Underachieving Archives

The checklist for 2017 Archives has been released. I already pre-ordered a couple boxes a few months ago for the third year. I've got a love/hate relationship with the product. I credit Topps Archives for pulling me back into collecting in 2012. I remember I was taking a curious look on eBay to see what was up with the hobby. The modern designs didn't really interest me at all, but then there was this "throwback" set with comfortingly familiar designs and plenty of retired stars of yesteryear, and it really spoke to me. I dipped my toe in the water ripping a blaster or two.. didn't pull anything all that notable, but got enough of a thrill to hop back into the collecting pool.

Since then, I bust a box or two annually. But my enthusiasm for the product has been waning, gotta admit. Last year was a big success for me because I pulled (a redemption for) a Ken Griffey, Jr "Father & Son" 1/1 auto black parallel. So that was cool as hell. But besides that one card, the boxes pretty much sucked. The base cards were virtually identical in both boxes. A couple weeks later I took a chance on a blaster hoping for some variety, and again, just more of the same cards! Three rips resulted in a ton of triples, with pretty much only the parallels and inserts being different. It's a decent sized set, too. I remember Fuji was trying to finish the set and had an ample wantlist. I emailed him, confident I could knock off several numbers for him. But no, I ended up looking like a fool. Fuji must've busted nearly identical boxes to me, because I couldn't even muster up a single need for him in my entire tall stack of 2016 Archives. No reason to have such horrible collation. It's nothing new for Topps in recent years, but still.

But let's move the bitching to 2017 Archives. As Night Owl mentioned recently, one of the designs this year is 1982 Topps, a design Archives just used back in 2013! So many great designs they haven't used in the product, yet they're already beating dead horse designs, like they did with 1980 Topps (bringing it back in 2014 after just using it in 2012). It upsets me more than it should. It's just so lazy. I've talked about how it'd be a dream job for me to work at Topps working on cards, and specifically I'd love to be project manager of Archives and get it back on track. It could be a great set if they'd just put in a little more effort.

I haven't looked too hard at the checklist yet (and will likely avoid blog posts with early reviews), trying to save some surprise for when I bust my boxes, but I did take a look at the Fan Favorites Autographs checklist. Some expected big names (that I'm sure will be very short-printed) such as Aaron, Koufax, and newcomer to Topps autos, Derek Jeter. In a change from recent years, there's no 80s film tie-in this time out. However, there are a lot of non-player baseball guys this year, such as sportscasters and fans. I was disappointed not to see Vin Scully on the checklist (auto or otherwise). I know Topps signed him to a contract a few months ago.. Put him in sets! If he's not in 2017 Ginter, I'm gonna be pissed. The worst "Fan Favorite" inclusion is Skip Bayless, the idiotic asshole sportswriter/TV personality that everybody hates. If I pull that card, I will burn it.

As for positive surprises on the auto checklist, I was happy to see MLB's Ambassador for Inclusion, Billy Bean get his first certified auto. And it's a Padres card at that! (The only Padre auto in the set, however.. boo.) But yeah, I'll have to score one of those autos for my Pride PC at some point. Members of the cardsphere are also happy to see the likes of Tim Wallach and John Smiley get some certified-auto love. Rusty Kuntz is another fun one.

So anyways, yeah, I hope my boxes treat me well this year. Until then, here are some older Archives cards I've picked up recently.

1986 Topps is a set I'm not all that crazy about.. but mess with the border colors and you've got me! This Moises Alou blue parallel looks awesome, even if the shade of blue is just a bit off from the EXPOS text and position circle.

I was getting addicted to these blue border 86s and ended up with Teddy Higuera, too. This one doesn't look as good as the Alou thanks to the tan BREWERS, but is still kinda cool.

I wouldn't mind adding more colored parallels in the 1986 design in the future (there are also red and purple, I believe), though these 2 satiated my fixation good enough for the time being.

