One Ichiro!

The first year of Topps Now I picked up all of the Mariners’ cards but last year and the current season I have not added any addition on-demand cards to my collection. When I saw the Topps Living Set Ichiro card I made the decision to pick it up, and it is a great card.

Happy 4th Of July

Happy 4th of July to all and I hope that you have a wonderful and safe holiday.

Light It Up!

I believe it was this past March that I saw the Fat Pack guys highlighting an unannounced insert from the 2017-18 Upper Deck Synergy Hockey release called Color Shift. The cards change to a green-blue hue when under sunlight, otherwise the background and border are an off-white. Now I have only seen two cards change color and they were both the green-blue hue but I am not sure if all of the cards are the same color. It would be neat if they change to team colors.

I was excited to see the Islanders’ captain, John Tavares (Who is now dead to me after spurning the Islanders for Toronto), was included on the list and I was able to find one at a little over $12 shipped.

Monday Question Day- Serial Numbering Changes?

Does it bother you when a company changes up their parallel colors and serial numbering?

It drives me crazy when one year there is a color, let’s say black for this argument, that is #/25 and red is #1/1 and then a year or two later black is now #1/1 and red is #/149. I recently was adding a Pop Century set in to TCDB where most of the set had red as #/10 and gold #1/1 but in one of the inserts (in the same set) gold was #/25 and red was #1/1.

Black Bender Base (Plate)

I picked up this 2016-17 Panini Noir Dragan Bender printing plate for my Suns collection and I was expecting a standard printing plate but it turns out that Panini used the same thickness as the base cards, roughly about 100 pt.

I am confused as to why these printing plates were packed out in boxes of 2017-18 Panini National Treasure Basketball. I didn’t know this until I went looking in to why the Noir checklist didn’t include printing plates.

Some Orthoscopic Surgery On My Kerr Redemption

A quick recap about my 2015-16 Gala Cinematic Signatures Crimson Steve Kerr card. Last October I purchased a redemption for the card and submitted it. The card was live at the time and I was expecting a quick turnaround, but I ended up watching the card sit in card limbo for 6 months before I contacted a Panini CSR. 

Two weeks later the card shipped, and I planned on posting here when I got the card, which was received on March 30^th. I was elated to finally have the card in my hands but when I pulled it out from the packaging I noticed something disturbing on the back. There were two large blemishes, I wasn’t sure if they were on the case or the card, so I started to go through the options at this point and the card got set aside. 

My options, as I saw them, were to leave the card in the case as is and ignore the blemishes. Send the card back to Panini and have them replace the card or case (whichever was damaged) or take my chances and open the case and see where the blemishes were located.  

If I left the card in the case and it was something like broken plastic pushing against the card it would damage the card and if I ever sold the card, not that I ever planned to do that, it would have to be at a reduced price. If I sent it back to Panini to replace the card or case, I may never see the card ever again. Finally, if I open the case and the damage is to the card I am screwed because Panini wouldn’t replace it since I removed it from the case. 

Today I finally decided to remove the card from the case and take my chances. It turns out that it was plastic caught between the card and the case. It wasn’t like a broken case type of jagged plastic, but it was solid. Fortunately, the pieces did no damage to the card though there are some marks on the inside the case from where the pieces were sitting. I feel like I made the right decision and things turned out fine.

A Double Stinger

 While I have been a fan of wrestling going back in to the 1980s I was never a fan of Sting. I didn’t have anything against him I just didn’t know much about him until I started watching WCW Wrestling in the late 1990s but after that point I'm a fan. 

When the WWF (WWE) bought out WCW in 2001 several of WCW’s top wrestlers moved over to TNA including Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Kurt Angle and Sting. During the TNA Impact years TriStar had the exclusive license of the brand and I think they did an amazing job, I had talked about their products a number of times during the early years of my blog. 

One night a few weeks ago I was doing a search of some wrestling cards and eventually ended up looking at Sting’s cards and was immediately drawn to this 2009 TNA Impact Sting Face Paint card. Tristar used Sting’s face paint to spell out his name on the card front. It isn’t actually wrestling used paint but I am guessing from a can of the face paint his uses. 

I had tweeted about it after I won it because the price was extremely low and after I bought the card the seller put it back up for auction. I was worried because the price was well under the going price and the seller was new, so I feared he changed his mind and was going to cancel my purchase. I emailed him and he assured me it was relisted by accident and that he would be sending the card.  

About a day or two later, while still stuck on Sting cards, I found this baseball bat relic card from the 2008 TNA Cross The Line release. If you are not familiar with Sting’s character, he would often carry a black baseball bat during his later WCW and TNA career which he would occasionally use as a weapon. You wouldn’t expect a bat in a wrestling release, but here you go. 

Donruss was well known for their detailed information about the relics that they used in cards, including images of the specific item too. Tristar’s guarantee takes it one step further not only saying when the bat was used, but how. Sting struck Samoa Joe with the bat at the Victory Road pay-per-view during Samoa Joe’s bout against Booker T. 

Monday Question Day- Is The Dude Really There?

Is it me or does it look like Topps attempted to airbrush out the guy behind Mickey Mantle in this 1957 Topps card?

I guess this would be my Laurel / Yanny moment. I have looked closely at the image in Photoshop and either it was a really bad choice of clothing that day for the guy that matched the background or Topps wanted only Mickey showing.

#9 Contest Entry

Daniel from It’s Like Having My Own Card Shop is holding a contest to celebrate his 9^th Blogiversary. To enter is simple, post 9 cards. I chose to go with showing 9 of my favorite rookie cards in my collection of 9 people I collect.

Baseball:
Ken Griffey Jr. (You know I was going to start here)
1989 Upper Deck #1

Jay Buhner 1988 Score Traded 95T XRC

 Basketball:

Allen Iverson 1996-97 Topps Chrome #171

Gary Payton 1990-91 Kayo #12

Sue Bird 2002 Fleer Authentix #101

Football:

Steve Largent 1977 Topps #177

Hockey:

Mike Bossy 1978 Topps #115

MMA:

Ryan Bader 2009 Topps Round 2 #119

Other:

Baron Manfred von Richthofen 1933 National Chicle Skybirds #23

Sue Bird Trifecta

When I picked up Sue Bird’s 2002 Fleer Authentix rookie card I did not realize that I had completed a Sue Bird trifecta. Even though I only have 11 Sue Bird cards, according to TCDB she has 164, I do consider this a mini-PC and I plan to continue building on the collection.

2002 Fleer Authentix RC #101

2003 Ultra WNBA Who Am I Game Used jersey #W-SB

2006 Rittenhouse WNBA Autograph #NNO