Tag Archives: Ron Darling

The Essentials: 2014 Mets Autographs

Posted by on 2 February 2015 1 comment

The Prospect Boom Goes Bust

With all of the cards released across dozens of products in 2014, it can be hard to figure out what is worth collecting and what might as well be forgotten. What makes something essential? It’s a mix of collectibility, notability, and attainability. Popular brands/inserts and player debuts will dominate here, not big money low-numbered parallels or big stars. Just about everything mentioned here should still be fairly easy to find on the secondary market at reasonable prices.

2014 continued the Mets prospect autograph explosion that started in late 2013, but that fizzled out late in the year. While that meant lots of autographs for many top Mets prospects who had previously been overlooked, it was bad news for the Mets’ 2014 draft class, which is still waiting for its first autograph card from Topps.

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Inside the 2014 Queens Baseball Convention

Posted by on 21 January 2014 Comments Off on Inside the 2014 Queens Baseball Convention

No Mets fan fest? No problem.

It’s the time of year when the last pitch of the World Series and the first pitch of spring training both seem like an eternity away. That’s why many teams use this time to connect with their fans. When they aren’t signing washed up players to minor league deals that is. If you’re a Mets fan though, there is no mid-winter celebration to fill this void. Or at least there wasn’t until the fans took matters into their own hands and put together the first Queens Baseball Convention on January 18.

For me, the journey started in Massachusetts. And then went up into New Hampshire because I needed to get gas. From there, I crossed Massachusetts and Connecticut before stopping in New York to prepare for the event the next day. It may not sound like an epic journey, but it sure looked like one from the train along the Hudson on Saturday morning. Ice and snow gave way to cold rain as Citi Field drew near.

The home run apple was not welcoming fans to a game on this dreary day. The gates to the Jackie Robinson Rotunda were closed and locked. What few fans approached the stadium made the long walk around to the back where McFadden’s Citi Field and the Queens Baseball Convention welcomed them in from the cold.

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Player Spotlight: Ron Darling

Posted by on 13 January 2014 Comments Off on Player Spotlight: Ron Darling

From the mound at Shea to the booth at Citi

Ron Darling should be familiar to Mets fans either from his days as a pitcher or his days as part of the best broadcast team in baseball.  Either way, Darling is a key part of the Mets family.  Interestingly though, he hasn’t had a very large presence in cardboard since his playing days; the bulk of his cards are base cards from 1984 to 1995.

Game-Used Memorabilia

When game-used memorabilia cards became commonplace in 2001, Ron Darling was one of the featured subjects.  In one of the last (and best) products of the year: 2001 Upper Deck Legends of New York.  Darling had pieces of a pinstripe Mets jersey included in the Legendary Mets Jerseys set.  For some reason, this set also had a parallel set that was identical to the base set except for the addition of a serial number.  Hey, it was 2001, they were still figuring these things out.

The rest of Darling’s memorabilia cards were released by Topps from 2002 to 2004 and included swatches of gray fabric.  There’s not really much else to say about these.

Autographs

Darling’s first certified autograph card was released in 2003’s product formerly known as Topps Archives.  Archives Fan Favorites?  All-Time Fan Favorites?  The cards couldn’t even agree on what product they were from, so I sure can’t figure it out.  As for what’s going on with that signature, you’ll have to ask him about that (which you will have the chance to do at the 2014 Queens Baseball Convention, 1pm on January 18 at McFadden’s Citi Field, tickets still available).

Topps gave Darling’s pitching arm a workout again in 2004, this time signing four of his old Topps cards to be encased and inserted into 2004 Topps Originals, one of the great buyback autograph products in the biggest year of buybacks.  The four chosen cards include Darling’s 1985 Topps, 1986 Topps, 1987 Topps, and 1993 Topps cards.  1993 Topps?  That’s a bit of an odd choice, must have been what Topps was able to get a hold of in quantities of at least a dozen.  This is Darling’s only certified autograph card that shows him with a team other than the Mets.

