Category Archives: Product Spotlights

Product Spotlight: 2012 Panini Elite Extra Edition

Posted by on 24 March 2013 No comments

Sharper cuts, fewer stickers, and a double dose of Koch

Still slightly chronologically challenged, Elite Extra Edition’s 2012 product is out with everything you would expect.  If you’re familiar with last year’s product, you already know what’s in here.  Lots of prospect autographs, die-cut parallels, and no team names or logos (except for the Under Armor logo for Cecchini).  That’s the price you pay when you go up against the Topps monopoly.

Autographs

The autographs look just like the base cards, so let’s just skip the base cards and go straight to the autos. The base autographs are split into two subsets: the first 100 are Franchise Futures sticker autographs and the last 100 are Prospects on-card autographs.  Aside from the type of autograph, the only real difference between the two subsets is that the Prospects cards tend to feature earlier round draft picks.  Numbering on these varies between 299 and 795 copies.

Mets featured in the Franchse Futures subset include Matt Koch (3rd round), Branden Kaupe (4th round), and Logan Taylor (11th round).

Not shown: Kevin Plawecki (redemption)

Mets featured in the Prospects subset include Gavin Cecchini (1st round), Kevin Plawecki (1st round supplemental, redemption cards only), Matt Reynolds (2nd round), and, again, Matt Koch (3rd round).  That’s right, Matt Koch has both sticker and on-card autographs in this product for some reason.  I guess Panini just really likes Koch.  Redemptions for Plawecki is a bit disappointing, especially considering that Topps featured his autographs in Bowman Draft and Bowman Sterling (they did however resort to redemptions for Matt Reynolds, while Panini has his autos here on-card, the first of his pro career).

Parallels

Once again, Panini has ink color and die-cut parallels of the base autographs.  Ink colors include red (#d/25) and green (#d/10).  Autographs are on stickers for Franchise Futures and are on-card for Prospects.

Not Shown: Aspirations, Black Status

Die-cuts include Aspirations (#d/100), Blue Status (#d/50), Green Status (#d/25), Orange Status (#d/10), Gold Status (#d/5), and Black Status (#d/1).  This year’s die-cuts are more interesting than last year’s and the on-card autos continue through all of the Prospects parallels (unlike last year, when stickers were used for some).  All Franchise Futures parallels continue to be sticker autos.

Inserts

Two Mets prospects are featured on insert autographs, both on stickers.  Matt Reynolds is featured in the Elite Series (#d/199), while Logan Verrett returns as the only member of the 2011 draft class with an autograph in this product in the Back to the Future insert set (#d/48).

Verdict

It’s hard to find much improvement here over last year’s EEE.  The die-cut pattern is a bit more dramatic and there are a lot more on-card autographs, but the rest of the product is more of the same.  It certainly gets points for featuring six members of the Mets’ 2012 draft class, particularly with on-card in-product autographs from Matt Reynolds and the first autographs from Matt Koch, Branden Kaupe, and Logan Taylor.  However, the first round picks were starting to get boring when Bowman Sterling was released in December, so the big names weren’t much of a draw by the time January came around.  Add in the lack of an MLB license and it’s hard to see this as anything but second-rate.  I love this product for its supply of cheap prospect autographs, but it doesn’t seem to aspire to be anything more.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Triple Threads

Posted by on 3 January 2013 No comments

Finally, an excuse to say “Dickey pants”

Triple Threads is one of the most-loved Topps products, so of course I am largely indifferent towards it.  This is one of the products born from the post-Playoff/Donruss era, when most of the products I liked were discontinued or marginalized, so I’m holding a bit of a grudge.  And as a “Let’s face it, you’re not going to get a big hit out of this, just buy what you want on eBay and save some money” product, I get annoyed waiting for the few cards I want most to show up in auctions at prices that aren’t completely insane.  Note to sellers: most of these cards will sell for less than $20, stop it with the “Everything $99″ approach.  The most annoying thing about this product though is the trademarked Topps infinite parallelization of every single card.  In addition to the base version (typically numbered to 99 for autographed cards and 36 for non-autographed cards), there are Sepia, Emerald, Gold, Sapphire, Ruby, and occasionally a few other parallels, plus a set of 1/1 printing plates for every single card.  This makes every card both rare (everything numbered to less than 100!) and common (more than 250 of each if you ignore silly color variations, with many players appearing on multiple cards in the same insert set).

Base Cards

Serial Numbering: None-625-250-125-99-50-25-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Gary Carter, Tom Seaver, David Wright
Non-Mets: Jose Reyes, Nolan Ryan, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider, Rickey Henderson

Sadly, Topps did not drop the base cards from Triple Threads like they did for Tier 1.  They seemed really excited to show off this design on Twitter.  Am I missing something here?  This is about as dull a design as you can get.  Good thing these aren’t the main draw and only serve as filler along with their six parallels numbered to between 25 and 625, two parallels numbered to 1, and four printing plates per card.  Three Mets out of 100 cards is about average, so whatever.

