Serial History: A No-No and No.400 chop suey style

I always love to use serial numbers as an inspiration for posts especially when I have writer's block.

This 2022 Topps Heritage card is serially numbered 7/15 and is based on the 1973 design

It also has a 1973 nickel.

7/15/1973

Let's look at some important things that happened that day.

Nolan Ryan threw his 2nd career no hitter.

You can hear the radio call on YouTube here.  The best part of this story is that Norm Cash with 2 outs in the 9th went to bat with a table leg before being told to use a real bat.  

It's my understanding that there's not a full video available if the entire game online. 

Willie McCovey became the 15th player in MLB history to hit 400 career homeruns. He would eventually go on to hit 521 over his 22 year career.  I couldn't find video of his 400th career, but here's a few HR highlights video of Stretch.

The drummer for the metal band System of a Down, John Dolyman was born.  

I got a chance to meet John at New York Comic Con around 2009 if I remember correctly.  He had his drum set on display which featured artwork by a number of elite comic book artists including Jim Lee, Bernie Wrightson, Art Adams, Tim Bradstreet, and many more. Unfortunately this was when I was still taking pictures with a digital camera and those files (and that PC) are long gone.  I had some on MySpace, but most of my photos were set to private and it's been at least 12 years since I logged in. Below are a few pics of the drum set I found online if anyone is interested.

Wolverine by Jim Lee on one side and 

Batman by Jim Lee on the other side

Jim is a legendary comic artist who drew one of the best Batman stories ever created (Batman: Hush) and also the highest selling comic book of all time (X-Men #1) and helped form Image Comics with his creator owned series WildC.A.T.S

All three of these things occuring on July 15th, 1973 and how there's no video of them in entirety got me thinking of what other pre 2022 items have been lost due to not having the cloud and digital formats more readily available. 

Since we live in an era where everything is forever forged in a digital footprint, what are some things you wish we had images or video of?  Let's keep it to only things after your birth year.  I'm sure it would be fun to imagine Instagram in the early 1900s, but let's be realistic. 

Where's the Happy Face?

It looks like Randy Arozarena and Austin Meadows recently had fake autographs used for Topps Definitive, a VERY HIGH END release ($2500 per box)

Here's a link to the post

I've often questioned the authenticity of guys who just scribble an autograph with a single line and no distinct markings, but both Meadows and Arozarena have distinct signatures.  

As a former Pirates prospect autograph seeker I have been able to get Austin to sign in person and it looks like his cards signed for Topps products.  Below is a sampling of some recent eBay auctions for Meadows autographs if you're not familiar.

Randy's signature has a very distinct feature where he makes a "smiley face" before the R.  The last A is also extremely large.

What do you think happened with these dual signed autograohed cards?  What should be done by Topps for those that pull one of these cards if in fact they can prove they weren't signed by Randy & Austin?

Oh and here is a card of Cutch smiling.

Look at that shine!!!

When it comes to modern baseball cards, many of us can agree that we love things that are shiny

The Superfractor has been one of the most prestigious parallels in our hobby for nearly 2 decades.  

Beginning in 2005 Topps Chrome, we have seen the champagne circles expand to many other sets like Topps Tribute, Allen & Ginter Chrome, Topps Heritage, Transcendent, among other sets.

Topps has been producing chrome parallels in their Topps Heritage set since the beginning of the product, but the Superfractor remained absent until the 2016 release.  Prior to that only the Chrome, Refractors, Black, and Gold Refractors existed.

With only a limited number of Superfractors produced for Andrew McCutchen Topps Heritage Chrome cards (2016, 2017, 2018, 2018 High Number, 2019 High Number, 2021) the chances of me getting one of these rare 1/1 style cards has been slim to impossible.  Only six McCutchen Heritage Superfractors exist in the past six years.  

Topps Heritage is THE MOST COLLECTED set of any hobby collectors.  It supports both the modern collector with current stars of the game along with a limited number of shiny parallels to chase after along with the vintage collectors that love the look and feel of vintage cardboard.  Unlike Flagship or any of the hit focused products, Heritage dives into the nostalgia fans because of that vintage design.  Heritage appeals to the original set design fans, player collectors, team collectors, set collectors, and master set collectors.  Lots of competition for the rarest of rare cards.

Well after many many many searches, I finally got one.

2021 Topps Heritage Chrome Superfractor based on the 1972 design.

It's so fricking sweet!

Check out the gold foil 1/1 on the back right corner.  

