2014 Topps Triple Threads Onyx

Year: 2014

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Triple Threads

Card Number: 21

Card Type: Base Parallel

Parallel Set: Onyx

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number:10/50

Another card picked up from COMC.  And again I was lucky enough to find a sweet deal on this guy.

I'm slowly acquiring most of the color parallels of Robin's from last years Triple Threads.   There was a time where I actively went after as many of the parallels as possible, but now I'm more of a sit and wait kind of collector.  And when a deal comes along I snag it.  So the Onyx parallel comes into the collection.  I was a little disappointed that Robin wasn't in this year's Triple Threads base set, but at least he does have a few relic cards.

1989 Donruss Diamond Kings

Year: 1989

Card Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Baseball

Card Number: 5

Card Type: Base - subset

Subset: Diamond Kings

I don't know if there is a more iconic card from the junk wax era than Diamond Kings.  I'm a big fan of art cards and Dick Perez.  Mix in Robin Yount and we have a home run.  This is the second of Robin's 3 Diamond King cards. His first was in the 1984 Donruss set and then in 1993 Donruss he was in the Diamond Kings insert set. 

A great card.  Perez did a great job on the likeness.  The background still freaks me out a little.

1992 Brewers Police Cards Wisconsin Rapids Police Department

Year: 1992

Manufacturer: ?? Sponsored by Delicious Bakeries

Set: 1992 Milwaukee Brewers Police set

Town Police: Wisconsin Rapids

Card Number: NNO

If you're a Brewers fan there's nothing more iconic or oddball than the Brewer's Police sets.  The program started back in 1982 and they continued the program with a few skips until 2013.  The Packers still put out Police sets though.  The early sets were oversized cards and a pain to store.  Tony L over at Off Hiatus Sportscards was nice enough to forward me a list that may or may not be complete of Robin's Police cards and cities that participated.  I do plan on adding a new stand alone page with that checklist for those who care.  Anyways, in 1992 about 42 cities and town are listed.  There are some variations to this years set.  I have a Milwaukee Police card too that has the Delicious logo on the front of the card.

This card is from the Wisconsin Rapids Police Department.  Wisconsin Rapids is located in central Wisconsin not too far from where I went to college in Stevens Point.  Like most towns along the Wisconsin River there is a very large paper mill right in town and I can remember attending a party in Rapids, that's what the cool kids call it, and the whole town smelt like a fart from the mill.  

The 1992 cards are standard 2 x 3 inches and like always feature a player on the front and some safety message on the back.  This one has "Robin" telling us about babysitter safety.

1993 Upper Deck SP

Year: 1993

Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Set: SP

Card Number: 72

Card Type: Base

I know I've brought this up many times, but Robin's career ended just as things were starting to heat up in the baseball card market.  The cardboard one-up-manship started right around now with card companies trying to one-up the other with different gimmicks.  They started offering higher end products, not like today, but still a lot pricier then their flagship products.  

1993 marks the inaugural year of SP, a brand that Upper Deck still puts out.  This set also has probably the most iconic rookie card of the 90's, Derek Jeter's and his rookie card carries about 95% of the value of the set.

Still Robin does have a few cards scattered around the various higher end sets from this time, SP included.

1987 Topps

Year: 1987

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Baseball (Flagship)

Card Number: 773

Card Type: Base

Out of all the sets Topps has produced the 1987 flagship set is the one I hold closest to my heart.  This was the first set I remember trying to complete and actively buying packs of cards.  It's also a design I really like.  It reminds me of my father's den or perhaps that cool basement bar my uncle had.  And while the set was produced at the height of the junk wax era it's still a good looking set with plenty of printing errors to make putting a decent set together a challenge.  

I probably own well over 100 Younts from the set and I don't think any of them would grade to 10.  I do own a PSA graded 10 card though.

The backs feature the blue and yellow color scheme that I always loved because it matched the Brewers colors.

1988 Starting Lineup Talking Baseball

Year: 1988

Card Manufacturer: Starting Lineup

Card Set: Starting Lineup Talking Baseball 

Card No.  26

Card Type: Insert 

Robin's got a few Starting Lineup cards.  These cards came part of a baseball game.  There might have been extra player packs to be had too I can't remember.  I'm sure someone out there is an expert on the set and will chime in. 

 Robin's other Starting Lineup cards come as a bonus insert packaged with  a sports figure bearing his likeness. I do have one loose figure somewhere, but I have yet to try and pick up any of his figures still mint in package.  That's not to say I don't want to add them to the collection.  I just don't have the space to store or display them and I would rather focus my collecting money elsewhere.

This card is smaller than the standard 2x3 card size.  I think it's closer to 1935 Goudey.

