Random Rainbow Showoff: 2012 Prizm Baseball

Every once in awhile I like to show off my progress with a rainbow.

Today I chose 2012 Prizm Baseball

Prizm is the "flagship" set that fans of basketball and football collect.  It got it's first release in baseball though. 

Initially the "Refractors" were called Prizms so when cataloging the card on the left you would call it 2012 Prizm Prizm and 2012 Prizm.

Now the refractor style technology is called a silver.

Above are the three retail exclusive colors

Here is my rainbow as it stands 8 years since release.  I am still in need of the Black Finite 1/1 and the Gold Prizm /10

I like that they put the parallel name on the back of the card.  Imagine if they still did that?
You'd see names like the following:
Lime Green Donuts
Cosmic Haze
Burgundy Kaleidoscope
Je2er

Is there really gold at the end of a rainbow?

The amount of parallels in today's collecting world is insane.  I don't use TCDB, but the site lists that Andrew McCutchen has 5,902 cards to collect.  That is a lot of baseball cards to collect for a guy with just barely over a decade of service time in the majors.

I only have about half those cards. 

While I do like to chase after many many rainbows, there are a few that I focus on more than others.  Prizm and Bowman Chrome have traditionally been my favorites to go after because of the amount of shine and refracting looks.

I have been looking at Topps Fire 2018 as another set I would like to eventually chase the entire rainbow for.  I feel like Fire has improved every year since it's initial release. 

2018 Gold Label is a release that I am getting very close to completing as well.

 Gold Label is a set that I see improvements for each year as well. 

There are 4 different colors to collect in addition to the base (pictured above).  As you can see in the picture above for the base version there are 3 different pictures to the left.  These help to distinguish, yet another parallel besides the color of the card.

In addition to the different colors, there are different classes.  Three to be exact. 

Class 1 is your traditional easy to find class.  Class 2 is the next tier up (think of it as a SP).
Class 3 is the top tier and the hardest to chase after (a SSP)

The 4 different color borders to chase for each Class have unique numbering and rarity.

All the Gold Label Golds are 1/1s, regardless of Class.

The Reds are the next rarest of the color parallels.  They are numbered to 75 (Class 1), 50 (Class 2), and 25 (Class 3) respectively.

The blacks, like base cards, aren't numbered but follow the same form of rarity in terms of Class 3 being the rarest.

The blues are fairly common parallel and oddly enough the easiest one to complete and yet the only non 1/1s I havent completed.  They are numbered to 150 (Class 1), 99 (Class 2), and 50 (Class 3).

As you can see from my page that I scanned in I still need the blue Class 1 numbered to 150.  It's on my wishlist for Santa this year.  I feel confident in saying that 2 years after release I will be able to knock out all the cards that aren't 1/1s to complete most of this rainbow.

However....
I also still need all 3 of the different classes Golds that are all numbered to 1/1.

I thought this particular set would show how crazy supercollecting a star player is in today's collecting market.  So even though I still have 11 cards of one player from one release, I still only have 73% (11 of the 15) for this particular release.

Just A Random Rainbow: Entry 1

I am falling into some writer's block trying to come up with good content for the blog.  Once the baseball season gets started I am certain I will have plenty to talk about, but with spring training still a month away I am looking for some inspiration.

I think I will do a new style of posts where I show off some of the rainbows I have for certain sets. 

With nearly 2,700 unique cards of Cutch in my collection now I have LOTS of rainbows started. 

This will give me a chance to show and talk about my favorite parallel of the rainbow, any needs I may have for the set and also talk about any unique stories relating to the rainbow.

I am going to start with 2016 Diamond Kings as the inaugural Random Rainbow. 
2016 Diamond Kings is my favorite design from the Diamond Kings line.  The product release began in 2015 and offered collectors a chance to get artisticly designed cards that Topps was doing with their Gypsy Queen line and take it a new level.

The product offered multiple parallels to chase from Artist's Proofs (base/99, silver/25, and black /1) and Framed Parallels (base framed/unnumbered, red/99, blue/99, green/5, and black/1). 

Of the standard issued cards there were 9 parallels to chase in total.

I currently have 5 of the 9.  I still need the following:
Silver artist proof/25
Black artist proof/1
Green Frame /5
Black Frame/1

Obviously needing 2 1 of 1s will be tough to complete the rainbow.  The green/5 is going to be difficult as well and the silver artist proof is a tough find due to the foil not being very obvious on the card to highlight being a low numbered parallel.

Among all the parallels that I do have, there is one clear cut favorite and that is...

I am a sucker for bright red parallels (I also like blacks and pinks too though).  The bright red frame on the artistic canvas looking image screams a museum quality baseball card.  If Panini ever decides to make larger format cards I hope they do Diamond Kings as one of the initial releases.  This diamond king is truly king of my parallels for this set.

What do you think about me showing off some random rainbows in the future?