Rookies and Future Phenoms Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 99-75-50-25-10-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Ike Davis
Non-Mets: None

As usual, Triple Threads includes a bunch of inserts as an extension of the base set.  I do not know why they do this, probably just to make sure you can’t build a complete set that makes any sense.  Serial numbering on these follows the 99 sequence, so that’s 265 total cards for those of you playing along at home, with cards numbered to 10 or less featuring patches if patches are available.  Two of the 65 cards feature Mets, which is again about average.  As with all of the “triple” relics in this product, there are exactly three pieces of material in each card regardless of how many holes are cut in the card placed over them.  Putting 23 holes in a card does not mean that there are 23 pieces of material in the card!  Why are people on eBay so stupid?  Next thing you know, they’ll be calling every serial numbered card a 1/1 because every one is unique.  Oh, wait, they already do that…  Autographs on these cards are on the cards and not stickers, because Kirk Nieuwenhuis doesn’t sign stickers.  Seriously, have you seen how many cards this kid signed this year?  He’s at more than 1600 just counting serial numbered cards.  I’m amazed he’s not on the DL from a hand injury.

Triple Threads Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Dave Kingman, Ike Davis (4), David Wright
Non-Mets: Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider (2)

And here’s the gimmick that everyone (except me) loves, multiple variations of every card with stupid things written in the windows over the game-used material!  Lumbering lefty?  I guess it’s better than “send me an angel” or “heaven sent.”  Whoever comes up with this stuff must have been fired from a greeting card company for being too cheesy.  These follow the 36 numbering sequence minus the 36 and 27 for 36 total copies of each.

Triple Threads Relics / Relic Legends

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: David Wright (5)
Non-Mets: Jose Reyes (3), Rickey henderson, Eddie Murray, Willie Mays

If you need more Wright, just head over to the non-autographed Triple Threads Relics insert set, which features five more variants on the full 36 numbering scheme minus the wood 1/1 for 98 total copies of each stupid phrase.  Among this year’s winners are “Wright Stuff” and “D-Money.”  Jose Reyes on the other hand got tagged with “Fresh Fish.”  As I’m sure Jay Sherman would say about this, it stinks.

Triple Threads Flashback Relics

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Johan Santana, Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Rickey Henderson

Here’s an idea that’s so obvious that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before: put windowing on both sides of a jersey card (Topps did something similar with several relic sets a decade ago by making the bottom layer transparent, but these are the first I’ve seen that are open on both sides).  Two of these feature the Mets on the front and another two on the back.  Of particular interest here is the Dwight Gooden card with sewn-in pinstripes visible from both sides.  Numbering follows the 36 sequence we’ve been seeing on most of these non-autographed triple relics.

Unity Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 99-75-50-25-10-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Daniel Murphy (2), Ike Davis, Josh Thole (2), Lucas Duda (2), R.A. Dickey (2), Ruben Tejada (2), Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden (2), Gary Carter.
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

OK, let’s cut the crap.  The whole “triple” gimmick is nice and makes for interesting display pieces and once-in-a-lifetime pulls, but the bulk of the interesting cards in this product are in the Unity insert sets.  While last year’s Unity inserts could be combined in groups of three to create a panorama of the team’s stadium (or a frankenstadium if you combine players from different teams), this year’s Unity design is completely generic.  On the plus side, this is what Topps has been saving the bulk of the material from new players and players who haven’t been seen since last year for.  So if you were wondering why Lucas Duda and Josh Thole have been getting the shaft for the bulk of the year, it was so Topps could make them the big draw in this insert set.  Well, that and Dickey pants.  Double Dickey pants.  Fresh off Dickey’s second consecutive one-hitter this year, stains and all.  This may be the only game-used item whose authenticity has not been called into question by the recent counterfeit merchandise scandals.

Each card lists a specific accomplishment for the depicted player, with some players featured on multiple cards.  Accomplishments include a mix of awards, events, and on-field performances.  All autographs are on stickers and numbering follows the 99 sequence minus wood.  That’s right, there’s no Dickey wood parallel.  Deal with it.

Unity Relics

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Rickey Henderson (3), David Wright (3), Johan Santana (3), Daniel Murphy
Non-Mets: Willie Mays, Warren Spahn, Carlos Beltran (3), Eddie Murray (2).

For players without a ready supply of sticker autographs, there’s the non-autographed variety of Unity.  These follow the 36 numbering sequence (without wood, like the autographed variety), making them harder to find than their autographed brethren (particularly when it comes to patches, which are at the 3 or less parallels as opposed to 10 or less for the autographed versions).

2011 All-Star Workout Jerseys

Heath Bell, Carlos Beltran, and Jose Reyes appear here with various pieces of their 2011 All-Star workout jerseys.  Base patch cards are numbered to 9 or less, all others are numbered to 1.  They’re nice, I guess.

Multiple Player Cards, Booklets, Oddballs, and Other Assorted Rarities

There are a bunch of them.  I don’t care about any of this stuff though and most of it is out of my price range, terribly boring, or both.  Go somewhere else if you want an unbiased review, or just look at the pre-launch tweets from Topps for some of the many cards you will never own.  This is the only reason to open boxes of this stuff, which I don’t do.  These cards might as well not exist.

Bottom Line

While I may not care for the card design, Triple Threads never fails to deliver new material.  Mets with their first MLB uniform material include R.A. Dickey, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Daniel Murphy, Ruben Tejada, and Lucas Duda.  Tejada and Josh Thole have their first blue jerseys in this product and Dickey has the first Mets pinstripe material since the change to cream/ivory base material in 2010 (and on top of that it’s from the pants he wore during his second consecutive one-hitter this year).  Dwight Gooden has the first Mets sewn-in pinstripes visible from both sides.  And Nieuwenhuis’s black jersey swatches can only be from the jersey he wore on June 3 to honor John Franco.

