Busting a 2020 Topps Update Blaster

One of my favorite product releases of the year looks a little different this year. Update will deliver us rookie cards of some mid-season call-ups and other fun additions thanks to the expanded rosters and the postseason. This year, the checklist is definitely unspectacular due to the compromised season, so I wasn't sure that I'd be buying any Update this year.

On top of that, it’s impossible to find baseball cards in retail stores these days due to flippers. I don’t think Update is going to generate any massive resale margins for anyone… yet I’m sure there are hundreds of idiots out there giving it a go.

As I’ve said on this blog before: "Sports Card Twitter" can be a dodgy place. Although for every con, it has some pros, one of which being that it's a great to place to get “breaking news” on new products. There was a generous soul out there who pointed out that Walmart was selling 2020 Topps Update Blasters online. I must have seen it at the right time, because they were still in stock when I logged in. Walmart also offers free shipping so I was really happy with the deal. 

On to the cards:

What do you do when you’re desperate to fill a checklist? Make a million cards of the best player in the game, of course! Granted, these are “Active Leaders” cards, and Mike Trout is the active leader in a whole lot of things.

Due to the fact that there was no All-Star game this year, and in what appears to be another checklist-filling technique, Topps went back through some semi-recent All-Star games and honored some past All-Stars. I pulled the McCutchen in my first pack, I was delighted to see my man Cutch in a Pirates uniform. I’ll be honest, seeing him in any other jersey still looks odd to me. 

On the subject of the Pirates, these are my two Pirates pulls. Jarrod Dyson was horrible failed experiment replacement for Starling Marte. He hit maybe .150. He’s lightning fast and all that, and yes, it was fun to watch him track deep fly balls to the warning track. In September he was traded to the White Sox for international pool money, which the Pirates have already used to sign a teenage prospect. That’s actually a big win. 

Some more inserts.

As far as I can tell, these are Walmart blue parallels. They’re not serial numbered; I’m a little confused because they’re two different shades of blue.  It looks good – the Montgomery card has a royal Blue to match KC’s colors, and Arroyo’s card has the navy blue to match the Indians colors. They’re undoubtedly different than the base cards which have the plain grey in that side panel, but I'm not entirely sure what's happening here.

I ended up with seven Turkey Reds.

I pulled one rainbow parallel. I’m very lucky that it’s Bo Bichette’s Rookie Debut.  I’ve had a real knack for pulling Bo this year. This was my only pull that went straight into a sleeve and toploader.

Every blaster promises an exclusive player coin card:

A first-time Gold Glover! Joey Gallo is known primarily for hitting dingers. This year, the converted first baseman was the American League’s Gold Glove Winner in right field. He had 12 defensive runs saved, and he trailed only Nolan Arenado for the league lead. Pretty cool for a guy that’s known strictly for his power bat.

I’m not one for manufactured relics, memorabilia cards, commemorative coins, etc. This card is cheesy (and bulky) as heck. 

In what’s been a bizarre year, it felt good to rip a blaster of good ol’ Topps Update. Aside from the Bichette, all cards here are for trade. I also have 70+ base cards available. Feel free to drop a comment if you’re interested.

Thanks for stopping by!

"Set" Complete - 2017 Topps Chrome Purple Rookies

A long time coming. When I returned to blogging in July of last year, I set out several collecting goals -one of which was to put together a complete set of 2017 Topps Chrome Purple Parallels. These particular parallels are numbered #/299.

I actively pursued the set throughout the summer last year. I targeted rookies first as they're usually the toughest to find and most expensive. By October, I was feeling a little fatigue from chasing down the cards and decided to pivot and chase only the rookies.

Also last year, I wrote about chasing and eventually completing the 220 card 2013 Topps Chrome Blue Parallel set, with all cards #/199. Completing that set is, by far, my biggest collecting accomplishment to date. 2013 Topps Chrome is my favorite set ever. 2013 was the first year I got deep into collecting and the set has become sort of keepsake for me and a symbol of my love for this hobby.

