Completed insert set – 2004 Topps Hobby Masters

Keeping it moving with finishing some more insert sets.

This is my second completed insert set from 2004 Topps (after Hit Parade).  This was another one finished via a Black Friday purchase from COMC.

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Info about my set:

Set description:  Hobby Masters was a set Topps had done a few times before this (1997, 2002 and 2003 being the other years).  they’re supposed to be a bit of a higher end insert, not as common as some other insert sets.  It’s Hobby exclusive.  The cards have a black border with the player highlighted over a greyed out background with some elegant cursive of the first letter of the player’s last name as a background overlay.  There’s a short write-up horizontally on the back.

Set composition:  20 cards, 1:12 (2004 Topps series 1 Hobby)

Hall of Famers:  5.  Derek Jeter, Jim Thome, Mike Piazza, Randy Johnson, Chipper Jones

How I put the set together:

• 3 cards from the series 1 HTA box
• 6 cards from Sportlots
• 5 cards from a card show
• 3 cards from Beckett Marketplace
• 3 cards from COMC

Thoughts on the set:  The earlier sets of Hobby Masters seemed to be a little more special – they were thicker card stock.  It’s kind of middling in my opinion, though it certainly isn’t a bad design.  I think if it was a thicker card stock I’d like it a lot better.

Card that completed my set:  #HM3 – Alex Rodriguez, #HM14 – Randy Johnson, #HM19 – Chipper Jones (purchased on COMC)

I got all these cards as part of a big Check Out My Cards purchase at the end of last year.

Best card (my opinion): #HM8 – Ichiro, #HM10 – Thome

Great photos of these 2 guys in their notable routine measuring the pitcher up.  Wish they were side by side in the set, but I can show them that way here!

Best Reds card (my opinion):  #HM15 – Adam Dunn

As is oft the case – the only one!

Here’s the whole set.

Completed set – 2004 Topps

I’ve had this one in the hopper for quite a while – about 2.5 years, actually.  One thing I realized – man, I used to have a lot more free time!  Doing these complete set posts is a bear for figuring out the percentage of players who the Topps (and Topps traded sets – which I do for when I do the master set) represents.  Anyways, this was fun, even if there was some legwork involved.  Hopefully now that I’m back in practice I can knock these out more quickly when the next arises.

I now have 23 flagship Topps sets from the Lifetime Topps project completed, though this breaks a string as I have 1980-2001 and 2004.  No 2002 or 2003 yet!

Info about my set:

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How I put the set together:

• 362 cards from the series 1 HTA jumbo box
• 364 cards from the series 2 HTA jumbo box
• 4 cards from trades
• 2 cards from Sportlots

Card that completed my set:  #325 – Zach Duke FY (purchased on Sportlots)

I made a bunch of purchases in January 2021 on Sportlots, which was the first time I’d bought cards from that site in almost 3 years.  However, I got cards from a few buyers and got the last 2 cards I needed for this set.  Kyle Sleeth was the other, but this Zach Duke from the First Year subset was the later to show up.  So it wins by being last!

Set composition:  732 cards (536 individual ML player cards*, 30 First Year cards**, 5 Future Stars dual player cards, 5 Prospect dual player cards, 20 Draft Picks, 29 Managers***, 12 League Leaders, 23 Sporting News All-Stars, 23 Award Winners, 5 Season Highlights, 11 Postseason Highlights, 3 Combo cards, 30 Team Checklists)

*The 526 individual player cards include 10 All-Star Rookies and one All-Star Rookie cup on a card where it wasn’t supposed to!

**I’m including the First Year cards as a subset here because none of the players actually played in 2003; all were expected to make the Big Leagues in 2004 (and a good portion did).

***The Reds, who fired manager Bob Boone mid-season, didn’t have a manager card.  Boone was replaced by Dave Miley, who did have a card in 2005 Topps, so I’m not sure what happened there.  Juan Castro of the Reds ended up getting a player card out of this for card #267, which should have been where Mike Scioscia was slotted since the manager cards are alphabetical by City for this subset.  But Topps gave Castro card #267, Scioscia is also card #267 but is considered #274 (where Boone or Miley should have been) for checklist purposes.  My guess is that it was something of an oversight contractually with Miley.