I grabbed this card a little over a month ago, but with the chaos of house searching, additional work hours, and prepping for the Save Second Base event I never got around to taking a picture of it. 

Do you have any Superfractors?

What kind of cards have you been looking to add to your collection for a few years, but you've never seen one available?

Reflecting on Sharknado

I've mentioned Sharknado a few times on this blog in it's brief history.  It combines my love of sharks (Hey it's Shark Week on Discovery Channel!!!) and those bad animal feature films.  

The first film series debuted in 2013 and starred former 90210 heart throb Ian Ziering (born in Newark, NJ in 1964).  Ziering plays Fin Shepard, a former surfer who is the world's best hope to stop these tornadoes that spew out hundreds of sharks.  Shepard uses a chainsaw as his main weapon to combat this natural disaster.

Because it's Shark Week (one of my favorite weeks of the year) and Discovery Channel recently showed an episode starring Ian Ziering (and Tara Reid) debunking some of the stories discussed in all the Sharknado movies, I thought it would be fun to discuss my Cutch collection and Sharknado.

I wonder if there's a baseball card of Andrew McCutchen that references both 1964 and 2013?

Behold 2013 Topps Heritage!

The 2013 Topps Heritage Set uses the same design as 2014 Topps.  Andrew McCutchen's base card is 438, the same as a checklist in the original 1964 set.  Talk about a huge missed opportunity.

Above are the 9 cards I have of Cutch from 2013 Topps Heritage.

1st Row:Base, Base League Leaders, Chrome

2nd Row:Action Variant, Red Retail, Black Retail

3rd Row: Purple Hot Box Chrome, Black Refractor Chrome, Venezuelan black back action photo variant

I still need two of the chrome parallels

 Gold Refractor /5 and Chrome Refractor /564

A gold Refractor was listed last fall, but was pulled before the auction ended.  It was being sold by a seller in Japan.  I tried to reach out to the seller, but got no response.  Here's hope I can land one of the other 4 sometime.

Have you watched any of the Sharknado movies?

21/72

The 1972 Topps set will always be associated to me as the last playing days card of Roberto Clemente. It also is represented by my first look at the 1972 set via the 1987 Turn Back the Clock subset featuring Clemente. 

So it was a nice surprise to see Topps pay respect to Clemente by creating a 21 card insert set to Roberto Clemente in this year's Topps Heritage release which pays homage to the 1972 design.  The number 21 was of course worn by Clemente throughout his playing career.

I quickly jumped on adding the black refractor from this year's Topps Heritage to my collection.  It is limited to only 72 copies.

Mine is serially numbered 21/72 in the top right corner.  So close to a Cutch22 serial number, but I will gladly take the Clemente numbering for a 1972 inspired set.

Have you gotten any Topps Heritage cards yet?  

If so any luck pulling a Clemente insert card?

The COMC Pirates Package

I recently received a package in the mail containing over 100 cards for my player collections of Andrew McCutchen, Gary Sheffield, and various Pirates players I like to collect. 

While the package arrived in 2021, I am not going to count it towards my 50 card goal because they were all purchased in 2020.  It is only because of COMCs slow shipping that forced me to receive the cards many months after requesting shipment.

Let's dive into some of the highlights of the package...

This card is extremely difficult to find.  

And I mean extremely difficult.

If you travel with me into the way back machine to 2011, the hobby wasn't as strong as it is now.  

Not only could you find retail packs at retail establishments, but many collectors were doing just that...collecting.

Topps wasn't producing factory sets with multiple parallels encouraging people to open their retail factory sets.  Granted there was 1 (yes only 1) pack inside every sealed factory set containing a handful of cards with a unique color border parallel.  

These were often red or orange.  

Trying to find one of these 10 years later of your player?  Good luck!

They are numbered to 245 copies on the back and I suspect many of them are still sealed away in factory sets.

So remember what I just said about 2011 Topps Factory red parallels?

The same is even harder for the 2010 Factory red parallels.

There is another McCutchen that has been looking for one of these for a few years.  I'm hoping to use this as trade bait to help me acquire a card of his that I have been after.

If you've followed the blog for a bit, you probably know that I love the 2015 Topps Strata set.  It is the first set that Topps produced featuring an MLB authenticated sticker on every relic used in the set.  My goal is to collect as many of these of possible.  I added 3 more of the plain grey swatches to the collection.

They will go nicely with all these patches I already had from the set

Next up is a 2016 Optic Teal parallel numbered to 50 copies.  This helps get me closer to completing this rainbow.

