Buyer Beware: 2012 Topps '87 Minis

I was able to to put together the 50 card set of '87 minis Sunday at a show for a grand total of $11.50.

I got home from work tonight and the cards are already starting to curl like '10 Chrome.

No Tigers in Series 1, but no Prince Fielder either, which means Series 2 ought to be loaded with Tigers. I'm guessing Fielder, Verlander, Cabrera, and Avila.

Topps fucking sucks.

2011 Topps Lineage Part 2

I'm a goddamned idiot.

I've bought 6 blasters, 14 rack packs, and 8 regular packs of Topps Lineage. I've amassed over 600 cards, counting inserts. I've spent almost $250 so far.

I'm still missing cards of Francisco Liriano and Victor Martinez from the base set. FROM THE FUCKING BASE SET!!!

This is EXACTLY why I quit trying to put fucking Topps set together.

The love I first had for this set is long gone.

I'm NEVER buying a fucking pack of Topps cards again.

At least not until 2012 Heritage.....

PS: All is not lost though. I pulled this sexy little mofo from a blaster box today.....

2011 Topps Lineage, Topps Stickers, & The National

After successfully staying away from buying any packs of Topps cards since I finished the 2011 Heritage base set, I succumbed to my weakness once again. Fucking Topps. In my defense though they've actually released something interesting enough to warrant it.

Topps Lineage is one of the cooler sets I've seen in some time. It's a tad bit pricy ($3 for a pack of 8 cards, $5 for a rack pack of 14 cards, and $20 for a blaster box of 56 cards and a relic card), but luckily it's a small set with no short prints, so it's reasonably affordable.

The base design isn't anything special, but it's not bad either. It looks like something that would normally be used for a regular Topps set.


I really like the mix of Hall Of Famers, current stars, and prospects. It seems like a quarter of the set consists of about five teams, but overall it's a decent mix. The Tiger checklist is modest for a 200 card set.

43 Victor Martinez
105 Ty Cobb
143 Miguel Cabrera
156 Austin Jackson
187 Justin Verlander


The big draw here of course are the '75 Mini inserts. This is a fantastic tribute to an iconic set. It's a little bloated for an insert set (200 cards, same checklist as the base set) but otherwise it's a great throwback. Hell, most of the ones I've picked up are even off-center, just like the originals.....

The cloth stickers and Venezuelan cards are disappointing. I assumed the cloth stickers would have the 1977 design and the Venezuelan cards would have one of the 60's designs. Instead both have the same design as the base cards. It's not terrible with the cloth stickers, but the Venezuelan cards are completely indistinguishable from the base cards on the front. The only difference is on the back, where the copy is in Spanish and the numbering is slightly different. Yawn.


I'm ambivalent towards the 3D and Pop Up cards. It's odd that the 3D cards have all the elements of '69 Topps, yet are rearranged around the card. I'd like them a lot better if they'd used one of the Kellogg's designs or even the design of the 3D cards from the mid-90's.


Continuing with the throwback theme, Topps has thrown their hat back in the sticker ring again, more or less rebooting the line from where they started in 1981. It's a very nice, simple, clean design (with the names on the front now! No more having to turn the stickers over to tell the difference between Kiko Garcia and Lenn Sakata!!) The set is very basic: 9 players from each team, a 9 player HOF Foil subset, and foil logo stickers. If you were a fan of stickers in the 80's (as I was) then you'll be a fan of these. A pack of 8 is $1, so this should be a fairly inexpensive set to assemble.

64 Alex Avila
65 Austin Jackson
66 Magglio Ordonez
67 Brandon Inge
68 Jhonny Peralta
69 Brennan Boesch
70 Miguel Cabrera
71 Victor Martinez
72 Justin Verlander
298 Tigers Foil Logo


Of course there's a sticker book that can be purchased too. As an avid collector of stickers though, it would be nice if Ultra-Pro or somebody would come out with sheets for the stickers. They are just a bit too wide to put in the tobacco sheets. (Hey Ultra-Pro! If you're reading this, how 'bout making some pages for the 75 Topps Minis and 80's League Leader Minis while you're at it???)

