These are not the racks you are looking for

I missed an opportunity to highlight women this month so with only a day left in Women's History Month I present to you the history of the celebs I have had a crush on since my childhood. 

A top 10 if you will... (Listed in alphabetical order by first name)

Alexandra Daddario

Alison Brie

Evangeline Lilly

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jessica Alba

Jessica Biel

Kat Dennings

Kate Upton

Milana Vayntrub

Olivia Taylor Dudley

Now with all those great images of those beautiful women with the assets only slightly showing, but mostly sealed I thought I could show a recent sealed pack of cards with Andrew McCutchen on the cover.

Since rack packs don't exist in the traditional sense anymore, this is the closest I can come up with.

Above is the 2006 sealed set of Altoona Curve featuring Andrew McCutchen on the front and

Neil Walker on the back.

Do you miss rack packs?  Would the current hobby craze make rack packs impossible to keep sealed if Tatis, Acuna, or Trout were on the cover?

A Carbon Copy?

I set a goal to add 50 new Pirates Cutch cards to my collection in 2021. 

This 2014 Bowman Chrome may look similar to another card I already showed off last Friday. It's not a carbon copy, but it is a carbon fiber parallel.

It is the black carbon parallel numbered to only 10 copies and were inserted into packs at 1:695 packs.

🔥I Am On Fire🔥

I have been on fire adding new Cutch cards from his Pirates playing days (2005 to 2017) over the past month having acquired nearly a dozen cards in 1 month.  This makes up for a slower February that I had.

Above is the 2017 Topps Fire Gold Minted parallel.  These are available only in blaster boxes.

I snagged this blaster box exclusive card for under $5 delivered after taxes and shipping

Have you picked up any cards on your want list for under $5 shipped recently? What did you get?

70 Year Fatigue

As many know, Topps is celebrating their 70th anniversary this year and as such there are many insert sets and parallels in their various releases thus far commemorating the anniversary.

One such parallel is the appropriately named 70th foil parallel.  They use a similar technology to what we saw last year with the Bowman releases.  

I have gotten a few of the Andrew McCutchen 70th Foil parallels released thus far including the 1986 insert set seen below.

Each of these unique parallels are numbered to 70 copies this year and for the 1986 inserts, they are numbered on the back.

I also have gotten the Stars in Service 70th Anniversary parallel.

The serial number for this is on the front.

As Topps continues to celebrate their 70th anniversary I have a few questions that hopefully we can go into discussing around the blogs.

What are your 5 favorite designs in Topps Flagship releases over the past 70 years?

What designs would you like to see used more frequently for throwback inspired sets like Topps Archives or used as an insert set? 

Topps Series 2 Preview

Topps has already been active in providing me with new McCutchen cards released in 2021.  I've already got a few inserts released from 2021 Series One and have picked up a refractor from 2021 Topps Heritage and a green parallel from 2021 Topps Inception.  There's dozens of cards to chase already and Cutch hasn't even appeared in Flagship yet.

Topps did release the image that will be used for Cutch's 2021 Series Two card and it's a nice action fielding photo. 

Series Two will also feature Ke'Bryan Hayes official rookie card too.

The set releases June 2nd so I have some time to save up for the nearly 20 parallels to chase. 

Purple Ice Ice Baby

I love getting Cutch cards from his Pirates playing days.  Prime Cutch is the best!!!

It's why I made it one of my goals this year to add 50 new Cutch cards to the collection from 2005-2017.  

I am keeping pace with adding roughly 1 new Cutch card to the collection from that era and it has been an absolute blast getting some of these rarer cards. 

Case in point is the exhibit above. 

2014 Bowman Purple Ice.  

For being a "paper" Bowman card, this card pops and shines almost like a chrome card.

The purple ice parallels were limited to only 10 copies.  Odds for pulling one of these aren't available, but they were hobby pack exclusives. 

Prime Phillies Patch

Yup, I've added another Phillies patch card to my ever expanding Andrew McCutchen collection.  This particular card is from 2020 Topps Update and is numbered to only 25 copies.

It comes courtesy of @WillsCollection on Twitter

Will also included 3 other McCutchen cards as a throw in.