Tueday Musings and FOOTBALL!

Wow what a wild weekend in the NFL.  Surprises continue to throw my contest.. Almost the Easiest Superbowl Contest on the Web in to shambles.  So out of a field of 22 we are down to 5 that have a shot.  3 still have an active team picked as a winner with an active team picked as the losing opponent and 2 have an active team pick with a team eliminated.  But with the Jets still in it and nobody picking the Jets to win or even go to the Superbowl the game is still a foot.  Whew.  What a ride.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't thrilled the Pack is still in it, and I'd be lying to say I'm not surprised. 

I was praying that the Seahawks could pull off one more miracle but I'm not surprised by the smack down the Bears put on them.  There was a reason they were 7-9. 

Anyways I was thinking I needed to put something up on my Milwaukee Brewers Blog,  Miles from Miller, since I haven't since I heard they got Zack Greinke and I was digging around in my Brewers stuff and came across some 1971 Topps coins.  Which I blogged about briefly.  But it got me thinking about the experiment that is/was Topps Coins.  So Topps puts out a set in 1964, 1971, and from 1987 to 1990.  It's an interesting and kinda bizarre concept.  The coins look kinda like milk caps.  Of course milk caps were way before my time, but they did inspire another craze, pogs.  Remember those?  Ung. 

The point being I was thinking of things Topps, or hell, any of the other card companies could do to invigorate there product lines.  We all releases, except the very bottom echelon (ie Score, Opening Day), we expect guaranteed hits, but jersey cards are over, autos are mostly cheap mass signed stickers of guys who probably won't have a career very long, and there just isn't that much else.  For as much grief as I hear over Topps' manufactured hat patch and bat barrel cards, I have to say at least it's something different. 

I was thinking why not bring back the Topps Coin.  No not in its own set.  We don't need that.  But how about a card with the coin embedded into the card, like the mini autos from T206 were inside the bigger card.  Hell maybe even have some cool different metal parallels, even a gold 1/1 parallel could be possible.  Maybe even have buy back coins inserted into the mix as well.  It seems with the retro theme products being the majority of what Topps puts out this would be right up their alley. 



I've seen links to Topps Series 2 sell sheets already around the blogoteria.  Looks like more of the same as Series 1, with a few little differences.  The Manufactured Glove cards are back in this series too.  I kinda expected they would be but maybe with a different color leather.  Seeing as last year they had hat patches in Series 1 and 2 and then mixed it up with bat barrels in Update.  So I'm interested to see if they mix it up with this years Update.  My money is on manufactured ball with stitching cards like sweet spot had, just not autographed. 

What do you guys think?  What would you want to see?  What don't you want to see? 

My Top 5 Favorite Inserts of the Year (Your results may vary)

Well I had so much fun doing my last top 5 I wanted to do one more and decided to keep it positive.  So here are my top 5 inserts from all sports card products that I personally opened or have acquired this year.


#5 Finest Football Atomic Rookie Die Cut Refractors

I don't know what it is but I love the die cuts and the super shiny refractor technology. I guess he only thing that would be better is if they were also minis. Or if this wasn't Golden Tate.

#4  2010 Topps Turkey Red

Maybe it's because they finally gave Robin Yount one in Update but I love these retro inserts.  I'm really looking forward to the Kimball mini inserts in 2011.  I never did bust any of the Turkey Red from the 05, 06, 07 stand alone sets but I do love the inserts and they are pretty much the same.  It's a nice mix of rookies, vet's and HOFer's. I'm still looking for a few if you can help check out my need list

#3 Score Hockey Snoglobes

I miss the die cut frenzy of the late nineties and early 2000's. Plus these are a pretty hard pull. I busted 5 boxes of Score Hockey, and still didn't put a full set together by the way, and only pulled these 2 babies and they're not even numbered.




#2  Topps Series 1, 2, and Update Manufactured Hat Patchs and Bat Barrels.

Blasphemy you say.  Those aren't even relics.  Nope and they don't pretend to be either.  But there different, cool to look at, Topps put out a ton of different players, rookies, vets, and HOFer's so there's variety.  I know that manufacture patches and bat barrels have been done before.  UD has done both with auto's and such but these have a great design and look.  I especially like the Black Bat variations with the white lettering on the black bat.  And I'm looking forward to next years gloves and whatever else Topps comes up with.

#1   Allen and Ginters Monsters of the Mesozoic

If there are 2 things I like it's Dinosaurs and Mini's and the two put together are perfect.  If you don't like Dinosaurs I don't know what's wrong with you.  I would add that UD Champs hockey's  Natural History Dino's go here too but seeing as that they weren't truly an insert set I'm not counting them although I am collecting them.
I need a few of these awesome dino's as well check if you can help.