Finally, the National was here in Chicago a few weeks ago. No, not the awesome band, but the National Sports Collectors Convention. It was quite possibly the most disappointing card show I've ever been to. I'd guess that close to half the dealers there were peddling graded cards from the 50's, 60's, & 70's. Probably another quarter were selling high-end memorbilia such as jerseys, helmets, bats, framed/autographed posters, etc. Most of the rest were either grading services, auction services, or tables piled sky high with overpriced recent unopened boxes. I found a whopping three tables that were selling 2011 baseball singles (and a couple of those folks thought they were selling 1952 baseball singles, but I digress.....)

As someone who almost exclusively collects Tigers cards, there was very little there to justify the $20 entrance fee 9without a single promo/giveaway this year) or the four hours spent walking around only to leave with a handful of Tigers cards and a bunch of $3 boxes of 80's Topps Stickers. The weekly Sunday card show in my neighborhood has more to offer me and the admission is usually free. If you're into big ticket collectibles, then the National is the place for you. Unfortunately, it's no longer the place for me. Which means, of course, that the next time it's in town I'll be back.....

All was not a wash at the National though. I added these two gems to my collection:


One last note. I've got relic cards of the Lineage '75 Minis of Andrew McCutchen (bat), Aramis Ramirez (gray jersey), and B. J.Upton (gray jersey), as well as an on card auto of Fausto Carmona (2008 Topps replica) if anybody might be interested in trading me a similar Tiger counterpart.

Ramble On: Confessions Of A Sunday Afternoon Beer Drinker

In no particular order.....

1. I'm not usually a fan of the tobacco era type cards that Topps trots out each year, but I dig the Gypsy Queen issue. The parallel Kaline card with Tiger Stadium in the background may be my favorite 2011 card.


2A. Pro Debut is out. What a set for suckers. I saw these going for $65 a box at a card show today. I have been to two card shows in the last two days and a grand total of one dealer was selling singles. A couple of dealers I talked to who sell singles of new stuff said they aren't fooling with it because nobody buys them. I'll be surprised if Pro Debut is around next year.

2B. Apparently Jacob Turner is in this set for the second year in a row. Apparently I don't understand what "Pro Debut" means.....

2C. I want a Francisco Martinez card real bad...

3. Could there be a worse issue this year than Bowman? Is there a worse issue any year besides Bowman? Another year of an uninspiring design. Another year of an uninspiring player selection. And where are the Jacob Turner cards? Yes, he's in a couple of the insert series, but no base card? C'mon already! (I will admit the Bowman's Best throwback/reprint is pretty bad ass though.)


4. I'm going to be moving in a couple of months. I've got a bunch of team lots with anywhere between 300-500 cards each that are going to be donated to the resale store down the street at the end of August. If you collect another team besides the Tigers and are up for a swap then drop me a line. There are plenty of stars, inserts, and complete team sets in these lots. Seriously folks, there is some great stuff in here and all I'm looking for are lots of Tigers cards.


5. I bought an iPad 2 a couple of weeks ago and it has already become an invaluable tool in my card collecting. Instead of endless piles and printouts of checklists, I've been scanning each page of my Tigers collection and loading them into Photos. Now if I want to see what I'm missing I can pull up a photo in seconds and tell without a doubt if I have a card or not.

6. Picked up this Mickey Lolich 1973 Kellogg's card for free at a recent show. How cool is that?


7. In 15 years of owning Mac computers, I had my first ever hard drive crash about 6 weeks ago. Luckily I had about 90% of my files backed up. Unfortunately I had 0% of my 2011 RobbyT cards backed up. It's really taken the wind out of my sail as I had 20+ cards already done. I'm hoping to get back into it in the second half once real baseball card season dies down.

8. The Tigers are in first place despite some mediocre play as of late. This "Just-in", Verlander's 8th inning last was fucking incredible. That was more exciting than the 9th inning of his no-hitter.

9. The National is coming up in about 6 weeks here in Chicago. If anybody is going to be there and would like to meet up give me a holler.

10. There is a new forum where a bunch of old Detroit Free Press/World Crossing Tiger fans are hanging out. Stop by and check it out. You won't find a funnier bunch of folks around.

