2003 Topps Tribute World Series Edition - Team Tribute Dual Relic with Paul Molitor

Year: 2003
Manufacturer: Topps
Set: Tribute World Series Edition
Card Number: TTR-YM
Card Type: Insert, Relic
Insert Set: Team Tribute Dual Player Relic
Relic Type: Bat, Jersey
Card Attributes: Piece of Authentic, Serial Numbered
Serial Number: 124/275

Let's take a time machine back to 2003 when Tribute was still pretty new, parallel were few and Hall of Fame relics were everywhere.  Apologies for the crappy scan. I'm sure this relic is in a screwdown holder when I scanned it.  A great dual relic from arguably the two best Brewers of all-time.  The World Series Edition has some fantastic relics and autographs in the set.  Plus I love the old style serial numbering.  So huge.  I also love that this card clearly states that the relics in the card are game used. 

2003 Fleer Rookies and Greats - Boyhood Idols Jersey Relic

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Rookies and Greats

Card Number: BI-RY

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set: Boyhood Idols Game-Used Relics

Relic Type: Jersey

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered, Piece of Authentic

Serial Number: 261/615

I miss the days of collecting in my youth.  Not that 2003 was still my youth, I mean I miss having Fleer and Donruss as real companies competing against each other and trying to one up each other and all the other competitors.  2003 would mark the start of the downward spiral that eventually would lead to the companies demise and in two year's would just be a brand of Upper Deck.  2003 also marked end of Fleer putting out a flagship set, unless you count Fleer Tradition.  But in those final years Fleer gave it a good go and put out some of the nicest trading cards in it's history.  But Rookies and Greats isn't really one of those sets.  It's still a nice looking set. The base set was small, only 75 cards, and there weren't too many inserts to be had and only one base parallel.  

Robin was featured in a couple of the insert relic sets.  The Boyhood Idols insert also had a relic autograph parallel, but Robin is doesn't have a card in that set.  This was a pretty choice card back in 2003 with the swatch being two colors, I'm sure I paid a premium for this card.  It's also got an odd print run of 615.  Why?  Fleer that's why.  As a matter of fact a lot of the inserts in this set have odd numbering.  

2003 Donruss Timeless Treasures HOF Materials Jersey Relic

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Donruss

Card Set: Timeless Treasures

Card Number: HOF-43

Card Type: Insert Relic

Card Attributes: Relic, Serial numbered

Insert Set: HOF Materials

Relic Type: Jersey

Serial number: 034/100

In 2003 there were almost 100 different baseball card releases. And that's a lot of sets, but what made this year and the next couple so crazy was the explosion of parallels within the sets, inserts, relic, autograph, and relic autograph cards.  Robin has 16 different cards in this set with all the parallels.  He also happens to two cards in the HOF Materials insert set.  He's also featured on card #HOF-18 with a bat relic.  But what is really great about this set and especially this card is the jersey that this swatch is taken from is featured and fully recognized as the source on the back of the card.  Something that is sorely missing in today's, not from any specific event, date, or game,  relic cards.  The card features a very young, maybe still in his teens, Yount in batting pose, although very little of him.  Still this is from a time where relics were still a pretty sought after hit in products and with both his relics in this set being numbered to only 100 fairly rare.  

2003 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Patch

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Card Number: P-RY3

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Souvenir Logo Patch

Card Attributes: Manufactured Patch, Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 333/350

Note: Hand Numbered

Lest we forget the Manurelic has been around for awhile now.  Case in point is this 2003 Sweet Spot Classic Souvenir Logo Patch.  This is one of three cards Robin has in the set.  One is another unnumbered Manurelic featuring the glove/ball logo and one game-used patch card numbered to 150.  I like this card, I like the commemorative World Series Patch and I like the photo used.  I even like hand numbering on the card.  

2003 Fleer Showcase

Year: 2003

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Showcase

Card Number: 98

Card Type: Base

With Robin retiring in 1993, he unfortunately (or was it fortunate?) missed the rise of the insert and parallel craze of the late 90's and early 2000's, at least as an active player.  Once the HOF and tribute sets started coming out Robin got thrust right into the mix.  I may be one of the few that really enjoys a lot of the parallel sets.  For me as a player collector I know I'll never own the majority of the high end cards produced for Robin, but with all the inserts and parallels, and parallels of the inserts, I'll always have stuff to try and chase and to me that's a lot of the fun of collecting.  

The 2003 Fleer Showcase set is one of those great early mid 2000s sets that has a great checklist featuring stars of the day and HOFers and retired players.  Plus this set has some really cool insert and relic sets.  I'm a sucker for gimmicks.  This set does have a couple base parallels, one very attainable and the other not so much.  I really like the overall simple design and I like the photo used for Robin's card.  

