Topps Retired Triad: The Return

Ok, I haven't done one of these in a while. To recap, my favorite high-end product line is Topps Retired Signature Edition, which ran for 3 years, 2003-2005, with the refractor autographs being a top collecting focus of mine. The "Topps Retired Triad" blog series is an excuse for me to show off a trio of recent adds. Good group today-- all PC guys for me, too.

Big Bo Jackson to kick things off. The photo might be familiar to readers because I featured the black parallel (non-auto, non-refractor) leading off the previous Triad post last fall. If it were up to me, the 2005 Retired refractors would be black bordered (like '04), but the white looks fine too. And hey, in a perfect world, this would be in its original "uncirculated" case, but I'll leave it slabbed for now. Hell, I haven't bothered to take it out of the eBay "authenticity guarantee" bag yet.

I wasn't as lucky with efforts to secure a Ryne Sandberg from the set that recently sold for a lot.

I also still need to track down Bo's '03 Retired refractor auto someday.

But one '03 Retired I have tracked down is Tony Perez...

Nice looking card. This makes an even 100 different '03 Retired autos for me, counting both refractors and base autos. That's out of a total of 119 autographs in the set. So completing that in my lifetime might be possible, but probably not an all-refractor set. The guy I know doing that (Dan) is down to only Tommy Lasorda to finish his '03 refractor set, last I touched base with him.

Tony Perez has some extra juice in my collection thanks to his "Pads in the Hall" connection, playing for San Diego back when they were the Reds' top minor league team.

Ron Gant was one of my favorite dudes back during my initial collecting run as a kid in the early 90s when I'd watch lots of Braves games on TBS. I haven't gone after his cards as hard since returning to the hobby, but still have a soft spot for him, and had been waiting years for the chance to land his refractor auto from '05 Retired.

Here's another photo with a little warmer refraction. Like with '03 Retired, I'm down to needing just 19 more autos to complete the set (as a mix of base and refractors), currently with 96 of 115 signers available in 2005 Retired.

Stats are a bit blurry in photo, but he ended up with 321 taters and 1008 ribbies. It was cool for me when Ron had a solid season for my Padres in 2002 near the end of his career.

That'll do it. Until next time!

a trade supplement

Matt at Red Cardboard generously surprised me with a bonus package of cards in the wake of our recent swap.

Leading off with a vintage oddball of Tony Perez.

And more HOFers.

Sweet-ass lot of Reggie Sanders!, most of which are 90s parallels. Nice bump to the PC.

Plenty of active guys were included, too, such as Kris Bryant. The 2015 RC is actually a Berger's Best reprint (--unlike the '75 George Brett reprint above, I need to point this out.)

Nice Nolan Arenado lot.

Coming up Cutch.

Lindor to my door.

More and more Manny Machado.

Altuve por mi aqui.

Springer and a Bregman.

Mookie had a huge game today.

Closing out with a Kershaw reprint and a Bryce. Expect to see plenty of Gavin LaValley on my blog in the near future, as he was included in 2018 Bowman and I've been going after some of the parallels lately.

Thanks again, Matt! Dropped a little something in the mail for you the other day.

Friday Feeling

I was fortunate to be included in Fuji's recent mail-blast. In fact, this post had the working title of "Fujenerous" but I just thought that was so bad that I couldn't publish it, and I had to wait until I got another trade package in and combine them under another title (not that "Friday Feeling" is any better, but what are ya gonna do). Thankfully, Reds Cardboard came through with a great box of cards I called dibs on from his cleaning house tradeathon. Some good stuff that caught my eye had already been claimed by the time I got to the post, but there were still many cards I was happy to score.

The Cecchini was my first look at 2017 Topps Fire; it's a parallel #'d /99 on the back. Bellinger RC is a sweet card. Didi back before he went by Didi. Wil Myers 42 "patch" thing. Jeter cd-rom; I didn't have a chance to rip the video contents of this, but nudge me if you want me to at some point.

Terrific selection of Billy Hamilton cards.

Robert Stephenson is a young pitcher I kinda-sorta collect for no reason. Matt hooked me up with a nice lot of what must have been dupes, all of them wonderfully shiny.