Starting Lineup Figures, Detroit Style

I came across the Hank Greenberg SLU pictured above while checking out a new card store last week near my neighborhood. I've never been an diligent collector of SLU's, but over the years if I saw one of a Tiger somewhere (and it was under $10) I picked it up. I've got a box of maybe 10 or so different Tigers in the attic at my folks' house.

After picking up the Greenberg I realized that I've never seen a complete checklist of Tigers anywhere, so I searched around the internets and tried to compile one of my own. As I'm sure I probably missed a few here and there or maybe got a year wrong, I would love some input if anybody has anything to correct or add to the list, which looks something like this:


1988
Willie Hernandez
Jack Morris
Matt Nokes
Alan Trammell
Lou Whitaker

1989
Tom Brookens
Matt Nokes
Luis Salazar
Alan Trammell
Lou Whitaker
Alan Trammell - Jose Canseco "One On One" combo
Team Lineup

1990
Kirk Gibson (it must be noted that his figure is a Dodger, but his prominent card is of him with the Tigers)
Matt Nokes
Lou Whitaker


1991
Cecil Fielder

1992
Cecil Fielder
Cecil Fielder Headline Collection

1993
Travis Fryman

1994
Ty Cobb
Cecil Fielder
Tony Phillips

1995
Mickey Tettleton


1996
Hank Greenberg
Ty Cobb 12"

1997
Tony Clark

1998
Bobby Higginson

1999
Tony Clark

It's a testimony to how bad the '89 team was that Tom Brookens and Luis Salazar have figures. It's shame really that the Tigers were so bad during the era that SLU's were produced. I'd love to have one a Team Lineup of the 1984 or 2006 teams.

I really like the Team Lineup set from 1989 though. Where else can you find Gary Pettis, Alan Trammell, Chris Brown, Lou Whitaker, Jack Morris, Fred Lynn, Matt Nokes, Keith Moreland, and Chet Lemon all immortalized in one collectible of one of the worst Tiger teams in their history?


I think my personal favorite is the 1997 Tony Clark with him wearing the awful BP jersey from that era which is identical to the first Tigers jersey I ever picked up.

Researching these led to me looking up info about the subsequent McFarlane figures too, which I'll delve into in my next blog entry.

Anybody got any good SLU stories?

2011 Topps: Miguel Cabrera

By my count Topps has released 5 issues so far this year:

1. Series 1
2. Opening Day
3. Heritage
4. Blister Pack Team Sets
5. Gypsy Queen

Pictured above are Miguel Cabrera cards from 3 of those 5. (This year's blister pack team sets also include separate sets of AL and NL All-Star teams, which is where the last card comes from)

I didn't even bother to include the parallels, which makes the case even worse.

So tell me again why it's a good thing that Topps is the exclusive manufacturer of baseball cards? Or why the hobby is going in the shitter due to lack of interest?

RIP Sparky

I guess it's somehow fitting that the Skipper of the Tigers has passed away in the same year that the Voice of the Tigers passed on too. Sparky Anderson and Ernie Harwell were easily the most iconic Tigers of my youth and two of the game's great men. It's a shame that Sparky is not in the Hall Of Fame as a Tiger, especially since it stems from a tiff with ownership over refusing to manage the replacement players in the spring of 1995. Sparky was the only one in the game to have sense enough to refuse to be a part of that nonsense, and for that he should always be recognized. In fact Mr. Ilitch, it's far past time that a statue went up at Comerica Park to honor Sparky. This should have been done when he was well enough to have a day of his own. Do it now.

The images of Sparky are everlasting. Heaping praise on the next big prospect, only to ship him out three weeks into the season. Yelling at Kirk Gibson that Goose Gossage was not going to walk him before one of the most memorable HR in Tiger history. Talking to the media in that "aw shucks I don't know nuthin" persona he carried even though he was usually the smartest man in the room. It seems hard to believe he walked away from the game fifteen years ago and never once looked back. Baseball coulda used a lot of Sparky since then.


