Friday, January 30, 2015

2014 Topps Tribute Base card

Card Manufactuer: Topps
Card Set: Topps Tribute
Year: 2014
Card Number: 39
Card Type: Base 



Yeah I know another 2014 card.  I'm trying to finish off last years cards, at least the base ones.

Robin's been featured in many years of Tribute.  Not every year, but a lot of them.  Topps has been putting out the Tribute brand since 2001, with a few breaks in the mid-2000's..

I like the overall art deco design.  I also like the no border look and the large photo.  I'm a little disappointed that Topps decided to recycle another pretty heavily used image of Robin.  This photo was taken in 1988.  We can date the photo thanks to the H/K patch on the sleeve that honors the late Brewers manager Harvey Kuenn.  As usual there are all the color parallels you'd expect and Robin also has a bunch of relics and autos in this set.



The back of the card is almost a desert. While I like the roominess of the front of the card that didn't need to be carried over to the back.  You get 4 bulleted highlights and no stats.  Just seems like a lot of empty space back there.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

2004 Donruss Team Heroes

Card Manufacturer: Donruss
Card Set: Team Heroes
Year: 2004
Card Number: 232
Card Type: Base



Donruss would put out this brand for three years starting in 2003 and Robin has a card in all three sets.  Here we have Robin's base card from the 2004 set.  There are also 3 parallel cards for this set, Gold, Silver, and Bronze and Robin also has an autograph card.

The overall design seems kind of clunky and blocky for me. They use the Brewers' new logo and team colors  for the card and the info is sparse on Yount facts with more of an emphasis on team info.

At least we get an image that hasn't been recycled a thousand times.




Wednesday, January 28, 2015

2014 Topps Triple Threads Base card

Card Manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: Triple Threads
Year: 2014
Card Number: 21
Card Type: Base


If there's one thing I can count on as a Yount collector it's that Topps Triple Threads will feature Robin.  I'd have to go do the research, but I'm pretty sure he's been featured almost every year since the brand came out.  In the early years of the product the base cards were numbered just like all the other parallels to around 1350 copies.  I'm not sure if that print run still holds true now that Topps doesn't number the base cards.  

The other thing you can count on is that the relic and autos will look almost identical from year to year, but at least the base cards change.  The 2014 design is similar to past designs and keeps the formula up.  Like years past the set features the player more than the game.  Cropping out the player to be prominently displayed in a frame.  Robin's card isn't very colorful, with the only real popping color coming from the mustard yellow nameplate and the blue from his uniform.  I do like the foil framing goes behind Robin making it look like he's coming out of the card.  Over all a pretty typical Triple Threads card and that's not a bad thing, a well designed card with foil accents and the player featured prominently.  The back has the usual three (triple) facts, I'll have to make a note to find Robin's other Triple Thread cards and compare backs just to see how much of the info is recycled.








Tuesday, January 27, 2015

2000 Upper Deck Hitter's Club Generations of Excellence with George Brett

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck
Card Set: Hitter's Club
Year: 2000
Card Number: GE3
Card Type: Insert
Insert Set: Generations of Excellence


1999 marked the year that Robin Yount came back to the baseball card world.  After he was inducted in the Hall of Fame he got a smattering of cards that year.  In 2000 it was slowing ramping up and by 2001 it was balls to the wall with card companies embracing the addition of retired and HOF subjects to their sets and checklists.

Robin shares this card with George Brett.  As a matter of fact Robin shares a lot of cards with George Brett.  It's understandable, both came into the league about the same time, George 1973, Robin 1974.  They both appeared on cardboard the same year 1975.  They both belong to the 3000 hits club, they both retired the same year 1993.  They both went into the Hall of Fame as first balloters and at the same time, 1999.  Both were franchise players for their respective teams and both are revered by their fans.  

So to see Robin and George on the same card being compared isn't that big of a stretch and it sure isn't bad company.

Not a bad looking card featuring two of the greats.




Monday, January 26, 2015

1977 Topps

Card Manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: Baseball
Year; 1977
Card Number: 635
Card Type: Base




You know I realize I post a lot of the flashier, newer cards here.  It's hard not to show off the latest insert Robins been featured on.  But I have been trying to scan all my 70's and early 80's cards in and feature them as well.  

The 1977 Topps has a nice base design and if you were looking for a vintage 70's set to try and put together that won't break the bank this would probably be it.

This would be Robin's third Topps card and by this time he was a genuine superstar on the team.  He would be featured in a lot of the 1977 oddballs that were issued, like the MSA discs, Topps Cloth stickers, and Hostess panels.