2005 was the end of an era in baseball cards and Darling was back with autographs in Topps Retired (encased chrome and refractor autos) and Topps Pristine (his first sticker autos).  Interestingly, despite having cards in Topps Archives (or whatever they were calling it that year), Darling was not part of the record 18 Mets in that year’s Fan Favorites Autograph set.

Mets fans would have to wait until 2009 for another Darling autograph.  The Ring of Honor insert set in the base Topps products brought together autographs from several players from the 1986 team.  Looks like his pen control was hurt by the time off (though who knows when those stickers were really signed…).

The dark years came to an end with the arrival of 2012.  Topps Archives was reborn under its proper name, though without Darling in its first year.  Leaf (under new management) brought back buybacks in 2012 and Darling was one of the many Mets to be featured.  Darling made his triumphant return to Archives in 2013 and also lent his pen to 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes.  In all three cases, his signature had reached perfection, a far cry from the abstract scribble from a decade earlier.  Ron Darling’s iconic signature had finally taken shape.

Best Mets Cards of 2013

Posted by on 6 January 2014 Comments Off on Best Mets Cards of 2013

Pitching dominates this year’s awards

It’s 2014, which means I’m running a bit behind on my 2013 wrap-up articles. The last few posts have covered most of the interesting cards from the last year, so now it’s time to narrow things down to just the best of the best so you don’t have to dig through 5,000 words for just the few things you’re interested in. Only 1,800 words…

Best Manufactured Material

2013 Topps Series 2 Tom Seaver Proven Mettle Coin

Not much has improved in this category since last year, so this award goes to a Seaver coin again. At least there was more player diversity this year and it wasn’t just all Seaver all the time.

Worst Manufactured Material

2013 Topps Pro Debut Travis d’Arnaud Hat Logo Patch

So many things are going on here, all of them wrong. Wrong team, wrong logo, wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t know what Topps was going for with this one, but it sure wasn’t anything that made sense.

Best Parallel Insert Set

2013 Topps Archives Orange Parallel

Last year, I went with the Archives gold parallel here. This year, Topps changed the formula and the gold parallel just didn’t look that good. The orange parallel on the other hand was something unique among the multitudes of parallels released in 2013. Available only one per pack in 25 cent Archives packs at participating hobby shops, these cards fluoresce in UV light. Unfortunately, I didn’t pull a single Met out of more than 100 packs and had to go to eBay for these…

Best Base Insert

2013 Bowman Inception Jose Reyes Sapphire Reprint

With parallels, autographs, game-used, and manufactured material accounting for most of the inserts out there, it can be hard to find contenders for this category. I found three: the Jose Reyes sapphire rookie reprint from Bowman Inception, the Tom Seaver Cut to the Chase die-cut chrome insert from Topps Series 2, and the Matt Harvey Prodigies die-cut refractor from Topps Finest. I’ll give Reyes the edge here, though it should be noted that a David Wright version could be found in Bowman Sterling (the Reyes looks better).

Best Rookie Card

2013 Panini Prizm Scott Rice

Five Mets had Rookie Cards in 2013: Jeurys Familia, Collin McHugh, Zack Wheeler, Scott Rice, and Juan Lagares. All of them had at least a Rookie Card (and all of the standard parallels) in base Topps except for Scott Rice. After 14 years in professional baseball, Rice made his MLB debut with the Mets in 2013 and received Rookie Cards in just 2013 Panini Prizm.

Best Sticker Autograph

2013 Topps Opening Day Mr. Met Mascot Autograph

An autograph from the best sports mascot ever? Nothing else even comes close.

Best On-Card Autograph

2011 Bowman Platinum Matt Harvey

How does a card from 2011 Bowman Platinum qualify for the 2013 awards? Well, when it takes two full years for the cards to just be signed, you can’t really call these 2011 autograph cards. Harvey autographs were some of the hottest cards released this year and none were dated 2013. It’s been a strange year.

If you insist on having autographs from the actual 2013 product year in this category, here are a few worth noting.  Shown here are the first Mets autographs from Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard, the last Mets autograph from R.A. Dickey, and an autograph on a thick slab of clear plastic.