I have a couple of pretty cool pieces of Sparky memorabilia. One is a life sized cardboard cut-out of Sparky that was part of a Fantastic Sam's promotion from some time in the 80's. I picked it up at a card store in Memphis for $1. I used to have it set up in a two bedroom apartment I once lived in. The way it was placed in the room it was the first thing you saw when you exited the bathroom and I can't count the number of people who jumped back startled when they saw ol' Sparky standing there. I still laugh thinking about it.


I also have a game program from 1984 that I got Sparky to sign that summer at Tiger Stadium. My friends and I went to many games that summer and we would always sit in the lower deck right field bleachers so that we could cheer for Kirk Gibson. On several occasions we were the first ones in line when the gates opened, but there would always be this guy already sitting in the stands listening to a boom box and chatting with the players on both teams. (When I got older I figured out that the must have been the official Detroit dope dealer to the visiting A.L. players....)

This particular day was in the fall, when it was apparent that the Tigers would be making the postseason. The guy was badgering Gibby about getting him some Series tickets. Gibby told him he'd see what he could do. The guy then asked Gibby to get Sparky for him. Gibby put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly at the Tiger dugout and waved his arm. Immediately Sparky came trotting out to the right field fence. There were only a handful of us standing there as the guy begged Sparky for Series tickets. I walked up to the fence and held my program and pen out to Sparky. He grabbed it and signed it without ever looking up. He told the guy he'd see what he could do and then trotted back to the dugout. To this day I'm more amazed that hippie got Gibby to get Sparky to come out there and talk to him about Series tickets as anything I've ever seen in baseball.


My other favorite Sparky story is the one that never happened. Earlier that summer, my family from Arkansas came to visit us. My uncle grew up with Glenn Abbott, who was a Tiger pitcher at the time. My uncle was hoping to be able to say hi to Glenn at the game, which my 15 year old brain took to mean that I was going to get to go into the clubhouse before the game and meet Sparky and all the players. I had visions of getting a ball signed by all the players and getting to sit in Sparky's office with him and discuss the great summer of Tiger baseball that we were both enjoying.

Well, we went to the game that night and Abbott was nowhere to be found. We looked high and low for him and never saw him once. I sat and brooded for the rest of the night while we got swept in an old fashioned twi-night doubleheader against the California Angels. My dream of getting to meet Sparky was crushed. The next morning when I got up, my dad handed me the sports pages and showed me where Glenn Abbott had been released the day before we went to the game. And so it goes.....


Luckily I did get the autograph from him later that summer. But whenever I think about Sparky, I always think about the time we never got to meet and hang out. Hopefully, a long time from now of course, we will be able to spend that time together and catch up on baseball after all. We'll have a lot to discuss.

Rest In Peace, Sparky. You were the best. Bless you, boy.

1986 1987 1988 Topps Mini League Leaders

The first of a two part series called "Things Topps tried to revive in the 80's that would not catch on until years later....."

Here a couple of months back I came across a website that had a lot of cheap wax boxes from the 80's. I remember messing with these a little bit way back when, but I don't think I ever collected full sets. Since the boxes are cheaper now than they were then I went ahead and picked up a box from each year. Hell, a box of these are about the same price as one rack pack of 2010 cards and these were chock full of HOF.

I'm on a quest to collect all of the 80's oddball stuff and these rank up there among the best. An obvious throwback to the '75 minis, as the name suggests this set is composed of the the statistical leaders of varying years. They are smallish sets (66 cards the first year, 77 cards the following two years) and Topps produced these for 5 years before giving up on them. As per usual with Topps, distribution within each box is awful. I got two of some guys and seven of some others. But I got a complete set out of each box and that's all I was after. Even though the design is minimal, I really think that's a positive thing coming from the 80's.


There's a mostly great representation of Tigers in these sets, Walt Terrell notwithstanding (Walt ranked tied for fourth in shutouts in 1985 with 3, hence his inclusion). Anyways.....

The 1986 Topps Mini-League Leaders Detroit Tigers:
13 Darrell Evans
14 Jack Morris
15 Lance Parrish
16 Walt Terrell

The 1987 Topps Mini-League Leaders Detroit Tigers:
53 Kirk Gibson
54 Willie Hernandez
55 Jack Morris
56 Alan Trammell

The 1988 Topps Mini-League Leaders Detroit Tigers:
10 Darrell Evans
11 Jack Morris
12 Alan Trammell
13 Lou Whitaker


Nowadays the tobacco card inserts that are roughly the same size are pretty popular. They are much harder to get of course, but these cards are available for a fraction of the cost and are pretty cool sets. It's a shame these never really caught on, but it seems like none of the oddball wax products that came out in the 80's were that popular.

