2007 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts: Legendary Materials Dual Relic #d to 125

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: SP Legendary Cuts

Year: 2007

Card Number: LM-RY1

Card Type: Insert 

Insert Set: Legendary Materials Dual Relic

Relic Type: Jersey/Pants

Card Attributes: Relics, Serial Numbered

Serial Number 104/125

I have a love hate relationship with relic cards.  First I love the relic cards that feature Robin, but I hate the boring plain old single color swatch.  But I'll take what I can get and afford.

The 2007 SP Legendary Cuts offers a bunch of Yount cards.  The Legendary Materials relics come in all sorts of flavors and Robin has 2 cards in the set.  I have no idea why Upper Deck chose to use the word CUTS for the relic opening. As you can see we get two swatches, or maybe it's just one larger piece, it's hard to tell.  You can probably guess that they other variations of this relic card come in single, triple and quad relics and there is also an autographed version and an auto relic version.  Overall not a terrible card, but the photo is small and back of the card really offers nothing.

1999 Upper Deck SP Signature Edition

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: SP Signature Edition

Year: 1999

Card Number: 168

Card Type: Base

Oh the good old days.  1999. We were all worried that the our computers wouldn't work next year, that for some reason all the nuclear missiles would launch, and that the end of the world was near.  It also marked the return of Robin Yount to the cardboardscape.  I miss cool products like SP.  Sure Upper Deck still uses the brand for hockey and college stuff, at least they did.  

Robin's 1999 SP Signature Edition base card looks like it's missing something and that's because it was designed for the signature version.  So much wasted space on the right. If I remember right I think the autographed cards are all on card for this set.

On the back we get his 3 best years, 2 of them his MVP years.

2001 Fleer Futures Bats to the Future Insert card

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Futures

Year: 2001

Card Number: 11BF

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Bats to the Future

Note: non-relic insert

This is one of the three featured inserts in 2001 Fleer Futures. Younts card celebrates his 3 Silver Slugger awards. There are two other versions of this card. The bat card and the autographed bat card.

1983 O-Pee-Chee

Card Manufacturer: O-Pee-Chee

Card Set: O-Pee-Chee Baseball

Year: 1983

Card Number: 350

Card Type: Base

Good old O-Pee-Chee.  The Topps of the North.

I'll be honest growing up I wasn't quite sure what the deal was between O-Pee-Chee and Topps, or why the O-Pee-Chee cards were more valuable.  

Of course having been in the baseball card world for over 30 years and having access to all sorts of books and websites we know that O-Pee-Chee was a Canadian candy company that licensed the Topps design to sell sports cards in Canada.  O-Pee-Chee was bought by Nestle back in the 90's and the brand name is now licensed to Upper Deck, or at least it was. 

But for over 30 years OPC and Topps had a the symbiotic relationship and since the OPC cards had a much lower print run than their Topps counterparts cards have a little higher value.  There are some years where it's very hard to tell the OPC and Topps cards apart from the front.  Many years there were no company logos on the front and you have to flip the card over to see where it was printed.  O-Pee-Chee also tended to be printed on better card stock so the backs were whiter or brighter.  Luckily in 1983 the O-Pee-Chee name is clearly featured in the upper right hand corner.

And like all the O-Pee-Chee cards since the 70's they have dual language on the front and back.

If you always wondered what O-Pee-Chee means it's a native american word for the robin.

1981 Donruss

Card Set: Donruss

Year: 1981

Card Number: 323

Card Type: Base

When we look around the cardboard landscape today we can see the husk of what was to become one of the big three, and then four, card companies. Donruss pretty much doesn't exist anymore except for that nostalgia set Panini started putting out last year.  Much like Topps and Fleer, Donruss has it's origins in candy.  The name Donruss is a combination of the names of the owners Donald and Russel Wiener.  The company had also been putting out entertainment sets in the 60's and 70's. And after Fleer won it's lawsuit against Topps was able to obtain a MLB license. Yada Yada Yada, enough with the history lesson, chances are you already know the story.  And so in 1981 we were graced with the first multi-set baseball card year since Topps had bought Bowman.   