Players who recently changed teams haven’t been left out either.  Carlos Beltran, fresh off having pieces of a Giants uniform in Museum Collection, has his first Cardinals patch cards in Triple Threads.  While these are all numbered to 3 or 1, there are three different cards for a total of 12 patch cards.  Yeah, that’s still not very many.  More common though are pieces from Jose Reyes’s spring training jersey, which Topps tweeted a picture of back in the spring.  Material available for Reyes in his various cards includes black, black mesh, and orange mesh fabric swatches as well as some patches numbered to 10 and 1.

And then there’s the retired players who are shown on other teams on cards featuring pieces of Mets uniforms…  Rickey Henderson and Eddie Murray have some beautiful big Mets patch cards that show them in other teams’ uniforms.  They’re way out of my price range in any case, but it bugs me to see such great cards marred by showing the player in the wrong uniform.

Still, it’s hard to get too excited about this product.  Triple Threads has a lot of stuff, but none of it really stands out.  It doesn’t have the on-card autographs of Tier One or Five Star, the attainable jumbo relics of Five Star or Museum Collection, or the card design of Bowman, Finest, or Museum Collection.  But I suspect that I might be just a bit biased.  Player selection is this product’s real strength, but even that just makes it a placeholder for many players until something better comes along.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Five Star

Posted by on 15 December 2012 No comments

With great price comes great risk

If you’ve been worried that baseball card products weren’t expensive enough and have been envious of football card collectors with their super-duper-ultra-mega-premium products, Topps has heard your pleas and brought Five Star to baseball for 2012.  With a starting price of $500 per pack (which dropped to around $400 within a couple weeks of release), you were basically paying for a case of cards and only getting the case hits.  The stakes have never been this high, which means that an unprecedented level of disappointment was soon to follow.

So what does $500 get you these days?  Not a whole lot as it turns out.  Here’s the pack breakdown:

1 Active Player Autograph
1 Retired Player Autograph
1 Autographed Booklet or some other autograph
1 Autographed Relic
1 Relic

And, as a last-minute reveal, packs will also include a base card numbered to 80 or 10!  Yes, after they ditched the base cards in Tier 1, they added them in at the last minute for Five Star.  I have no idea what they’re doing over there, but I guess it’s a bonus.

Sounds good, right?  I mean, as long as you don’t pull a bunch of cards that sell in the $10-20 range, but how likely is that?  Almost certain as it turns out, but there’s still a real chance of pulling at least one card that will sell for $100.  So really, you might be able to get $200 out of a pack, which isn’t that bad.  Unless you paid $500 for it.  Oops.  But the big hits!  8 player autographs!  Booklets!  All autographs are on-card and all relics are game-used (just like everything was in 2001…)!  Imagine yourself selling a card for $1500!  Which probably won’t happen until you’ve gone through at least four packs, or possibly four cases…  But at least you have some nice stuff left over after selling off the hits.  Oh, right, there’s nothing else there, just the seconds of enjoyment from opening packs.  Five Star sells you on the concept and the experience, which may be all you walk away with after putting your money down.

I bailed out of the high-dollar pack market way back in the beginning with SP Game Bat and Pacific Private Stock in 2001.  $20 per pack was pushing it back then and it didn’t take more than a couple of worthless packs to sour me on the whole concept.  Buying singles on the secondary market was always a better deal and that remains true to this day.  I haven’t touched packs of any of this year’s other high-end products and I’m not taking any chances with Five Star.  But there are some nice must-have cards in this product that will cost you a lot less than $500 to pick up.  The cards are all 4mm thick, which is annoying because common toploader sizes go from 3.5mm to 5mm with nothing in between.  And they all have a massive problem with chipping and corner wear.

Base Cards

Base: Numbered to 80
Rainbow: Numbered to 10

Mets: Johan Santana, Tom Seaver, David Wright

Added at the last minute, these are super-thick cards that look a lot like the base autographs.  David Wright is here as always, joined by Tom Seaver and Johan Santana.  If you were hoping for a deep field of Mets, you might as well stop reading now because Dave Kingman and R.A. Dickey are the only other Mets in the entire product (and people are complaining about there being too many lesser players in Five Star…).  As with everything else in Five Star, these are heavily color-coded: red for retired players and blue for active players, with the stone pattern from the cardbacks (rotated 180 degrees) as a border.  There’s a lot of design here and one big player picture, which looks to me like it’s trying too hard to look premium.  I’ve seen nicer designs on early ’90s products and those didn’t sell for $500 per pack.

Jumbo Jersey Relics

Silver: Numbered to 92
Gold: Numbered to 25
Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: Johan Santana, David Wright

Jumbo relics are great in normal products, but they’re largely just junk in this one.  Santana and Wright both have white and gray swatches here, so there’s nothing to get excited about.  They’re cheap at least.  The 1/1s have a piece of patch, but the premium price that they’ll fetch (probably around 1/4 of the price of a pack) isn’t really worth it to buyers or sellers.