2010 State Of The Blog Address

It's been a slow summer blogging about Tigers cards. The Tigers collapse after the All-Star break put a damper on the baseball season, but it did not put a damper on collecting. Overall it was a good year of collecting, with many hits and just a few misses. I have fully incorporated something old and something new as collecting tools this summer, as well as made some decisions on what I will and won't be collecting from now on. Hopefully I can tie everything up into one well written essay on my card collecting experience in 2010, but chances are I will just end up with several empty beer cans. In either case that'll be good enough for me.....

First off: The death of the Topps base set. I finally finished off my 2010 Topps base set about a week after the factory sets hit the stores. Sadly, this will be the last year I put together the base set by hand. It just doesn't make sense anymore. I probably dropped a couple of bills on packs and boxes this year. I still came up about 20 cards short of the set, while ending up with a couple hundred crappy inserts that I don't give a damn about. I was able to flip most of the inserts on ebay, but the whole process is far too cumbersome to continue anymore. In 2011 and beyond, I will just wait until August and pick up a factory set for a fraction of the price that I spend on trying to put one together myself. (And this year I would've gotten a Strasburg RC, plus variations of Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch. I may still end up buying that set before it's all over with....)

I have been pretty outspoken in my disdain for the plethora of inserts that riddle the Topps base set. But one cool discovery led to another, which led to me really never wanting to pick up a pack of Topps base cards again. The local card show circuit.

I found a cool website this summer that lists quite a few card shows across the country by state. It turns out that I live about 10 minutes away from both Bloomingdale and Schaumburg, which between the two have a show almost every Sunday afternoon. Since I found the link, I have been to just about every one of them. They're not huge, ranging anywhere from 5 to 15 dealers a show, but I've come to know a few of the dealers from my frequent attendance and it's been fun to actually talk to guys who do this as a weekend hobby.


The first show I attended was a pretty good sized one. It was there that I noticed at least a half dozen tables covered with Topps base cards and inserts. At almost every table I saw the inserts weren't priced any higher than the base cards (10¢ each). It completely makes sense since there are so many inserts. The thing I really like about it though is that if there is ever a cool insert set that I like, I can likely pick it up for next to nothing.

Given that I have come to loathe inserts, it only reasons that this year Topps would put out an insert set that is totally cool, and that's the Vintage Legends. They have taken 25 HOF players and put them on cards from years that they weren't originally on. (The Ty Cobb pictured above, Nolan Ryan on a '52, George Sisler on an '88, Jackie Robinson on a '76, etc.) The concept is not new by any means, but these look outstanding, and I was able to get almost all of them for 10¢ each.


I was able to finish my set of Vintage Legends from a website I found called Sportlots. I'm sure this is not new to a lot of people, but for set builders and team collectors like me, it is solid gold! I have absolutely fallen in love with this site for having the hard to find commons needed to finish my old sets. There must be millions of cards listed with the majority of them selling for 18¢ each. I am surprised at the quality of cards you can get for that price. I pretty much assembled all the base cards for 2006 and 2007 Topps Heritage Tigers for that price. I finished out the Vintage Legends set as well. And....I finished out a set that I never thought I would.....

2010 Topps Heritage! (Well, sorta.....) This was my first year to try and put a Topps Heritage set together. I was still 100 something cards short when I hit the card show circuit, but within a month I'd completed the base set. (There's the catch...) I do however have 40 something of the 75 SP cards and every time I place an order on Sportlots I try and pick up one or two more. Hopefully I can finish off the entire set before the 2011 cards come out next year.

I've really enjoyed collecting Heritage this year and I plan on this being the set that I will collect by hand going forward. It's always the best looking set of the year, it's not overloaded with lousy insert cards, for the most part the insert cards included are ok, and it's not a huge set to put together vs. the cost involved to assemble it. I probably have spent three bills to get what I have, but it sure seems like I have a lot more to show for it than I do with the Topps base set.