2003 Topps Shoebox Collection

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Shoe Box

Card Number: 65

Card Type: Base

I'm back!  Just spent a glorious 2 week in Hawaii and came back to Alaska for an 80 degree difference.  Ahem that being said let's jump back into my COMC black Friday haul.  Again we have another card I could have sworn I already had in my collection.  But after looking through my master spreadsheet and digging through the collection it looks like I was wrong.  Which could be easily understandable.  Even by 2003 Robin's 1975 Topps card had been reprinting probably over 100 times and he had a couple reprints in other sets around the same time.  The Shoe Box Collection was basically a complete set, with a box containing all 96 reprint cards and some other goodies.  

This reprint and set is easily distinguished from the other 75 reprints by the nice big foil logo stamp on the front of the card.

2003 Topps Retired Signature Series Black Parallel

Year: 2003

Manufacture: Topps

Set: Retired Signature Edition

Card Type: Parallel

Parallel Set: Black

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 33/99

I'm not ashamed to say I really like the 2003 Topps design.  I unfortunately was not collecting much do to work in the early 2000's so all I really have are the contents of a few series 1 flagship packs.  That being said the 2003 Retired Signature Edition gave us cards of Robin on the 2003 design.  While the flagship had a blue border, this series had white bordered base cards.  Boxes had 5 packs with 4 base cards and one uncirculated encased autograph card.  And there were also refractor autos and these black parallels.  Robin also has autographs in this series.  It's a great looking card the scan does not do it justice the black border is kind of sparkly and the back colors match to the Brewers team colors.  Plus I love the jumbo serial numbering.  I really miss being able to read the serial numbers without having to squint.

2003 Donruss - Timber and Threads Bat Rellic Card

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Flagship

Card Type: Insert, Relic

Card Number: TT16

Insert Set: Timber and Threads Relic

Relic Type: Bat

Card Attributes: Bat Relic, Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 083/125

It's incredibly rare that I find a Yount card in the wild here in Alaska that I don't have.  As luck would have it one of my LCSs, Don's Sportcards here in Anchorage, has had this card on the drop board for a few weeks.  Don starts the card off well below book value and the price drops every week till it hits $1.  I had been waiting for this card to come down to a reasonible price.  I was playing the odds that I'm the only Brewers collector in town and when I stopped in this weekend I decided to pull the trigger.  

The nice thing about his card is this is all there is.  There are no parallels, no other relic variations, no autographed version.  To be honest when I saw the card hanging there in the store I did a double take and then quickly consulted my collection list on the blog to see if I already had this card.  Seems like I would have, but no this ones new.  It's been a while since I added a new Yount to my collection.  This year in particular has seen most of Robin's new issues in very high end products and most of those have been very low numbered relics, autos and auto relics.  

The best part about his card is the actual bat that this piece came from is depicted on the back of the card.  Seem like now all we get is a general disclaimer that the player was at least in the same room as the relic or briefly glanced at it.  I also miss the large serial numbering that they use to put on cards.  You don't have to squint to read what this card is serial numbered to.  

2003 Upper Deck Classic Portraits Baseball Royalty

Year: 2003

Manufacture: Upper Deck

Set: Classic Portraits

Card Number: 198

Card Type: Base, Sub-Set

Sub-Set: Baseball Royalty

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 0192/1200

Upper Deck's Classic Portraits has an interesting checklist and format.  The first 100 cards kind of make up a standard base set, with cards 101-145 being short printed.  There are also a couple sub-sets in the full base set with cards 146-190 being the MLB Proteges sub-set numbered to 2003 and cards 191-232 being the Baseball Royalty sub-set numbered to 1200.  Luckily for us Yount collector's Robin has a card in the Baseball Royalty sub-set.  There is a Gold parallel to the set but only the first 190 cards are paralleled, so this is the only card to chase.  It's a thick card with a fancy frame. The portrait is set inside and off set from the frame, the reason for the lousy scan.  Overall it's a nice looking card in hand, but with the placement of the serial number right below the portrait it almost looks like a mugshot.

2003 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Jersey Card

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Card Number: SJ-RY

Card Type: Insert, Relic

Card Set: Game Jerseys

Card Attributes: Relic

Relic Type: Jersey

I never personally opened any Sweet Spot product.  I'm cheap what can I say.  For me the risk / reward ratio is way too skewed.  But I've always loved the Sweet Spot Classic project, because its focus is retired players and HOFers that have had established careers.  And the checklist is chocked full of greats.  Here we have Robin's base relic in the set.  The overall design is pretty meh, but at least we get a muli-colored swatch which was what relic cards were all about in the early 2000's, that sweet pinstripe.  