Representation of ’03 MLB season:

Out of the 536 player cards, 6 players did not play in the 2003 season.

• Adam LaRoche & Joe Mauer- both had cards in series 2 despite not making their MLB debut until 2004.  Obviously this is the time where even tracking the main set (let alone the Traded set) to the prior year begins to become less realistic.
• John Lieber & Paul Byrd – both had Tommy John surgery and missed all of 2003.
• Robb Nen – missed all of 2003 with a rotator cuff issue.  He tried to return to baseball, but retired before the 2005 season.
• Steve Karsay – missed all of 2003 due to shoulder surgery

No players (thankfully) have two regular cards in the set, a phenomenon that cropped up earlier in the decade.

That leaves 530 different players represented.  But, on top of that, there were 5 players in the Future Stars subset (Khalil Greene, Ryan Madson, Rich Harden, Bobby Crosby, Jimmy Gobble) who did play in the regular season but didn’t have a regular card.  There were 2 such players (Ryan Wagner, Rickie Weeks) in the Draft Picks subset who made the majors the year they were drafted.  And there were 2 players in the Prospects subset (Edwin Jackson, Neal Cotts) who played in the Bigs in 2003.

So now that leads to 539 players who were in 2004 Topps and played in the 2003 MLB season.  The 539 players represent 43.8% out of the 1,230 players who played in MLB in 2003.

Earliest active player from this set:  #518- Roger Clemens, #284 – Frank Robinson (if you include non-active players)

Like most of these sets after the mid-90’s – there are again two answers to this.  2003 Topps was the final base Topps card for Rickey Henderson during his playing career, so for this set the earliest active player is Clemens, who made his debut on May 15, 1984.  Both John Franco (a little earlier in the 1984 season than Clemens) and Julio Franco (1982) could have been in this set but being left out gives the Rocket that honor.  Julio Franco is in fact in the flagship Topps product in the Hit Parade insert set, just not the base set.

If you include subsets, etc., and retired players – Frank Robinson gets the nod as the Expos (and eventually Nationals) manager.  Robinson made his debut for the Reds on Opening Day 1956.

Last active player from this set:  #330- Zack Greinke (FS), #575 – Miguel Cabrera

Greinke & Cabrera are the only 2 players from this set who are active in 2023.  Cabrera is on his retirement tour and Greinke is looking like he might need to retire, so we’ll probably know the answer between the two by the end of the season.

Player with the most cards in the set: 

Alex Rodriguez – 7 cards – #100, #339/ #340 (League Leaders), #358 (SN All-Star), #693 (Combo), #701 / #716 (Award Winners)

A-Rod* had a ridiculous* year* to round out his Rangers tenure, so he naturally is on a ton of cards.  He has 2 cards in the League Leaders subset (HR, RBI), a card in the Sporting News All-Star subset, 2 cards in the Award Winners subset (MVP, Gold Glove) a Combo card with Jeter in series 2, and of course his regular card.

First Card and the Hundreds:  #1 – Jim Thome, #100 – Alex Rodriguez, #200 – Nomar Garciaparra, #300 – Brayan Pena (FY), #400 – Dontrelle Willis, #500 – Ivan Rodriguez, #600 – Alfonso Soriano, #700 – Eric Chavez (AW)

 

Highest book value:  #324- Yadier Molina RC

Most notable card: #324- Yadier Molina RC

This tends to go hand in hand – the most notable rookie is the most valuable.  Last I saw, Beckett listed this card as $25 and nothing else was above $2.

Best card (my opinion): #510 – Ken Griffey Jr.

One of the best Griffey cards out there, particularly from his Reds days.