Five Star Autographs

Silver: Numbering Varies
Rainbow: Numbered to 25

Mets: Dave Kingman, Tom Seaver, David Wright

While these cards look a lot like the base cards, the designs are completely different, though mostly the same.  The border switches from the light stone in the base cards to a very dark wood grain here, which makes the chipping more visible.

Five Star Quotable Autographs

Numbered to 10

Mets: Tom Seaver, David Wright

How can you not like a David Wright autograph with a “Let’s Go Mets!” inscription?  These are way out of my price range unfortunately, but the hobby could use more of this kind of variety in autograph cards.

Five Star Silver Ink Autographs

Silver Ink: Numbered to 99
Gold Ink Gold Border: Numbered to 10 or less
Gold Ink Purple Border: Numbered to 10 or less
Gold Ink Red Border: Numbered to 10 or less

Mets: R.A. Dickey, Dave Kingman, David Wright

Notable here are the first on-card autographs from R.A. Dickey.  The gold ink parallels are the big hits (well, bigger, it’s hard to call a $50-100 card a “big hit” in a $500 pack), but even the silver ink base versions look great.  These are the real must-have autographs in Five Star, skip the rest if you’re just looking for one or two nice cards.  Shame about the chipping.

Five Star Booklet Triple Relic Autograph

Silver: #d/99 or less (49 for Wright)
Gold: Numbered to 10
Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright

Oh boy, three small white pieces of fabric (some dirty) and an autograph on the other piece of the booklet when there’s still plenty of room on the relic side.  These just don’t interest me at all.

Multiplayer Cards

Numbered to 5

Mets: Johan Santana (2 and 4 Patch), David Wright (2, 3, 4, and 8 Patch)

The cards that got people drooling over 5 Star were the massive multiplayer cards with patches or autographs from up to 8 different players.  Numbered to only 5 each (10 for some of the autograph cards), the odds of pulling one are slim, but at least you stand a chance at getting your money back if you do.  David Wright and Johan Santana are the only Mets here, with both of the Santanas on cards that also feature Wright, for a total of four different cards.

Other Cool Stuff

Sorry, no Mets here.  5 Star has some nice extremely limited cards, but the Mets didn’t make the cut.

Bottom Line

Anything numbered to more than 10 in this product is junk.  That’s great for singles buyers, not so great for pack breakers.  Of the Mets cards numbered to more than 10, only the Wright, Dickey, and Seaver autographs and the Wright triple relic autograph will sell for more than $30, with most others regularly selling for less than $20.  That means you should be able to get all of the Mets cards numbered to more than 10 plus the base cards numbered to 10 for around $500, if you can find enough sellers willing to take a chance on the product and then sell the contents for fair market value.  That’s 20 cards, 10 of them autographed, for the price of one pack.  You’re guaranteed not to get any big hits this way, but at least you know what you’ll be getting.  That is, a bunch of really thick cards with fancy designs and widespread chipping.  Eh, maybe this isn’t a product to buy into that big.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Museum Collection

Posted by on 18 November 2012 2 comments

Pretty and loaded, but not very deep

If the name Museum Collection sounds familiar, you might be remembering last years amazing framed autograph cards from 2011 Topps Marquee.  This year, Museum Collection is the name of the product, with more framed autos and a few interesting changes.  This time around, multi-player cards and booklets are plentiful, as are 1/1s and Jumbo Lumber bat cards (in addition to the occasional bat card in the regular jumbo relic set).  The cards look better than ever, which may not mean much in a product with only one prior release, but it is still worth noting.  Marquee looked good, Museum Collection looks great.

Base Set

Wait, there’s a base set?  Oh, right, here’s something an eBay seller threw in as a freebie with one of the Primary Pieces Four Player Relics:

Nice try, but wrong team.  Oh well.  I’m sure if I take long enough to get this review out I’ll get a hold of a proper Met to use here.

Procrastination has its rewards

Even though these are base cards, they are still as thick as everything else in this product.  Player selection is limited though; only David Wright and Nolan Ryan made the cut.  Tom Seaver would have made more sense, but he only shows up in the Canvas Collection art card set (which are his only individual cards in this entire product, all others are with three other players).

All base cards have a version with no serial number and four serial numbered variants with print runs of 299, 199, 99, and 1, while Canvas Collection cards also have parallel versions numbered to 10.  Not bad for what is essentially filler in this product.

Game-Used and Autographs

This is what people are really after in Museum Collection.  Last year, 2011 Topps Marquee set the bar pretty high, getting my award for 2011 Mets Game-Used Product of the Year.  So is 2012 Topps Museum Collection up to the challenge?  Yes and no.

Yes, the variety of Mets cards is much improved from last year’s product, which lacked any Mets triple relic cards and had several other Metsless variant sets.  Museum Collection has a Met in every major insert category except, sadly, Framed Autographs (Archival Autographs Dual and Cut Autographs are also without Mets, but those are fairly minor in comparison).  This year’s product features Mets with autographs, large jerseys and bats (both alone and in two-player booklets), autographed single, double, triple, and quad memorabilia cards, and quad relics (featuring one or four players).  And that’s just for David Wright.

