OK – so this was a post I was going working on for December 31st. But a few days ago, a blog bat around was thrown out there by This Card is Cool asking the following question:
The 2011 baseball card collecting season is finally over — other than Bowman Sterling. What set or release stands out as your favorite from the year? What set or release brings your lunch back up in your throat?
So I instead decided to move it up to an earlier post. And what better than to “celebrate” my 400th post! Here’s what I wrote:
So as we close out the new year (see – I was gonna do this literally on December 31st), I wanted to look back at my collecting this year and dub a “LifetimeTopps favorite set” for 2011. Well, you know what that is from the title (see, I originally put the set name in the title, but took it out to say “Blog Bat Around”) – but first I’ll note a couple of things. Like any collector of baseball cards, I have a limited budget. There are over 30 products out this year if you count everything Topps did, what Leaf put out, and Goodwin Champions / SP Legendary Cuts from Upper Deck. If I go by order of release date, here’s what came out in 2o11:
Baseball “standard issue” sets (it’s a bit of a stretch to include Goodwin here – but it’s very similar to Ginter):
- Topps (series 1) – February 2nd
- Topps Opening Day – March 5th
- Topps Heritage – March 14th
- Topps Tier One – April 11th
- Gypsy Queen – April 25th
- Topps Attax – April 27th
- Bowman – May 12th
- Topps (series 2) – June 6th
- Upper Deck Goodwin Champions – June 29th
- Topps Allen & Ginter – July 10th
- Bowman Platinum – July 26th
- Topps Lineage – August 3rd
- Topps Chrome – September 7th
- Topps Marquee – September 12th
- Topps Triple Threads – September 27th
- Topps (Update) – October 5th
- Topps Finest – October 11th
- Bowman Chrome – October 17th
- Topps Tier One – November 9th
- Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects – November 17th
- Bowman Sterling – December 21st
- Donruss Elite Extra Edition – December 21st
Minor league card sets:
- Topps Pro Debut – June 1st
- Topps Heritage Minor League – September 21st
- Leaf Metal Draft – October
- 2011 Playoff Contenders – to come in January, 2012
“Autograph-only” products:
- In The Game Heroes & Prospects (series 1) – February 24th
- SP Legendary Cuts – June 2nd
- In The Game Heroes & Prospects (series 2) – August 3rd
- Leaf Valiant – November 5th
“odd-ball” sets:
- Topps Team Sets – April
- Topps Stickers – August 15th
- Leaf Valiant – November 5th
- Leaf Pete Rose Legacy – November 11th
Out of those, this year I collected base Topps (including Update), Topps Heritage, Gypsy Queen, Goodwin Champions, Allen & Ginter, Lineage and Heritage Minor League (which I have yet to feature on this blog – but I will show this off the someday, I promise – though I may wait until Bryce Harper is officially washed up next June). If you consider that I was also collecting a bunch of earlier Topps base sets (i.e., the “mission” of this blog) – this is a fairly large amount of NEW cards for me in 2011. I may need to scale back next year, though I think Topps will come out with all of those next year, except it sounds like Archives will replace Lineage.
For those sets I collected, I bought 2 hobby boxes of everything but Heritage, Heritage Minor League and Topps series 2 / Update. I also think (if anyone wants to sift back through my blog and check – please let me know if my memory serves correctly!) I bought a blaster of every product except Heritage Minor League – which was hobby only. If I could go back and re-distribute my money, I would purchase a 2nd Heritage box, only buy 1 box of Lineage, Topps series 1 and A&G.
With two less boxes – I wouldn’t buy other boxes. Not crappy Bowman (that at one point from 1989-1991 was kind of “retro” set) or all its offshoots. Not shiny Chrome or Finest (though I do like the look of Finest this year). Not Marquee, Triple Threads, Tier One or Tribute – which I’m pretty sure are all different series of the same thing. And certainly not that new American Pie set. I’d probably buy more singles of Lineage inserts – thus I’d have fewer base Lineage and more of the inserts that drive that product anyways! Or maybe I’d just buy flowers for my wife instead. Who knows. Regardless, it’s funny that, after all’s said and done – my favorite set of the year was the set where I only bought 1 box – that would be 2011 Topps Heritage.
Before I get into why I like Heritage the best here – I’ll answer that second part: What set or release brings your lunch back into your throat?
Nothing baseball card-wise has made me hurl (at least from what I can remember). But – I think whatever they’ve done to Bowman is starting to get there. I kind of liked Bowman when it first came out in 89-91, and it really changed in 1992, but in a good way. The design still had somewhat of a retro / homage to the old Bowman in ’92 – but they added the gold foil cards and it really started becoming a prospect-heavy set. I think that was good – because it was prospect-heavy, not prospect-only like it seems to be now. And, now there are 5 or 6 products associated with it – where I think that only two would be plenty. Seriously, though, how do those products generate money – who buys them?!?! Anyways, that’s the closest thing to making me hurl. Paying 200 bucks for 4 3-card packs or whatever some of those Triple Threads / Tribute sets are – that could also do it – but I’ve just never done that. At least some of those cards look cool – I just don’t think if it’s worth the money.