As fun as it was... here's the rub: The 2013 project took me six years (granted, I had 219 out 220 cards in hand for over a year while I waited for the last card to surface).

Now, while I don't pursue these projects as an "investment," (HOBBY JAIL WORD!!) I'd be lying to if I said there isn't a degree of "prospecting" involved with this. By no means I am building these sets with the intention letting them appreciate and then selling. However - if one of these guys is the next Mike Trout, that would be awesome, and might help pay for my kids' tuition some day. Who knows. The point I'm making is, I'm more eager to collect the rookies than the vets, as those could really hold some value some day. For example, the 2013 set has rookie cards of Gerrit Cole, Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado. It also has Topps Rookie All-Star Gold Cup cards for Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. All short printed to 199. The Trout one is particularly valuable. 

I remembered collecting the 2013 set, and how I shelled out at least a dollar or two for every card. It was usually more than a few dollars, even the vets and no-name rookies. Alfredo Marte, Mike Kickham, Donald Lutz, Paco Rodrguez - any of these ring a bell? I probably paid $10 total for those four cards for the 2013 set. Multiply that across a 220 card set... that's a lot of money. Hence my decision to target just the rookies for the 2017 set.  Out of the 200 cards, only 44 are rookies. Much more doable!

I think setbuilders would agree that there's always that one elusive card. That was certainly the case for me - I have been sitting on 43 out of 44 cards for a year, almost to the day. I was able to gobble up a bunch of these quickly through COMC. But for damn reason, #59, Kyle Freeland, was no where to be found. Maybe there's a Kyle Freeland super-collector group that I don't know about. Nothing against him - he's put together an average-at-worst MLB career thus far - but not seeing his card surface for 365 straight days drove me bananas. 

Thanks to an eBay saved search, my heart skipped a beat when I finally laid eyes on the unicorn last week:

I was a little nervous because it was a .99 cent auction. But I set an alarm, dropped in with 30 seconds left in the auction, and dropped a max bid that was absurdly over market value. The card itself is probably worth a dollar or two, so the seller was probably pumped to get $6 for it. Paying 3-6x value isn't a habit of mine, but this card has quite literally become priceless to me.

Before checking out the cards, let's discuss the motivation behind the set:

Why Topps Chrome? It just happens to be my favorite release every year. I like that it's flagship but with a smaller checklist and a shiny finish.

Why 2017? *I'm going to sound like the dreaded card investor again for a minute* I really believe in this rookie class. Furthermore, I believe the timing is perfect. It seems that there is always a big lull in value somewhere between one to three years after a product release. The product launches, people pay crazy prices to jump all over the hot new rookies and the next Babe Ruth (whomever it might be that year), and then the price starts to slowly and steadily decline. Then, five or so years after the release, the players that actually pan out are getting into their late 20's, the prime years for a baseball player, and values jump again as they become perennial all-stars. 

Why Purple? This may surprise you a bit - but aside from orange (gross) and canary yellow, I don't think there's a worse color parallel for a baseball card. Give me red, blue, black, gold, pink, hell, even green - but purple usually looks silly unless it's a Rockies card. 

The draw for me is the short print to 299. The notion of knowing exactly how many copies of a card are in existence is such a fun concept to me. The purple #/299's are the highest short print that was offered in 2017, so I rolled with it. I looked into the blue #/150's, but they're a little too rich for my blood. What I'd really love is for standard refractors to be numbered #/500, or even #/1,000 and I'd go for those, but I don't make the rules.

Here's a look at the 44 card "complete set." Straight from my phone camera because I'm too lazy to scan them all:

And now let's talk about some highlights. When looking through each of the cards, I separated them into two different tiers:

Tier 1: Potential Hall of Famers:

#169 Aaron Judge

#79 Cody Bellinger

#9 Alex Bregman

Relax - I said potential Hall of Famers. I know it's early, but the tools are there.

