1999 Upper Deck Retro

Card manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: Retro

Year: 1999

Card Number: 91

Card Type: Base

I'm not really sure what was so retro with Upper Deck Retro.  I do know that boxes were actually little metal lunchboxes.  I don't think that's retro, but it is a neat gimmick.

I ended up picking up this bad boy with the rest of my Black Friday haul. I don't have a lot of cards of Robin from 1999.  That's because compared to just the next year there really aren't that many.  According to the Trading Card Database he has only 10. 1999 marks the year Robin enter the Hall of Fame and it also marks the start of card companies putting out cards featuring him again.  

I'll tell you what I like about this card.  It's the photo.  Think about it. Have you ever seen this photo used?  Sure we get tons of batting, fielding, and posed shots, but I don't know if I can think of another card featuring Robin sliding, hell even base running is rare.  Who knows maybe he's sliding head first into third on a triple, or stealing second, or just trying to get back to the bag.  Great photo, great angle, marginal card design.

There are two parallels to this card.  A gold version numbered to 250, which still commands a pretty heft price, and the platinum 1 of 1, which I'm not sure has ever seen the light of day.

Robin also has some very limited autograph cards in the set.  I think if you could find a box of this it might be fun to open.  And then you'd have a little lunchbox for your sandwich.

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Artifacts Bat Relic

Card manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps Gallery

Year: 2003

Card Number: AR-RY

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: ARTifact

Insert Type: Relic

Relic Type: Bat

Topps Gallery was a staple in the market for quite a few years starting in 1996 till it's last issue in 2005.  In 2003 Topps put out two Gallery sets.  The regular and a Hall of Fame edition, with you know Hall of Famers.

Robin has a bunch of cards in the set with parallels and variations.  Even his ARTifact bat relic has a couple parallels and he even has a couple autographs in the set, although I can't remember ever seeing them.

I was able to snag this base relic from COMC during Black Friday for cheap.  I really kind of miss Topps Gallery.  Topps actually paid artists to produce this, not just run a photo through a Photoshop filter.

The artist for this card is Stephen Gardner, which is acknowledged on the base cards.  Packs and boxes still command a premium with packs going for $8-9 buck and boxes going for about $150-200.

1990 Collect-A-Books

Card Manfacturer: Collect-A-Books

Card Set: Collect-A-Books Series A

Year: 1990

Card Number: 9

Set Type: Box

If you collected cards back in 1990 or collect a player who played chances are you have one of these in you collection.  Collect-A-Books was one of those oddballs that came from that great time.  Packaged in a box set that was pretty popular at the time, you got 12 books per box and there were three boxes to collect. For a total of 36 cards in the set that featured all the popular players of the day. The boxes are labeled as Series 1, but I'm pretty sure they never put out a Series 2.  Collect-A-Books also paired with ProSet and NBA Hoops to produce a Football and Basketball set.  These are still really cheap and easy to find. You can find full boxes for a couple bucks. 

A neat little oddball.

2014 Topps High Tek Cracked Ice Base Varaition

Card manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: High Tek
Year: 2014
Card Number: HT-RY
Card Type: Base Design Variation
Variation Type: Cracked Ice
Note: This is the second rarest of the 6 design variations.



I was really excited to see Robin in this year's Topps High Tek.  I think it's because I do love the chase and that fact that early speculation on the set layout put estimates of possible cards in the in the 150's per player.  Of course after the set was released and we figured out what was really going on that number dropped down to the high 20's with some pretty rare cards.  The other big revelation was that instead of every player having 12 variations, which was how a lot of us read the sell sheet, each player only had 6 and it was dependent on which league they played in. Also only the base design had parallels and autographed parallels.

After it was all said and done I'm pretty confident of my Yount Tek Checklist and I'm only a few cards images short for almost every example, I don't have high hopes for actually seeing the Galactic Charcoal 1 of 1 and even if it pops up chances are it'll be a crappy picture or scan.

But I was able to snag one of the rarer base variations.  According to Cardboard Connections this is the 2nd rarest variation.  What that exactly means I don't know.  I'm still waiting to see exactly how rare these base card variations are, but I figured I'd pick this one up while it was fairly cheap.

The scans really don't do these cards justice.  They are shiny and partially see through.  So I made a GIF.  While I don't have high hopes of picking up all the diffractors I am going to try and complete the base variation set and this is a great start.

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes Charcoal Parallel

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: Baseball Heroes

Year: 2008

Card Number: 99

Card Type: Base parallel

Parallel Type: Charcoal 

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 295/399

This year is shaping up to be a very good year for new cards for Robin, but if I had to pick the year he had the most cards issued it would  be  2005 with  2008 coming in a distant second.  And that's simply because of parallels issued mainly by Donruss and Upper Deck.  

Upper Deck issued two sets called Baseball Heroes. One in 2005 and one in 2008. Robin has 5 cards in the 2005 base set and just one in this set.  That's OK though, because chasing down and keeping track of all those cards and parallels and variations from 2005 is a lot of work.  And even with one card in the base set there are 10 color parallels to chase and those color parallels have relic, autograph, and relic autograph variations to chase as well.   Yeah that's a lot of cards.  And figuring out which card is called what is a task too. Cards with colors like emerald green, sea green, light blue, navy blue, black, charcoal, red, you get the idea.  You really need to pay attention to serial numbering.  

I had thought I already had a charcoal color parallel for Robin in this set, but when I was shopping I noticed that my "charcoal" was unnumbered which actually means it's a black parallel.  Anyway the point is I was able to snag a charcoal color parallel on Black Friday to finally be able to mark that one off the list and I was also able to correct my collection list.  

I can see an Ultimate Guide to 2005 and 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes for Robin coming up.

I'll have to go back and double check the collection, but I think this card puts me at 7 color parallels for the set.  

1978 O-Pee-Chee

Card Manufacturer: O-Pee-Chee

Card Set: O-Pee-Chee baseball

Year: 1978

Card Number: 29

Card Type; Base

A lot of my Black Friday pick ups for Robin concentrated on more modern cards, but I did manage to add a few more vintage cards to the collection.  While I've had a complete Topps run of Robin's playing days I've been slow to pick up his O-Pee-Chee counterparts.  

I was able to add a couple O-Pee-Chee cards I needed the first being this 1978 example. 

While the photo and layout are exactly the same for both Topps and O-Pee-Chee, the card numbering is different and the card clearly has both French and English on the back and the O-Pee-Chee copyright.

I also think O-Pee-Chee used slightly better card stock.  O-Pee-Chee cards bring a little bit of a premium as they had a smaller print run and were only released in Canada.

Nice to have this one marked off the checklist.

2014 Topps Five Star Yount Checklist and Gallery

I have no hopes of acquiring any of these cards so I'll be posting images when stuff starts popping up.

Autographs
FSA-RY Base #/50,
FSA-RY Rainbow #/25,
FSA-RY Five Star 1/1

Base auto #/50

Rainbow #/25

Five Star 1 of 1

Autographed Jumbo Relic Book 
FSAB-RY #/50
FSAB-RY Gold Patch #/10
FSAB-RY Five Star 1/1

Bat Plates
FSBP-RY 1/1