This set along with Fleer's 1981 Baseball set pretty much ushered in the new modern era of baseball cards and paved the way for the Junk Wax Era.  As a matter of fact these '81 sets are not rare or hard to find and neither are singles of your favorite player.  

The overall design is simple and so are the backs.  Both this set and the Fleer set are rife with errors, mainly due to the fact that both companies were in a rush to get their sets out, with good reason, Old Man Topps was out for blood and would soon have the lawsuit overturned in their favor.  But in the end Fleer and Donruss got around it by offering stickers and puzzle pieces.  And that is why if you collected Fleer or Donruss in the 80's and early 90's you have a ton of random stickers and puzzle pieces laying around.

1989 Topps Big

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Topps Big

Year: 1989

Card Number: 249

Card Type: Base

Year two of this issue. Topps would produce one more year of Topps Big before realizing what a colossal pain in the butt it was for collectors. The cards didn't fit in 9 pocket pages and penny sleeve were too short to cover the whole card, and these didn't fit in regular storage boxes either.  Topps issued another oddball sized card set this year too, with the return of it's Bowman brand.

Like the year before this set was issued in 3 series of 88 cards each for a total of 264. 

While the design was slightly different the layout was basically the same with a background action shot and a large player portrait overlayed to the right.

2004 Donruss Classic Membership

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Donruss Classics

Year: 2004

Card Number: M-17

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Membership

Card Attributes: Serial numbered

Serial number: 1818/2499

Just like American Express says, "Membership has it's privileges."

Of course one might wonder what membership we're talking about here.  Membership into the Hall of Fame? Membership at Costco?  No this card commemorates  Robin joining  the exclusive 3000 hits club.  There are a few milestones in a baseball players career that look really good on the HOF resume and getting into the 3000 hits club is one of them.  Robin ended up with over 3100 when it was all said and done.

Another great insert from 2004 Donruss Classics. Of course the base insert here is a little underwhelming, but there are relic, auto  and relic-auto versions of this insert.  The base insert is still limited to 2499. Or course that's nothing nowadays, but back in 2004 that was still pretty rare.  Not that I would want this card less limited than it is, but it would have been a nice touch if it had been serial numbered to 3,142.

2009 Topps Series 2 retired base variation

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps Baseball Series 2

Card Number: 595

Card Type: Base Variation

Variation Type: Retired Photo Variation

Unless you live in a cave you probably know that 2015 Topps Series 1 baseball is out and all the rage.  The reason I bring this up is that Topps once again has inserted unannounced variations.  Some are photo variations and some are those terrible sparkle variations.  I bring that up because it makes me long for the days when Topps use to put former stars and Hall of Famers as their variations. 

And while this years set of the Topps flagship is the first time in a while they've done anything to really shake up their formula, getting rid of those stupid variations should have been one of them.

Alright enough ranting.  I featured Robin's 2010 variations a couple months ago.  I remember back in 2009 and 2010 being really excited to see Robin featured as one of the player variations.  And looking back I'm also glad to see Topps used photos that hadn't been and still haven't been recycled to death.

I still wish Topps would go back to this type of photo variation in their sets.  It's easy to tell you got a rare card and who doesn't love seeing one of their favorite players on the current design?

2004 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Card Number: 70

Card Type: Base

I really miss the Upper Deck Sweet Spot brand.  I never opened any, but I love the cards and the fact that years later I can pick up great base cards like this for next to nothing.  The design has a very Art Deco feel, especially when they use a sepia filtered photo.

Robin has lots of great stats and fact that go along with this 20 year career, but after a while you start to notice that some of the big ones get used over and over again. I suppose it's inevitable since Robin's not making anymore of them.  Maybe after I retire I'll sort through all my cards and make a list of how many times a certain factoid was used for back filler.

Still a great card. Maybe a little much with all the gold foil, but hey it's Sweet Spot.