Worst Autograph

2013 Topps Series 2 Collin Cowgill Chasing History Autograph

Sticker autograph, photoshopped black jersey, player who was traded shortly after the card was released. And then Topps made a second attempt in Topps Update that at least fixed the jersey issue. This card has no reason to exist.

Best Uniform Memorabilia Card

2013 Topps Tier One Matt Harvey
2013 Topps Triple Threads Jeurys Familia
2013 Topps Five Star David Wright Jumbo Jersey (blue jersey variant)

Technically, this should probably go to the 2013 Topps Triple Threads Harvey/Wright/Wheeler triple jersey card, but that was out of my price range. Instead, have a bunch of blue jerseys. Except for the Wright, which I haven’t been able to get yet…

Best Patch Card

2012 Panini National Treasures Matt Harvey

Depending on the variant, this one could qualify for best jersey or patch. Either way, this is one of those cards that was a must-have regardless of the price before Harvey’s card prices went through the roof. Because now you sure can’t afford it.

Best Bat Card

2013 Topps Triple Threads R.A. Dickey

Bat cards just aren’t very common anymore. This year, the only Mets bat card worthy of this award isn’t a Mets bat card at all. R.A. Dickey’s first bat cards came after all of his cards had been changed over to the Blue Jays, but I’ll let that slide.

Worst Memorabilia Card

2013 Topps Triple Threads Kirk Nieuwenhuis

Poor Kirk Nieuwenhuis. After being all over 2012’s autograph and memorabilia cards, he found himself with very little MLB playing time in 2013 and far too many cards. He got September off after the AAA season ended and then had loads of memorabilia cards in Triple Threads. After already having triple jersey autograph cards in last year’s Triple Threads. As if the unnecessary Future Phenoms card weren’t enough, Nieuwenhuis had three single jersey autograph cards. The green jersey cards I can see, but everything else is just filler. I suppose it isn’t really fair to single out Kirk when so much of Triple Threads was unnecessary filler, but the award has to go to someone.

Best Hobby Shop Promotion

Panini Black Friday

Every year, card companies try to find ways to get people to visit their local hobby shops. 2013 was filled with various promotions, from the Topps Series 1 Spring Fever redemption packs to Panini’s Boxing Day packs. Topps Archives had the most with vintage card redemptions, 25 cent packs, and ’80s card redemption packs with Topps Series 2 base, blue sparkle, and silver slate parallels. The best of the bunch, as usual, was Panini’s Black Friday promotion that combines discounts on Panini products with bonus packs containing cards featuring some of the hottest players in four sports with parallels, autographs, and unique memorabilia. Matt Harvey was the lone Met featured in this promotion.

Best New Product

2013 Bowman Inception

Coming into 2013, I thought the last thing the hobby needed was another Bowman product. With five Bowman products on the market already, what more was there to cover? Bowman Inception brought premium thick autograph cards and no filler. All on-card autographs, no chipping problems, no base cards, and no chrome. In other words, something different. Travis d’Arnaud and Jeurys Familia are the only two Mets in the base autograph sets, about average for the 62 total cards between the rookie and prospect autographs. As an added bonus, Jose Reyes was also among the sapphire reprints in this product.

Most Improved Product

2013 Bowman Sterling

Elsewhere in the Bowman franchise, Sterling was in sorry shape in 2012. With some of the most boring and uninspired autograph cards on the market and little else going for it, Bowman Sterling was a product without a purpose. For 2013, Sterling kept much of the same structure as the previous year’s product with a few key changes. Autograph orientation switched from landscape to portrait, a minor change that greatly improved the design. Other design changes improved how the base cards scanned to the point that the signatures no longer blended into the background. The biggest change though was with the refractor parallels. 2012 Bowman Sterling had six refractor parallels and none between base refractors (numbered to 199) and gold refractors (numbered to 50). The 2013 edition reduced the numbering on base refractors (now numbered to 150) and added three tiers above gold: green (numbered to 125), ruby (numbered to 99), and orange (numbered to 75). Canary diamond print runs were also increased from 1 to 3 and 1/1 superfractors were added. On top of that, the autograph checklist was increased from 88 to 106 with the Mets representation including the first certified autographs from L.J. Mazzilli and the first Mets autographs from Noah Syndergaard. More players and more parallels with a better design made 2013 Bowman Sterling a welcome improvement over last year’s afterthought.