Thursday, January 22, 2015

2014 Panini Classics

Card Manufacturer: Panini
Card Set: Classics
Year: 2014
Card Number: 113
Card Type: Base



Panini revived the Classics line this year.  In years past it was probably one of my favorite sets from Donruss, with a great checklist and some pretty awesome hits.  And while the checklist and the hits are pretty nice this year the lack of logos does drag this issue down a bit.

This card also has 3 parallels, silver, gold and platinum and there is a auto relic version too.

Robin also has a bunch of low numbered auto relics in this set. But thank goodness that he also has a cheap run of the mill base card.  The overall design is ok, but it just seems like there's a ton of wasted space on the front of the card.




Wednesday, January 21, 2015

2014 Topps Breakout Moments insert

Card Manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: Topps Baseball Series 2
Year: 2014
Card Number: BM-25
Card Type: Insert
Insert Set: Breakout Moments


Another pick up from my Black Friday haul last year.  And another insert from 2014.  Some of the subjects in the Breakout Moments insert had relic, auto, and relic auto parallels, but not Robin.  Nope Robin just got a base card and that's alright by me.  

The card commemorates Robin's first home run when he was just an 18 year old rookie.  It would have been nice if Topps had maybe used a photo from that year.  The more I look at the card the more I wonder what the hell Topps was doing.  Ripped paper, film strip design inset.  Not my favorite design or insert for the set, but I'm glad to see Robin included.






Tuesday, January 20, 2015

2015 off to a whimper.

Well it's been a pretty lousy weekend for me.  The Packers..well I'm not going to talk about them Packers.  Gallardo getting traded..I don't want to talk about that either.

But the checklist for 2015 Topps Series 1 was release this afternoon and I combed through the checklist.  Robin's not featured in any of the inserts.  There were a couple inserts sets that he might have been featured on like Archtypes, the Birth year coins and stamps, Career High, First Home Run, and Gallery of Greats.  Of course Topps hasn't announced variations and there are usually a few bonuses not on the sell sheets and checklist.




Thursday, January 15, 2015

1992 Score Cooperstown Card

Card Manufacturer: Score
Card Set: Score Baseball
Year: 1992
Card Number: B11
Card Type:Bonus Factory Set Insert
Insert Set: Cooperstown Card

A great card and a card that would look great autographed. 

The early 90's mark a big shift in the trading card universe.  At the time autographed cards were starting to be inserted randomly in products and to say that they were highly sought after is an understatement.  But it also marks the time when the industry was really insert oriented.  With multiple insert sets being inserted alongside base cards and we also see the emergence of the parallel card.  

These Cooperstown Cards were a bonus in the factory set.  They were part of a larger set sandwiched in the 17 card checklist between the World Series highlights and Joe DiMaggio and Carl Yastrzemski commemorative cards.



There were 4 Cooperstown Cards, Robin's, and then ones for Ozzie Smith, Carlton Fisk, and Dave Winfield, all who were still active players at the time.



Wednesday, January 14, 2015

2014 Topps High Tek Wall Art

Just when I though I had put the 2014 Yount checklist to bed Topps goes and does something else.  

I got an email this morning from Topps advertising it's Topps High Tek Wall Art.  Topps has been doing Wall Art all summer so this didn't come as a surprise.  What might be surprising is that they are producing only one of each subject and Robin's on the checklist.  Or was. When I started looking through the website Robin's piece had already been scooped up.  Not that I would have bought it at almost $200.




Tuesday, January 13, 2015

1990 Kay Bee Kings

Card Manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: Kay Bee Kings
Set Type: Boxed
Year: 1990
Card Number: 33
Card Type: Base



Anyone remember Kay Bee Toys? I think they were in just about every mall.  There was even one up here in Alaska years ago.  Kay Bee out of business about in 2009 and Toys 'R Us picked up the scraps of what was left.  

That being said Kay Bee put a out a box set of cards for 5 years starting in 1986 with its last box set being the Kay Bee Kings set produced by Topps in 1990.

A nice looking set with some great stars in it.  Like most sets from that time frame they were produced in mass and you can still find full boxes of these for cheap and the individual players.

While Kay Bee put out 6 sets in 5 years, 2 sets in 1988, Robin was only featured in two of those sets. This one and the 1989 Super Stars of Baseball.

Robin also get the last card of the set again.  When Robin is featured in these box sets he tends to be the last card in the series.  While the cards are numbered, players appear in the checklist alphabetically by last name.



Monday, January 12, 2015

The Year in Review

It was a good year if you're a Robin Yount baseball card collector. Robin had almost 300 card released with this visage this year.  Sure a bunch of those are really rare and super expensive, but those of use of meager means had plenty to chase and acquire.

This year Robin had at least one card released in almost every issue from Topps and Panini.  As a matter of fact he had 23 cards in Panini's almost last baseball product of the year, National Treasures.

