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.