2003 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic World Series Commemorative Patch

Year: 2003

Manufacture: Upper Deck

Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Card Number: P-RY3

Card Type: Insert 

Insert Set: Commemorative Manufactured Patches

Card Attributes: Manufactured Relic, Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 333/350

Manufactured Patches, what are they good for?  Absolutely noth.....oh never mind.

Topps wasn't the only manufacturer putting out manufactured "relics".  Robin actually has 3 cards in this insert set.  Two are hand numbered.  I have to say these cards are not all the appealing.  There is too much opening for the patches and if you look at a lot of these some of them were not glued on very straight.  But I do like the look of the patch and it does commemorate the one golden time in the Brewers history, even if they didn't win the 1982 World Series.  

2003 Donruss Team Heroes

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Team Heroes

Card Number: 286

Card Type: Base

I currently have 342 cards scanned and in draft posts just waiting for me to find something to say about them and post them.  This card had the honor of being the last card in that pile. I originally scanned this card over 3 years ago so it's been waiting a while.  Who knows this might have been a card included in a big COMC Black Friday buying binge back then.  This card has multiple parallels, most of them pretty rare. This set also has some super rare convention parallels give out at the Atlantic City National Convention and Hawaii Convention.

2003 Donruss Champions Base

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Champions

Card Number: 150

Card Type: Base

2003 was a year that if you were a set collector trying to put together every set you were screwed.  I may be wrong, but 2003 marked the pinnacle of the over crowded card market.  Not the over production, just the super saturation of the market with different sets.  If memory serves me there were over 400 sets produced that year.  That's more than one set a day!  I can remember walking into Don's Sportscards and just being overwhelmed.  But for a guy who liked to open a few packs of new stuff it was also kind of fun.  Sad thing is now I walk into the store and the shelves are mostly bare as new products are few and far between, especially with Topps starting to do online exclusive products more regularly.  I had always hoped there would be a happy medium, but that won't happen while Topps has the monopoly.  

But I digress.  2003 was a light year for Robin Yount cards. The Trading Card Database only lists 162 cards for him.  Compare that to 2005 with over 1000.   Champions focused on, well, champions and award winners.  Robin's card commemorates his 1989 MVP season.  The set also features a couple parallels.  The Metalized numbered to 100 and the Holofoil numbered to just 25 copies, I'm not sure if I've ever seen any of those cards and I definitely haven't seen any of his autograph parallels.  Most likely because there are only 5.

2003 Fleer Fall Classic Base

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Fall Classic

Card Number: 8

Card Type: Base

Nothing like a good old base card from the early aughts. Fleer was near the end of it's life as a stand alone company, but still putting out some nice sets.  By 2003 I think Fleer had pretty much foregone the low end market all together and just started focusing on mid to high end (for the time)  Will Fall Classic wasn't a wallet breaker I think it retailed around $5 a pack, it definitely wasn't a flaghip product.  The set focused mainly on World Series winners, but thankfully there are a few other notable players that didn't win a World Series.  Boxes had three hits two memorabilia cards and either another memorabilia card or autograph.

Robin is  featured in a few of the inserts and has some relics and autographs.  He's even paired up with the other Brewer great Paul Molitor on some cool cards.

2003 Fleer Showcase Base

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Showcase

Card Number: 98

Card Type: Base

Fleer Showcase is an interesting set, as with a lot of product put out by Fleer near the end of its life.  Hobby boxes had 3 types of packs Leather, Lumber, and Jersey.  Each 24 count box had 8 packs of each.  Only certain base cards were found in certain kinds of packs.  Robin's card, #98, was found in the Jersey packs. Almost seems that these base cards should have been serial numbered.  There are two base card parallels, Legacy numbered to 150 and Masterpiece numbered to just 1.

I think the design is suppose to mimic those old cabinet cards from a 100 years ago and it's not a bad looking card, simple.  The backs are pretty sparse.

2003 Donruss Studio Enshrinement

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Studio

Card Number: E-8

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Enshrinement

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial number: 056/750

The Hall of Fame theme for some of Robin's cards is one I enjoy.  I'm very proud that my favorite player of all time is a member of the exclusive club with the likes of Babe Ruth, Roberto Clemente, Duke Snider, and Jackie Robinson to name a few.  And over the years card companies have taken just about any chance they've gotten to feature players in that theme.  It's a sure fire win for any insert set when you get to feature HOF members.  Donruss' 2003 Studio set features this Enshrinement insert which features 50 greats in the Hall.  And the majority of the subjects were also alive at the time, as is evident by the large number of subjects also featured in the autograph version of this card, 34.  There is also a proof version numbered to just 20 and Robin's autograph parallel is numbered to just 5.  Heck this base card is numbered to just 750 which even today is a pretty low print run.  The autograph would have been placed over the Inducted 1999 part of the card.  