Tier 2: Potential perennial All-Stars:

#47 Trey Mancini

#8 Dansby Swanson

#75 Yoan Moncada

#100 Benintendi

There's definitely room for debate here. Trey Mancini had a huge year last year, and flew largely under the radar because he plays in Baltimore. He was gearing up for another big year this year before being diagnosed with colon cancer in March. He recently finished chemotherapy and is expected to make a full recovery and be ready for the 2021 season. God bless! If there's a lesson to be learned here - his cancer was discovered due to low iron levels found during a routine physicals. Get a damn physical!

Dansby Swanson, I think, has highest ceiling out of anyone in the group due to his offensive presence and gold-glove caliber defense. Moncada's ceiling is right there with him, but his strikeout problem is, well, a problem. After setting an MLB record for strikeouts in 2018, he progressed beautifully in 2019 and hit .315, before taking another step back in 2020. Next year will be very telling for him.

Speaking of regression, how about Benintendi's 2020? Sheesh. He was awful for 14 games and then ended up injured. He'll need to have a big year in 2021 to remain relevant, but the raw talent is there.

#158 Josh Bell

#189 Tyler Glasnow

Of course you can't stop by The Bucs Stop Here without some Bucs stopping here. Both of these cards probably belong in Tier 2. Glasnow is, in my opinion, the single most exciting young pitcher in the MLB. He's 6'8, built like a catapult, throws 100+ and has a curveball that falls off a cliff. Sadly, because he plays in Tampa, he's terribly under-appreciated. There is a handful of of former Pirates that I still collect. He and his teammate Austin Meadows are part of that handful.

Josh Bell is also in the regression category, having a pretty weak 2020 after an getting an All-Star nod in 2019. I could go on about his poor mechanics, lack of defensive ability and so on, but I'll spare you today. I'll hope he returns to form in 2021 and all will be right in the world.

There you have it. 44 cards, each with their own story. It was fun to build a set with my own rules - now I see why so many bloggers love Frankensets. I don't have any immediate plans for another parallel set, but I'll wager I get another one rolling soon. 

I had a blast building this set, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. 

Busting a 2020 Topps Chrome Blaster

Yesterday I had to take my car in for service, and afterwords I was planning to grab some groceries. While I was waiting at the auto shop, I chugged down my morning coffee, while drinking a whole bottle of water. The coffee ran right through me and I was hit with the need for a restroom before grocery shopping. I was passing a Target, so I decided to pop in to use the facilities... and take a quick stroll down the card aisle. 

I live in a metropolitan area, and there are probably five or so Targets within 20 miles of me. All of them are almost always dry on retail products, although I've had some luck at this particular store before. Upon arriving in the card aisle, I was met with one of my collecting fears: It appears that the card aisle is being phased out. The amount of self space that was reserved for sports cards was smaller than usual. Pokemon cards and Magic the Gathering cards encroached on the left side. Toys crept in on the right side. 

I've read some rumors on hobby-Twitter that claim retail stores are going to stop stocking cards, primarily because the product is becoming more hassle than it's worth. Flippers clearing shelves, grown men acting like children, phony returns, etc. I'm not sure if there's any truth to these claims, but I will say, it does appear that my two go-to Targets are phasing out cards. The display spaces have shrunk in the past few weeks and have been replaced with non-sports cards and tchotchke toys. 

Depsite all of that bad news, I was very fortunate to find a Topps Chrome blaster yesterday. I swear - when you go to the store to specifically look for cards, you don't find them. If you pop in for a different reason and swing through the card aisle, you'll strike gold. I hope this isn't the last time I'll be able to buy baseball cards at a retail store like Target, but I fear it may be my going-away present. Time will tell.

On to the cards...

Here's a look at the base cards. I was pretty indifferent about the 2020 flagship design but I think it translates really well to chrome. Chrome does a good job of blurring the background and putting a singular focus on the player, and they look great in hand.

Dustin May definitely has some great hair. It kind of reminds me of Pennywise the clown... and that freaks me the hell out. His young career if off to a great start this year.

I pulled three refractors, one of which is a prism refractor. Happy to see two rookies here, which will be stashed away. Civale will have plenty of opportunity to prove himself as a solid starter - you have to think that the Clevinger trade shows some confidence in him to step up. 

A cool Bo Bichette rookie.