As for the rest of it.....it's been a slow summer for new stuff. The Allen & Ginter and T206 cards do nothing for me. Hell, they look like the same cards every year. Same with Finest. The National Chicle cards were ok, but nothing to write home about. I dig the Pro Debut cards (where the hell is the Jacob Turner card?) but their player selection is atrocious. The only Tiger with a remote chance of being something someday is Casper Wells, and he's already been featured on a Bowman card. I sort of get the feeling that this set is Bowman's illegitimate brother, primarily made up of the leftover minor leaguers who weren't good enough for inclusion in Bowman.

Speaking of Bowman, I have noticed a trend that really pisses me off, has pissed me off for some time, and yet nobody has been able to give me a reasonable explanation for it. The RC logo. I have noticed many dealers selling cards with the RC logo at a premium, despite that fact that none of these cards are true rookie cards!!! I refuse to pay $1 for an 2010 Austin Jackson RC that is not a RC. Even worse is asking a dealer why it's priced more and he looks you in the face and tells you it's a RC. C'mon guys. Let's cut it with this stupid fucking logo that is nothing more than a tool for card buyers to get ripped off.

As for Upper Deck, I can't say I will miss their mediocre product, but I dug last year's O-Pee-Chee and I'm disappointed that it won't be continued. I hate that Topps has the monopoly on the baseball card market, but if they continue like they did this year of only releasing a product every 4-6 week I could learn to live with it.


I am anxiously awaiting the release of the Updates & Highlights series this month. I'm looking forward to the cards of Boesch, Rhymes, Wells, Oliver, Valverde, Raburn, Kelly, St. Pierre, Peralta, Galarraga, and Avila, just to name a few.

One last note before I wrap it up. I spent a whole week this summer dividing up about 15,000 doubles into teams, so if there are any team collectors out there looking to deal, please drop me a line. I broke up several factory sets to take Tigers cards out of, so there are many complete team sets of stuff included.

Happy collecting everybody! (Only 4 empty beer cans......)

Will The Real Brennan Boesch RC Please Stand Up?

Go to ebay and type in "Brennan Boesch RC" to see what pops up. There seem to be three different cards that make up the majority of the search results, which leads me to one obvious question: Why is a 2008 card listed as his RC by so many people when there are TWO 2007 cards of Boesch? To top it off, all three cards are Bowman cards. Are people that desperate to make a few bucks that they'll flat out lie to do it? Hell, who am I kidding.......

WARNING: DISHONEST BRENNAN BOESCH RC BELOW!!!


Of the two remaining candidates, there is a HUGE oddity with one of them. Boesch is pictured wearing a Padres uniform. Huh? Boesch has never suited up for the Padres. It's readily apparent that this is a Topps Photoshop job, but why? And why the Padres? As far as I can tell there is no corrected version/variation. I don't get it. I'd love to hear from somebody who knows. This would explain why it's not in the team set I bought back in 2007


Based on the above, I'm going with the 2007 Bowman Heritage as Boesch's RC (pictured at the top). Actually, my basis is on the fact that it's the only one of the three I already own......

Armando Galarraga

Everybody has seen it, everybody has formed an opinion about it, and most everybody has moved on from it. For the record, my two cents are that no matter what MLB/Bum Selig decide to call it (or not call it), I don't think there is a Tiger fan around that doesn't consider it a 28 out perfect game and that's good enough for me. So many perfect games have been forgotten over time, but this will live up there with Don Larsen and Harvey Haddix as one of the most memorable ones ever, as it should be. Congrats Armando!!!


Since AG was the Tiger story of the week (it's a shame Austin Jackson's catch in the 9th was lost in all the hubbub....), I thought it would be fun to showcase a few of his memorable cards as a Tiger, as well as show off a couple of his 2010 RobbyT cards as well (if there is one thing we don't lack for around here it's self-promotion......)


Easily the biggest one in my collection would be the 2008 Topps Update & Highlights jersey card insert. I just picked up this card in the last year when Meijer was having their blow out sale on these blasters and was lucky enough to get it as one of the inserts.