Second best card (also my opinion): #452 – Chone Figgins

 

I hate to have the same general idea, but these are two great cards.  The 400 sign and the hang time could put this ahead of Junior, except it’s not Junior…

Best subset card: #693 – Kings of New York

I do like the style of the regular season highlight cards – but none of the events were particularly intriguing to me.  The postseason highlight cards are mostly multi-player, which kind of eliminates those.  The Boone home run would likely be here if it got its own card, but it’s barely mentioned on one card.  The Sporting News cards aren’t bad but not great.  So the card showing A-Rod coming to New York seems the neatest, so to speak, of the available options.  It was a big deal at the time, obviously!

Favorite action photo: #204 – Jack Wilson

For the pure action, I’ll take this over the Chone card, which is a better picture overall.  This one may actually work even better with the design though.

Favorite non-action photo: #160 – Bernie Williams

Another card I could have argued for best card overall.

My Favorite Reds card: #510 – Ken Griffey Jr.

Pretty easy when it’s your overall favorite card.  I’ll say it again – the sleeveless uniforms were the best.

Other Notable Cards:  A few more really cool shots.  Sorry for some duplication, I’m using photos from an earlier post!

Completed insert set – 2004 Topps Hit Parade

Continuing on with the insert set completion – still over a year behind compared to when I actually got these cards in the mail – but getting closer, any future completed insert sets will be cards I actually picked up in 2022 not 2021!  This is my first completed set of any sort from 2004 Topps.

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Info about the set:

Set description:  This insert set features the top 10 active leaders in home runs**, RBI and hits.

The set has the player over a holographic background covering a pinstripe sub-background with the words Hit Parade across the top.  The back has the list of the 10 active leaders.

** – except Barry Bonds, who was in a bit of a contract dispute with Topps in 2004

Set composition:  30 cards, 1:7 (2002 Topps series 2)

Hall of Famers:  8.  Fred McGriff, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Jeff Bagwell, Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio, Barry Larkin

How I put the set together:

• 6 cards from my series 2 HTA box
• 9 cards from trades
• 8 cards from the 2015 NSCC
• 5 cards from Sportlots
• 2 cards from COMC

Thoughts on the set:  I like how the hologram backgrounds are different for the 3 categories.  The 10 homer cards have a baseball in front of some wood, the RBI cards have a plate, and the hits cards have a group of baseballs.  This set is pretty cool, particularly at this time period when you had some big numbers up there.  But it’s the 2nd year in a row they did it, so there’s a lot of duplication going from the 2003 set.  Maybe a pitch parade would have been better?  And the omission of Bonds, who was at the top of the first 2 categories and 3rd in hits – is glaring.

Card that completed my set: #HP18 – Ken Griffey Jr. RBI

I got this card from COMC at the end of 2021.

Best card (my opinion): #HP29 – B.J. Surhoff H

Surhoff had an underrated career that ended with 2,326 hits.  It’s cool to see a guy like him in a set like this.  We don’t always need 3 Rafael Palmeiro cards – sometimes one Surhoff is a good thing.

Best Reds card (my opinion):  #HP27 – Barry Larkin H

Beats out the couple Griffey cards, again for a similar thought – it’s nice to see Larkin with some recognition toward the end of his career.

Here’s the whole set.

Any other tidbits:  Since Bonds isn’t in the set, but is in all three top tens, they showcase the 11th player as card #10, #20 and #30.  They only add that player’s name on the back for those 3 cards, the other 27 cards just have the top 10 for that statistic.

Palmeiro, Galarraga, McGriff and Bagwell are the 4 players with 3 cards in the set.

Also, they weirdly didn’t go completely in order.  The cards are generally in order by the stat leader, but there’s a bit of unexplained jumping around (i.e. – Bagwell was 7th on the active HR list at this point but was the 10th card).