Most Disappointing Product

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes

I’m tempted here to go with 2013 Topps Finest, but at this point I have no expectations for a product with lots of history and no real direction. Panini Hometown Heroes on the other hand was a new product that promised a new take on the formula that brought us Topps Archives and Leaf Memories. What it delivered was a bland design filled with autographs that have been done better by Topps over the last two years. While it did bring a few new or hard-to-find autographs, the design deficiencies made it hard to get excited about any of them.

Autograph Product of the Year

2013 Topps Archives

No surprises here. With 15 former Mets in the Fan Favorites Autographs set, including 8 shown as Mets (and the first autographs from Keith Miller), nothing else comes close. What’s even more impressive is that Topps featured an entirely new group of autographs in the second year of the new incarnation of Archives, for a total of 32 former Mets (15 shown as Mets) over two years of Fan Favorites Autographs. That’s still well under ten percent of the former Mets with certified autograph cards, so there’s plenty of room for next year’s Archives to keep the streak going.

Honorable Mention

2013 Leaf Memories

Leaf is no slouch in the autograph department and Leaf Memories combines 1990-style autographs from their three prospects, Rafael Montero, Domingo Tapia, and Dominic Smith, with buyback autographs from players from the 1980s and early 1990s. Among the buyback autographs are the first from Kevin Elster and Rick Aguilera, plus countless favorites from some of the best Mets teams in recent memory. Well, relatively recent at least. The large number of redemption cards though keeps Leaf Memories from threatening to dethrone Archives.

Game-Used Product of the Year

2013 Topps Museum Collection

Now in its third year (though only its second under the Museum Collection brand), some of the shine is beginning to wear off Topps Museum Collection. It has all of the memorabilia variety we’ve come to expect: jumbo jersey and bat relics, autographed memorabilia cards, quad relics, four-player relics, etc. This year, the highlights were jumbo bat cards from Darryl Strawberry, autographed double and triple memorabilia cards from R.A. Dickey, and jumbo Matt Harvey jersey cards. Jumbo jerseys from Johan Santana and Ike Davis weren’t quite as exciting and the usual assortment from David Wright seemed like a repeat of last year. Still, this year’s cards sold better than last year’s counterparts, which may be why I wasn’t quite as interested in them this year.

Honorable Mention

2012 Panini National Treasures

As usual, nothing could match the quality and player/material diversity of Museum Collection. Panini made a good showing though with 2012 Panini National Treasures. With autographed jersey and patch cards from Dwight Gooden, David Wright, Matt Harvey, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis, plus various booklets featuring Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, and David Wright and plenty of other former Mets like Duke Snider, Richie Ashburn, Keith Hernandez, and Jose Reyes featured in the other memorabilia sets, it should be obvious why National Treasures was a big hit.

The Essentials: 2013 Mets Autographs

Posted by on 31 December 2013 Comments Off on The Essentials: 2013 Mets Autographs

Return of the Prospects

A lot of baseball cards have been released in 2013.  Between Topps (MLB and MLBPA licenses), Panini (MLBPA license), Leaf (no licenses), and Upper Deck (MLBPA license but strict MLB oversight), more than 40 baseball products have been released this year.  So which cards stand out from the rest?  To answer that question, we’ll break down the key Mets cards from 2013 in The Essentials.

2013 was filled with new Mets autographs from the first days of the year all the way to the last.  Add in a few current stars (well, as much as the current team has stars) and loads of former favorites and you’ve got a pretty decent bunch of cards for one year.  Best of all, 2012’s prospect drought didn’t carry over to 2013.  Instead, we were treated to a bountiful prospect crop, so let’s start there.

