2016 Topps Now: Dansby Swanson #366 (923 print run)

The first snowfall of the new year has left me awake most of the night, monitoring the weather in more of a work capacity than for pleasure. Deciding to make the most of my time awake I finally got started scanning that pesky stack of cards that has been sitting on my desk for the past several months. In this stack are a lot of Topps Now cards I bought last year so expect to see several of those type posts as I work on getting myself caught up.

August 17, 2016, this kid I've heard so much about made his MLB debut. I was traveling that night for work, but thankfully the hotel I was staying at carried Fox Sports South and I was able to watch his debut game. Dansby flashed his leather in the outfield and went 2 for 4 at the plate. 

I think the last young Braves prospect I was this eager watching play was Jason Heyward and before that Andruw Jones. Not surprisingly this Topps Now card quickly followed Dansby's big day in the majors. Not surprisingly the card sold pretty well with a print run of 923 cards.

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.

Merry Christmas from Topps

When it comes to sending out Christmas cards to friends and family, I'm horrible. I never remember to do so and when I do it's usually out of guilt because I'm already receiving cards from my family and such. 

Since the end of the baseball season I guess you could say I've been on haitus. I've been working behind the scenes sparingly on a few things and still opening my share of packs (I love the Holiday set Topps did for Walmart), however until I can reclaim my collection and get some organization it's hard for me to do much. Needless to say I've been a little out of the loop so I hadn't heard of Topps sending (I assuming their Topps Now customers) a Christmas card with a little cardboard gift inside. Coincidentially enough, the night I was scanning these cards I saw that my buddy over at Collating Cards was doing the same type of post!

Since I had already got this ball rolling, I found it no use to scrap the post and decided to move forward. In what I believe was an unprecidented move, Topps sent their customers a little Christmas card thanking them for their business in 2016 along with a little gift.

I guess you could say this is the final Topps Now card in the set? Wonder if they'll list the print run on their website like they did all the other cards? I betcha it has the highest print run! I ended up with two of these cards and as it is I've been looking for Kris Bryant cards to send to a guy that is putting a little package together for a young kid.

This is a very classy move by Topps that this collector very much appreciates. I enjoyed coming back to the Topps Now website just about every day during the baseball season...especially after a Braves player had a good day at the plate or made a spectacular play in the field. I look forward to what Topps has planned for this Now brand in 2017. It'd be nice if they borrowed the move from Panani Instant and actually print the print run on the back of the card (not serially numbered, but 1 of 246).

Topps Comes Through (a redemption story)

Earlier this year in February, I pulled a redemption card for an autograph of the young WWE Superstar, Neville. While wrestling autograph cards don't usually get me all that excited, I have to admit I was looking forward to getting this card in the mail. I promptly logged onto Topps' website and redeemed the card. The wait began. I waited...and waited...and waited. Nothing.

About two months ago I decided to check on the status via the website and I saw that there was an option to forego the wait and request a replacement. I've read enough card blogs to know that if I went that route I wouldn't get the Neville auto I had been waiting on. The replacement card may be something better...or it may be something worse, like an auto of Curtis Axel!

However yesterday a fat padded envelope came from Topps and I figured it was finally my replacement card. I ripped open the mailer and I found not one replacement card, but two?!

I don't know if this is normal or not, but apparently the extra card comes as a added bonus for making me wait so long. What I don't get is what was the hold up in getting the autographed cards from Neville. I know WWE Superstars live a very grueling road life much of the year, but Neville was on the shelf injured for a good part of the 2016. Couldn't he have signed his cards for Topps during his time away from the ring? Whatever the reason, it's nice to see that Topps was at least trying to make me happy. Speaking of that, did they? What was the replacement?

I got this nice auto of Dean Malenko from 2013 Topps and I was pretty darn happy. You see I was more of a WCW fan growing up, NWA before that. I never watched much WWE until the "Monday Night Wars" heated up. I loved the cruiser weight division that WCW featured and Dean was fun to watch in the ring. A very technical wrestler that could spar with the best. 

Now the image Topps used for this card isn't the best in my opinion. In fact he looks a little creepy with the way he's looking at his opponent. None the less, not a bad replacement at all.

My bonus card is this nice WrestleMania 30 mat relic from 2014 Topps. I enjoy these type of gimmicky cards in wrestling releases almost as much as I enjoy jersey and bat cards from baseball products. I do like the fact that they tell you what event this piece is taken from as opposed to the normal line from Topps. I also enjoy watching Cesaro perform. Just check out him in the process of body slamming none other than the Big Show!

Everyone knows that Redemption cards can be risky, but for once I'm happy to say that things worked out well and I appreciate Topps for trying to go the extra mile to keep one of their customers happy.

2001 Topps Stadium Club Play at the Plate Dirt Relic set Completed!

It's been a long time coming that this Jeff Bagwell card is finally in my hands. Years ago when I was looking for something new, something different to collect I stumbled across the dirt relic cards from 2001 Stadium Club. I thought it was a pretty cool idea and surprisingly, one that has been reused before...at least to my knowledge.

The cards themselves were only seeded 1:10 packs, however they were exclusive to Home Team Advantage stores. This in itself limited the audience of collectors that would even have a chance of  pulling on of these cards. Seeking out the cards several years later I found that some of the cards weren't that that hard to find. Most of the "common" cards could be had on eBay, while others I had to look a little harder for, a little longer for. Turns out that several of the cards in the 10 card set were packed in as exchange cards and I'm guessing many of the cards went unexchanged.

Jeff Bagwell, #PP06 was one of those exchange cards. Makes sense now of why it took me so long to find this one last card I needed to complete the set. Also turns out that Chipper Jones' card was mislabeled as #PP06, but his card too was an exchange card.

I find these cards to be a good conversation piece with non-baseball card collectors. I've had several friends and family members who've seen these cards in my collection ask me about the cards, why putting dirt inside a baseball card makes it so collectible and so on. I know these cards (and their brethren, Kings of the Hill) don't "book" for much...but I stopped collecting cards for their value and looking through Beckett a long time ago.

Now that this set is complete, I can shift my focus to picking up the Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez Kings of the Hill dirt relics to finish off that set. I also can't wait to actually find the rest of these dirt relic cards so I can put Bagwell amongest his peers.

2016 Topps Now: Ender Inciarte #489 (273 print run)

The Braves will have trouble this off season trying to figure out who will be roaming the outfield in 2017. Thanks to a killer trade with the Diamondbacks that brought Dansy Swanson over, one of other players that some may tend to overlook is center fielder, Ender Inciarte.

On September 21st, Ender scaled the outfield wall to rob a certain home run from the Mets' Yoenis Cespedes. Too bad Topps didn't capture the moment of him actually making the awesome catch, but none the less the moment represents yet another Braves card in the Topps Now set that I was more than happy to pick up.

2016 Panini Instant: Jacoby Brissett #51 (1 of 85)

The 2016 NFL season rolls on and Panini Instant is there to capture the moments with their newest made to order series of cards. During Tom Brady's 4 week vacation at the beginning of the season, the back up QBs got a chance to show the league what they were capable of. Jacoby Brissett, the Patriots 3rd round pick in this year's draft got the call after Jimmy Grappalo went down with an injury. The product of NC State, the QB led the team to a 27-0 win over the Texans.

His Instant card captures his first NFL touchdown on September 22, 2016 where he scrambled for 27 yards and dove into the end zone for the score. The base version of the card ended up with only 85 total copies sold, kind of surprising since the card carries the rookie card (RC) designation. Maybe people aren't prospecting with this kid?