No, the player selection is extremely limited, with David Wright representing the Mets in every game-used set and single Archival Autographs, Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden (plus Tom Seaver on the quad player relics and Nolan Ryan on his Archival Autographs cards) representing retired Mets, and Dillon Gee representing the young players.  Jose Reyes is also featured as a Met on a lot of cards, while Ike Davis makes his 2012 game-used debut on a dual Jumbo Lumber relic booklet card with Wright.  Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran, and Heath Bell round out the roster with former Mets shown in other uniforms (plus a Warren Spahn Cut Autograph 1/1).  It’s not a terrible list, but it is a bit light on players who are actually, you know, on the team.  This is likely a consequence of moving it from a fall release to a spring release, but that really only explains Reyes.  Is there nobody else on the Mets worth including?  For comparison, there are 14 Yankees in the Momentous Material Jumbo Relic set alone; even the Pirates have four in that set compared to three for the Mets and eight total players shown as Mets in all of Museum Collection.

Overall, it’s not a bad mix.  Between all of the different insert sets and parallels, it adds up to over 100 autographed and/or game-used cards of current or former Mets players.  David Wright accounts for all or part of 28 of those and Jose Reyes adds 14 more.  Once you remove the cards of players not shown as Mets, that leaves you with just 26 other Mets cards to split between Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Gooden, and Gee.  The field thins out very fast in this product.

On the positive side, the few players we do get bring a lot of new material.  Reyes, superfluous as he may be at this point, has his first blue jerseys in Museum Collection.  I’m hoping for some large orange jerseys in next year’s product; blue and orange (even if it is from the Marlins) would look great side-by-side.  Reyes’s quad jerseys also include swatches with orange or blue piping, another first (piping has become more common in recent years after apparently being stripped off prior to cutting in the early days of game-used).  Dillon Gee also has his first blue jersey cards, with patch and piping variants, and David Wright got in on the piping party with a few variants of his quad jersey cards.  Carter’s pinstripe jerseys are the first I’ve seen of the narrow variant of the printed zigzag stripe, calling into question everything I thought I knew about that stripe’s history, and Gooden has some great-looking dual pinstripe jersey cards.  Finally, Carlos Beltran’s large jerseys were all a very off-white, indicating that they are from his Giants uniform.  I would have preferred the orange swatches that some other Giants players got, but this is still good enough to call it a confirmed Giants colored jersey, the first in my collection.

Here’s the full list of Mets-related items you can pull from boxes of 2012 Topps Museum Collection (each box contains one autograph, one autographed relic, one jumbo relic, and one quad relic):

Archival Autographs

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

These are the base autographs in this product but are all limited-production on-card autographs of star players.

Archival Autographs Dual

Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays (with Hank Aaron)

Talk about a holy grail.  This may be one of the best dual autographs since the Mickey Mantle / Ken Griffey Jr. card back in the ’90s.  Expect to pay just shy of $1,000 if you want to pick one up.

Framed Autographs

Gold: Numbered to 15
Silver: Numbered to 10
Black: Numbered to 5

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

This year’s Framed Autographs get a three-tier parallel that brings their total production run even with the lesser Archival Autographs.  I’ll assume that these look just as good as last year’s, but you really need to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Cut Autographs

Numbered to 1

Non-Mets: Warren Spahn

Cut signature, 1/1, Hall of Famer not known for his time with the Mets.

Momentous Material Jumbo Relics

Silver: Numbered to 50
Gold: Numbered to 35
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 10
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Duke Snider

I have to say, I really like the changes they made from last year’s Titanic Threads.  While the size of the material is down a bit, the big square piece has much better presence and allows for a big player photo next to it.  Pinstripe and colored swatches look great, too bad Wright is stuck with an old gray piece.  We don’t get enough large jerseys these days, so get these while you can.

Momentous Material Jumbo Patch Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Only Wright and Reyes get the patch treatment, but they are some really outstanding patches.  At 5 apiece, don’t expect to have an easy time finding them.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright (with Evan Longoria), Jose Reyes (with Jimmy Rollins)
Non-Mets: Duke Snider (with Matt Kemp)

I don’t mind the inclusion of Longoria because a. prior to his injury, he was one of the best players in the game and b. he plays in a completely different division.  The Reyes-Rollins booklet on the other hand features the shortstops of two NL East division rivals.  And Ruben Tejada isn’t given a single game-used card anywhere.  Otherwise, I love the idea of booklet cards as long as they don’t go nuts with it like Panini did with their infinie booklet cards.  Two is plenty.

Momentous Material Jumbo Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

These have to be some of the most beautiful cards in this product.  Not only is there an autograph and a nice big piece of patch (or, in some unfortunate cases, tag), but most patches are of the premium variety – round sleeve logos or, for Carter, the 25th Anniversary patch.

Momentous Material Jumbo Lumber Relics

Silver: Numbered to 30
Gold: Numbered to 20
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 5
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield

These are just like the regular Momentous Materials Jumbo Relics, only with a round piece of bat instead of a square piece of jersey or bat.  Large bat cards are even harder to find than large jersey cards, so these are a real treat.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Lumber Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Ike Davis, David Wright (with Alex Rodriguez)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (with Harmon Killebrew)

If one is good, two must be better, right?  Wright is once more paired with a third baseman from the AL East (not a bad choice), but the real draw here is the Ike/Wright booklet – this is Ike Davis’s first game-used card in 2012 after a breakout 2011 with lots of jerseys and bats in Topps Marquee and Topps Triple Threads.  Injury and regression hit Davis hard on the field and in the hobby.  It’s still a great card though.