This isn't exactly the same as today's Archives, rather from back when it was a chiefly a reprint product. I'm still kinda trying to complete the Archives Reserve Future Rookie Reprints set. Never been a big fan of these reimaged multi-player rookies with only the one main guy, but Cal was a big name to check off my list.

And Barry Bonds is another one. I don't care much about them being graded, but this one popped up significantly cheaper than I tend to see raw copies priced for, so I pounced on it. Not sure why PSA mentions a "gold border" as I'm pretty sure all copies of this card are like this.. basically a Chrome-style reprint.

And the backs, in case you were interested.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody!

Rooting for the little guy

I'm not super short, but on the low end of average male height. Perhaps because of this, I often (unfortunately) find myself rooting for the underdog (who lose 9 times out of 10) and I have an affinity for vertically-challenged pro athletes (jockeys not included). Here are some recent pickups.

I bought a Jose Altuve auto a while back. 2016 Archives Super /50. It's pretty cool. Nice highlight for my little Altuve PC.

I also recently picked up certified autos of a couple short basketball stars that I remember getting a kick out of during their playing days.

Spud Webb!  /299.

Muggsy Bogues! What a terrific looking card!

Spud Webb and Muggsy Bogues.. great names. No way either of these guys could have a boring name like Rob Davis or Jack Richardson. I could have saved a couple bucks with stickergraphs, but had to do it right with on-card.

Love these cards, but after these and the Mutombo auto, (and another snazzy b-ball card I haven't posted about yet), I've put a moratorium on buying basketball cards for the rest of the year (or really any non-baseball cards). I just splurged a bit too much there for a while and need to focus up.

Thanks for stopping by.

Is this a sweet lot of 2017 Topps? Judge for yourself

The handicap of now being a one-vehicle household is hitting me for the first time this weekend. My wife needs the car for an appointment Saturday on the other side of town that can't really be changed and it also happens to be the day of the monthly card show. So unless I want to mess with hauling cards around on public transportation, looks like I'll be sitting this one out. And really, it's probably for the best if I miss this show. I still need to sort the cards I brought home at the last couple card shows, not to mention all the incoming trades and such from the past couple months.

Plus, thanks to the big lot that Padrographs Rod gave me at the last show, I feel like I got enough new cards at the April show to carry me through May, too. Let's check out more from that fantastic lot now. Today, it's highlights from the ample selection of 2017 Topps Series 1.

Wow, the hottest base card of the year, and I ended up with two of them falling in my lap! That's pretty lucky. Aaron Judge has been running away with AL ROY so far this season-- hell, even making a strong case for MVP-- with Yankees fans hoping he can keep up his impressive performance for the long term.

Andrew Benintendi is another hyped rookie in the AL East.

A bunch of inserts, heavy on Wil Myers. I love Bob Odenkirk, though I haven't watched Better Call Saul yet.

Take a trip back to 1987 with the nice selection of retro inserts.

These Award Winners inserts are ok.

Some PC additions.

More dudes I collect, plus cameos on team cards, which I sometimes throw into PCs if the guy is featured prominently enough (The Orioles card could slip into my Adam Jones PC, but not my Manny Machado PC, for example). This design doesn't work very well with horizontal cards, as it takes up way too much space on the bottom.

Here are some buybacks. Rod undoubtedly got in a group break or two, explaining why they're all Padres. Some of these probably came out of 2017 Heritage, but I don't think there's a way to differentiate. I wish Topps would cool it on the buybacks. I kinda collect Kruk, so I'll hang onto that one, but the rest will likely make their way to buds who care about buybacks more than I. The Eric Show cards look like dupes at first, but one is silver foil and the other gold, despite how they look in the photo (the top row are all bronze). Assuming Topps uses the Olympic system, gold must be the most scare of these 3 stamp colors, though I'm sure only the most chronically obsessed collectors give even a tiny shit about buyback stamp colors.

