Another Episode of - Haven't I Seen That Before?

Funny story... I posted the 2017 Series 1 Yount checklist and was just casually scrolling down my blog feed when I notice something and it made me do a double take.  I'll be honest had I not just done a post about Robin's 2005 Upper Deck Past Time Pennants card this would have totally escaped me.  I had to laugh.  Not only does Topps recycle the same image over and over again within it's own products, yes I know they use licensed images, but now we get to see Topps use images that other card companies have used.  I'm not mad it just makes me shake my head a little.  I mean Robin played baseball for 20 years!  I'm sure he had tens of thousands of potential images that could be used.  That's probably why I was a big cheerleader for his Stadium Club card last year.  It was unique to the set being the only card not to feature a player doing something basebally, and it was an image I hadn't seen used before.  

Here's a nice side by side.

2017 Topps Series 1 Yount Checklist and Gallery

As posted about earlier Robin has six cards if the checklists are to be believed.  And cards are already starting to pop up for sale.

Topps Series 1 Salute S-17
Topps Series 1 Salute S-17 Red #/25
Topps Series 1 Salute S-17 Platinum #/1
Topps Series 1 Salute Autographs TSA-RY
Topps Series 1 Salute Autographs TSA-RY Red #/25
Topps Series 1 Salute Autographs TSA-RY Platinum #/1

1984 Topps 1983 All-Star Game Commemorative Set Rack Pack insert

Year: 1984

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: 1983 All-Star Game Commemorative Set

Card Number: 5

Card Type: Insert

If you bought any 3 blister rack packs from the 80's you'll remember these glossy inserts. Robin was a 3 time All-Star with 1983 being his last appearance.  These inserts are fun to collect and back in the mid-80's before inserts starting showing up in packs these were some of the only non-base cards to be found.  Plus they were glossy and colorful and printed on better card stock.  You could find these seeded one per rack pack and I'm sure there were plenty of kids digging through the racks looking for cards to complete their set and their favorite players.  These are still pretty easy to find and pretty cheap to pick up.

2005 Upper Deck Past Time Pennants

Year: 2005

Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Set: Past Time Pennants

Card Number: 70

Card Type: Base

Recently there was a discussion going around Twitter about what to call the base cards of a set, base or commons.  It's funny to me because when Panini bought Donruss a few years back and started putting out sets, their sell sheets referred to the base cards as commons.  And more than once I told Panini to stop calling the base cards commons.  Here's the thing the term common refers to the scarcity of the cards, so while the base set is most definitely the most numerous cards in a release and hence common, referring to them as the common set already denotes them as mostly worthless.  And for me and many other collectors that's just not true. 

I'm a big fan of the base set.  For me a modern card product is build like a pyramid.  With the base set as the foundation for the release.  It's what all the other inserts and parallels are built around.  It's probably the my biggest gripe with the industry as a whole as we are starting to see more and more sets released with no base cards at all.

I think the mid 2000's, especially 2005, epitomizes my pyramid analogy.  Especially just about every set Donruss and Upper Deck put out that year.  Past Time Pennants was no different.  Lots of parallels and inserts to chase.  But I still love a good base card.

A great action shot on the front and a nice write up on the back with Robin's 5 best year stats listed. For my money I would rather have 20 different base cards featuring Robin than one relic or auto card in my collection, but that's just me.

2014 Topps High Tek Spiral Variation

Year: 2014

Card Manufacturer: Topps 

Card Set: High Tek

Card Number: HT-RY

Card Type: Base Variation

Variation: Spirals

I was digging around my draft posts  (I have a ton of cards scanned) and was surprised I still had one Topp Tek pattern variations I hadn't posted.  I'm still missing a couple variations in the middle of rarity, but I'm happy the two rarest variations are already in my collection.  That said the Spiral variation is not rare.  It's the second most common behind the base pattern.  I love that Robin was included in the inaugural relaunch of the brand.  I was a little disappointed how half-assed Topps was about it though. No pattern designation on the back and all the base cards are lettered instead of numbered.  Not only that but even the autograph cards aren't noted on the card labeling.  But I'm still a sucker for acetate.

2017 Topps Series 1 New Younts confirmed!!

Just a quick heads up.  We are still a few weeks away from the release of 2017 Topps Series 1, but Topps released the checklist, although it's not complete, because card numbered have not been assigned to the base cards.  That said it looks like all the inserts are correctly labeled and Robin is in the Salute set.  It looks like the overall set is sub-divided up into different Salutes to, like Father's Day, Legends, Memorial Day, Rookies, etc.  The sell sheets also mention a Red and Platinum parallel in the autograph set and the examples below show a Red parallel in the base set as well, so we can probably assume there will be a Platinum parallel too.

Robin's card is S-17 in the base set and TSA-RY in the autograph set.  So right now it looks like there will be at least 6 cards to chase with Red's being serial numbered, but not listed to what yet on the sell sheet, and Platinum parallels numbered 1 of 1.  I've posted examples of the card designs below and I'll have an offical post after this is released to keep as a gallery page.