2004 Donruss Studio Heroes of the Hall insert

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Donruss Studio

Year: 2004

Card Number: HH-10

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Heroes of the Hall

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 949/999

Another insert from the mid-2000's.  Again these inserts were designed for the relic and auto versions. That's way the photo is so small there there seems to be so much wasted space on the card.  There are also a couple parallels to the base card besides the relics and auto versions of this card.  All the cards are serial numbered, with this base card being the highest at 999.

In the relic cards the relic piece goes where the H is and the sticker autos were placed mid card, over the team logo and into the player picture.

2002 Topps 206 Mini Blue Jersey Polar Bear back

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps 206

Year: 2002

Card Number: 289

Card Variation: Blue Jersey

Card Type: Tobacco Size Mini parallel

Card Back Variation: Polar Bear

I vividly remember when Topps 206 came out.  I opened a ton of this stuff. Left me rephrase that I opened a ton of Series 2 of this stuff.  Mainly because Robin had not one, but two base cards, or rather a base card and two variations.  Plus the mini's and the back variations.  I pulled some great card from this set.  I pulled an original T206 buyback, some bat cards featuring vintage players from the original set, and a Joe Mauer rookie autograph, among others. It also came out right about the time I really started getting back into card collecting and my discovery of eBay.

It was also the birth of using vintage designs for a products that paved the way for Allen and Ginter, Goodwin Champions, Champ's, Turkey Red, Topps 205, Mayo, and two more sets of 206.

And while this isn't first time tobacco sized mini's had been inserted in a current product, that belongs to Pacific Private Stock, it is the start of the trend. This set does start the overall return of the tobacco size insert, but wouldn't be used again till 2006 with the inaugural Allen and Ginter set.

Each of the three series featured different mini back parallels.  Robin's card was featured in Series 2 and has the Polar Bear, Piedmont, red and black, and Carolina Bright's backs.

The Polar Bear backs are the most common and can be considered the base backs, then rarity goes, Piedmont Black, Piedmont Red, and Carolina Bright's being the rarest.

I love that the variations for Robin's cards in the set pretty much bookend his career with this blue jersey, classic 70's Brewers, representing the start of this career and the Pinstripe variation representing the end.  

2008 Topps Sterling #223 White Suede parallel

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps Sterling

Year: 2008

Card number: 223

Player card number: RY7

Card Type: Base Parallel

Parallel: White Suede Framed

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 38/50

I've written about the 2008 Topps Sterling set many times before.  I think of all the high end efforts by Topps the 2008 edition of Sterling is still a bright spot as a Yount collector. Even if all the autos are stickers.  It's a set that's impossible to have all the cards from a player.  But there are so many cards in the set that you could snag a great card for a decent price, at least you use to be able to.

The concept for the 2008 Sterling set was Hall of Fame player driven and boxes feature only cards from the Player featured on the box band.

Robin has 11 cards featured in the base set, all numbered to 250. Of course there are parallels of those base cards like this white suede parallel numbered to 50, framed burgundy parallels numbered to 10, framed cherry wood, framed gold, you get the idea, and then there are all the relic autos number to 10, the white whales numbered to 1.  The point is while the cards are all low serial numbered cards, there are a lot to chase.  It took me a good amount of time to chase down all 11 base cards and when I could find them I also picked up these white suede parallels cheap.

The only difference between this and the base cards is that they are really white, as opposed to the yellow tinted frames of the base cards and they're serial numbered to 50.

 The other thing I like about this set is the numbering.  You have the cards overall place in the set #223, but also you have the cards player numbering RY7.  I also like the fact that the card is clearly marked as the white framed parallel.

1991 Star Stellar #29

Card Manufacturer: Star

Card Set: Stellar

Year: 1991

Card Number: 29

Card Type: Base

 I think I've let enough time pass to post another one of these. I've been trying to space them out.

Another card from the Star Stellar set.  Each card in the set has a different themed back.  This one has Yount's Playoff and American League Championship stats on the back.