Again from group break hauls, there were several of each Padre base card, most of which I've already received through trades already, so not too exciting for me. Anybody working on this set, let me know and I'd love to thin some out on you (Padres and otherwise).

Finally, perhaps the biggest thrill of the entire lot for me. Here we have a partial rainbow of Derek Norris cards, with a base, gold, and camo. I don't really have strong feelings either way about Derek, and the parallels this year are very underwhelming. But..

The camo parallel is a Christmas Card! And I'm pretty sure Rod didn't go out of his way to score this card for me, rather it was much more likely just serendipitously among his Padres group break haul. So that's pretty cool.

Thanks again, Rod! Very appreciated!

The summer Gwynn came blowing in

I was caught in a Tony Gwynnado from the latest grocery bag of cards from Padrographs Rod.

This big stack is all Gwynns.. and this is after I already pulled out all the junk wax and other cards I was sure I already had.

A couple months ago, I began the arduous task of attempting to sort all my Gwynns. I made solid progress, getting through the 80s and 90s, but then lost steam with the project before hitting the 00s and 2010s. But this lot has inspired me to get back at it (well, that and the fact I'm currently trying to fill up a Priority box of Padre cards for a guy.. an appreciative dumping ground for dupes). But yeah, I hope to get my Gwynns organized soon. He's easily my largest player collection. Not sure how many unique cards I've got of him, but definitely a few hundred.. maybe even scratching at a thousand.

I'm just gonna pick out a few highlights from this recent lot from Rod to showcase today.

Here's a '97 Pinnacle card with its Museum Collection parallel. Pretty cool.

Typical overproduced 1987 fare at first glance, but nope, these are the (relatively) rare fancy-pants versions, as I gently notated on the pennysleeves.

A trio of coated cards. I hope I have duplicates of these so I can enjoy the thrill of peeling them.

These three are real nice n' shiny in hand.

Retro designs. Love that "1982 Donruss The Rookies card that never was." The old patriotic Fleer design is a winner too (Is Tony doing that thing where you round the bases after a home run pretending you've got a parrot on your arm?!).

A couple Starting Lineup cards, which can sometimes be tough to track down. I've got the one on the right still sealed with the figure (thanks again, Wes), so it's nice to have another one to let breathe free.

Bunch 'o diecuts, aka funky-shaped cards.

That MVP card would have been a lot cooler if Bowman dug up a photo of Tony from 1981.

Some more Pacific and offshoots.

Here are a couple shiny Prism cards that look the same from the front. But then on the back...

...A couple promos, apparently. One's got "SAMPLE" over it, while the other is a blank-back. Kinda odd. I like it.

Big thanks again, Rod! Awesome bunch of additions to my Gwynn PC (and again, these were only a few highlights of the big stack).

Sorry guys, I've had to turn on comment moderation temporarily due to some asshat spambot called Choo Say who won't stop commenting spam bullshit on this post. Apologies for the inconvenience. Please don't be afraid to comment and I'll get it approved ASAP.

Nice sampling of 2017 Heritage + Gypsy Queen (Gift from Rod)

My fellow Portland-dwelling Padres fan Padrographs Rod and I have a pretty sweet arrangement where I help him out with freelance photoshop work, and occasionally we meet up at the monthly card show and he dumps a glorious load of random cardboard on me. Today's post will feature "part 1" of the latest lot he handed off to me at April's card show, specifically the 2017 Heritage and Gypsy Queen. I still haven't ripped any 2017 product yet, so it's nice to be able to experience a pseudo-rip thanks to Rod's leftovers.

While I'm sure Rod takes some keepers for himself, there are still plenty of quality cards in there. For example, this beautiful Xander Bogaerts refractor #'d 563/568!

Dansby Swanson has been down around the Mendoza line so far this season, but he's still very highly-touted, so I was excited to "pull" this Game insert and refractor (again, /568) from the lot.

Nice bunch of All-Stars.

And some notable rookies.

Many other dudes I collect, too.

