The Next (Epix) Collecting Adventure

There was something about the 90's that I just love when it comes to baseball cards. I didn't come into collecting until 1990 and all I knew at that time was Donruss, Fleer and Topps. I would collect for many years before my interest starting to wane a little. However in the late 90's the card companies really started to step up their game with different "technologies" used, such as a chromium finish, refractors and dufex finishes.

Trying to keep up with all the sets was nearly impossible for me so I had to settle for what I could find locally or at shows. Insert sets were a dime a dozen during this time period, keep in mind the game used relic cards didn't hit until around 1997 thanks in part to Upper Deck. In today's crowded market of baseball cards a lot of these great 90's inserts sets have fallen to the wayside, but there are some really interesting themes and designs.

It's not like I need to collect anything else, however one set in particular that caught my was the multi-tiered Crusade set in Donruss products. I quickly moved on however once I saw what the cards were trading for on the secondary market! I then moved onto another insert set that was inserted across several different Pinnacle sets...1998 Epix.

Epix is a 72 card set that were randomly seeded in packs of 1998 Pinnacle (1:21), 1998 Score (1:61) and 1998 Zenith (1:11). Each card came in 3 different colors, orange, purple and emerald. Approximately 70% of the cards are orange, 20% are purple and only 10% are emerald. Each player had 4 versions, "Play", "Game", "Season" and "Moment". Play were the most common with Moment being the hardest to pull.

1998 Score Rookie/Traded and 1998 Pinnacle Plus had their own Epix All-Star set, but I'm not chasing those at this time.

I like a good challenge and I figured trying to put this 72 card set together ought to be challenging, but doable. Of course I'm going to be asking for the blogging community and Twitter-verse for help in trying to assemble this set. I'm not sure if I'll start and focus just on the orange cards, or if I should just pick up whatever I can find. So far I have 3 cards, the two Andruw Jones cards above and one Greg Maddux "Play" orange.

I'm willing to trade and buy any cards from this set that I can find. If you can help, please consider sending me a message or contacting me on Twitter (@flywheels).

Goodbye 2016

Looking over my post history for 2016 is a quick reminder of just how busy I was...or was it that blogging about cards lost some of it's appeal. Or was it a little of both?

I'm still not able to put a finger on it, but regardless a new year is upon on so why not take a few moments to look back at the past year...and share some images of cards I've picked up, but never posted about.

2000 Upper Deck

2005 Fleer Showcase #035/183

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like my player collections keep changing. I tend to pick players that don't always get a lot of cards or the players just drop out of the limelight all together, but one guy that I've stayed with is Tim Hudson. I have a good many of his cards already, but I'm amazed I keep finding cards of his that I don't own...especially cards of his pre-Braves days. Tim isn't going anywhere and I look forward to resuming my search for his cards in 2017.

2016 Topps Update Black parallel #60/65

The 2016 Braves may not have been the best team the club has assembled nor did they have the success I'm sure they were wanting, but one good thing did become of the season. Frenchy. When he signed the minor league deal during spring training I was beside myself. However I really didn't think he had a snowball chance in Hell to make the team. I was glad I was wrong. Early in the 2016 baseball card season I had to settle for cards of Francoeur in an ugly Phillies uniform, but towards the middle of the season Topps finally corrected this and issued a few proper cards of him in a Braves uniform. I was glad to have more cards of his to chase, especially trying to complete the rainbow of his 2016 Topps Update card seen above. I believe I'm still lacking the pink parallel to finish off the "set".

2015 Topps Heart of the Order

Freddie was back to his normal form in 2016. He was just as much fun to watch as ever, especially now that his eye sight issues that plagued him in 2015 seem to have been corrected. It was also fun following his journey becoming a dad for the first time during the season. After the Braves shipped Hector Olivera off to San Diego in exchange for Matt Kemp, Freddie was finally given a good power bat in the line up to compliment his game. The Braves may have not had the success they wanted, but they seem to be heading in the right direction and I'm glad that Freeman continues to be leading the way.

2016 Topps Gold Label

It seems as if you can always find new cards of your favorite players, even if they aren't playing the game any longer. I recently picked up this metal gold framed auto of Andruw Jones for about $5. These cards are much more beautiful in hand than they appear when scanned.

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

I don't actively seek out Chipper cards, but I pulled this GQ relic from a blaster while working on completing my 2016 GQ set (which I still need to do).

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

 2016 Topps Triple Threads Legends Relic #13/27

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Mini Relic

 I will seek out new cards of Smoltz however and I was glad to pick up these relics. I don't normally bother with Triple Threads, but this particular one caught my eye and the price was right.

Do you like the fact that Topps (and even Panini) are still mixing in retired players into current product checklists?

 2016 Topps Heritage

2016 Topps Gold Label

How can you talk about the 2016 baseball season and not bring up the Cubs. While I'm not a fan of the team, I was glad to see David Ross pick up a World Series ring. In the aftermath of the Cubs win I did manage to pick up a few Cubs cards of his before he rode off into the (retirement) sunset.