By my count Robin had 294 cards issued this year.  I made it a point to try and keep track of all of them this year, scouring checklists and grabbing images off of ebay.  I myself was able to add close to 40 to the collection this year.

I also hit a milestone by adding my 1000th unique Yount card to my collection thanks to COMC's Black Friday deals.  My biggest additions this year were my Topps Finest autograph and the two rarest base card variations from Topps High Tek.  All of which I thought I got a great deal on.

The large number of cards issued for Robin was helped by him being included in the base sets of both Topps' Allen and Ginter and Gypsy Queen.  Since both sets have lots of mini card parallels.  This year also saw a huge amount of new Yount certified autograph cards enter the market. This lead to a depression in Robin's autograph card prices.  As it were you could expect a typical autograph card to go for about $50.  With the exceptions of the super high end stuff like Dynasty and National Treasures, I have seen Robin's auto prices hovering around $30 when cards are being bid on eBay.


Panini has been putting out some great high end HOF sets.  It's too bad they can't use logo's because that would probably send the cards over the top.  But Robin has featured prominently in every Panini HOF set so that leads to lots of awesome high end cards and a few lesser cards for us mere mortals.

This year also saw the change of format for the blog (Actually I started the new format in 2013, but ramped it up in 2014).  Since the blog began it had pretty much been without direction.  More of a place to store my Yount checklist than anything else and maybe show off new cards I got.  So after contemplating I decided to actually put some effort into what I was trying to do here.  Hence the 2014 comprehensive checklist.  I decided to keep track of new stuff, highlight stuff from my collection with high quality scans and a write up and then link that post to my checklist page.  I also decided to try and do checklists and gallery's of sets that had lots of rare and interesting Yount cards, that I'll never own, but I really wanted to be able to archive the images all in one place.  Basically I wanted the Yount Collector to be a one stop Yount collecting experience and hopefully have some value.
One of my unwritten goals this year was to try and put out more posts in 2014 than I'd put out in all previous years. As a matter of fact I put out 25 more for a total of 117 posts.  Yeah a lot of the posts were single card spotlight's, but since that was going to be a focus of the blog I'll take it.

So I want to thank all the readers out there. And the 25 people that decided my blog was worth following.  And a welcome to Tony L. a fellow Yountophile that I hope I can help out with his collection.

Happy New Year everyone.

CB out.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

2014 Panini National Treasures Baseball Ultimate Yount checklist and gallery


Sorry I've been gone for about a week visiting family down south.  But that works out in my favor because it seems it took for ever for Panini to release the 2014 National Treasures checklist.  And by combing thought the official spreadsheet I found that Robin has 23 new cards issued in it.  I have no idea what the base cards look like if they are relics or auto relics or gem cards.  I haven't seen one on ebay yet so I'll adjust the checklist.  The NT Star cards are the book cards.  I'll be adding images as I find them, as I seriously doubt I'll be picking any of these cards up.

Base Relic #75 #/25
Base Prime Relic #75 #/25
Base Prime Button #75 #/6
Base Prime Laundry Tag #75 #/5
Bat Barrel #59  #/1
Bat Knobs #59 #/1
Hall of Fame Logo Signatures #39  #/10
Notable Nickname #100 #/10
NT Star Jumbo Prime Signatures #14  #/10
NT Star Jumbo Signatures #14 #/25
NT Star Jumbo Signatures Bat #14  #/25
NT Stars Jumbo ID Tag #14 #/1
NT Stars Jumbo Nickname Signatures #14  #/25
NT Stars Jumbo Nickname Signatures Bat #14 #/25
NT Stars Jumbo Signatures BB Material #14 #/5
NT Stars Jumbo Team Nickname Signatures Stat #14 #/25
NT Stars Jumbo Team Nickname Signatures Stat Bat #14 #/25
Silhouette Autographs #46  #/10
Silhouette Autographs Black #46  #/5
Silhouette Autographs Brand Logo Tag Red #46 #/1
Silhouette Autographs Gold #46  #/5
Silhouette Autographs Green #46  #/1
Silhouette Autographs Laundry Tag Blue #46  #/1





Hall of Fame Logo Signatures

Silhouette Auto

Silhouette Gold?

NT Stars Jumbo Team Nickname Signatures Stat front

NT Stars Jumbo Team Nickname Signatures Stat back


NT Stars Jumbo Signatures BB Material front

NT Stars Jumbo Nickname Signatures front

NT Stars Jumbo Nickname Signatures back

NT Star Jumbo Signatures front

NT Star Jumbo Signatures back

NT Star Jumbo Prime Signatures ft

NT Star Jumbo Prime Signatures back
NT Star Jumbo Signatures Bat front

NT Star Jumbo Signatures Bat back
NT Stars Jumbo ID Tag

Bat Barrels