Prospects

Aside from a few 2011 draft picks in Elite Extra Edition and a couple of 2012 draft picks in Bowman Draft, the prospect autographs in 2012 were limited to, well, Chris Schwinden.  And maybe some Reese Havens, if he and/or SP Signature count.  Things started off much the same in 2013 with the first Panini-branded Elite Extra Edition.

EEE gave us the first autographs from 2012 draft picks Branden Kaupe, Logan Taylor, Matt Koch, and Matt Reynolds (Reynolds was supposed to have his first autographs in 2012 Bowman Sterling, but redemptions were issued instead and the cards were released in 2013 Bowman Chrome).  Gavin Cecchini also made an appearance with Kevin Plawecki showing up as redemptions (that have yet to be fulfilled as of the end of 2013).

Coming into 2013, two dozen Mets prospects had been featured on Bowman Chrome autographs in Bowman, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman Draft, from Bob Keppel in 2001 to Kevin Plawecki in 2012.  2013 Bowman had just Jeurys Familia RC autographs, but Bowman Chrome picked up the slack with Luis Mateo, Matt Reynolds (now signing with just his first initial instead of the full name) and Rafael Montero.  Bowman Draft added 2013 draft picks Dominic Smith and Andrew Church.  Mateo, Reynolds, and Smith had their first autographs in other products (2013 Bowman Platinum, 2012 Panini EEE, and 2013 Panini Perennial Draft Picks, respectively), but Bowman Chrome is king of the prospect autographs.

Not that Panini is going down without a fight.  They may not have a license from MLB Properties, but they’re still making a big push to get a piece of the baseball card market.  Traditionally, Panini wouldn’t put out autographs from draft picks until January’s EEE.  This year, Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks was positioned to challenge the prospect aspects of Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects (hence the overly alliterative name).  Not only did Panini get top pick Dominic Smith, but they also landed autographs from third round pick Ivan Wilson and past picks Jayce Boyd and Cory Vaughn.  Rainy Lara and Amed Rosario were included as redemptions, but there’s no word on when those will be fulfilled (Panini’s got a lot of signing to do…).

Without licenses from either MLB Properties or the MLBPA, Leaf didn’t have much to work with except retired players and prospects.  They did an impressive job with that limitation, getting Dominic Smith and Rafael Montero to sign for them in multiple products alongside their one exclusive signer, Domingo Tapia.  All three had autographs in Leaf Metal, Leaf Memories, and Leaf Trinity, the latter of which featured thick plastic slabs, memorabilia, or inscriptions on all of its cards.  Though limited in its scope, Leaf’s offering in 2013 was quite noteworthy.  Hopefully the MLBPA is paying attention, too bad MLB Properties has hitched itself to Topps for the foreseeable future.

Not that Topps has been all that bad lately.  In addition to the players with Bowman Chrome autos, Topps also managed to get signatures from 2012 7th round pick Corey Oswalt (winner of the “Most random prospect to have an autograph card in 2013” award that doesn’t exist) and 2013 4th round pick L.J. Mazzilli, son of former Met Lee Mazzilli.  On top of that, they also produced the first Mets autographs of top prospects Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard.  That leaves most of the Mets’ top 20 or so prospects with autograph cards of some soft except for Jacob deGrom and Gabriel Ynoa.

Rookie Cards

When it comes to Rookie Card autographs in 2013, the big name was Jeurys Familia.  Seriously, he was in just about everything for the first 8 months of the year, at which point Zack Wheeler took over and finished off the year’s RC auto appearances.  The pair accounted for all of the Mets RC autos released by Topps in 2013.

But not all of the Mets RC autos in 2013.  Panini Pinnacle was perfectly positioned to provide the premier penmanship piece from recently departed Mets pitcher Collin McHugh.  Familia was in there too because, well, just because.

2012 Rookies

Last year’s default rookie signers Jordany Valdespin and Kirk Nieuwenhuis were back again in 2013, though JV1’s first autograph this year will probably also be his last as a Met.  Things aren’t looking too good for Nieuwenhuis, who wasn’t even called up in September.  He still had a bunch of autographs in Gypsy Queen, Tier One, and Triple Threads.