2008 Topps Sterling - Sterling Stardom Quad Relic auto

Year: 2008

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Sterling

Card Number: 4SSA-130 (RY31)

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Sterling Stardom

Card Attributes: Relics, Autographed, Serial Numbered

Relic Types: Bat, Jersey

Serial Number: 04/10

I own three of Robin's hundreds of 2008 Topps Sterling autograph cards.  This one marks the last one in my collection not yet featured.  You can see the other two HERE and HERE.

Part of the Sterling Stardom set this card commemorates Robin's 1983 All-Star Game appearance.

I like the mix of relics on the card, much better than 4 all white pieces.  I'm not a huge fan that the sticker auto hide part of the signature, but it is still a great card.  Sorry about the blurry scans I have this card well encased in a screwdown.

2016 Topp Online Yount Exclusives

In an effort to help complete my 2016 checklist an area I was sorely lacking in was all the 2016 Topps Online offerings.  This includes all the 10x14 posters and 5x7 cabinet cards and anything else they offered.

2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Base Poster 10x14" ($24.99) #/99
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Base Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Base 5x7 #/49
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Base Gold 5x7 #/10
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Numbers Game Poster 10x14" ($24.99) #/99
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Numbers Game Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Numbers Game 5x7 #/49
2016 Topps Allen and Ginter Numbers Game 5x7 #/10
2016 Topps Anthology Base(1976) 5x7 #/499
2016 Topps Anthology Silver (1976) 5x7 #/49
2016 Topps Anthology Gold (1976) 5x7 #/10
2016 Topps Archives Baseball 1953 Design Poster 10x14" ($24.99) #/99
2016 Topps Archives Baseball 1953 Design Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1
2016 Topps Archives Baseball 1953 Design 5x7 #/49
2016 Topps Archives Baseball 1953 Design Gold 5x7 #/10
2016 Topps Bunt Base Poster 10x14" ($24.99)  #/99
2016 Topps Bunt Base Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1
2016 Topps Bunt Base 5x7 #/49
2016 Topps Bunt Base Gold 5x7 #/10
2016 Topps Stadium Club Base Poster 10x14" ($24.99) #/99
2016 Topps Stadium Club Base Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1
2016 Topps Stadium Club Base 5x7" #/49
2016 Topps Stadium Club Gold Base 5x7" #/10
2016 Topps Stadium Club Legends Die Cut Poster 10x14" ($24.99) #/99
2016 Topps Stadium Club Legends Die Cut Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1
2016 Topps Stadium Club Legends Die Cut 5x7 #/49
2016 Topps Stadium Club Legends Die Cut Gold 5x7 #/10
2016 Topps Series 2 Hallowed Highlights Poster 10x14" ($24.99) #/99
2016 Topps Series 2 Hallowed Highlights Gold Poster 10x14" ($99.99) #/1

The Year in Review - 2016

Well Yountophiles with the release of Panini National Treasures we've pretty much come to the end of another year of Yount card collecting.  This marks the third year I've tried to keep a detailed running checklist for card release featuring Robin Yount.  And while I strive to try and have to most complete list, I know I'm missing some cards.  Most notably are the online 5x7 and larger cards put out by Topps Online.  I do have some of them, but some cards were issued in sets and Topps seems to think that checklist for those sets don't matter I guess.  The other missing section are a lot of the HITS Cards cards.  Also because they don't maintain a good checklist on their website, although it's been awhile since I looked.  That being said knowing the areas I'm lacking I can try to correct as best I can.

Still this year we ended up with at least 217 new cards for Robin.  A lot of those were very limited higher end cards, but the budget collectors also had plenty to chase.  I didn't keep track of how many new Younts I acquired this year.  I probably could figure it out, but meh.  I ended the year with a cataloged 1103 items in my collection.  Not too shabby.  I have noticed discrepancies here and there in my blog list and my master spreadsheet.  The wife and I are in the process of trying to sell and buy a house so most of my collection is in storage, but one of my goals for the coming year is a thorough review of my collection.

Over at the Trading Card Database we ended the year with 5,247 cards listed on the site with just over a third of the cards having images uploaded.  That's not bad considering all the low numbered and 1 of 1 cards out there.

For the second year in a row I've sponsored Robin's player page on the site.

And I'm proud to say I'm the leading contributor of images for Robin's cards as well, it has almost become a mania with me.  I've also started actively adding missing checklists for sets and cleaning up checklists and sets that have sat way to long with out proper card labeling, notations, and teams.


Another interesting trend I've been noticing is that Robin's autograph cards have come way down in price.  Almost 30%.  That's not to say that older issues and some of the rarer cards still don't bring in big bucks, but just through observing lots of auctions I've noticed that the average price per autograph has dropped from about $50 to right around $30.  This was bound to happen with all the autos Topps and Panini have been releasing the past couple years.  But if you're a collector it's a great time to pick up some really nice and sometimes very rare cards for a decent price.

Well my dear fellow Yount collectors I hope you had a great holidays and here's to a great new year of card collecting!

1992 Donruss Triple Play

Year: 1992

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Triple Play

Card Number: 81

Card Type: Base

Back to a simpler time.  I've always like the Triple Play brand.  At least the old versions.  Back before low end was a thing, Donruss created this low end set.  Cheaper than the flagship packs and with only one insert set not much to chase.  The design is simple yet colorful and lets be honest they sure didn't waste any effort on the backs.