The Keepers

As a collector I have rules, general rules, but rules none the less, that govern my collection and collecting habits. But every so often a card or other collectible falls into my hands that doesn't really fit into my collection, but I keep it for various reasons.  This is one of those cards.......

I pulled this beautiful card out of pack way back in 2005.  I know I did because while I like Andre Dawson I don't collect Andre Dawson and I wouldn't have gone after this card.  That being said a lot of the cards in my Keeper collection come from 2005.  A time where I had a lot of disposable income and card companies were putting out great products like this.  Sorry for the blurry scan Mr.  Dawson is well encased in a screwdown holder.

 I usually think of Andre as a Cub. Mainly because when I started caring about baseball and baseball card that's who he played for.  But even if he's featured with his original team this is still a pretty kick ass card.  Sure it's a sticker auto and the relic is a plain white swatch, but I'm sure I squealed a little bit when I pulled this out of the pack.

Why I keep it.  Well I do like Andre Dawson and it's hard to let go of personally pulled autograph and relic of a great HOFer.  Plus Andre has a great signature and I think everyone should have an auto of the Hawk in their collection and it's also why he's on my Top 100 cards.

2014 Topps Football review as seen through a relic card guaranteed hanger box

That's new.

Had to stop into Wally world to pick some stuff up and noticed an odd looking hanger box on the hook.  A hanger box with a guaranteed hit! For only 5 dollars more! Gotta be worth it right?  Well we'll see.

Topps Football is one of the three sets I'm putting together this year, along with Topps Baseball, including the update series, and Allen and Ginter.

If you're buying retail and looking to put a set together the hanger boxes really are your best bang for you buck.  If your looking for more inserts I'd say the rack packs are the way to go.  A hobby jumbo pack is running about $13 in my neck of the woods so paying $10 for 72 cards is a better deal than $13 for 50.  But I digress....

I know that this year's Flagship set has been pretty well dissected already, but why not cut it up a little more?

I've seen a lot of hate for this year's design. I'll agree it's pretty busy, looks more like a Bowman design, but it could be worse. After sorting through my pack this is by far the best card I've seen in the set.  You can argue, but you would be wrong. Just an awesome photo and like usual the photography is great throughout the set.

There are a ton of inserts that hasn't changed.  What has changed is that Topps added 3 completely useless, pointless, and uncollectible inserts this year.  OK maybe that's a little rough, but really...

Do we really need these cards?  What really pisses me off is that these inset count toward my card total in a pack. Don't get me wrong I think the Play 60 program is a good thing, but these cards are not.

These Play 60 Mentor cards have a little more collectability.

I have no words.

OK rant over let's get back to football.
I'm glad to see the 1000 Yard Club and 4000 Yard Club inserts are back. They look much better than last year.  I still think these would look great if Topps did something special with them. Chrome, acetate, something.

 This years mini's are in the 1969 design.  I'm not sure why the numbering starts at 200 though.

Topps also has two inserts Fantasy Football themed.  I wonder why two?

But these Fantasy Strategies cards look good.  As a matter of fact if you take away the background and put the field back there this wouldn't have been a bad base design.

 And the Fantasy Focus insert.

 Topps is continuing it's Power Player promotion. I have no idea what this is about since Alaska is void from participating.

 My favorite insert this year are the Greatness Unleashed cards.  I'll be putting the set together along with the mini's.

 I'm not a big fan of Topps labeling the cards instead of numbering.

 Now I know you're all eager to see the relic I pulled..

 Um..well not the most exciting rookie, but at least Marqise made the team.

Over all it's pretty par for the course for flagship football. True to formula. I'd probably have a few more nice things to say about it if there weren't 3 inserts that leave a bad taste in my mouth.

2 Packs of Topps Lineage and I'm done with it.

Probably not the greatest post to come back with but what can you do?

I'm back from my last trip out in the field.  Five days above the arctic circle and another 3 running around in Fairbanks.  I'll just say I'm glad to be home, although the weather was amazing for late August and the mosquitoes weren't too bad. 

But I realized I had two Prime 9 cards I had to redeem so Friday after work I took a trip down to Don's Sportscards, since I haven't been in his shop in a while.  I only brought my week 6 Prime 9 card with me seeing as this is the week to redeem it, but Don had all of them set out and was redeeming them all, so I'll have to be back to get my Koufax card.  But I did pick up my Hank Aaron card, and I have to say these cards are sharp and shiny. 

I also picked up a few 2011 Topps Football singles for my set I was missing and all the Bowman mini's he had laying around.  And two packs of Panini Threads, cuz I'm a glutton for punishment and two packs of Lineage since I haven't ripped any yet. 

Threads was pretty disappointing.  The base design isn't bad, but I'll actually post about that later. 

But my 2 packs of Lineage were pretty sweet.

First if you haven't seen what the base cards look like here they are.

I've heard lots of people bashing this design, even Don didn't like it, but I don't  think it's all that terrible.  It looks like a eTopps design though.  The backs are very boring.

Each pack you get a mini 75 insert.  Which I like.  I like it even more that both my mini's are keepers.  One for a PC and one for a team collection.

But I couldn't believe what I actually hit in my two pack purchase.  I guess the ultimate hit would be a Robin Yount Jumbo patch card from this set, but this card is a close second.

Yowza!  I love it when I hit great cards of players I collect. 

Well it's good to be back and I do plan on updating all my other sports blogs and this one a little more regularly now that I'm not leaving town again anytime soon. 

CB out.