And plenty more available for trade, including 4 SPs, some inserts, and lots of base. Any of my trade buddies working on the set, feel free to hit me up for some help.


I'm going to piggyback some 2017 Gypsy Queen from Rod into this post. I mean, it's sorta close to Heritage.. and not quite worth its own post.

Some parallels. These 5 are all available for trade, I suppose. The "No Name" is Kyle Seager.

Here are some keepers for me, with a few dudes I collect and notable rookies.

And a few more available for trade. Again, just drop me an email if interested.

Big thanks, Rod!
More cards from this eclectic lot coming in future posts.

A weekend to remember (for better or worse)

There are a bunch of cool baseball cards in this post, I promise! Just give me a minute to set the scene.

Sometimes my phone takes a "silent video" ("blast" [gif]) when I mean to take a photo. This was a weird one.

But anyways, yeah. We usually have a tradition of taking a weekend at the coast around Mother's Day with my wife's family.

This year we went back to Manzanita for the 3rd year in a row.

It was a rainy weekend, but we were able to strategically head down to the beach during breaks in the weather. Our dog Annie sure loves chasing her Red Squeaky anywhere, but especially on the beach.

She loves it so much, it gives her the power of levitation!

This following string of selfie attempts turned out like a photobooth strip:

Annie's a good pooch!

Last dog pic of the post, I promise.

Here's the annual photo of my wallet card meeting the Pacific Ocean.


Ok, eagle-eyed readers, time to spot the Wallet Card:

I posted a similar pic of this before, as it's the only MLB thing I've seen in this house that we've rented 3 times now. This cushion down by the pool table always makes me think of Tony L. and the other Brewers Buds in my little circle. Classic logo.

Amen to that, brother! I would be fired and likely sentenced to death.

Another wallet card pic down in the pool table room. Maybe next year (assuming we go back), I'll get a shot of the actual pool table.

Here's another picture that readers with very good memories will remember, as I'm pretty sure I posted the same thing last year or the year before that but with that year's wallet card.

Ok, ok.. I know I said no more dog pics, but this one is actually more of a flower pic, so let's let it slide. Anybody looking for a great, inexpensive family rental house on the Oregon coast, let me know and I'll point you towards this one. As I say, we've been there 3 years in a row and we love it. Even spotted a bald eagle this year.

Unfortunately it was too damp in the evenings to get much of a bonfire going outside, but I slipped out to at least make my own little fire that lasted for maybe a minute. No s'mores, but good enough.

Instead we mostly hung out inside, drinking much wine and enjoying DJ Defgav's bumping playlist of popular favorites with plenty of ELO, Steve Winwood, and Tom Petty. We also squeezed in a fun game of Apples to Apples. And hey, I didn't lose! (came in 2nd-to-last, though.)

Crap, I'm sorry, another dog pic snuck in despite my best intentions. Here's Annie taking her rightful place under the table during our game. She's a good girl (though she was bad and went potty in the house a couple times during the weekend. Not cool!)

Then after a lovely weekend, we made our way back into Portland. A highway 5 maintenance closure forced us onto an alternate route, and well, as I mentioned in my previous post, we hit a snag on our way back home...

Yep, that snarled slurry of metal, plastic, and wires used to be my car. Actually my wife's car, as I rarely drive (drove) it these days (though it was mainly my car a few years ago back when I commuted to work from SE Portland into Beaverton). It's likely beyond repair, which sucks. At least we still have my car (handed down to me from her folks a few years back, which is like our "back-up car" these days, as I take public transportation to work rather than fuss with driving and parking downtown. Believe it or not, I typically only drive once a month.. To where? The card show, of course!) Hopefully the insurance takes good care of us, but we'll see. Thankfully my wife and I are doing fine financially so we'll be able to absorb this without too much pain, but it's still a huge headache, not to mention the emotional smackdown of being in a car wreck. I suppose I'm glad I was able to keep my shit together among the scene of people freaking out. My neck was a bit tweaked for a couple days (felt like I slept on it wrong) but seems to have rebounded fine. (It was my first experience with an airbag. It was a bit surreal as it was happening. I don't know if I've just become pessimistic about life these days [I mean, the president of these great United States is unquestionably evil, for chrissake! How did it come to this?], but it was almost like I expected it to happen. Like, as I was rocketing into the airbag from the impact, my thoughts were, "yeah, this is about right.") My wife got a nasty bruise on her arm from the steering wheel and tweaked her back a little, but is feeling much better now. Annie was in the backseat and apart from trembling a little bit in the aftermath, seems to have gotten through the entire ordeal unscathed, thankfully.

