked yet. Also included were several 2011 Topps parallels which I can put toward that frankensetbuild.

Mini mania! Anybody working on 1975 Topps Mini needing those 3 cards? Let me know. Here we also see a Goose need from 1986 Fleer and several Bowman mini refractors.

So many Rymer Liriano cards! Bummer he never quite blossomed with San Diego. They recently cut him loose and he wound up with the Brewers. All the best, Rymer!

A couple of my all-time favs, Dave Winfield and Eric Owens. Pretty sure I needed most of these.

More Geese, including a duo from his early days as a White Sock and a trio from his latter days as an A.

Greg Maddux 1/1!!! Ha, no, that's from the annoyingly deceptive A&G Dick Perez insert set or whatever where Topps went ahead and included Perez' handwritten 1/1 on all the mass-produced cards, leading to great confusion and disappointment among collectors. The Adrian refractor also made me scratch my head a moment...

Numbered 99/60?! That's unpossible! LOL, ok, so maybe I'm looking at it upside-down and it's actually 090/660.

While the Padres were definitely the stars of the box, non-SD fellas could be found as well. A couple Mike Trout cards. Bryce Harper mini. Rainbow foil 2015 RBI LL. Gerrit Cole rookie. An addition for my Non-Yankee Babe Ruth PC. And favorites Willie Stargell and Paul Goldschmidt.

And so that's gonna wrap it up. There were plenty more cards I could show off and write about, but in the interest of time, let's call it good.

Again, big thanks, Marcus, for passing down these cards to me and please just say the word if/when I can return the favor with anything!