Signature Swatches Dual Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

With these, you get an autograph (sticker of course) and either two swatches of jersey or bat or a jersey swatch and a piece of patch/piping/multicolor jersey.  The variants numbered to 5 include two pieces of patch (if applicable).  David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Signature Swatches Triple Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

Same as the duals only with three swatches and an autograph.  As in the dual version, David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Sadly, this year’s quad relic cards are not an improvement over last year’s.  While having the jersey swatches split to the four corners of the card looks a bit better, there is very little variation between the silver, red, and gold versions.  Every card has three jersey swatches (blue for Reyes, gray or white for Wright) and one swatch with a piece of patch or piping.  As usual, the variants numbered to 5 are all patch swatches.  With a four-tier parallel and four swatches to work with, you would think there could be a bit more variety (some of last year’s went nuts with variations, including what appeared to be a piece of Phillies patch for Beltran, which makes no sense whatsoever).

Primary Pieces Quad Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

The quad relic cards left no room for autographs, so the autographed version is in booklet form.  These are hard to find and highly sought after, but that goes for most of the cards numbered to 10 or less.

Primary Pieces Four-Player Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Jose Reyes (with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez), Jose Reyes (with Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, and Elvis Andrus), Tom Seaver (with Nolan Ryan, Roy Halladay, and C.C. Sabathia)
Non-Mets: Heath Bell (with Brian Wilson, Craig Kimbrel, and Mariano Rivera), Nolan Ryan (listed above)

The four-player version of the Primary Pieces insert set includes some interesting player combinations.  Wright and Reyes appear together with their Yankees counterparts, Seaver makes his only game-used appearance with Nolan Ryan (Seaver’s material is from a Reds jersey while Ryan is shown as an Astros uniform), and Reyes appears again with his future (and now former) teammate Hanley Ramirez.  Heath Bell also has his only game-used cards in this insert set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics Legends

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

The final Primary Pieces insert set featured some of the game’s all-time greats on a slightly different card design.  Carter’s cards contained pieces from a pinstripe jersey (though many pieces did not have stripes) and Mays had a couple of quad bat cards.

And there you have it, the defending Mets Game-Used Product of the Year champion.  Once again, this is clearly the bastard child of 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade and 2005 SP Legendary Cuts raised by Topps.  With a few more players, this could have been something truly special, instead it’s just pretty damn good.  As with most premium releases, value for the money is a bit of a crap shoot, with some cards selling for less than $10 and others selling for $1000 or more.  I’ll stick with singles on the secondary market over boxes/packs.  Compared to the premium products that followed it in 2012, Museum Collection looks pretty strong.  The variety of players and material is much better than the offerings in Tier One and Five Star and Triple Threads, despite having a better player selection, can’t compete with the quality and availability of the game-used in Museum Collection.  All have their strong points, but I think Museum Collection comes out on top.

Product Spotlight: Topps Tier 1, Tier One, Tier 1 One, Tier Whatever

Posted by on 2 October 2012 No comments

Finally, a product that is honest with itself

Look, I don’t buy boxes of premium products.  If I’m going to drop hundreds of dollars on cards, I either want a good number of cards (preferably enough to build a set) or just the premium inserts that I want.  I’m not in this for the gambling, so missing out on a slim chance at a big score is worth it if I can get the cards I want at a reasonable price.  In the case of 2012 Topps Tier One, I spent less than the price of four boxes and got cards that are better than could be expected from four boxes, which is a win in my book.

Base Card

So beautiful

Got ya, there are no base cards!  If there’s one thing that I hate in sports card products, it’s filler.  No, not those blank cards that are used to thicken packs to make it harder to find high-dollar cards by feel.  It’s the base cards in those one-big-ass-hit-per-pack products that seem the most pointless.  I mean, how do you collect base cards when the packs cost $100+ each?  Mix in a few levels of parallels and some inserts to thin things out and you have, at best, some singles you can get a few dollars for because the people who want them aren’t going to drop a few thousand dollars to pull one.  That’s why it was refreshing to see Topps basically say “Look, this is a pure gamble, there’s no collecting to be done here, just a big win or a big loss,” with 2012 Topps Tier One.  Each box contains one pack that in turn contains just three cards, two with autographs and one without (plus a bonus relic in every fourth box).  Based on the Twitter buzz about this product, you would assume that there was a 1/1 bat knob in each pack, but that of course was not to be.  There was still a lot to like about this product, when purchased on the secondary market of course (good advice for any premium product).

Top Shelf Relics / Autographed Relics

If one is boring, three is, um, also boring

Single Relic: Numbered to 399 or 150
Double Relic: Numbered to 50 or less
Triple Relic: Numbered to 25 or less
Autographed Single Relic: Numbered to 99
Autographed Double Relic: Numbered to 25
Autographed Triple Relic: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright (Autographed Relics have not been seen)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (Relics only), Gary Sheffield (Autographed Relics only)

These are the filler relic cards, with even Wright’s triple relic commanding less than $10.  If you pulled one of these as your non-autographed card, well, my condolences.  And stay away from the slot machines.  Like last year’s cards, these are largely forgettable and don’t really get any better with more material.  The usual boring gray jersey swatches don’t help much either.  How long has it been since we’ve seen a pinstripe jersey card from Wright?  Autographed versions may exist for some players, but the checklist doesn’t match up with what has been seen.