2004 Topps parallels – Brandon Webb

2004 Topps

Card I selected:  #502 – Brandon Webb

This is the only one of these cards I selected that has the Topps rookie cup on it.  Webb had about as unique a career as you could have.  He went 10-9 with a 2.84 ERA to get 3rd in the NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2003.  He probably should have won the award, but that performance at least got him onto the Topps All-Star Rookie team.  In 2006, he won the NL Cy Young, and he followed that up with runner-up finishes the next 2 years.  His 2008 campaign included a 22-win season.  To have 3 straight seasons of winning or running up in the Cy Young voting doesn’t happen much.  But after that, he pitched one more game in the majors due to injury.

He’s from Ashland, Kentucky, which is pretty close to where I grew up.  So I always liked him and wish he could have made it back in his couple comeback attempts.  I actually have all of these cards, so this post can be considered “final”!

# of cards (including the Topps card):  10

The parallel sets in 2004 include:

• Gold
• Black
• First Edition
• Opening Day
• Chrome
• Chrome Refractors
• Chrome Gold Refractors
• Chrome Black Refractors
• Chrome Red X-fractors

Scans:

2004 Topps #502

2004 Topps Gold #502

Topps Gold, with a Gold border, was back for the another year (6th time overall, 3rd straight).  This parallel had a shiny gold foil border and was numbered to 2,004 on the back in gold foil stamping.  The front doesn’t have the “53 years of collecting” that had been on the Topps Gold cards the previous couple of years.

2004 Topps Black #502

Topps Black was in just its 2nd year in 2004.  The border is black.  Topps Black was numbered to 53, with a gold foil stamp on the back, to honor 53 years of collecting since the 1952 set.

2004 Topps First Edition #502

There was a new parallel set in 2004 – dealers who bought a Home Team Advantage case got 1 bonus box of Topps First Edition.  These cards had a “1st Edition” stamp on the front of the card, but are otherwise exactly the same as the regular Topps cards.

2004 Topps Opening Day #159

Opening Day was back for the 7th time in 2004.  165 cards, retail only, and the same photos from the base Topps set.  The border is a blue-gray color, and the team logo on the front is replaced with the Topps Opening Day logo.  The back is the same as the Topps set except for the different number.

2004 Topps Chrome #261

Topps Chrome was back for its 9th year.  It was 466 cards, so not the same size as the regular set.  The front of the card reproduces the base set using Topps chromium technology and the logo is the Topps Chrome logo.  The back of the card is the same as the regular set except for the Topps Chrome logo and slightly different copyright wording.

2004 Topps Chrome Refractor #261

Inserted every 4 packs of Topps Chrome were refractors with their colorful, reflective shine.  The word refractor is written by the number on the back – otherwise the back is the same as the regular Chrome card.

2004 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor #261

Topps Gold Refractors have a gold border (that looks a little orange to me) and the refractor effect.  After being numbered in 2003, these cards weren’t sequentially numbered in 2004.  The word gold refractor is noted on the back by the card number.

2004 Topps Chrome Black Refractor #261

Black Refractors were back, this time not numbered.  The black refractor wording is noted on the back by the card number.

2004 Topps Chrome Red Xfractor #261

This card has the refractor / diffraction effect but with a checkered finish that Topps called “X-fractors”.  This year’s version had a red border.  Red X-fractors came 1 per hobby box, and also weren’t numbered.  However, the production numbers were calculable, and this red version of Webb’s card had 61 copies.  The wording “X-fractor” is on the back by the number.

The “Rainbow”:

Any sets I didn’t get:  Topps Traded had Blue 1/1 parallels, and also had printing plates for the first time in a flagship Topps product.  First off, that’s Topps Traded so I feel fine not counting it.  Second, cards numbered out of 20 or so is around where I draw the line – I definitely won’t be getting any one-of-ones as part of this parallel project.

Other cards I would have liked to do:  This is such a great set.  I love the design and the outline of the player in the corner – just about any card is great in this set.

2004 Topps Traded Autographs & Memorabilia

I only have 1 of my own scans to show in this post, since I got 1 relic in the 2004 Topps Traded box.  The rest of these photos are from the internet (in most cases eBay).