My guy! This is the only Pirate I pulled but I couldn't have asked for better. This card was on my wantlist, and I plan to target some of the parallels of this card for the PC. 

When I felt my finger fall into the gap of a die-cut, I was surprised. I didn't know that Chrome had any die-cuts in it this year. This is a pretty goofy and unneeded card in my opinion. 1950's wool jerseys don't exactly blend well with the modern "X" die cut design.

A nice pair of 1985 inserts. 

We finish up with the sepia refractors. You'll find a pack containing four of these cards in a blaster, making them retail-exclusive. I'm not crazy about sepia parallels. They're... fine, however I like the look of this year's sepia parallels over past years. In older releases, sepia cards were short printed, I believe to 75. 

There you have it! All around a very successful and fun break. Aside from ripping a few packs of Series 2 and a few packs of Bowman, it's been a slow year for ripping packs so this felt really good. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Mailday: Bump and Run

In April I posted about joining TCDB and how I've been having a lot of fun with it early on. I've been a member for about two months now and I've already completed eight trades. All of the trades were PWE swaps and almost all of them consist of me sending a set-builder some set needs, and them sending me Pirates rookies in return. In a nutshell, TCDB has become a way for me to hoard Pirates rookie cards via trade and I'm totally cool with that.

After seeing my April post, Trevor at Bump and Run Cards shot me a note about trading for some of my 2020 Opening Day cards. He came across me on TCDB and we worked out the trade through there, which saves us a ton of back-and-forth emailing. He helped me continue my journey in hoarding Pirates rookies but moreso helped me add to my Steelers PC.

(L) Le'Veon Bell - 2016 Score

(C) Le'Veon Bell - 2017 Panini Prestige Phenomenal Athletes Insert

(R) Le'Veon Bell - 2013 Panini Prizm RC

Lots of great to stuff to unpack from the cards above. I'm still a Le'Veon Bell fan and I still collect him. I'll admit that I was annoyed by his contract shenanigans two years ago... then Antonio Brown happened and it made Le'Veon look like saint. How quickly we forget. I was shocked to see that his Prizm rookie card was from 2013 - I can't believe that he'll be going into his seventh year in the league this year. That flew by. I think he still has some juice left in the tank but he plays for Jets, where careers go to die.

(L) T.J. Watt - 2018 Panini Rookies and Stars RC

(C) Terrel Edmunds - 2018 Donruss Elite Terrell Edmunds RC #/699

(R) Bud Dupree - 2015 Donruss RC

I picked off another three rookies from Trevor's For Trade list. While Watt and Dupree are the stars, my favorite card here is the Edmunds card. It's short printed to 699 and has a really nice foil finish to it. I'm still high on Edmunds, although after two years of mediocre-at-best performance, he's entering potential bust territory.

Trevor is the opposite of most of us: A football collector with a side collection of baseball. It seems that it's usually the other way around. Judging by these two cards, he still rips some modern baseball products and I'm happy to be on the receiving end of another pair of Pirates rookies.

Thanks for the trade, Trevor!

Anyone Familiar With SGC Grading?

We'll get to that question in a minute - first some PC adds. Over the past month or two I've spent a lot of time searching for, purchasing, and showcasing the Pirates gold refractors. While the gold has been flowing in and that's my top collecting priority, I'm also constantly on the hunt for black refractors as well.

Mitch Keller - 2019 Topps Update Silver Pack 1984 Topps Baseball Chrome Black Refractor  #/199

This came to me through through a recent PWE swap through TCDB. I must say, as a newcomer I'm really enjoying trading on the site. Even though I'm not a set builder, I'm a team collector, and I'm finding that it's a really great way to turn unwanted cards into wanted Pirates cards. The "cost" of acquiring this card was a Miguel Andujar base rookie, a 2018 Mike Trout base card and a few other commons. My trade partner also sent me two Bryan Reynolds rookie cards and another parallel that I'll highlight in a future post. This card would run me $5-$10 and chances are I would have eventually bought it - so this a big win.