During the said Cubs World Series win aftermath, I found out that the Cubs reliever, Carl Edwards, Jr. was from my hometown of Charlotte, NC. I don't always actively collect cards of players from my hometown or from NC, but I found myself with yet another beautiful Gold Label auto. I'm not sure if he'll gain a spot in my PC, but it's still a nice card to own none the less.

 2016 Panini Instant

After the Braves season ended I was all ready to shift my focus to the NFL and my Carolina Panthers. The 2015 season fell just one win short of being magical, so I and many other fans thought we may be able to recreate that same magic in 2016. Wrong.

I guess one of the things that bothered me for much of the season was Cam Newton's play and the media. Cam had a bad year. The team had a bad year. Judging from the media though a player can't have a bad year. According to the media the MVP season Cam had a year a go was a fluke. According to the media Cam is the only QB in the NFL that is a sore loser. 

2016 Panini Prizm Intros

Why does everyone love to hate this guy? I've seen countless number of videos of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and others throwing tablets, cussing up a storm on the sidelines and throwing their own versions of temper tantrums...yet the media acts as if Cam is the only one that is so emotional playing this game. While I won't and don't defend Cam 100% of the time, I do get sick and tired of the double standard.

Does Cam need to work on his mechanics in the off season to improve? Definitely. Is he a bad QB? Heavens no! Some fans say the Panthers should cut him. I wonder how many other fanbases would love to have Cam as their QB. The 49ers? Rams? Vikings? Eagles? Jets? Whatever the problem was for the team and for Cam, I hope they are able to work on it in the off season. I hope that the team management is able to take some of that cap money they didn't use in 2016 and go and sign some good veteran free agents to help solidify the offense line. Go draft some much needed young guys to fill in the holes on this team. 

2016 Panini Playbook Yellow Printing Plate 1/1

Regardless of the teams performance, I still sought out new cards at different times throughout the season. When your team isn't playing hard it's a little harder to get excited to hunt for new cards, but this printing plate of Greg Olsen is one of the best cards I picked up all year. You couldn't tell from that guy's play that the team had a 6-10 record. BTW, congrats to Greg for becoming the first TE in the NFL to record 3 consecutive seasons with 1,000 or more receiving yards.

I let a lot of things slide in 2016 and I plan on fixing those things in 2017. I have a lot of sets that I've never finished collating, yet along made lists for. I slacked off of trading and I'd like to get back to helping fulfill other collector's lists. My organization has been horrible. I've got some many stacks of cards all over my office and in my man cave down stairs that I can't remember what's going on. Thankfully that should be addressed really soon as just today a huge order I placed with BCW arrived. Too bad I had to leave to go out of town today, otherwise I would have dropped what I was doing to start to get organized again. Look for a post on this process in the near future.

I'm excited for the new year and what it will bring. The release of 2017 Topps Series 1 is just around the corner, the changes made to '17 GQ have me excited and before I know it I'll be busting a box of my annual favorite, Allen & Ginter. Let's just hope I don't lose this renewed energy and I can't keep it going for another year. Thanks to everyone out there in blogger world for the continued support. Here's to a great new year.

A few more - 2002 Fleer Authentix Ripped Jersey

While I wait for 2013 Topps Series 2, Gypsy Queen, the Sticker Album and A&G to release, I'm taking the time to work on a few insert sets I've always been fond of.  I know the whole jersey/relic card thing has been beat worse than a back alley hooker, but in 2002 when Fleer introduced their new line of cards called Authentix I was hooked.  The base cards were different looking and the short printed rookies had mini "ticket stubs" embedded in the card as part of the design.  Brilliance I thought.  Then I saw the Ripped Jersey cards and I was in love.  There was just something about the horizontal design combined with the embedded fake ticket stub that I loved.  I also wasn't sick of jersey and bat cards in 2002.  I never gave putting the set together much of a serious thought, but lately it's been on my mind so I've sought out looking to fill the many holes in my set.

I ended up finding a few for a decent price, but why oh why do some sellers want to charge $3+ to ship one single card?!  Some of the lesser name players in the set can easily be found, but shipping usually kills it for me so I pass.  So for now I'll just show the deals that I did find...

I love the colorful ticket stub on the A-Rod card. I can't remember if this card is a SP or not, but it usually commands much more than I paid.

I believe the Bagwell is a SP as I don't see it listed for sale as often and I got into a mini bidding war for it.  Wonder if I was bidding against the Dimwit?





Normally if a Brave is in a set I'm building, then I'd want two - 1) for my Braves collection and 2) for the set.  In the case of Andruw, I'll just keep to this one card for the set.



It seemed as if most of the jersey pieces in this set were plain boring white, so it's nice to have a black piece to break up the white consistency.

This is actually quite a big set of cards, so if you have anything from it to trade or can find something for cheap at your LCS, please let me know.  You can find my want list for this set HERE.

Catching up with some scanning - Atlanta Braves Edition

Below are the first part of the stack I scanned the other night featuring new Atlanta Braves that I've picked up at shows, on eBay/Yardsellr or via trades.  Eventually I'll get enough stuff scanned that I'll reveal the project I've been working on...well, since I started this blog!