Signature Moves – (9 cards, 1:169-675)

Signature Moves was back for the 3rd year, showcasing autographs of guys who had switched teams.  Alex and Pudge Rodriguez are the biggest names in this insert set.  There were two tiers in this autograph set, A and B.  There were only 9 cards in this set, less than half of the 20 from 2003.

Signature Cuts – (5 cards, 1:91,472)

Topps included cut signatures in 2004 Traded, which seems a bit odd, but it did follow up from the cut signatures they had in series 1 and 2.  These were all baseball, however, with Babe Ruth, Catfish Hunter, Johnny Mize, Roger Maris and Warren Spahn all having cards.  I haven’t been able to find any pictures of these cards.

Finally on the autograph chase, Team Topps Blue Chips were also inserted in Topps Traded as a cross-product promotion.

There were a few different memorabilia sets you could get in Topps Traded.

Transactions Relics – 20 cards (1:106)

Transactions Dual Relics – 3 cards (1:562)

The main memorabilia set was called Transactions Relics.  This was back for its 2nd year, featuring a bat or jersey piece of a player who switched teams in 2004.

There was again a dual version for 3 players, which contained a relic pieces from the player’s previous and current team.  Curt Schilling is only in the dual set, while A Rod and Rafael Palmeiro are in both.

Future Phenoms Relics – 17 cards (1:65-184)

Future Phenoms was back for the 2nd year.  Not my favorite design.

Hall of Fame Relic – 2 cards (1:1,011-3,338)

Hall of Fame Dual Relic – 1 card (1:3,338)

There was a relic honoring each of the 2 Hall of Fame inductees in 2003.  Dennis Eckersley’s card had a jersey inset, while Paul Molitor had a bat.  The Molitor is the more difficult pull.

They also had a dual card, which is always pretty cool.  The dual card actually had the same odds as the Molitor individual relic.

2004 Topps Traded & Rookies – parallel sets

Topps had no stand-alone insert sets in the 2004 Topps Traded product.  You could only find relics, autographs, or parallels.  There were a few parallel sets, though only 1 that was reasonably attainable.

Topps Traded & Rookies Gold (220 cards, 1:2)

Topps Gold was back, and just like the base set it was numbered to the year – out of 2,004.

Topps Traded & Rookies Blue (220 cards, 1:4,574)

Topps didn’t include Topps Black in the Traded product, even though it was in the first 2 series.  They did include a 1/1 Blue parallel.  I’ve also seen unnumbered blue parallels; I don’t know the origin of these.  You can find a few on eBay from time to time, but I can’t tell where they came from.

Topps Traded & Rookies Printing Plates (220 cards, 1:1,151, #4/1)

For the first time, Topps included printing plates in any flagship Topps product – Traded or not.  As with any printing plate parallel, there are 4 different color plates available.

You could also get Chrome, Chrome Refractors, Chrome X-Fractors, Blue Refractors and Chrome Printing Plates in 2004 Traded packs, but I view those as a different product.  The fact that you could get a Chrome Plate or a regular plate creates a little bit of confusion.

2004 Topps Traded & Rookies scans

Topps Traded has changed it a bit since 2004, but it’s probably best known for the rookies, and Felix Hernandez (2010 Cy Young) was easily the biggest rookie that year.

And while it’s probably better known for the prospects or rookies, in 2004 I was most impressed with the “traded” players.  I didn’t even pull the first solo Topps card A-Rod with the Yankees, but there were a lot of notable names switching places.  First and foremost was the only Hall of Famer in this set, Greg Maddux.

Maddux actually still had quite a few years yet, but like these guys, his very best years were in the rearview mirror.

On the other side, these guys were 1 year removed from playing in the World Series.  Pretty cool to see how many guys came to the White Sox or Astros, and then had a big impact on their postseason run in 2005.  Uribe is one of the few players from this portion of the set still playing.

The Red Sox reversed the curse in 2004, but there weren’t a ton of guys who were in the 2004 Traded set.  The biggest change from 2003 was the manager.  This set did capture the mid-season acquisition of Orlando Cabrera as well.