(L) Cole Tucker - 2014 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Chrome Black Refractor #/75

I wish someone had this available for trade too, but the black refractor on the left is my most recent eBay pickup. Two weeks ago I spotlighted the same card but that was the gold refractor (pictured right). This is the first "black and gold" combination I've acquired. 

Gerrit Cole - 2013 Topps Chrome Black Refractor #/100

On to my SGC question.

I've been keeping my eye out for this card for a while. It's been the most difficult component of the 2013 Topps Chrome black refractor Pirates team set, which consists of four other cards - Andrew McCutchen, Russell Martin, Startling Marte, and Justin Wilson. I don't own that many graded cards. Maybe 12-15 total - but all of the ones that I own are either from BGS or PSA. In fact, I'd never even heard of SGC until I saw this card, so needless to say this is the first SGC in my collection. I wasn't searching for a graded copy. In fact, if I had my pick I would prefer this card raw, but the price on the card was the same as the raw cards have gone for. So I pulled the trigger. The condition of the card isn't of terrible importance to me in this case.

I am curious, though. I see that it is "Mint" and looks to have received a grade of 9 for *something*, but also a grade of 96. Is that a scale of 1-100? If so, what's the 9 under Mint for?

Has anyone reading ever graded with SGC? Any and all advice is appreciated...

Mailday: More Cole

Last week blessed me with two awesome mailers from fellow bloggers. First off was a nice fat bubble mailer from Kerry at Cards on Cards. Despite the fact the Kerry is a supporter of one of the Bucs biggest rivals... I love reading his blog. I also have a knack for pulling Cardinals so I'm really happy to send them to a good home. I sent Kerry a nice stack of "Cards" on his wantlist and he sent me an excellent assortment in return. Some highlights:

(L) 2020 Topps Series 1 Gerrit Cole Variation SP

(R) 2019 Topps Update Gerrit Cole 1984 Insert

This year's release of Topps Flagship brought us the first (photoshopped) look at Gerrit Cole in a Yankees uniform. I hate it... like, a lot, but I'll always support the guy. 

2013 Topps Update Gerrit Cole RC

Ah, thats better. He looked so much better in black and gold. This card is Gerrit's first pro rookie card. He made his debut in June of that year so his first rookie appeared in Topps Update. I was at his debut. It was a beautiful summer night. Cole went six and two thirds and out-dueled Tim Lincecum. He helped his own cause by knocking a two-run single to deep center field in his first career at-bat. As an AL guy now, I bet he doesn't miss being in the batters box.

2015-16 NBA Hoops Great SIGnificance Jerami Grant Auto 

Switching gears to basketball - here's one of the few Syracuse alum that is having success at the NBA level. Grant played two successful years at 'Cuse and then jumped to the big leagues. He was drafted in the first round based strictly on potential, and he's panned out quite nicely. 

This is my first Jerami Grant auto so I'm super pumped to add to this to my Syracuse Alum collection. Thanks for the trade Kerry.

I also received a PWE from John at Johnny's Trading Spot. Yes - he managed to fit all of this safely and cleanly in a PWE! The top row has three of the 3D mini-cards that Kellogg's included in their products back in the 1970's and 80's. Two of them are the Candy Man - John Candelaria - and sandwiched in the middle and out of view is Manny Sanguillen. 

John also threw in three vintage steelers cards. Two greats. I don't actively collect old-school stuff so I'm always excited to have these cards show up in the mailbox. The Terry Bradshaw is my favorite, from 1978 Topps. This card was produced right in the middle of a pair of Steeler Super Bowls. A truly iconic decade for the team. 

Top it off with a nice little stack of Pirates from 2007 Topps, this was a sweet PWE. Thanks, John!

Quarantine Cards

"I miss baseball." A phrase that many of us will utter many times over the next several months. I was just starting to get the baseball itch before all the craziness hit. It's going to be a long time before we see America's favorite pastime again. How this affect our collecting habits? Will we collect more? Less? Will we write and blog more? It remains to be seen. I'm going to use my added downtime to try and show off some of my favorite cards and get some trades going.

