Over the past couple years I have had a tradition of showing off red baseball cards the first Friday of February. You can revisit all those posts here. The reason I do this is to bring awareness to women heart disease.
I will continue the theme of showing off some nice red parallels, but first...a reminder to please wear red today to support the movement.
Visit heart.org to help make a contribution. They set out a goal of $3 million this year and as of Friday morning are falling well short of it as they have only raised just over $100K.
Now for the best red parallel baseball card in my collection that I have picked up over the past few months
2021 Topps Now Game Used Base and (on card) autograph celebrating Cutch's 250th career home run. The card is numbered out of only 10 copies (mine being number 2)
This is a very recent pickup and it was shipped by COMC within a week.
Shocking, right?
That is the 2021 Topps Triple Threads Triple Relic patch Ruby parallel numbered 1/1 featuring relics of Cutch, Bryce Harper, and Rhys Hoskins
You guys like bling?
Ben Baller does
And Ben Baller Did The Card for this 2021 Topps Chrome Ben Baller edition red parallel limited to 5
How about some autographs signed in red ink?
2021 Heritage High Number limited to 72 copies and 2021 Diamond Icons limited to 25 copies
And to finish things off I have a 2021 Topps Archives Red Hot 🔥 parallel limited to 50 copies
That's all for now.
Again please go visit ❤ heart.org ❤ and make a contribution if you're able to today.
Topps has often used Topps Heritage to play homage of baseball's rich history by using the players of today on designs of the past.
The 2018 Topps Heritage design was based on the 1969 Topps set. The set features non affiliated team color circles in the top corner with the player's name and position. The set also features a yellow team color across the bottom. There are double rounded borders around the player's image and that summarizes the basic concept of this design.
1969 marked the 100th anniversary of professional baseball.
Topps used that anniversary to create a 100th Anniversary foil stamp mark with the MLB Batter Logo on the card. This is an homage that 1969 marked 100 years. These gold foil stamps have no serial numbers, but are extremely rare.
Cards with the foil stamp were limited to a print run of only 25 copies.
Cutch appeared in both 2018 Topps Heritage as a member of the Pirates, whom he spent the 2017 season with and was the face of the franchise since his 2009 debut.
He also appears in the ultra collectable 2018 Topps Heritage High Number as a member of the San Francisco Giants. Cutch was traded to the Giants and spent all but 30 games playing for San Francisco in the 2018 season. The 2018 Heritage High Numbers set, much like 2018 Topps Update is incredibly collectable due to rookie cards of Ronald Acuna Jr, Juan Soto, Shohei Otani, and Gleyber Torres.
On a completely unrelated note, please don't forget to show off those 3D cards and join my contest.
I have shown this card off on Chasing 3,000 but since that blog gets only a quarter of the views that this one does I thought it was time to show it off here too.
This card is awesome. It features two Hall of Famers and Pirates for life in Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell.
It also features the pair of outfielders who,were most responsible for bringing a brief winning culture back to the Steel City in Starling Marte and Andrew McCutchen.
The card is numbered to only 10 copies and pairs up nicely with these other 2015 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection cards in my collection.
On yesterday's post where I shared a bunch of blue cards on a Monday, Johnny's Trading Spot made a comment about having a hankering for yellow cards coming on.
I wasn't sure if he meant yellow cards
Or the band Yellowcard
since I did show a music video in yesterday's post.
I can only assume (and you know what that can sometimes mean) that he actually meant yellow cards.
Yellow has been a part of Topps color palette since they began with 1951 Topps Red Backs card game pieces.
The card game pieces featured a yellow and white background behind a red diamond and a black and white photo of the player. They would be used to play a game of baseball using the cards. This 2015 version of Andrew McCutchen features a triple by the 2013 MVP.
Topps would continue to use yellow as a strong background color choice in multiple sets in the 50s and 60s.
This 1958 style is a 2019 Topps Archives card. I have a few different border parallels of this card, but this particilar copy is the base, which I received for free at the September 2019 Philly Card Show where I met McCutchen.
Many more sets over the years would feature yellow, but my first experience with yellow in the card design was a 1986 Rick Rhoden.