Speaking of 2016, here is a 2016 Diamond Kings silver Artist Proof.  It's not numbered, but rare to come across 5 years later.  I really like the design of this year's Diamond Kings release.

This 2016 Bowman Platinum would be a perfect card to show off next month for St. Patrick's Day.  The green parallel, numbered to only 99 copies, really pops in the background.

Here is a card I was surprised I didn't have.  It's a 2013 Topps Heritage Chrome Refractor.  I have the black Refractor, the base chrome, and the purple chrome, but never got the refractor...until now. It's numbered to only 564 copies and is based on the 1964 Topps design.

Ok. This one is kind of a cheating card.  It features Cutch in a Pittsburgh uniform, but is from 2018.  Cutch was traded prior to the start of the 2018 season and this technically doesn't count as a Pirates playing days card because he didn't play for them in 2018.

What do you think?  Should a 2018 card that features Cutch playing for the Pirates count as a Pirates playing days card even though his last game played was for the Bucs in 2017?

Here is the first Panini relic card I picked up that I needed.  I've shown the dual relic off of this card, but not the single relic.  It's from 2014 and is a nice designed card.

Here is one of those cards that I knew existed, but a few things prevented me from adding this to my collection over the past decade:

It is a Topps Heritage card so Master Set collectors are always looking for this.

It is a rare card (only 62 copies) from a set 10 years old.

It features the Baltimore Orioles, who in my eyes have a very loyal collecting fan base.

It features a former MVP in his early career.

It is a stamp set so there are stamp collectors who also collect things like this.

What an awesome looking card.

And to finish up its another pajama party card.  Despite no logos, this early Donruss release is a much needed Press Proof parallel.  The silver proof is numbered to only 199 copies.

That wraps up my Cutch Pirates cards from my COMC pickups from the 2nd half of 2020 (except one notable card).  I'll show off some others in the future.  They will include my Giants, Yankees, and Phillies Cutch pickups. 

Month Winners

I completely forgot to do this post earlier so I'm very sorry to anyone who was waiting for it.  Today I am going to announce some of the contest winners, but before we do all that let's look at a celebrity and see if we can connect her to an Andrew McCutchen baseball card.

Today's focus is Jessica Simpson

The singer turned actress famously married Nick Lachey

 and appeared on the tv show The Newlyweds and was portrayed as a ditzy blonde

America has seen her grow up in front of us.

In addition to song writing and singing she has landed a few roles as an actress.

Her most famous acting role was playing Daisy Duke in Dukes of Hazzard

It was a reboot of the franchise and was intended to have some sequels.

Unfortunately they couldn't get any of the stars to return for a sequel, so the studio made a prequel instead and it didn't do very well at the box office or with fans.

Jessica also starred in the Dane Cook comedy Employee of the Month

She was the new girl hired by a big box store and was rumored to always go after the Employee of the Month.  

It's a comedy with some romantic elements, but mostly focuses on Dane Cook being a slacker, Jessica Simpson being hot, and the guy who played Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite still not saying much and being a sidekick.

Andrew McCutchen has a long resume of accomplishments and as discussed on the back of Andrew's 2018 Topps Heritage, he was NL Player of the Month for the forth time in his career for the month of July 2017.

The front of this card is the black chrome refractor and features a nice pink circle.

Now for the winners of prizes for contests I have run thus far.  All prizes will ship in November.

For the magenta printing plate there were 10 entrants to leave a comment on the post before it closed.

I then began to random it off until I got to four times as promised in the post.

Grant was on top after 1 click

Then Daniel

Then John

And finally the Elliptical Man was on top after the 4th click.  Congrats on your new Shaun Valeriote printing plate.

On Tuesday we saw Justin Turner hit the first double of the 2020 World Series so that means All Cardinals All the Time won the Cody Bellinger Mother's Day jersey relic from 2018 Topps Tribute.

Now here is the contest winner everyone 

has been waiting for:

The Babe Ruth Stadium relic

I neglected to mention limit 1 entry per person in the original contest rules so anyone that had posted multiple comments with links to their posts got more than 1 entry.

In total there were 17 entries

The Diamond King was on top after the 1st entry

Spyda-Man was on top after the 2nd

And The Elliptical Man won another one!!! after the 3rd click

On a completely unrelated note, this blog and all the comments has generated just over $300 to go towards breast cancer awareness.  I will need to review everyone else's pink posts to see all the comments made.  I think we will hit the $400 capped goal.  Thank you all!!!