Two others of note are his card #50 from the 55 card Detroit Tigers special edition team set and a Bowman Gold card, both from 2008 as well. I'm leery to call these his RCs despite the designation on the front of the cards, simply because anybody in the know realizes that designation doesn't mean shit most of the time.


As luck would have it I got to see AG pitch a couple of weeks ago at Dodger Stadium (his only loss so far this year) and he's scheduled to pitch in Chicago next week a game that I'll be attending. Here's a pic I took at the game in L.A.


Kudos to AG on one of the most amazing games pitched in baseball history!

1981 Topps Stickers

I know I've been slacking lately, so thanks to everybody who sent emails asking where I've been. I was kind of squatting here and there for a bit before heading out west the last week to follow the Tigers in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Seattle. I'm back home now and have a permanent residence, so things should be picking back up here at DTCAS.

I've been out of the card loop for a few months, but quick checks in Target and Meijer this past weekend show that I haven't missed anything. While unpacking boxes this weekend I found a few things that I picked up recently and hadn't had a chance to blog about, so I'll start with these.

A couple of months ago I found an entire set of 1981 Topps Stickers on ebay for around $10. I'm sure if you do the math for inflation I got the set for less than what a handful of packs cost back then (20¢ if memory serves me well, maybe 15¢). They have held up well (the look like little minis of the SSPC sets of the 70's) and the set is chock full of HOF.


The list of Tigers featured is interesting. The absence of Lou Whitaker is glaring given he had just won ROY two years earlier, but when you look at the stats none of the featured players had worse seasons in 1980. Hell, if anybody has a beef it's Richie Hebner or Tom Brookens, who arguably had better years than Rick Peters or Alan Trammell.

The 1981 Topps Stickers Detroit Tigers:
73 Lance Parrish
74 Steve Kemp
75 Alan Trammell
76 Champ Summers
77 Rick Peters
78 Kirk Gibson
79 Johnny Wockenfuss
80 Jack Morris

I've been on a bit of the sticker binge the last year or two and I have a question for anybody who collects them. How do you display them? I can't find any vinyl pages that come close to fitting the size (they won't stay put in a 9-pocket page). I guess at no more than $10 a set I could just buy the old sticker book and stick them in there, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

Or does it?

April in the D

Lot of goings ons around here lately and there is nothing like an afternoon of watching Rick Porcello pitch BP to the Texas Rangers to get me in the mood to catch everybody up. These are in no particular order.....


1. Made a trip up to Milwaukee to catch the Tigers last official Spring Training appearance. Yeah, the one where they gave up four runs in the bottom of the 9th to lose to the Brewers, 13-12. It was a great trip regardless. All seats were $10, first come first served, and I ended up sitting about 10-12 rows behind the Tigers dugout. There's a pic of Zumaya from my seats.


2. Made a trip over to Detroit to catch the Tigers play the Indians the first Saturday of the season. Bonderman looked fantastic that afternoon and the Tigers won 4-2 on an absolutely beautiful day. The weather was so nice I ended up getting a sunburn! This pic is the last out of the game.


3. I picked up an overpriced Topps team set at Comerica Park. I know you can get these at Meijer or Target for half of what you pay in the park, but I was already there, it was already there......what the hell. $4 is not going to break my budget. HOWEVER, I did end up stopping in Meijer on the way back to see if they had any caps or other Tiger stuff that I couldn't live without, and lo and behold there were the team sets. With a difference though. It looks like the fancy, high priced set you get at the park has a FREE COLLECTOR CASE (they bolded it first, not me....) as opposed to the retail version which does not.

So now I have two of them. Which is not a bad thing. I've been picking up these little team sets all over the country for the last 3 years and I have them in their own binder. I'll put one set in there and the other one in my 2010 Tigers binder. It does make me wonder though why there are two different types. Even though I can't put my finger on it, I'm sure Topps is screwing somebody over. I always am.....


4. I was in Target yesterday, and I've noticed plenty of times those bricks of cards that you can get for $5 that guarantee there are at least $10 worth of cards inside, or something like that. I saw that there was one that had two bricks, half filled with cards and half filled with Topps coins. I grabbed on of those, and a couple of the $4 "mixed bag" blister packs that make the same claim.