The first set I collected was 1987 Topps, but my first packs I had were 1986 Topps. The Pirates had a yellow name printed atop the card.
There were supposed to be parallels of this 2014 Archives card produced as several other players that shared this design also got a gold foil parallel. A quick google search and you will see that NONE have ever been sold on eBay, COMC, or sportlots in 6 years.
The most BOLD yellow card I have is this 2018 Topps Heritage High Number
This card is based on the 1969 Collector Cards Jumbos. The back is very plain and boring.
Speaking of backs
I have shown off the 2017 Topps Heritage Bright Yellow back parallel in the past.
These are very rare Short Printed cards, but not nearly as rare as the SSP Gray Back from 2017 Heritage
Topps has produced baseball cards for nearly seven decades.
Like many other printing processes from those days they have used printing presses that utilize printing plates to create the images. There are four colors used to create each of the baseball cards we love and enjoy. The colors are black, cyan, magenta, and yellow.
Here are 8 of my yellow plates. I currently have 26 yellow printing plates of Andrew McCutchen.
Of all the plate colors, the yellow is my least favorite. Often times the yellow plates create the faces to look like zombie versions of themselves.
Something I have been obsessing over is the research of matching an image used for a Topps product to an actual at bat.
The 2019 Heritage High Numbers action variant is from a game played April 14, 2019 where the Phillies beat the Marlins in a 3-1 contest in 14 innings.
Highlights of the game can be seen in the video below. Head to 3:50 mark to see the (slightly foul) absolute bomb that Cutch hit off Wei-Yin Chen.
You can see the image used for the card directly from the Getty Images screenshot above, but the near homerun shot would have been a cooler "action shot" mainly for the fan jumping up precelebrating.
Despite just missing the go ahead homer, in typical Cutch form he put everything he had in to the next pitch to leg out a triple to give his team a chance to take the lead. Fortunately Jean Segura hit a homer that put the Phillies up 3-1 and improved their record to 9-5 on the very young season.
Which of the three images below do you think would have been better for an action variant?
With the 3 Day absence from the blog, I can safely do my Save Second Base Event, it's recap, and World Series recap without interfering with my 1,000th post EVEN IF I post an entry each day. I feel a lot better about this and am sure that there will be a day or two I skip as I get closer to October anyway.
By now I am sure everyone has read about and heard about the trimmed card scandal that has been going through our beloved hobby. I don't buy cards as an investment. I strictly buy them to collect. Because of this I tend to not get overly hyped about the grades of cards. PSA 10 or PSA 9 on a modern card? Doesn't really matter to me.
For vintage cards a PSA 3 with good looking colors on the front and no tears is jist as cool as a PSA 8. I am more about the collecting of those vintage cards than caring about value 20 years down the road.
One of the biggest consigners in the hobby has been front and center for selling cards that have been known to be trimmed and authenticated by PSA with higher grades. I buy from the big consigners (PWCC and Probstein) on multiple occasions. Do I understand that there is a risk that I am getting shilled and prices are going up on the other end by the original owner trying to get a few extra bucks? Yup, I understand that. And I am ok with it. That's why there's something called a max bid. I am willing to go up to "X".
Recently PWCC posted two cards on auction that I REALLY WANTED. I didn't have an official wants list, but I knew of 5 cards that I coveted more than others.
Topps Heritage and Archives are my two favorite releases now that Gypsy Queen has become absolute garbage with their hits and lack of minis. I have been piecing together all the Topps Heritage Pirates team sets since the initial release. There is something really awesome about current players on vintage designs that I love.
One of the most achievable cards (cards with print runs greater than 50 copies) that I have always wanted to own is the 2009 Topps Heritage High Numbers Black Refractor to 60 copies. Like my Eleanor Photo Variant, it doesn't pop up often. Only one copy was sold in 2018.
This brings us back to PWCC. They offered an ungraded copy for sale....
AND I WON IT!!!
To celebrate my incredible addition of adding this 10 year old cardboard to the collection, I am going to show off all my Topps Heritage Black Refractors.
2010 Heritage
2011 Heritage
2012 Heritage
2013 Heritage
2014 Heritage
2015 Heritage
2016 Heritage
2017 Heritage
(blue replaced black for the "burlap" year)