2013 All-Stars

Both of the Mets All-Stars from 2013 had autographs released in 2013, though all of Matt Harvey’s were dated either 2012 (all of his Panini autos) or 2011 (Bowman Platinum redemptions that finally made it out two years late).  Hopefully you got your fill of Harvey autos early because prices spiked in April and haven’t cooled off all that much since then.

New Old Mets

A few new faces we’ve already forgotten also managed to get some autographs out in 2013.  Collin Cowgill and Shaun Marcum were featured in Topps Series 2, then Cowgill came back in Topps Update to commemorate the one thing of significance he did in his very brief Mets career.  Marcum also had a few autographs in Topps Tier One alongside Kirk Nieuwenhuis and (of course) Jeurys Familia.

Dickey

R.A. Dickey continued to have Mets autographs into 2013, including these three on-card beauties.  The Gypsy Queen and Tribute Dickey autos were released as redemption cards and were sent out shortly after the Museum Collection card was released (Museum Collection also included several cards with Dickey sticker autos).

Fan Favorites

This year had another good haul of Mets autographs in Topps Archives.  Gregg Jefferies, Howard Johnson, Jesse Orosco, Kevin McReynolds, Keith Miller, Mookie Wilson, Ron Darling, and Sid Fernandez were all featured in the Fan Favorites Autographs set, though several of these were in card styles that were used in previous Fan Favorites Autographs sets.  This is Keith Miller’s first autograph card because, well, he’s Keith Miller.

Hometown Heroes

Panini’s attempt at an Archives clone didn’t come out all that well but still managed to include autographs from several Mets favorites including Darryl Strawberry, Lee Mazzilli, Lenny Dykstra, Ron Darling, Mookie Wilson, Dave Kingman, and Tom Seaver.  Pat Tabler, not shown as a Met, has his first certified autographs here.

Memories

Leaf’s Archives clone on the other hand is starting to come into its own in its second year.  In addition to the previously mentioned prospects, Leaf Memories was loaded with buyback autographs from retired favorites like Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Sid Fernandez, Kevin Mitchell, Dave Magadan, Kevin Elster (his first certified autographs), and Barry Lyons.  Many others Mets were shown in other uniforms, including Rick Aguilera with his first certified autographs.  Unfortunately, many of the buybacks were issued as redemption cards, some of which couldn’t be entered into the online redemption system and had to be redeemed through Leaf customer service.  As of the end of 2013, only the Elster autos are known to have been fulfilled.

Chasing History

As usual, Topps threw a few sticker autographs from retired Mets in its main base autograph insert, Chasing History.  Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden, and Howard Johnson are featured here in autographs from Series 1 (Carter and Gooden) and Update (Johnson).  Carter autographs are getting harder to find and his Chasing History Autograph insert was available at surprisingly low prices.

Heritage

After having only one Mets autograph last year, 2013 Heritage was loaded with Mets.  Al Moran, Amado Samuel, Jay Hook, Mike Joyce (never actually played for the Mets), Pumpsie Green, and Tim Harkness represented the biggest Mets contingent in Heritage history (though at this point the Mets have only existed for three years).  Ken MacKenzie has his first certified autographs in 2013 Heritage as a Giant.

New Ink Colors

In 2013, Topps expanded its use of various colored markers into more products than ever before.  While the use of different colors has been common in Tier One and Museum Collection Framed Autographs from their start, Topps Chrome and Topps Triple Threads have added metallic marker variants for the first time.  Tier One itself added a new color, copper rose, to replace the white that was easily confused with silver in the past.

And that will do it for this year’s installment of The Essentials.  The remainder of 2013’s wrap-up posts will go up later this week.  Happy New Year!

Head to Head: Fan Favorites Autographs vs. Hometown Signatures

Posted by on 19 December 2013 Comments Off on Head to Head: Fan Favorites Autographs vs. Hometown Signatures

Topps and Panini showcase minor stars in major ways

It’s common for different companies to attempt to produce the same product with varying levels of success.  When it happens with baseball cards, we’ll put them Head to Head to find out which one comes out on top and what room there is for improvement.