It made for some fun opening to get home and see what all was in those grab bags. I ended up with a complete '90 Topps/Kmart Superstars set (33 cards, no Tigers), 60 '90 Topps coins (interestingly enough, I got exactly two each of thirty different coins, including two of Alan Trammell), 3 rack packs of '89 Topps, 1 rack pack of '87 Topps, an '81 Fleer Dale Murphy, a '90 Post Cereal Nolan Ryan, and a some other crap. (Like a '95 Pinnacle Tony Phillips) It was certainly more fun than shelling out the same amount of $$$ for a few rack packs of Topps Heritage.

Oh well, not much else going on around here lately. I nabbed '81 & '82 Topps stickers sets off ebay a few weeks ago. Come to think of it, that'll give me something to discuss later on this week.

2010 Topps Heritage and Other Random Musings.....

I swore I was not going to try and build a 2010 Topps Heritage set.....and it turns out I am partially right. I'm not going to try anymore.....it's a shame too, because I think this is without a doubt the best looking Heritage set that has been released done so far.

Let me start at the beginning. Back when the rack packs first came out I noticed that you could see through the packaging much like the regular Topps rack packs. You can clearly see three of the four cards in the packs. One day while cherry picking for Tigers I noticed a serial number on the back of one of the cards on the bottom side of the pack. I bought it, and sure enough it was a chrome card.

Not long after I noticed that you can clearly see a SP card in a pack, as it is always the last card in a pack and the white card stock is easily distinguishable from the gray card stock. I started going around to area Targets and Meijers just buying the packs that I could see SP or chrome cards in. In the last two weeks, I've picked up a total of 41 SP cards, 7 chrome, and 3 chrome refractor cards just by inspecting the back of the packs.

Even with the SP cards (37 different, 4 doubles), I'm still 38 SP cards short and about 80 base cards short of a 500 card set. Now I've bought upwards of 50 packs at $5 a pack, yet I don't even have 80% of the set even though I've got over 700+ cards total. With this I've decided that this was a foolish endeavor and that I'm not going to try and finish this set by buying any more packs.

I went on ebay to see if it would be worth my while to try and sell off what I had to recoup my losses and call it a nice, but costly lesson learned. I learned a lesson all right. None of these cards are selling for all that much on ebay. You can get the base set of 1-425 for roughly $40. The SP sell for around $2-$3 each if you package them in a lot big enough that the shipping doesn't eat you up. I see all kinds of chrome and refractor cards not even selling for a $1 because of the $2-$3 shipping cost involved. So for less than what I've got in it now, I could've had the entire set already. I wouldn't even come close to recouping what I've spent.

So really, what is the point of buying packs of anything nowadays? This is the second Topps issue this year that I have thrown some major cash into while trying to put together a set the old fashioned way. (I know, fool me twice.....the old fashioned finger banging is all I got) I really am done with building sets from now on. If I see something I like I'll just wait for it to hit ebay and let some other sucker waste his/her money putting it together.


On the flip side, it was a great find at Meijer that helped me come to this conclusion. They had their 2009 Topps factory sets, which retailed for $60 last year, marked down to $50. On top of that they were having a 20% off all cards sale which brought the price down to $40. Since I boycotted buying packs in '09, I picked up a set. It had one of the cool Mickey Mantle chrome reprints ('57) as well as a pack of five Rookie Card variations that are exclusive to factory sets. I opened the set when I got home and one of them was a Rick Porcello. Not a bad deal for $40 IMO. That's about the price of eight rack packs or 4 jumbo packs, which would have only given me around 250 cards roughly.

I've noticed a trend regarding Topps cards. The longer you are willing to wait the cheaper you can get them. I've seen 2008 factory sets for $24. There were hobby boxes of 2006 and 2007 cards for $19. What incentive does a set builder have to even fool with it anymore unless you want to wait for three of four years to try and do so?

In conclusion, I've got a ton of Heritage doubles if anybody is interested in trading. I'm going to hold onto the SP cards, but if anybody is up for a swap of doubles drop me a line.