30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 17

Day 17: A card from the first set you put together hand collated.

Day 17 and Day 3 collide as 1987 Topps was the first set I tried to complete and hand collated.  So instead of combing through the checklist of 792 cards and trying to pick one out I decided to let the fates decided which card to feature here.  I went over to random.org and had their random number generator pick a number for me.  And that number was 535.  Who was number 535?  Tony Armas from the Red Sox.  I've included the back of the card because Topps thought that Tony coming from a very large family was the most interesting thing to say about him.  A quick googling of Tony lets me know that he was one of the top sluggers in the American League in the 80's.  He also was on the DL quite a bit.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 16

Day 16 - A card of a player whom you appreciate but don't like.

Man made it half way!  A lot has happened since I decided to take Tony L's 30 Day Baseball Card Challenge.  I went on a trip to visit family in Wisconsin, I just had my gallbladder removed, we are selling our home and buying a new one.  So if I've lagged behind it's because I'm a little busy and I like to ponder the question at hand.

So for Day 16 I dig deep into my boxes.  Just kidding they're all packed away right now, but I knew who I wanted to feature and I knew which card.

Meet Derek Jeter and his 2000 Topps Tek Tektonics die cut insert card.  It's a pretty cool card.  I have no idea where I picked this up and now that every card I own is mothballed in storage I have no idea where it's at.

I'm not a Yankees fan or a Jeter fan for that matter.  But I am a fan a player that can put together a 20 year career with the same team.  That shows dedication not only on the player, but also the team.  Put behind that Derek's 5 World Series rings, 14 All-Star appearances, 5 Silver Slugger awards, 5 Golden Gloves, etc, etc.  I have no doubt that Derek will be a first round Hall of Famer.  So I can appreciate what this man was able to do for the Yankees.

30 Day Baseball Card Challange - Day 15

Day 15: One of your favorite cards from the 2010s.

Maybe the hardest decade to choose from.  So many cards, but in the end I picked one of my favorite modern Robin Yount cards.  Not a relic or autograph, but just a simple base card.  This card also happens to be a parallel, but that's just because I couldn't find my scan of the base.

It's funny when this card showed up I was a little taken back seeing Robin decked out for one of his other passions.  But after looking through the set this card is unique.  It's the only card in the set featuring a player doing something not related to baseball.  Sure there are a few picks with players in suits and not on the field, but not doing anything else.  Fellow Yount collector Tony L and I both joked that we'd love to see a combo card of Robin and Paul Molitor playing golf in Allen and Ginter this year.  The photo was taken from a session that produced the card image for Robin's 1992 Pinnacle #287 Sidelines subset card.

I really like the overall look of the set as well.  With a borderless, full-bleed front, a nod to the Fleer sets from the late 90's, and great photo choices it all works well for the set.

It's coming!!

I know I mostly post about cards on here, but I know we have a few comic collectors too.  Just a friendly reminder.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 14

Day 14: One of your favorite cards from the 2000s.

If there was one product I would snag in a heartbeat if I could find it reasonably priced it would be 2005 UD Artifacts.   Back in 2005 I did open quite a bit of it and pulled some really nice cards.  A couple of cards I call my keepers.  Cards that don't really fit into my collecting strategy, but are really cool.  One such card is this sweet Rod Carew Patch card.  And while I'm not a Carew or a Twins collector it's still has a place in my Keepers collection.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 13

Day 13: One of your favorite cards from the 1990s.

If you're not sick of seeing Robin Yount on these posts yet, you will be.  The beginning of the 1990's saw a huge boom in the popularity of sport cards and prospecting.  That led to the inevitable mega overproduction that started in the late 80's.  But the end of the 1990's would bring a lot of innovation and variety to the hobby.

The current parallel overloading currently seen in sets put out today can be traced back to one set.  1992 Topps Baseball.  This would be the first set to feature Topps Gold cards.  And you may not remember this, but they were a hit!  Depending on the product you opened you could get from 1 to 3 gold card cards a pack.  And don't forget about those winner cards!  

So here is my 1992 Robin Yount Topps gold parallel card.  I'd also like to point out that this is one of my favorite Yount cards, a  nice posed portrait in the dugout of Milwaukee's golden boy late in his career.  The gold really was a pretty cool addition and gave us player collectors something to chase after.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 12

Day 12: One of your favorite cards from the 1980s.

This was a tough one for me.  I mean there was a lot of overproduced stuff in the 80's.  But in the end I picked a great food issue set and one of my other favorite players.  Rollie Fingers 1985 Gardner's Bakeries card.

Out of all the Gardner's sets this is my favorite design.  I like to refer to it as the TV design.  But you gotta love the handlebar mustache and classic Brewers mitt hat.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 11

Day 11: One of your Favorite Cards from the 1970's.

I've been holding off till now to present, what should come as no surprise, my favorite 1970's baseball card.  But also one of my favorite cards from my all time favorite baseball player Robin Yount.

Robin Yount's 1975 Topps Rookie card.

