My goal is to catch up on trade posts by the time the Winter Olympics start, which is just a few weeks away. Spring Training won't be far behind that, and just beyond, the earliest-ever Opening Day on March 29th. You'll probably see a flurry of activity on this blog by then, especially since there are lots of sports on (my preferred writing backdrop), a snowstorm incoming to the Denver area, and a day off work on Monday.
2011 Topps Wal-Mart Black Border #139 Eric Young Jr. |
Neither Eric Young, Jr. nor myself will be getting a $400 million payday anytime soon, but it's clear from this 2011 Topps parallel that he's much more acrobatic than I am. This is the Wal-Mart Black Border parallel, not to be confused with the Topps Black parallel, which were numbered to 60 copies and did not have the background blacked out.
Black borders have a tendency to chip, and this card is no different. But it's a great photo and is probably one of the best examples of this treatment in the 2011 Topps set. You can barely see the rest of the photo (the scan picks up more detail than you see in person), but you can tell that Young is executing a double play by leaping over a Giant in AT&T Park. I made it easy on myself to see what was really going on and just checked Young's 2011 base card. That's #48 on the Giants, better known as Pablo Sandoval.
If Kung Fu Panda were sliding into me while I was covering second, I'd also want to jump about this high.
1995 Topps Embossed Golden Idols #83 Dante Bichette |
This is somehow even more golden than Walt Weiss' card I got from Fuji last time, and I remain impressed by just how much texture Topps managed to get on this card. Usually this sort of stuff is confined to the front, but the back looks and feels just as much like a relief map as the front. No gold though, but there are some fun facts about Dante Bichette, such as that he hit the first-ever Rockies home run. That happened in their second-ever game, a losing affair at Shea Stadium on April 7th, 1993. In fact, it was the only run (and RBI) the Rockies scored, period, during that two-game set.
2009 Topps Gold Border #646 Chris Iannetta /2009 |
It was printed long after 1994, but I'm still drawn to Topps Gold. They were a bit more scarce in 2009, losing the gold foil on the front, but making up for it with a golden serial number on the back. This particular copy is numbered an even thousand out of 2,009.
2013 Topps Gold #613 Jhoulys Chacin /2013 |
Chacin is another free agent who's found a home in 2018, signing a two-year deal with the Brewers. He pitched a full season with San Diego last year, earning a respectable 13-10 record, just one win shy of his best year as a Rockie. Coincidentally, that happened in 2013.
2007 Topps Allen & Ginter Dick Perez #9 Troy Tulowitzki |
There really is a 1/1 version of this Tulowitzki card out there, but this is (presumably) not it, despite the facsimile 1/1 artist signature on the front. It's a thick card, and extremely sturdy, reminding me of those blank inserts that the card companies put in packs to confound pack-searchers. The card doesn't really tell us anything about the Rockies shortstop, and much more about Perez and his artistic endeavors. But I have plenty of Tulo cards to offset that if I want more information.
1995 SP Special FX #34 Dante Bichette |
Upper Deck was satisfied enough with the holographic headshot on the front that they did not include their usual hologram diamond on the back. But it's still clearly a UD card, and uses color schemes that are similar to some of the subsets found in 1995 Collector's Choice.
2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary #276 Miguel Olivo |
The veteran catcher was still crushing home runs in 2011, though Topps was a year behind on his team. Olivo suited up for the Mariners that year and hit 19 homers, just four off his high mark of 23. Maybe the familiarity is because I saw him in that River Cats game, but I was surprised to learn that Olivo only played one season as a Rockie. It was just the right season to take part in Topps' 60th anniversary, meaning he got this extra-shiny Diamond parallel.
2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary #141 Ubaldo Jimenez |
Without a doubt, this is the shiniest checklist card in my entire collection, but I didn't even realize it was one until I flipped it over and saw the red background. Olivo's card has purple color coding, but this fits in with the general look of the Topps set. Topps has done it this way for most of the decade, but I find myself slightly annoyed year after year at how difficult it is to spot these checklists.
Jimenez' 19 wins in 2010 remains a Rockies season record. No Rockie has ever cracked the 20-win mark, but there's always next year!
2006 Topps Chrome Rookie Logos #CRC46 Manuel Corpas |
I have no idea about the provenance of this card. Presumably it was an insert of some kind in Topps Chrome, or perhaps in a team set, but neither Beckett nor BaseballCardPedia have anything to say about the 50-card set. Regardless, it's in great shape, and has a nice /599 serial number on the back. I'm just not sure precisely where to file it.
1995 Stadium Club Virtual Reality #163 Mike Kingery |
Frankly, this is a weird set. I collected it when it was new and opened plenty of packs. But despite what should be a familiar set to me, it remains quite an enigma. For one thing, I could never figure out the pattern in 1995 Stadium Club that determined whether a card got gold or silver foil. The base cards all seem to be gold. but the Virtual Reality cards can be either gold foil or silver, like this one. I've seen this partial parallel set since it came out, and Fuji sent me some last time. But it remains a curiosity. Not to mention the inserts and subsets that burst their way into my knowledge base after decades of dormancy.
1995 Flair Infield Power #4 Andres Galarraga |
Fleer tells us that Galarraga's nickname is "The Cat", which is incomplete, to the best of my knowledge. He was always referred to as "The Big Cat" as best I can remember. But sometimes even nicknames have nicknames. The card also mentions his distinctive open batting stance, suggested to him by his old hitting coach in St. Louis, Don Baylor. I recall seeing some Galarraga cards of him as a Cardinal, but I didn't know that he and Baylor had a history before they both joined the expansion Rockies.
2010 Topps 2020 #T14 Ubaldo Jimenez |
If you're interested in working on this set, you just have a couple years left to do it easily. By the time 2020 rolls around, you'll have to dig pretty deep into Google's search results if you search for "Topps 2020".
Fuji, I hope we're still trading in 2020, especially if you keep sending me cards like this!
Fantastic write up. Didn't know much about most of these guys. Now I do. Well... that is until next week. I'm like the human version of Dory from Finding Nemo.
ReplyDeleteOh look! Krill!
Delete