The image used is also iconic.  You'll recognize it from all sorts of other oddball issues from the 80's.

2014 Topps Museum Collection Green Parallel

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Museum Collection

Year: 2014

Card Number: 67

Card Type: Base Color Parallel

Parallel: Emerald

Card Attributes: Serial numbered

Serial Number: 051/199

For how silly it seems to chase after cards who's only attribute is that they have a different border color and are serial numbered I am glad they exist.  For me I love that fact that I'll always have cards to chase.  My player collection of Robin is not about seeing an end point, ever.  I don't want to be done collecting his cards.  I always get excited when a new set that potentially will have cards with his likeness comes out.  I scour the checklists looking to see if there are new Younts to chase and catalog. 

Robin really missed the whole insert and parallel craze that started in the mid-nineties since he retired in 1993.  And the Brewers were an absolutely terrible team during that time with no real superstars in the line up so they got overlooked and underrepresented.  So for me seeing Robin included in sets like Museum Collection and having a base card and all those silly color parallels is a treat for me.  Many of the really low numbered cards can get pricey, but chasing cards like this Emerald parallel numbered to only 199 are affordable and usually pretty easy to acquire.

1990 Topps All-Star card

Year: 1990

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Baseball (Flagship)

Card Number: 389

Card Type: Base - subset

Subset: All Star

I have to say I really like this year's Topps flagship design.  By this year I mean 2015, not this year 1990.  But I do like the 1990 design as well.  My point is I like the 2015 design specifically because of all the color and it's hard to believe that it took Topps 25 years to make anything like what they put out in 1990.

I'm sure there are plenty of haters of this set.  And lets face it these cards will never be rare, but man do they stand out.  

1990 Score McDonalds

Year: 1990

Card Manufacturer: Score

Card Set: McDonald's Baseball

Card Number: 25

Card Type: Food Issue Premium

I'm a sucker for food issue cards.  The are my favorite oddball.  If your a Yount collector this is probably one of the toughest food issues to find.  Not impossible, just a little tougher to track down and due to it's scarcity it can get a little pricey (but not too bad around $10).  According to the write up over at Baseballcardpedia.com these cards were available from 11 McDonald's stores in rural Oregon and Idaho and only given out for 3 weeks.  Cards came as a give away from buying fries and a drink and you got 4 cards per pack.  The full set has 25 cards and you can see the full checklist at the above link.

Overall the card itself if pretty handsome in hand.  I like the color fade effect on the front of the card and there is a nice action shot of Robin on the front.  There is also a nice large head shot on the back and full stats and Score still managed to squeeze in a great write up.

1986 Fleer

Year: 1986

Set Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Basball (Flagship)

Card Number: 506

Card Type: Base

It probably doesn't get much simpler than this.  Honestly Fleer for me was always the blandest of card brands, but growing up it was also the most elusive. I could find Topps anywhere, the card shop  grocery store, convenience store, pharmacy, big box stores like K-Mart and Sears.  And Donruss usually wasn't that hard to find, but for me Fleer was this ghost in the distance.  And honestly I don't know what all the hubbub was about. Sure 1989 would bring the whole Billy Ripken bat thing into play, but for me Fleer always looked so bland.  It wouldn't be until the mid-90's that Fleer put out a couple sets that bucked their trend.  

Even so the 1986 set, while kind of bland and safe is a handsome set.  The bold blue borders help.  It works well with Robin's card as the card is decked out in Brewers colors.  A nice photo of Robin taken during batting practice before a game.  The backs are pretty typical Fleer with the multicolored stripes to divide the stats and make it easier to read.

1988 Score

Year: 1988

Card Manufacturer: Score

Set: Baseball

Card Number: 160

Card Type: Base

I can remember buying a ton of this back in 1988.  Mainly because it was new and cheap. The set had different colors depending where in the set the card was numbered.  If you happen to have a set in a box it has an interesting rainbow effect.  Robin's in the blue section and the gold or yellow coloring of the stars and Score logo work well with the Brewers team colors.  Over all the design is pretty safe, but I think you can say the late 80's and early 90's card designs weren't groundbreaking.  I do really like the action batting shot and Score introduced the back photo as well.  Something that would be used by Upper Deck the next year and would become the norm around the industry  especially for the higher end sets.  I also like that there is no wasted space on the back of the card and there is even a really great write up down below the stats.  The only problem I had or have with this set is the card numbers are so small, that's something Score would improve upon the next year.

2015 Topps Triple Threads Yount Checklist

Robin is only featured in one insert set in this years Triple Threads but that also comes with a 5 parallels.  Still the base card is numbered only to 36 so these will be pricey relic cards.  Robin is in the Relic Legends set.  I'll add images after these start hitting the market next week.