From there, here’s just a few more “traded” players that were in this set.

OK, so rookies and prospects were still the big thing for Topps Traded, and here’s 9 of the biggest rookies behind King Felix.  I don’t know who is the 2nd biggest RC in this set.  Is it Homer Bailey?  As a Reds fan, I love that he has 2 no-hitters, but he’s also got to be the only pitcher with 50 wins ever signed to a $100 million contract who then had to have Tommy John surgery.  It could be Howie Kendrick, but while he’s been solid, he’s only made one All-Star game.

2004 Topps Traded & Rookies HTA box break

I bought my 2004 Topps Traded box from Atlanta Sports cards last March and finally got to opening it over a year and a half later. It cost me $55 bucks, which doesn’t seem that bad when I look at prices today.  The hobby box comes with 24 packs, 10 cards per pack.

In 2003 I bought a HTA jumbo box, which I was very happy with.  I think I just got the regular hobby box here because it was cheaper and you still got one relic/auto either way.  The one thing better about the HTA box is that it’s still 2 Chrome cards per pack.  So you only get 20 Chrome cards in a HTA, and a lot more base.  Since I’m not collecting Chrome, that was actually better.  But the cost didn’t justify it.  At least that’s what I believe my thinking was – it’s been a while since I bought it.

There is one big rookie in 2004 Topps Traded – Felix Hernandez.  And this was something of a Felix Hernandez hot box.

Here’s a little better of the 3 cards I got.  That’s a base card, a gold card, and a chrome refractor.  The only reasonable card I didn’t get was the chrome card.

Keeping with the parallels – I got 12 gold cards in the box.  That’s one in every other pack.

Here’s the other, non Felix Hernandez, refractor.

I got 46 regular Chrome cards, which is the 2 per pack you’re supposed to get, less the 2 refractors I got.  Here are 6 of those.

You are supposed to get 1 relic or autograph per box – I got a Future Phenoms relic in this case.  This one was of JJ Hardy, who had some good years in Milwaukee and continued that with Baltimore – though it seems like he’s on a downturn after his 2015 season.

The one other thing that’s interesting for this product – they inserted puzzle cards.  Every pack had a puzzle card (or a relic/auto) with a checklist of the 2004 Traded set on the back.  On the front – the puzzle part – are cards from the regular Topps set.  So if you put together all 110 puzzle cards, you’d have a picture of the 2004 Topps set.  Here’s an example of those.  I’m not collecting these – except that I’m keeping enough to have a full checklist.

I had no damaged cards in this box.  That’s something to shout about!

Stats for the box:

• 24 packs per box * 10 cards per pack +1 relic = 241 cards

180 of the 220 card set. (100% set completion – though 5 singles were damaged)

• 12 Topps Gold
• 46 Chrome
• 2 Chrome Refractors
• 1 Future Phenoms Relic

Of course, I didn’t get the Barry Bonds card, #221, which you could only get from hobby dealers.  I’ll have to buy that online at some point.

2004 Topps Traded & Rookies Overview

The 2004 Topps Traded packs again included Topps Traded Chrome.  I’m begging for the day when this will end!  I guess I could look it up, but it’s more interesting to just go to each new Topps year with my fingers crossed 🙂

221 cards in the set – 54 less than the previous 2 years.

