2014 Topps Allen and Ginter Yount Gallery

Talk about being a day late to the show. I found this near the bottom of my draft posts.  I'd been collecting images since Allen and Ginter came out, but must have forgot to post it. 

Topps Allen and Ginter #205

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Glossy 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini A and G back

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Black Border

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Gold Border

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini no number back (only 50 made, unnumbered)

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Red Border Hand numbered #/33

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Flag Back Hand numbered #/25

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Wood 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Cyan Printing plate 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Black Printing plate 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Magenta Printing plate 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Yellow Printing Plate 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter #205 Mini Glossy 1/1

Topps Allen and Ginter Book Card Dual autograph relic w/ Ozzie Smith AGBC-YS

Topps Allen and Ginter Double Rip Cards with Paul Molitor DRIP-76 #/5

1990 Wonder Bread Stars

Card Manufacturer: Wonder Bread

Card Set Wonder Stars

Set Type: Food Issue

Year: 1990

Card Number: 11

Card Type: Base

Merry Christmas everyone.  I wasn't planning on posting today, but I decided that I'd schedule a post since I'm not sure if I'll have much time after Christmas with family obligations and the year end festivities.  What better way to celebrate than with an oddball.  And not just any oddball, but the great 1990 Wonder Bread oddball.  

The small set has lots of great stars besides Robin. Ken Griffey Jr, Bo Jackson, Will Clark to name a few.

An overall very appealing card.  As well done as any of the major sets of the time and you get a nice big head shot with classic airbrushed hat and a big Wonder Stars logo.

You get five years of stats and some great career highlights.

2005 Donruss Zenith Museum Collection

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Zenith

Year: 2005

Card Number: 239

Card Type: Base Parallel

Parallel Type: Museum Collection

Like a phoenix Zenith came back in 2005.  It had had a 4 year run back in the late 90's when Pinnacle Brands, makers of Score, was sold to Playoff which became Donruss Playoff, which is now all owned by Panini. Whew.  Anyways the big seller for Zenith was the Dufex shiny technology. And that was showcased in a lot of the inserts and parallel sets in the issue.

There are also gold and silver artist proof parallels and Z gold and silver parallels of this card.

Like most shiny cards like this the scan doesn't do it its shiny justice.  I wonder how long it'll be before Panini resurrects this brand?

Yount-O-Graph

I was bored today.  I don't know if you can tell, but I decided to play around with some numbers.  Below we have all the Robin Yount cards currently on the Trading Card Database in graph form.  Just to illustrate some points.

Couple things.  First, the TCB is by no means complete. Meaning that there are a lot of cards, oddballs and sets that need insert checklists. So we have to take these numbers with a grain of salt.  I didn't use Beckett.com's database, because I don't have access.  Second, most of the Police issue cards from the 80's are not represented.  I do believe that at least one card is in the numbers, but all the different city variations are not. Third most of the MSA discs from 1977 are also not represented right now and  I used my own count for 2014 cards, as I believe it to be much more accurate.

So here we have the card graphed by year issued.  And I have the data table below if you're looking for the counts.

1975	4
1976	6
1977	7
1978	4
1979	4
1980	3
1981	11
1982	12
1983	33
1984	28
1985	17
1986	26
1987	22
1988	29
1989	42
1990	73
1991	36
1992	52
1993	61
1994	24
1995	10
1996	0
1997	0
1998	0
1999	10
2000	21
2001	69
2002	122
2003	161
2004	473
2005	1000
2006	238
2007	135
2008	470
2009	134
2010	61
2011	56
2012	92
2013	125
2014	271

So what can we shine from this?  Well we can see the the bump in issue when Donruss and Fleer entered the competition in 1981.  We can also see when inserts were starting to take off in the late 80's and early 90's and we can see that Robin has been issued almost 7 times more cards since he retired than when he played. I consider his playing days cards 1975 to 1994 even though he retired in 1993 because he was issued regular base cards in almost every set that year.