Anyways, eventually we all made it back home safe (my wife took a detour to the hospital just to be safe and get checked out, driven by her folks, after I assured them I was fine and they dropped me and Annie off at home. My wife gives her mom shit for being so over-reactionary to everything [she's the kind of mom who will text to check in on you during a thunderstorm], but sometimes it is nice to have someone in your corner who puts your well-being at the very top of their priorities. Not everybody has that. I think my wife often takes it for granted.)

So yeah, what I've been getting to is eventually, later in the night, things chilled out enough to where I could take a moment to open the mail that I had waiting for me, which included 3 packages. Ready for the cards?

Here's a card I'd been wanting for a while! This Kris Bryant 1st Bowman Chrome was a key card missing from my PC and was the highlight of the "rookie lot" I ended up with in JBF's Big Fun Game. I'm still envious of the Yaz RC that Night Owl ended up with, but I can't complain about this lot graciously provided by Wes.

More rookie cards of guys I collect. Well, Buster Posey isn't officially a guy I collect, but I find it hard to part with his cards when I get them, so I almost kinda collect him, I guess.

And here are a couple more guys I collect, but I already have these 2 cards, so they're available for trade.

And here's the rest of the rookie lot. Plenty of notable players here. These aren't PC guys for me, though, so they'll be headed to my tradebox. (feel free to speak up for any of them.)

Wes kindly threw in a few bonus cards for me, specifically the most impressive lot of Gavin Floyd cards I can recall ever getting at once.

Printing plates! Feels kinda like cards that look like this are getting overplayed these days-- talking about Donruss "press proofs" and all the parallels in 2017 Bunt Physical that are basically faux printing plates-- but these are the real deal, true 1/1 cards.

Yet another printing plate for good measure, plus a 2013 mini #'d 1/5. The black border looks great with the White Sox colors.

And a Big Fun Game parallel of jbf's certified auto! I got number 69. Nice.

Big thanks for the Big Fun Game, Wes! That was awesome.

- - - --o

Next up is a trade package from reader TSHenson. He kindly let me dump much of my overflowing Indians cards and Olympic cards on him, later returning the favor with some guys I collect.

Bunch of my boy Wil Myers.

Trea Turner has been running hot and cold this season, but his Nats are rolling.

Trevor Story has been struggling to hit his weight this year, but he's still a guy I collect... for now. Hopefully he turns things around.

Finally, a nice pair of Mookies and Niekros. Thanks, man!

- -  - --o

Lastly for today, here's an eBay win. Gotta admit I wasn't really familiar with Bob Watson. But anytime a Topps Retired refractor auto pops up with a low opening bid, you can bet I'll be throwing a bid on it, and sometimes I win. Just love these cards! This one is from 2003, a set I like better than 2005, but not quite as much as 2004.

The back of the card is devoid of red stats, but still a very fine career, with his heyday being on the hapless Astros teams of the 70s. Bob was the first player to hit for the cycle in both the NL and the AL. He was clutch in the postseason, batting .371, but didn't win a World Series until 1996 as GM of the Yankees, making him the first African American GM to win a WS championship.

So there were some cool cards that helped brighten my spirits after a hectic, scary afternoon.
Thanks to those of you who've left me comforting comments, and thanks as always for reading!