WOOD you believe I forgot a 1/1?

A few days ago I showed off my wood minis of Cutch from 2015, 2016, and 2017.  

I forgot to show off my 2019 though.

This is my only non Pirates wood mini

The 2018 A&G wood minis never surfaced except for a few of the "extended" sp set.  Cutch was included in that set and I was negotiating to get it shortly after the release day, but when it was revealed none of the base set wood minis made their way into the set, the seller pulled the item and I have never seen it again. 

Do you collect cards of your favorite players in other uniforms besides your favorite teams?

239,659?

I've talked on here about not purchasing many cards over the past year (at least in comparison to previous years) because of moving.  Now that things have settled down I finally requested shipment for my COMC inventory over the past two years.

Of course as soon as I submitted my order for shipping, the next day a /10 clear acetate League Leaders popped up.

2015 Topps - [Base] - Clear #127 - League Leaders - Justin Morneau, Josh Harrison, Andrew McCutchen /10

I wish I could have gotten this in hand with my recent order, but considering how far back my COMC order is in the waiting line, I'm hesitant to tempt fate and email them to ask if they can add this to my order. 

Yikes!

I find it hard to believe that they'll have my order ready in a month with that que level.

For those of you that have purchased from COMC in recent months have you seen hundreds of thousands orders ahead of you? 

Have you ever asked COMC to add cards to an existing order?

The Great Rookie (and Cup) Debate

Topps rookie cup/trophy cards have been around for a long time.

Over the course of that time, Topps has made a few errors.  In recent years we have seen players have a rookie cup logo in addition to a rookie card logo on the same card because Topps has chosen to release the player's rookie card after the player's actual rookie season.  We saw it happen in 2020 with Yordan Alvarez, 2021 with Alec Bohm (although the year 2020 was a strange year for distribution, player debuts, shortened seasons, etc due to the worldwide pandemic), and 2022 with Wander Franco. 

As much as people get upset (myself included) for Topps not releasing a rookie card during a player's rookie season we have seen this happen many times in the past including HOF guys like Willie Mccovey and Eddie Murray.  Their Rookie Cup cards aknowleding the tremendous performance as a rookie got placed on their cards for their true 2nd year in the big leagues, but they are considered rookies because they didn't get a rookie card when they were actually rookies.

Many of us believe that in the earlier 2010s Topps seemed better at applying the correct RC logos on players and those good enough to make the Rookie Cup award get their 2nd year card to adorn the Rookie Cup. I'm going to prove that theory wrong too.

With the Pirates deep in nearly two decades of losing seasons, Andrew McCutchen's debut in 2009 gave the fans hope of better things to come.  Cutch won the Baseball America Rookie of Year, finished in 3rd for Baseball Writers NL ROY, and was announced as a Topps Rookie Cup winner for his debut season in 2009.

Cutch got a RC logo on his 2009 Topps Update card during his rookie season. 

Cutch's performance as a rookie lead to Topps producing cards of Cutch in 2010 with the Rookie Cup/Trophy logo for Topps Flagship and Heritage releases.

Good things were definitely on the horizon for Pirates fans as it saw the team promote their top 3 positional prospects (Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, and Neil Walker) in 2010. 

Both Neil and Jose received a RC in 2010 due to their early season debuts.

Pedro Alvarez was called up later in the season and didn't appear in 2010 products except Pro Debut (a prospect filled minor league set).  He did not receive a RC in 2011 like what we have seen recently with other top prospects like Wander Franco, Yordan Alvarez, Alec Bohm. However as you can see below Topps didn't put a RC logo on Pedro's 2011 Topps release.

The 2010 Topps Rookie Team can be found here.  As you can see from that list, Pirates 2B Neil Walker was named a Rookie Cup winner.

This meant that Walker would have his Topps Flagship and Topps Heritage cards feature the rookie cup.

One name missing from that list is Jose Tabata, who was good enough to receive one rookie of the year vote in 2010 for his performance.

He slashed .299/.346/.400 with 19 stolen bases in 26 attempts.  After the 2010 season, he was believed to be atop the Pirates lineup for the future for his above average speed and hitting approach. He also provided outstanding defense in left field. 

Tabata had a good rookie season in 2010, but in comparison to Jason Heyward, Mike (Giancarlo) Stanton, and Austin Jackson it just wasn't good enough to receive the cup/trophy honor for his 2011 Topps flagship cards.

However, Topps Heritage did produce a 2011 Topps Heritage card featuring the All Star Rookie trophy for Tabata.

The back mentions Tabata having the second most stolen bases on the Pirates.  Andrew McCutchen lead the club with 33 SB that season. 

This means that Topps produced 4 outfield rookie cup cards for Topps Heritage.