Prestigious Patches Relics / Autographed Relics

The thin blue line makes a crappy patch

Relic: Numbered to 10
Autographed Relic: Numbered to 10

Mets: Dwight Gooden, Rickey Henderson (Autographed Relic only), Eddie Murray (Autographed Relic only), David Wright (Autographed Relic only)
Non-Mets: Willie Mays (Relic only), Nolan Ryan (Relic only), Tom Seaver (Relic only), Warren Spahn (Relic only)

A better relic pull would be one of these jumbo relics.  Most of these are patches, but Wright has large pieces of gray jersey with blue piping instead (Topps and I clearly have different definitions of ‘patch’).  Gooden and Murray have nice big Mets patches, which at least explains why Murray is shown as a Met here.  In general, I’m really getting tired of seeing Murray, Henderson, and Ryan shown as Mets, but I’ll allow it if the purpose is to match the material in the card.

Bat Knobs

Numbered to 1

Mets: Gary Carter, Jose Reyes, Tom Seaver
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Duke Snider, Darryl Strawberry

And here’s the real relic draw.  With going rates around $800 for most players, a bat knob pull would make up for a few boxes of garbage.  It is also extremely unlikely (odds are 1 in 204 packs).  Pulls of a lifetime tend to be somewhat rare.  But they sure look nice.

Crowd Pleasers Autographs

Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Ike Davis, Ed Kranepool, David Wright
Non-Mets: George Foster

On the autograph side of things, you have several mostly identical insert sets.  Crowd Pleasers are landscape-oriented cards featuring on-card autographs in either blue ink on a white background or White/Silver/Gold ink on a black background.  These are some sharp-looking cards and have ink colors that you don’t really see much anymore now that Sweet Spot is gone.  The player selection is fairly standard but better than most products, with David Wright and Ike Davis representing the current Mets and Ed Kranepool representing retired Mets.  It’s always nice to see more Kranepool, but some more variety would have been welcome.  Luckily, there are plenty more autograph insert sets to work with.

On the Rise Autographs

Blue: Numbering Varies
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Jon Niese
Non-Mets: None

These are essentially the same as Crowd Pleasers, only with portrait orientation.  Jon Niese is the lone Mets representative here.

Top Tier Autographs

Blue: Numbered to 50
White: Numbered to 25
Silver: Numbered to 10
Gold: Numbered to 1

Mets: Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Same as above, more or less.  Of course they throw in Nolan Ryan here as a Met…

Everything Else

Top Shelf Relics Legends

Single Relic: Numbered to 50
Double Relic: Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Clear Rookie Reprint Autographs

Numbered to 25

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

Mays never stops signing autographs apparently.

Double Autographs, Triple Autographs, Cut Signatures, Elevated Ink

Nothing worth noting.

Verdict

There’s some nice stuff here, but it feels awfully redundant sandwiched between Museum Collection and Triple Threads.  It was refreshing for Topps to drop the pretense that anyone is buying these for anything other than the big hits, but what does that say about this product’s identity?  For Mets fans, this product is all about the autographs, but even that is only a draw because of how little variety there’s been in other products.  Outside of Archives, there’s been little to choose from in on-card autographs beyond Wright and Ryan, and even Tier 1 only adds Kranepool, Niese, and Davis (plus some very nice parallel ink colors).  Beef up the autograph offerings in the other products and Tier 1 becomes completely unnecessary.  Next year, Topps should drop the non-base cards from this product and come up with some new ideas.  How about autographs on manufactured material, has anybody done that yet?

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Archives

Posted by on 18 June 2012 No comments

Today’s stars, old favorites, and classic card styles team up to save the hobby

You know you have a hit on your hands when people start proclaiming it to be the best of the year in May.  Well, either a hit or a colossal flop you’re trying to cover up with marketing hype.  And really, any time you’re digging up old material and presenting it to a new audience with a modern look, failure is a distinct possibility.  The hype was for real this time though – The Avengers really was that good.

A few weeks later, with The Avengers still packing theaters, Topps released the long-awaited 2012 Archives.  Long waits for new material are nothing new to this product; Archives debuted in the early ’80s as a reprint of the 1952 Topps set, then took the rest of the decade off before returning in the early ’90s with the 1953 and 1954 sets.  A less focused product was released in 1995, wrapping things up for that decade.  The Archives brand was reborn in the vintage boom of 2001 with reprints covering the full history of Topps and for the first time included autographed cards, mainly from lesser-known stars (my big pull – Dom DiMaggio).  This run lasted for five years under a variety of names including Archives Fan Favorites and All-Time Fan Favorites.  Topps made a half-hearted attempt to revive the concept with last year’s Topps Lineage, but it was not well-received.  (I was going to do a full review of the history of this product, but I’m running a bit behind on things at the moment; I’m writing this with reviews of 2012 Museum Collection and 2012 Bowman written and waiting for scans…).