We can also see that the biggest year for Yount cards was 2005.  Holy crap that's a lot of cards.  What happened in 2005?  Donruss and Upper Deck had a competition to see which company could put out the most sets with the most parallels.  And not just once, but multiple times.  I think Robin has over 100 cards issued in 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings alone.  We can see that 2005 was not only the biggest year, it was the biggest year by over double any other year.  The next biggest year being a toss up between 2004 and 2008.  We can also see a dip from Donruss' exit from the baseball card market and their brief return in 2008.  We can see the dip caused by Topps exclusivity and we can see the current uptick brought about by Panini coming back in with a lot of Hall of Fame focused sets.

I don't think we'll ever see the numbers like in the mid 2000's again, but that's ok. I'm happy that Robin has averaged over 200 new cards a year since 1999. That just means there's always going to be more to chase

2010 Topps retired photo variation

Card manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps Baseball Series 1

Year: 2010

Card Number: 116

Card Type: Photo Variation

Variation Type: Retired Player Photo variation

I really miss when Topps inserted it's base variations with retired and HOF players.  It was easy to tell you got something special, now with photo variation, stat variation, and those stupid sparkle variations you pretty much have to have a cheat sheet to figure out if you pulled a variation.  And yes Topps still had more variation gimmicks in this set.  

Robin was featured two years in a row as a base card variation starting in 2009.   You can see the full checklist here.

I love this card what a great photo.  And in an old school Brewers uniform.  

OK detectives, who is #9 sliding behind Robin? I've got my guess.

2014 Donruss Team MVP

Card Manufacturer: Panini

Card Set: Donruss Baseball Series 1

Year: 2014

Card Number: 21

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Team MVP

Man it took me forever to finally get this card.  I was really excited to see Robin in Panini's relaunched Donruss baseball. But surprisingly this cards didn't pop all that often on eBay and when they did they went for way too much money.  So when one popped up on COMC for a couple bucks I snagged it and then it sat in my account waiting for Black Friday.  

It's a great throwback homage to the 1989 Donruss set. The photo is large and surprisingly crisp. You really can see all the wrinkles on Robin's sun baked face.

2014 Topps High Tek Stripes Base variation

Card Manufacturer: Topps
Card Set: High Tek
Year: 2014
Card Number: HH-RY
Card Type: Base Design Variation
Variation: Stripes
Note: Rarest of the six variations



Once upon a time I was a pretty serious poker player.  And I'll be honest I was pretty good.  Good enough to win a trip to Vegas and make money in Vegas.  I don't play much anymore due to my limited free time, but when I was big into it I picked up Doyle Brunson's Super System book.  I don't know how many of you have read it, but pretty much Doyle lays down the basics and then tells you why he does something completely different.  It's kind of funny.  To paraphrase: you gotta use your gut.

Why do I bring this up?  Well I've been feeling I could write a book on the timing of buying cards on ebay.  And my first rule would be never to buy or go after the first one of something being offered it will almost always go for the  highest price.  So why would I go after, bid on, and win this card?

Had to go with my gut.

I have no idea how many of these striped versions actually exist, as a matter of fact I don't know if Topps will ever tell us. But knowing that these are the rarest of the rare base card variations, I had to try and snag one.  Because even if the first one might go for the most money, if they are that rare my chances of seeing another one in the coming months once the High Tek mass ripping ends might be few and far between.  As a matter of fact I've only seen one other one offered on Ebay and that guys wants $80 for it (he was trying to get $150 the first time he listed it).  I've seen some speculation that this design might be as limited as just 5 copies!

So how much did I pay for this super rare variation.  $11, well $11.25 plus shipping so right about $14.  Did I over pay?  I don't think so.  As a matter of fact after I won it I was scared the seller might back out. Because I thought I got a screaming deal.  This is one of those rare occasions you have to buck the trend and jump in.  The fact that actual print runs are still unknown helped me a lot.  It also helped that there are so many versions and variations and parallels that it's a little overwhelming.  It was for me at first.  But I realized that I'll probably be able to pick up the other 4 variations anytime.  I know at least the two most common I should be able to pick up much cheaper in a couple months with the market is still flooded with them, but these rarer ones it's now or probably never.

So here it is the rarest base variation for the American League in Topps High Tek.