Last year, Topps revived its Archives brand as a celebration of past card designs and fan favorite players you may have forgotten.  This year, Panini countered with Hometown Heroes.  The alliterative title alone made it clear that Panini was aiming squarely at the target market for Archives (which itself was known as All-Time Fan Favorites in a past incarnation).  The Hometown Signatures insert set is a clear counterpart to Archives’ Fan Favorites Autographs insert set, a collection of on-card autographs from dozens of the game’s lesser stars.  Ideally, I would compare the complete offerings of both products, but the Hometown Heroes base set is so unappealing that I haven’t gone anywhere near it.  Even the secondary autograph insert sets are fairly boring (and all use sticker autographs, though Archives has gone in that direction as well), so there really isn’t anything worth looking at except for the Hometown Signatures set.  And even that may be a bit of a stretch.

Card Design

Luckily, we have plenty of overlap in the Fan Favorites Autographs and Hometown Signatures checklists.  Ron Darling is the lone Met common to both sets, so let’s start there.  On the Fan Favorites Autographs side, Topps uses classic card designs with new photos and a faded section at the bottom for the signature.  Hometown Signatures on the other hand combines geometric shapes in light blue and light green to make, well, that.  A chartreuse section at the bottom serves as the signature location.  Since Panini lacks a license from MLB Properties, no team names or logos are used, just a “New York” team identifier.  Only the 2013 Hometown Heroes logo adds any distinctiveness to the overwhelming blandness of the design.  Both feature the newer form of Darling’s signature, which you can get in person on a card of your choice at the Queens Baseball Convention, January 18, 2014 at McFadden’s Citi Field (subtle plug).

This isn’t a showdown so much as it’s a one-sided smackdown.  Panini starts out at a disadvantage without team names and logos, but a generic design with the worst possible color combination isn’t helping.  On top of that, the blue ink on green background turns the signature blue-black, keeping the main focus of the card from standing out.  I haven’t even gotten into how the use of vintage cardboard stock with an unspectacular modern design (I would say “vintage-inspired” if I could figure out the inspiration) makes everything look like a cheap knock-off…  The 1986 Topps design isn’t exactly a crowd pleaser, but the execution on modern card stock is flawless.  Combine that with the nostalgia of 1986 and you have a clear winner to go along with Panini’s clear loser.

Player Selection

Well, that wasn’t very exciting.  Maybe a look at the checklists can even things out.  The 2013 Hometown Signatures set weighs in at 93 cards, far more than the 58 cards in the 2013 Fan Favorites Autographs set.  While many of the names on the Hometown Signatures list are familiar from the 2012 and 2013 Fan Favorites Autographs sets, there are a few notable exceptions.  Among those are the first Pat Tabler autographs I’ve seen and the first Garry Templeton autographs since 2001.  In all, 14 former Mets are included, including four as Mets (well, “New York” at least): Darling plus Lenny Dykstra, Darryl Strawberry, and Lee Mazzilli.

Yes, Lee Mazzilli has his first autograph from a company other than Upper Deck and his first autograph card with a player photograph since 2007 in the Hometown Signatures set.  It may not be pretty, but it’s something.  So what does the Fan Favorites Autographs set have to offer?

Looks like Fan Favorites Autographs takes this one too.  Mookie Wilson, Jesse Orosco, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Kevin McReynolds, Howard Johnson, Gregg Jefferies, and Keith Miller are all shown as Mets.  Miller’s card is his first autograph card and his first card of any kind since 1995.  Another seven former Mets are shown with other teams, including Ray Knight, Bret Saberhagen, Hubie Brooks, and four others in common with Hometown Signatures.  The Fan Favorites Autographs set just has more to offer.

Verdict

There’s nothing more to say, Fan Favorites Autographs wins this one easily.  When going up against an autograph set with history dating back to 2001 and a formula that has been refined nearly to perfection, you need to bring your A game.  Panini used a childish design to appeal to childhood memories and it just didn’t work.