And my Tony Perez PC got a nice bump.

Six-pack of Bryce.

One of my newest PCs and already looking good with help from these 3.

Part of me would love to "retire" from vintage setbuilding once I eventually wrap up the 2 or 3 sets I've currently got in the works... though another part of me doubts it'll be easy to kick the hunting-down-old-cardboard habit, and I've penciled in 1959 Topps as one I'll probably chase at some point down the line. So I'm happy to pick up cards for it here and there when I can.

The ol' birth-year set is another one I'll probably bust out before too long.

I also asked for any 2011 Topps parallels he was looking to part with. There were a couple needs here as I trudge closer to halfway with this big franketset project.

Matt filled up the box with a bunch of extra Reds, hitting some PCs along the way. I can use these, as the Boone Brothers are originally from my old stomping grounds of East County San Diego.

But the bulk of surprise additions were all these Reggie Sanders cards. He's a guy who I rarely seem to get cards of in trades for whatever reason, despite his heyday being in the go-go early 90s. So these are very appreciated in spite of their nominal book value.

Thanks a lot, Matt! Dropped some return Reds in the mail for you today.

- - - ---o

Ok, now it's Fuji time!

Here are a couple shiny "irregular" cards of top PC guys of mine. The Rod Beck is #'d /160, and looks great though it's got a weird black splotch at the top that I had to look up to make sure it wasn't supposed to be there. The Lindor is a very nice card, though it does have a nasty gash on the left side that thankfully didn't show up in the photo. Both still very appreciated!

Nearly a complete Topps run of Nate Colbert! While I've got these cards already, I'll bet there's at least a couple upgrades for me in here.

And a whole bunch of Kirby Puckett (and a Stargell)! Love 'em!


Thanks a lot, Fuji! Very kind of you.
Oh! And he also then sent a separate PWE of cards for my We Didn't Start The Fire binder which I'll show in a post soon updating that project.

That'll do it. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Card Show Haul: Vintage

Pretty solid card show haul today. Let's check out my vintage pickups. Unfortunately I came up empty with my dwindling 1971 needs, which was my main goal (I found 3 cards I needed, but not at the price I was hoping for, so I'll probably try my luck on eBay).

My biggest pickup of the day was this Tony Perez RC SP for my 1965 Topps setbuild.

The Podres was another nice addition. That was a buck while Ron Brand was 50¢. Thanks to these 3 cards, I'm now at an even 70% complete with 1965, plus I've got a few more additions on the way via trade.

37.5% complete with 1964 Topps now thanks to these 10.

I'm not working on 1959, but I know some of my trader buddies are, so I picked up a few colorful names with the intention of rehoming them before long.

And some PC pickups for me.

I'll be showing off more of my haul throughout this coming week. See ya then.

The Rocket rages and Big Dog becomes a pup (More Auto Overlays)

Last week, I showed off custom auto overlays I made for cards of Adam Jones and Dave Winfield. Here are a couple more I've whipped up since then.

Ha, this is a good one! I'd be kinda surprised to see a real card manufacturer come out with a Roger Clemens card featuring that notorious incident chucking the piece of Mike Piazza's broken bat in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series. But thanks to some creative custom-making, I've got myself a nice unique auto with an image from that perplexing moment.

That's the original card on the left. Not a horrible card exactly, but not very interesting.

Looks good in action!

Next up...
Another instance of me wanting to have an autographed Padres card of a well-known player who doesn't seem to have any autograph cards featuring a photo from his time in San Diego.

Yep, Tony Pérez starred for the PCL Padres before being called up by the Reds to begin his HOF career.
This overlay represents my first ever attempt at photo colorization. Definitely won't be fooling anyone, but I'm happy enough with it.

The original photo. I think this is some super-rare minor league food issue oddball. Would love to score an original someday. It's the only photo I've ever come across of Perez on the Padres.

The original card. #'d 21/25. Didn't cost me much. Again, not a horrible card, but pictures of retired players in street clothes are just about always yawners. You'll notice I also turned the boring square swatch into a "PCL" cutout.

Fits right in among my other HOF Padres autos!