Relic Legends
Base #/36, Sepia #/27, Emerald #/18, Gold #/9, Sapphire #/3, Ruby 1/1
TTRL-RY Robin Yount

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Mini Box Mini Variation

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Year: 2015

Card Set: Gypsy Queen

Card Number: 21

Card Type: Mini Box Mini Variation

This year marks the 5th year for Gypsy Queen and Robin has been featured in the base set of four of those year, 2012 was the year he wasn't although he did have relic cards in the set.  This year marks the third time that he has been featured with a mini variation card in the set as well.  These variation cards are only found in the mini boxes in hobby boxes.

The image isn't terribly over used, but just a quick look though some of his recent cards shows the image was used in last year's Supreme autograph cards and this year for his Finest Generations insert and Tier One - Clear One's autograph card. 

Clearing up some confusion with Panini's 2015 Cooperstown.

I've been trying to sort out this year's Cooperstown offering from Panini.  Robin has quite a few cards to chase in the set and as I've been watching stuff on ebay I've become more and more confused with what card is in what insert set.  But I have been able to piece some stuff together.  Mainly from using the backs of the printing plates which actually list the set the card is in.

Robin has 3 cards that all look like base cards.

At first I wondered if they were variants, because they all are numbered 82 and from what I've seen all have the same backs.

Then I found this..

 which had a back also listed.

So now I know that the card with Robin swinging is in the HOF Chronicles set.  One down.

Next I did some looking around I did find a printing plate with Robin holding his HOF plaque, but it didn't have an image of the back, so I looked though all the printing plates I could find and I found that images of players with holding their plaques or giving a speech or some other induction activity were in the HOF Induction set.  So I reasonably deduced that this card was in the HOF Induction set.

 Not to be confused with the Induction Images which are foil board and Robin's card is #26 in the set like the one below.

That leaves us with one card which I can reasonably say is the actual base card to the base set.

So in summary

Base card

HOF Induction insert card

HOF Chronicles insert card, this one happens to be the red parallel version.

Induction Images insert, the card that actually says Induction on it.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion if your collecting Robin or another player with the same problem.

2010 Topps Update Bat Barrel Manurelic

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Year: 2010

Card Set: Update Series Baseball

Card Number: MBB-156

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Manufactured Bat Barrels

Card Attributes: Manurelic bat barrel, serial numbered

Serial Number: 63/99

I figured why not follow up a manurelic with another manurelic.  This one comes from the 2010 Update set.   I won't repeat my tirade about manurelics from the last post, but I will say out of all the different manurelics Topps has put out these Manufactured Bat Barrels are my favorite.  They came in 3 different flavors.  I blogged about the black version in May this year and there is also a pink version number to just one.  

I just like the look of the card. The bat barrel is huge, the card think, in hand these look great.  Add to that that even the base card here is fairly rare, numbered to only 99.  That's not something Topps does very often with it's manurelics.  The set itself is pretty large with over 175 subjects to pick from.  Heck the Brewers even have 6 subjects in the set including Paul Molitor. 

2012 Topps Series 2 Team Rings

Year: 2012

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Topps Series 2 Baseball

Card Number: GTR-RY

Card Type: Insert Manufactured Relic

Insert Set: Gold Team Rings

Card Attributes: Manufactured Ring

Manurelics.  I'm not a huge fan.  I really don't like that Topps considers these one of your hits when it advertises one auto and two relics on it's jumbo boxes.  This isn't a relic, it's a manurelic and it's not the same thing.

But there are some manurelics I like more than others.  I really like the manufactured bat barrels from a few years ago and I like this one too.  The reason I like it is because it's such an oddball, at least to me.  The image used isn't new and the back of the card is pretty sparse, but the actual ring manurelic is pretty neat and the card is fairly hefty and thick.  And it features my favorite player so....

2002 Topps Tribute Milestone Materials relic

Year: 2002

Card Manufacturer: Topps

Card Set: Tribute

Card Number: MIM-RY

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set: Milestone Materials

Relic Type: Jersey

Card Attributes: Jersey Relic

Nothing to really get excited about, at least now.  Back in 2002 this was the bee's knees.  A nice shiny thick stock card with an actually game used relic.  Not an event used, game used for what that's worth.  Single color swatch and unnumbered the early 2000's marked a time with Robin's, and other players, jerseys were being cut up by the truck load for cards like this.  Still a nice card from the Cadillac of sets at the time.  I do like of the M shaped opening for the relic window.  Beats a plain square or circle.  Seems card makers are now just getting back to openings for their relic sets, you know besides Triple Threads.