But oddly enough, Giancarlo Stanton was rejected the All Star Rookie Trophy for all parallels while Tabata maintained the logo.

A more recent mistake by Topps was including Ke'Bryan Hayes in the 2021 All Rookie Cup product highlighting players who have earned the distinction of Topps Rookie Teams for the past 70 years.

The problem with that is Alec Bohm was announced as the 3B for the 2020 All Rookie Topps Team, not Ke'Bryan. Again due to the odd year that 2020 was, I am willing to forgive RC mistakes on 2020 products and having them all have to be included in 2021 products, but there's no excuse for putting someone on the checklist for a set called Topps Rookie Cup for a guy that didn't get nominated by Topps as a Rookie Cup winner for the 2020 season. 

Do you pay attention to the rookie cups and rookie card logos on flagship or Heritage releases?

Do you think there should be a clear deadline for Topps to release rookie cards of players so a Rookie Cup and Rookie Card logo don't appear on the same card?

Are you aware of any Rookie Cup logos being added or subtracted in error for Flagship or Heritage products?

 

National Sunglasses Day

Since breaking into the league in 2009, Cutch has always had a sense of joy and swag wherever he played.

Here are a few cards featuring Cutch wearing sunglasses.

First I am going to show off an original piece of artwork by the extremely talented artist Josh Trout

2022 has seen my favorite low budget insert in a long time. Check out those shades!

2021 had an insert set called Stars in Service showing athletes in the community.

It also had a base card featuring Cutch sliding to make a catch for his base card in Series 2.

2020 introduced the world to a worldwide pandemic and the coolest sports card ever produced.

2019 Stadium Club had a photo variant of Cutch 

2016 Topps Triple Threads featured images of Cutch at the 2015 All Star Game

This is an original art card by Brian Kong and was used to produce the Museum Canvas Collection reprints from this original artwork. 

2014 Topps Archives 

2013 Topps Archives All Stars

2013 had photo variants of the top stars sporting their sunglasses.  The most famous is the Yu Darvish card featuring a pair of sunglasses that should be sent back in time.

2012 had a photo variant of Cutch at the All Star Game

2011 Tier One had an autograph with Adam Jones where Cutch is sporting shades atop his cap.

2005 Bowman Heritage saw him sport a pair of shades on his cap for the base, mini, and mahogany parallels.  It is strange That the photo variant doesn't feature sunglasses on the cap as it was likely from the same photo shoot.

It also saw the 2005 Bowman Heritage Signs of Greatness autographs to feature the sunglasses on the hat.

2005 Topps Chrome saw Cutch wearing the shades atop his head.

Do you have any sunglasses cards to show off? We could do a blog bat around if so.

Experiment 626

I've been posting a bunch of my Allen & Ginter cards on Instagram lately and decided that since many people on IG are celebrating 626 day, I would show off a family of Allen & Ginter cards. 

626 day is named after Experiment 626 aka Stitch from Disney's Lilo & Stitch.  

For those that have seen it, there's a phrase Ohana means Family.

Here's my family of 2015 Allen & Ginter cards. 

Multiple different sizes and some very rare cards can be pictured here.

Above you see the mini mini (/2), the mini, the base, and the box topper.

Here are some close ups of the more rare cards

This is a mini rip card /15.  These are EXTREMELY RARE to find still in tact.

Inside could be a rare mini mini card /2 or a redemption for a Mini relic complete set.

Speaking of mini minis

Yeah, these are pretty rare AND TINY!!!

Look how small it is in my hand

I showed off the wood 1/1 mini yesterday, but here it is again.

This is the extended short print

Have you ever watched Lilo & Stitch? 

Do you have any rare Allen & Ginter cards in your collection? 

Who WOOD believe this?

The Topps Allen & Ginter wood parallels 1/1 have long been some of the most sought after e on the after market.  

They are incredibly difficult to obtain as they are only made available inside a rip card.  Rip cards for those that don't know are cards featuring 1 to 2 different athletes/personalities that can be ripped to find bonus cards 3inside. The problem with this is that so many uj collectors and player collectors don't rip their rip cards because they want to keepg the wood parallels legacy, the 2018 batch went missing except the extended numbers.  G

I remember having an opportunity to buy the wood extended Cutch SP from 2018 A&G on release day and balked at the $150 price tag associated with i.  t.  This was before it was revealed that all other wood minis never made it into production.

I am forever kicking myself for not acquiring that card.

I have managed to get the 2015, 2016, and 2017 wood minis in my collection and have had several conversations over the years with the owner of the 2010.  

For now though it looks like these 3 will be the only ones in my collection. 

What cards do you regret not getting before knowing how rare they were?