Throwback Thursday: Wait, Whaaaaat????

At first when I read the back of this card I read it as the Pirates playing almost an entire week of doubleheaders as Cutch had a 13 game hit streak in his first week.

Did I fail at grammar?
Yup, I didn't see the word BEGAN.

The card in question is a 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom.
I am looking for all the color variants.
HINT HINT!

USA! USA! USA!

If any of you have been watching the World Baseball Classic, you have watched one of the most amazing baseball tournaments ever.  Nearly every game has felt like a Game 7 in the World Series.

I love the different cultural changes in the games too.

Today Team USA will be competing against Puerto Rico.

I will be glued to the TV tonight watching the game.

Let's Go USA!!!!

Cutch's Crew: Willie Mays

Arguably one of the game's greatest centerfielders, the Say Hey Kid is a legend.  But has Andtew McCutchen ever been compared to Willie Mays?

As a matter of fact, he has.

Thanks to the back of this 2015 Heritage New Age Performers we get a pretty admirable comparison to the great Mays

Gum Damnit!

"There's gum on my seat. Gum."
Be the first to name that movie and get free cards.

I have only two Gum Stains cards.
I hope to add the others to my PC soon.

The front of the cards are identical to all other versions.

The only difference is "gum stains" on the back.  Any of us who collected cards in the 70s to early 90s remember getting gum in your packs and often times the last card in the pack would be stained with the gum residue.

Pictured above is the 2016 Topps Heritage gum stain back.

I also have the 2015 Heritage pictured below.

I have several Gum Stain needs which I will use to post in a future Needs list

Heritage Gold

The 100 card Topps Chrome Heritage set has a number of parallels each year.  This year the black parallel which has always been one of the best looking parallels of the sets was replaced with a blue parallel.

The one color that didn't change was gold

Because of the scarcity of these (numbered to only 5) I have only been able to secure 2 in my years of Collecting Cutch.

The 2015 version is my favorite simply because I love the 1966 design.

The 2017 version.....well....it's a card I can cross off the checklist.  Before getting this card in hand, I thought that the photo used for Cutch made him look like Bucky from Fat Albert.  I hate this card.  Strangely that is why I am trying to knock out as many parallels as quickly as possible so that I can never have to search for this card again.

The backs of the cards speak for themselves though.
Low numbered goodness.

By adding the 2017 Heritage Gold to the PC, I only need 2 more to complete the rainbow, the 1/1 Superfractor Chrome and the Grey Back not numbered (only 10 exist though).

In a future post I will show off some other Heritage parallels I have.

The Money Card

Over the past few years Topps has produced cards featuring the game's top talents with old coins.  I have purchased a few of these from time to time.

They often sell for big bucks to player collectors.  I'm not completely in love with the idea of spending over $30 for a piece of cardboard with my favorite player, an old coin from the 80s and a stamp valued at under 25 cents.

My breakpoint on these kinds of cards is $15 or less.  Well, I managed to score the below card for a winning bid of $14.50.  The puppy love stamp did it in for me.

Do any of you collect these gimmicky cards?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day (Lots of Green Cards)

Today is March 17th and many of us will be celebrating Saint Patrick's Day today.  Since it falls on a Friday, it also gives everyone a reason to go out drinking with friends.

I don't know how close I am to having 317 McCutchen green cards to celebrate 3/17, but I might set that as a goal for next year (that would be an insane goal).  In the meantime though here's my latest Green Cutch pickup.

A 2016 Donruss Optic /5 that cost a hefty penny to acquire.  Those things are ridiculously hard to find.

I will also show off 3 pages worth of green parallels.

And 17 "Hits" that are green parallels or green in color.

 This is my only Green booklet.

Next up are 3 sticker autos

Now for the relics
Up first are Green Foil Jersey Kings and Bat Kings.  After 3 attempts to rescan it, I gave up.  Trust me though that the foil is green.

Now for the rest of the relics

I couldn't decide what copies of the 2015 Strata /75 Green parallels I wanted to show so technically there's more than 17 shown above.  I just didn't want any of them to feel left out.

I hope everyone has fun tonight, but most importantly be safe.