The next part is the “positive” part of the question. What set or release stands out as your favorite.
Before I get to Heritage – let me go “honorable mention”.
My honorable mention for “Set of the Year” would go to Gypsy Queen. It’s a great product. The base set pays tribute to a really old card set that hadn’t been re-done before, and the design is very cool. The oil painting look is great. It’s got good card selection – and the SP’s are actually much easier to collect than those for Heritage. I like the insert cards – not counting the 2 retail only inserts (Boooo!) there’s 3 baseball inserts totalling 75 cards, and they are all about 1:4 hobby odds, so, again – fairly collectible! Finally, the Framed Paper parallels are amazing. That would probably be my insert set of the year – they are even cooler than the Sparkly Diamond Anniversary from the base Topps! The downsides for me are – too many mini variations, some players have 2 cards in the set (i.e., Babe Ruth with Red Sox and Yankees) and they even do that in the Great Ones insert set. Also on the negative, they had the well-documented snafu with getting shafted on one autograph per hobby box. This was frustrating, because even though Topps quickly dealt with it – you knew you were going to get a crappy auto out of the send-back you’d receive. But – overall, a very good product that I’m glad they are bringing back.
Especially with this sweet looking Ken Griffey Jr. card.
So – on to my favorite! My set of the year is Heritage. Not because it’s perfect – it isn’t. Not because Heritage will be my favorite every year – it won’t. But to me, the 1962 design was awesome. The first older card I ever owned was a Whitey Ford 1962 Topps, and I got it auto’d by the Chairman at a card show in the late 80’s (probably for less than 10 bucks). It had corner wear, but damn, it was money.
Heritage brings back that kind of cool. But they made the cards super thick, so, as Night Owl often points out – it kind of seems like they are actually made of real (mahogany?) dark wood. Heritage does a lot of things I appreciate that other “Retro” sets don’t.
The set mirrors the old set it pays tribute to. There are rookie parade cards at the end of the set. There are special cards like “Manager’s Dream” where they’ll put give Braun (ouch) and Pujols on the same card number as the “Dream” card Mantle and Mays were on in the 1962 set. The all-star cards look the same, the league leaders look the same, there’s a World Series highlights set that’s the same. (Note: they should have put Jackie Robinson in the regular set instead of doing exact reprints of the Babe Ruth subset) A promising young Braves outfielder (Jason Heyward – #320) has the same card number as an iconic Braves outfielder (Hank Aaron). A promising young Cubs shortstop (Starlin Castro – #25) has the same card number as an iconic North Side short stop (Ernie Banks). If you get a chance – read my favorite post I’ve done on this blog – it covers this stuff in more detail. Also, I know many people don’t like variations – but they do their variations in a way that mirrors the 1962 errors. There’s an A-Rod card with a variation that mirrors the error of 1962 Yankees third-baseman Clete Boyer. The green tints ARE ON THE SAME CARD NUMBERS. Did they need to shove retail red and blue tints down our throat? No – but at least they are really being creative and paying attention to the history. I can’t emphasize this point enough. Collecting this set has been really fun – I’ve looked into these things from the 1962 set. This is the biggest difference between Gypsy Queen – where I love the look of the cards, but really, they just took the design and put current players and Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Frank Robinson on it. There’s no 1887 subset paying tribute to Sam Thompson, Tip O’Neill, Charlie Comiskey (as a player), Cap Anson, Dan Brouthers, John Clarkson or Buck Ewing. So this is the biggest area where Heritage one-ups the other sets in my mind.
As mentioned, I love the design. I’m still mad they aren’t giving 2012 a similar design like they did in 1987 (though they are doing the league leaders – cool, but not good enough, Topps!)
The product is pretty collectible. The 75 SP’s is a bit too much – Gypsy Queen is better here, much easier to finish a set. But, I’d rather have 500 cards than 350 – I just wish there were only 25 or 50 SP’s. And not just the set – you can find the inserts, too. The odds are around 2 per box for each of the 4 insert sets, and they’re all pretty interesting. There are Baseball Flashbacks and News Flashbacks, covering what happened in baseball and the world. There’s New Age Performers and Then and Now, which compares guys from today to 1962.
They have cool box-toppers, that, again – pay homage to the 1962 set and show that Topps clearly thought through what they were doing. Baseball Bucks and promo panels – both things that Topps did in 1962. There are baseball stamps inserted into packs – which Topps did in 1962.
There are autographs of players from 1962, on reprints of their 1962 cards, like Hank Aaron…
like Sandy Koufax…
and even this guy (which of these 3 do you think I own)…
And even the relic cards, which you are much more likely to pull, are very tastefully done (I do not have this card either).
So – that’s my set of the year, and, in answer to the question – those are the packs and cards that brought me the most joy to sift through in 2011!
From here, the pulls are far more difficult. This set pairs a current player with a star from 1962, with a jersey swatch from both players. Of course, they put 2010 NL MVP right on there with 1961 NL MVP. Hopefully Votto never wins the award in both leagues like his counterpart Robinson did. And, hopefully he has his number retired by the Reds just like Robinson did.
Lifetime Topps project 