I've got a few rookies now, but my most memorable will always be the first one I ever picked up.  I was a high school kid going to a DoDDs school in Berlin, Germany.  The American Sector of Berlin was interesting, as there was no central base, but many different compounds, called kaserns, spread around the sector.  My father actually worked on one of Hitler's old bases and I can remember swimming in the pool on Andrews kasern.  One of the Air Force kaserns, was called McNair, and bunch of the air force guys would put on a card show every couple months.  I met a really nice baseball card collector who lived at the McNair kasern and chatted him up and told him I was a big Brewers and Robin Yount fan.  He excused himself and a few minutes later he had a Robin Yount rookie to show me and offered it up.  It was no where near mint, but at the time, early 90's, Robin's rookie card was still commanding close to $200.  We negotiated and I ended up picking this guy up for about $45 bucks.  Which at the time was kind of crazy money for me, I did have a job though.  But picking up Robin's rookie card, which had been my white whale at the time, was huge.  And while I've picked up higher grade cards since then, that first Yount rookie, which I still have, is my favorite.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 10

Day 10: One of your favorite cards from the 1960's.

It took me a second to pick a card, but I knew which set it was going to be coming from.  A few years back I decided I wanted to try and start putting a vintage set together.  And for some reason I decided on 1963 Topps.  Had I given it a little more thought I might have picked a different set, with the Mantle and Pete Rose rookie sitting like two Mt. Everest's in the set.  But I love the design, I also really like the 1965 set design.  But anyways, I've been slowly picking up a card here and there. Sometimes a couple small lots.  It's taken a back seat recently with trying to sell and buy a new house, but so far I've managed to put together about 15% of the set and added some big names too.

I decided to pick the Duke to represent my choice.  Not super high grade, but well within the set condition I set for myself.  I also liked when I picked up this card I also got his 1964 Topps as well, both card feature Duke as a Met, but I'll always remember him as a Dodger.

30 Day Baseball Card Challange - Day 9: Favorite card from the 1950s

Day 9: One of your favorite cards from the 1950s.

I'll be honest I don't own a ton of cards from the 1950's and I'm not even sure what I have from that era, but the rules don't say I have to own the card I post about so here you go.

Warren Spahn's beautiful 1953 Red Man card.  I don't go out of my way to collect Milwaukee Braves cards.  But when I do run across them I pick them up.  I don't currently own any cards from any of the Red Man sets, but maybe someday in the future that will change and Mr. Spahn would be high on the list of cards I'd like to add to my collection.  Just a beautiful set.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 8: A card that reminds you of a family member.

Ahem well after a brief break to visit family down in Wisconsin I'm back and ready to push this challenge to the next level.  Let's get back to it.  Day 8 a card that reminds you of a family member.

I present Chipper Jones' 1991 Score Rookie card.

Back in the early 90's I was living in Berlin, Germany.  My father was stationed there in the army and it probably was the most defining time in my life.  Anyways for some reason the post exchange and all the smaller shopette convenience stores carried just about every major brand of sport card from 1989 to 1992.  If you know your sport card history this was the pinnacle of overproduction and the junk wax era.  My brother and I were both into baseball cards at the time and buying a ton of product since it was cheap.  I still have monster boxes full of base cards.  But every now and then we would trade.  I was into building sets and who knows how many I actually put together, but my brother was a little sneaker.  We'd trade, and he would go through and pull out all the rookie and prospect cards.  It took me a while to catch on.  He still has probably a shoeboxes full of them.   So while the 91 Score set was huge and overproduced it still have some notable rookies in the set.  Mr. Jones being one of the most prominent.  And whenever I see some early 90's junk wax rookie cards I can't help think of my brother.

Day 7: A card you bought in person and the story behind it.

It's a rare sight finding a card show here in Anchorage anymore.  It's even rarer when I get to go and find a card that not only I need, but fits so perfectly into my collection.  But that happened a few year's ago.  It wasn't a big show, but there were enough guys set up to make it worth my while and I was thumbing through some miscellaneous boxes of random cards and found the card below.  I'd been looking for the Gold parallel of Robin's card from the 2011 Tribute set for awhile and hadn't pulled the trigger to any online as most were going for way more than I wanted to spend.  I pulled the card out and asked the dealer what he wanted for it.  He didn't even seem to know who Robin was and asked was it really even worth anything.  I smiled and said I'd give him $5 for it, which he jumped at and I had wished maybe I'd found a few more cards to bundle with it.  But the price I offered I thought was fair to both of us and I figured I'd be paying at least half that to have it shipped to me if I won it online.  Either way I think we were both happy that day and I picked up a low numbered Yount card for my collection.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 6

Day 6 A card you spent more than $10 to get.

I make no bones about it, I'm cheap.  Especially when collecting.  It helps I'm a Brewers collector too since most Brewers cards can be had on the cheap, usually.  That being said I have splurged from time to time.  And what I usually splurge on are Robin Yount autographs.  Back when I had a lot more pocket change to waste on cards I picked up a few of my favorite high end Yount cards.  While more expensive products have come out and nicer on card autos can be had, the 2008 Topps Sterling set is still one of the gold standards in high end sets for me.  Plus the 2008 set featured player-centric boxes with some pretty kick ass cards, even if most of the autos were stickers.  Plus this card features a great selection within the quad relics.  And while I didn't break the bank with any of the cards I bought they were well over $10.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 5

Day 5: A certified autograph card of one of your favorite players.

So many cards to choose from, and I was having a hard time choosing who and then a hard time choosing what.  In the end I went with what is currently my only certified Paul Molitor autograph.  I don't consider myself an Igniter super collector, but Molly surely has a place in any self respecting Brewers collector's collection.  And the best part is I picked this card up for chump change at my LCS.  I will say the price difference between Molitor cards and Yount cards is almost a factor of 5, so it seems odd I haven't targeted more of Molly's stuff.  Well that might change.