Card Designs

The 2012 incarnation of Archives focuses on four classic Topps sets: 1954, 1971, 1980, and 1984.  All designs are faithfully reproduced on high-quality matte finish thin white card stock.  I put a lot of weight on the look and feel of cards and these are just perfect, finding a pleasing balance between the low quality stock of the originals and the thick and glossy stock used in previous Archives sets.  The matte finish gives these cards a vintage feel, while using the same quality on the cardbacks makes them look more sleek and modern (some earlier Archives sets used rough backs opposite glossy fronts, which has the opposite effect).  The higher quality photographs really make the retired players stand out – their cards have never looked this good.  The design team for this set deserves some kind of award.

Player Selection

Unlike the 2001-2005 Archives run, the 2012 set consists of both retired players in the old designs (with new photographs) and current stars and rookies.  It makes for a thin player list in a 200 card set, but hopefully the success with this year’s product will lead to a more substantial set next year.  For once this year, the Mets were well-represented with eight cards in the base set plus four SPs, three reprints, a sticker, seven autographs, and one jersey card.

SPs

In addition to the 200 base cards, 40 short prints were inserted at a rate of one per four packs, plus a #241 Bryce Harper as a very limited late addition.  These were not limited to the four styles used in the base set.  The Mets were well-represented here with four of the 40 SPs.

Gold Parallel

All 200 base cards were featured in a gold foil parallel set that somehow manages to look better in scans than in person.  This was a great way to get a more modern-style insert into this product, though parallels of the SPs would have been nice as well.

Reprints

These are more like the Archives cards of old, complete with gold foil logo.  Three Mets made the cut here.

Retro Inserts

Topps mined its history of odd and quirky inserts to round out this product, and I can only hope they do this again next year.  Unfortunately, a Tom Seaver sticker is the only Mets representative in these four insert sets.  A David Wright 1977 cloth sticker is the obvious omission here, that would have looked spectacular.

1956 Relics

This game-used set is a great example of retro-modern fusion done right.  The 1956 design is sufficiently different from most of the rest of this product to make it interesting and the layout leaves plenty of space to fit a piece of jersey or bat.  David Wright finally got into the inserts here with a jersey card (blue and gray variants).

Fan Favorites Autographs

The big draw of Archives since 2001 has been its autograph set, featuring on-card autographs from some of the biggest names in the history of the sport and many lesser stars and fan favorites.  This year’s Fan Favorites Autographs set featured seven players shown as Mets and eleven more former Mets shown in other uniforms.  Noteworthy among the 18 are Jose Oquendo with nine variations, one for each position he played in a single game, Willie Mays with the only redemption of the bunch (and the hardest to obtain), and Gary Carter with the first-ever sticker autograph in Archives.  Carter has been a fixture in Archives autographs since they debuted in 2001, so it was nice to see him back one last time on a card numbered simply GC.

1983 Mini Autographs / Autographed Originals

There were two other autograph cards from former Mets in Archives – Nolan Ryan in the 1983 Mini Autographs (#d/50) and Willie Mays in the Autographed Originals (#d/5).  Sadly, these were out of my price range and will not be shown.

Six box breakdown

I bought in big with Archives – six hobby boxes.  The results were decent enough.

3 200-card base sets
188/200 card base set
~200 extra base cards
12 Gold parallel cards
27/40 SPs + 9 extras
32/50 Reprints + 4 extras
17/25 1977 Cloth stickers + 7 extras
16/25 1967 Stickers + 2 extras
9/15 1969 Deckle edge + 3 extras
12/15 1968 3D + 6 extras
13 Fan Favorite Autographs
2 1956 Relics

Big hits:
Bryce Harper Fan Favorites Autograph redemption card

It should be noted here that, after fees, the Harper auto redemption card brought in enough to cover the cost of three boxes of cards.  Everything else that I sold (11 autos, 2 relics, 1 base set) added up to the price of one box.  That left me in for only the cost of two boxes, with an Olerud auto, a couple of base sets, a good start at the insert sets, and a bunch of extras, all of which could probably have been purchased for around $100.  In pure dollars, that’s a net loss of more that $50 even with an improbably good pull (easily top 5 of my life).  While the big pulls in this product were good for $100+, the basic autos and relics were practically worthless; none of the 11 autos I sold topped $10 and the relics were lucky to sell for more than $1.  This does not of course take into account the fun of opening packs (which was pretty much gone after four boxes), but that’s really the only reason to open boxes vs. buying singles/sets on he secondary market; there should never be a financial motive for the typical hobbyist.

Suggestions for next year

I realize that it’s a longshot to think that anyone at Topps is reading this (or that anyone at all has made it this far down), but any discussion of 2012 Archives will inevitably veer into speculation about next year’s product (and I think the success of this year’s Archives will guarantee that it comes back in 2013).  While Topps got a lot right this year, there’s always room for improvement.

Base Set Card Designs

1955, 1962, 1969, 1986
The Mets will host the All-Star Game in 2013, so why not give them a nod in the base set card designs?  Don’t mess with the card stock or glossiness (or lack thereof), this year’s set got it just right.

Autographs

John Olerud 1999
Lee Mazzilli 1982
Tim Teufel 1987
Edgardo Alfonzo 2001
Rusty Staub 1974
John Franco 1991
Al Leiter 2002
Mike Piazza 2005
Todd Hundley 1996
Al Jackson 1963

Inserts

More or less the same as this year, a few more Mets would be nice…

Gum

Um, no.

Seriously, Gum?

NO!