• Subsets:  Managers (#66-70), Draft Picks (#71-90), Prospects (#91-110).  The first 70 cards are “traded” players and managers.  Cards numbered 111 through 220 are first year players, while Barry Bonds got added as card #221 when he signed an exclusive deal with Topps late in the 2004 baseball card season.  The Bonds card was not inserted into packs.  It was sent to hobby dealers in January 2005, and was supposed to be given out to customers who bought Topps Traded packs.
• Set Design:  The set design is the same as the base 2004 set.  The back of the cards have a “T” suffix.
• Packs:  Hobby and retail packs have 10 cards, the same as series 1 and series 2.  There are 24 packs per box (12 less than s1/s2).  I think the MSRP was $1.99.  There were also HTA Jumbo packs with 35 cards per pack (10 packs per box).  The packs are white with a blue stripe down the left side, a gold stripe on the bottom and a baseball where those meet.  The Topps logo is large and red at the top, followed below by wording for “Traded and Rookies 2004 Major League Baseball Cards”.  Of course they remind you that, yes, Topps Chrome is included.
• Rookies:  Felix Hernandez is a very big rookie card.  Aside from him, there really isn’t much – Homer Bailey, Kurt Suzuki, Phil Hughes and Howie Kendrick are the only notable rookie cards.
• Hall of Fame:  2.  Greg Maddux, who went back to the Cubs for the 2004 season, and Larry Walker who was traded from the Rockies to St. Louis after a decade in Denver
• Variations:  No variations.

The box has a white background with a blue vertical stripe and a white horizontal stripe.  Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra and Roger Clemens are featured in their new uniforms.  Clemens is a bit unusual, because Clemens isn’t in the base set as he had an Astros card in series 2 (he does have a transaction relic).  The 2004 Topps logo is prominently displayed at, with the wording “Traded and Rookies 2004 Major League Baseball Cards” on the red stripe.  There is advertising for the 2 Topps Chrome cards where the stripes intersect and more ads for the autographs & relics – which come 1 per box.

Parallel sets

There was 1 normal parallel set – Topps Gold, which were numbered out of 2004, coming 1:2 packs.  There were also blue 1/1 parallels and printing plates, with 4 unique versions.  And I’ve also seen unnumbered blue parallels; I don’t know the origin of these.

Once again, this product came packaged along with Topps Chrome Traded.  Every pack had 2 Topps Chrome cards.  I don’t really think of these as parallel cards – they are really a separate product.  The Topps Chrome cards had refractor, X-fractors (#/20), blue refractors (#/1) and Chrome printing plates (4 unique) as well.

Insert sets

There are no insert sets aside from the parallels – consistent with what Topps had done for its Update product.

Autographs & Memorabilia

As the box tells you – there is one relic or autograph in each box.  Signature Cuts was a new autograph that included a cut signature of Babe Ruth.  For more realistic inserts, the Hall of Fame relics are again very nice cards.  These feature Paul Molitor (bat) and Dennis Eckersley (jersey).

• Signature Moves Autographs – 9 cards (1:169-1:675)
• Signature Cuts – 9 cards (1:91,472)
• Transactions Relics – 20 cards (1:106)
• Transactions Dual Relic – 3 cards (1:562)
• Future Phenoms Relics – 17 cards (1:65-1:184)
• Hall of Fame Relic – 2 cards (1:1,011-3,338)
• Hall of Fame Dual Relic – 1 cards (1:3,338)

And there was one cross-product autograph inserted:

• Topps Blue Chips Autographs – various cards {out of a number of cards across Topps products} (1:1,011)

2004 Topps Wire-to-Wire Reds Cards

The number of guys from the 1990 World Series team was down to just 2 for the 2004 Topps set.  That’s a decrease of 1.  The 1 player who was gone after having a card in the 2003 set was Jose Rijo.

• Rijo came back after 5 years off to pitch two seasons for the Reds as a reliever.  He is one of two players to play after having received Hall of Fame votes (Minnie Minoso).

Lou Piniella and Barry Larkin were both back in the Topps set – this would be Larkin’s last Topps card, while Piniella basically had cards through the 2009 season for his time with the cubs and Devil Rays.

2004 – Barry Larkin, Lou Piniella

They had 3 parallel cards as well – Topps Gold, Topps Black and 1st Edition.

Larkin also was featured in the 2004 Hit Parade insert set, as he was 7th on the active hit list at that point.

Piniella was also featured in the Series Seats Relic set, for his days with the Yankees.

Finally, Paul O’Neill was also featured with the Evil Empire in a World Series set – you could find him in the Series Stitches relic set – though his “stitches” was a bat piece.