2003 Donruss Elite All-Time Career Best

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Donruss

Set: Elite Baseball

Card Number: AT-20

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: All-Time Career Best

I was a little surprised when I was picking up cards on Black Friday that I didn't already have an example of this card in my collection, but thanks the deals on COMC I picked one up very cheap.

The card celebrates Robin's Career Best 49 Doubles in 1980, a Brewers record until Lyle Overbay beat it in 2004 with 53, but Robin still holds the Brewers all-time doubles record with 583.

2003 Fleer Doubleheader with Ozzie Smith

Year: 2003

Manufacturer: Fleer

Set: Double Header

Card Number 269-270 w Ozzie Smith

Card Type: Base

Card Attributes: Bifold

I'm an oddball lover.  If you read this blog regularly or my main blog Collector's Crack you that.  This oddball comes for the 2003 Fleer Double Headers set.  The first 180 cards are normal, smaller but just regular cards, the last 120 cards are flip cards.  After Topps' success with it's vintage 206 brand the other companies were looking to cash in.  Fleer decided to take an old Topps design, the 1955 Topps Double Header, which was a knock off of the 1911 Mecca Double Folders.  And while Topps used cartoons for it's cards instead of photos the idea is the same.  

We only get Robin's upper torso on the card.  Fleer did a decent job of lining up his body with Smith's on the bottom of the card, but it still looks a little off.

Open it up and we have a very tall photo featuring the Wizard.  The pairing isn't arbiraty. These two stars faced each other in the 1982 World Series and I really do enjoy it when the share cardboard together even if the Brewers would end up on the losing side.

To complicate things more Fleer decided to keep the double card numbering like the 1955 Topps set.

2003 Fleer Hardball - Round Numbers insert

Year: 2003 

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Hardball

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Round Numbers

Card Number 14RN

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered, Round

Serial Number: 0469/1000

An interesting set from 2003.  Like I mentioned in earlier posts 2003 is close to the pinnacle, if not the pinnacle, of set production ever.  You had multiple companies putting out a couple new products every week.  But with all the competition and just overwhelming number of card sets we did get some neat concepts and innovations. 

Fleer Hardball was an all round card set.  Kind of like the old Allen and Ginter round cards from the late 1800's.  The base set was a decent size of 280 cards and there were multiple inserts, relics, and even autographed cards in this set.

Robin is featured in the Round Numbers insert set which featured all retired players and I think they were all HOFers too.  Cards are serial numbered to 1000.  There were a couple of the subjects that also had a relic version of this card, but Robin isn't one of them.

A very neat oddball in the collection.

2003 Fleer Rookies and Greats - Through the Years dual relic with Scott Podsednik

Year: 2003

Card Manufacturer: Fleer

Card Set: Rookies and Greats

Card Number: TY-RY/SP

Card Type: Insert Relic

Insert Set:  Through the Years

Card Attributes: Relics, Serial Numbered

Relic Type: Jersey and Bat

Serial Number: 050/360

Wow that's quite a header.  I didn't open a ton of cards in 2003.  That was mainly due to my lifestyle at the time and where and how I was working.  That also happens to be close to the pinnacle of product production for sports cards.  I'm not talking about the billions of cards produced in the junk wax era, I'm talking about the fact that in 2003 there were over 100 different baseball products produced alone.  Think about that.  That's at least 2 new products a week, sometimes more of just baseball.  Now factor in that most card companies had multiple licenses if not all 4 and the shelves were packed with products.  The nice thing was most of those products were affordable, but there were just so many.  

Anyways the one thing we got out of the 2000's was dawn of the guaranteed hit! Autographed and relic cards had been around since the 90's.  And they were and are great for the hobby and they were a big hit with collectors.  With anything that's popular you can bet that the companies take notice and will run it into the ground.

What does that have to do with this card?  Nothing.  Other than it's from a set I never rip a single pack of.  Robin has three cards in this set, all relics.  Besides this great dual relic with Scott Podsednik, he has a patch version of this card and a relic card in the Boyhood Idols set. 

Over all the card isn't all that exciting in the layout, but I do enjoy the multiple relic cards that feature players from my team exclusively.  Scott only played for the Brewers two years 2003 and 2004 before moving on to the White Sox where he would help them win the World Series in 2005 and then married a Playboy Playmate.