(L) 2020 Topps Heritage Bryan Reynolds Refractor #/571

(R) 2020 Topps Heritage Bryan Reynolds Black Refractor #/999

Heritage refractors: A very polarizing style of card. The general consensus seems to be more against these cards than for them. If that's the case, I'm in the minority. I'm sucker for refractors and I totally dig these cards. Reynolds broke out over the summer and his first card was printed for 2019 Update - so seeing him printed on cards is novel to me and frankly... I want them all.

2017 Bowman Chrome Josh Bell Refractor #/500

Another small eBay purchase. I was able to grab this for less than $10 shipped. Like Reynolds, JB really broke out last year. It seems people are still sleeping on him a bit, but the guy hit 37 dingers and knocked in 117 runs last year as was selected for his first All-Star game appearance.

2012 Bowman Chrome Josh Bell Gold Refractor #/50

This is card is, for the time being, the crown jewel of my ever-growing "Pirates Gold Room." AKA, my collection of Pirates Gold Refractors. The scan didn't quite do this card justice - but it's gold, and it's shiny, and I love it. I've been looking to get my hands on this card for quite some time. There were a few listings on eBay with pretty outrageous prices. Finally a seller came through a totally undercut his competition (by about half the price) and I was right there to scoop it up. Win/win.

2020 Topps Heritage 2020 Rookie Stars Yordan Alvarez / Aristides Aquino

2019 Donruss Devin Bush Red Press Proof

These two came my way via PWE from Max at Starting Nine. I won't be buying any Heritage packs this year so anything I'll be acquiring will be via single card purchase or trade. I was reading through Max's post about opening ripping Heritage and the Alvarez/Acquino caught my eye. I think both of these guys are for real. I'm pretty sure I'll be watching Aquino terrorize the Bucs for years to come. I had some random team set needs for Max, and we cooked a up a PWE trade quickly. The Bush rookie was a surprise - and an awesome one at that. Thanks Max, this was a pleasure!

Thanks for reading.

Merry Cutchmas

It's never too late for some Christmas cheer. Way back in early December, Brian at Collecting Cutch sent me a holiday gift package. Totally unannounced and unexpected. Brian's the most generous collector I've connected with, and apparently one of the most artistic. The artwork he did on above is on the top loader, not the card itself. I imagine defacing a cutch card is a cardinal sin for a Cutch super-collector.

Brian hooked me up with a wide variety of Pirates goodies. First off is the Nick Burdi Inception Autograph, Pink Parallel #/99. Also along for the ride is a Gerrit Cole Prizm RC. 

And the real gem here, my first Willie Stargell auto. It's part of the 1993 Nabisco All-Star set. I don't know much about the set but according to some light research, I see that Phi Niekro, Brooks Robinson, Don Drysdale, Catfish Hunter and Jim Palmer are also in the set, so it seems like a small set of some big time HOFers.

Brian also included some cards that I was lucky enough to win in his Save Second Base contest in October. There was a big stack of 2019 Topps Chrome Pink Parallels, as well this awesome Jose Berrios from 2018 Clearly Authentic. My infatuation with Berrios is well documented so this a sweet addition to my collection.

Thanks again Brian!

Speaking of packages, I also wanted to give a shoutout to Chris over at The Collector. I sent him Red Sox cards from his wantlist and he was nice enough to send me back a great stack of Pirates, Steelers, and Blue Jackets. I'm still very new to hockey collecting, so any CBJ cards are super appreciated. Thank you Chris!

Last week I joined a 4-Box Bowman's Best Break from Midwest Box Breaks. Theres' a hefty number of Pirates on the autograph checklist so I figured I'd spin the wheel. To acquire the Pirates in the break, the price was right. Cal Mitchell is the Pirates #6 overall prospect and #2 outfield. 20 years old, drafted in the second round in 2017. Quinn Priester is the newest Pirate, drafted 18 overall in 2019 and the #5 overall prospect in the system. I've been meaning to grab an auto of him for some time. Hopefully we'll see these guys in the show in the next 3-4 years.

Thanks for reading.