2017 Topps Gallery - Hall of Fame Gallery Blue

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Gallery

Card Number: HOF-28

Card Type: Insert, Parallel

Insert Set: Hall of Fame Gallery

Parallel Type: Blue

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 74/99

COMC Black Friday Haul #44

I'll admit I'm a bit fan of Topps Gallery from way back in the early days of the brand.  2017 marked the return of the set, which I was excited for, I was not excited that this was a Wal-Mart exclusive as this is a set that also begs to be in hobby shops.  I love that Topps also commissioned artists for the set. It would have been easy for Topps to just run some Getty Images through some Photoshop filters to get a similar result, something I sure they've done, but Dan Bergren does a great job on this Yount piece.  Add the marbly blue border for this parallel and it's a cardboard masterpiece.  As I stated a few posts ago one of the best things about COMC is being able to find cards like this as they pop up for great prices, sometimes it's a waiting game.  But it pays off.

2017 Topps Gallery - Hall of Fame Gallery

Year: 2017

Manufactuer: Topps

Set: Gallery

Card Number: HOF-28

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Hall of Fame Gallery

We're here, we made it.  This is the last card I picked up from my 2018 COMC Black Friday haul.  I know not super exciting.  Featured is Robin's 2017 Gallery HOF insert card.  Illustrated by the talented Dan Bergren, it's a very handsome card.  The card has a multiple parallels of varying rarity, but this is just the plain old base card.  2017 Gallery was a Wal-mart exclusive release and marked the return of the brand after over a decade.  I'm not a big fan of the retail exclusive sets, especially a set like Gallery that would have been a big sell in the hobby market.  There is also sticker auto parallel for this set that Robin is also included in, but I have yet to see an example of the card hit the marketplace.

2017 Donruss - Retro Variations Magenta Back

Year: 2017

Manufacture: Panini

Set: Donruss

Card Number: RV-43

Card Type: Insert Parallel

Insert Set: Retro Variations 1983

Parallel Type: Magenta Back

Only a couple more cards and I've finished featuring my 2018 COMC Black Friday pick-ups.  Last time I featured Robin's Retro Variation Stat Line card this time it's his Magenta back parallel of the same card.  The magenta back is the only non-serial numbered parallel out of the 9 parallels, 13 if count the printing plates.  And as the name suggests the back is completely pink, er or magenta. 

2017 Donruss - Retro Variations Season Stat Line

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Panini

Set: Donruss

Card Number: RV-43

Card Type: Insert Parallel

Insert Set: Retro Variations

Parallel Type: Season Stat Line

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 112/210

We are on the final 3 cards from my 2018 COMC Black Friday haul.  Next up is another parallel hole filler.  I'm getting very close to having most of the 1983 Retro Variations parallels.  The stat line parallel cards are numbered to what ever stat Panini decided to feature about the player on the card.  In Robin's case that's his 210 hits in  his 1982 MVP season.  The Season Stat line parallel cards also have a foil board finish so they're nice and shiny.

2017 Topps Update Commemorative MVP Medallion

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Update

Card Number: MVPR-RY

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Commemorative MVP Award Medallion

Card Attributes: Manurelic, Heavy

I'm still just starting to dip my toes back into the eBay game.  I decided a couple years ago to stop set collecting and just focus on my team and player sets.  And to be honest I really have just been mainly focusing on Robin.  I've been pretty selective with my purchases over the last 8 months or so and have just now started to finally find some the cards I missed last year.

I ended up picking up Robin's 2017 Topps Update Commemorative MVP Medallion card for a great price.  The last one I bid on went for about 10 bucks so I was pleased to win this card for about a buck and a half plus shipping.  

The first thing I noticed when I opened the package is just how impressively heavy this card is.  I have a feeling you would have no problem picking this card out of a box.  This card commemorates Robin's 1982 MVP award and it might as well commemorate his 1989 one as well, because he didn't get two cards in the set.  I'm not a huge fan of manufactured relics, but they do have a place in my collection, and this card is very well done.  There are also numbered variations of the set.

2017 Leaf Pearl Multi-Sport Robin Yount checklist

It seems like if you have a trading card product and it comes out in April it should probably be attributed to the current year.  Anyway,2017 Leaf Pearl just came out last week and Robin has a few cards in the set.  These will be added to the 2017 Ultimate checklist.

2017 Leaf Pearl #49 Base  #/10
2017 Leaf Pearl #49 Platinum #/5
2017 Leaf Pearl #49 Purple #/3
2017 Leaf Pearl #49 Green #/2
2017 Leaf Pearl #49 Gold #/1
2017 Leaf Pearl Base Autograph AU-RY1 #/10
2017 Leaf Pearl Base Autograph AU-RY1 Platinum #/5
2017 Leaf Pearl Base Autograph AU-RY1 Purple #/2
2017 Leaf Pearl Base Autograph AU-RY1 Green #/1
2017 Leaf Pearl Base Autograph AU-RY1 Gold #/1

2017 Diamond Kings - Originals

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Panini

Set: Diamond Kings

Card Number: DO-22

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Diamond King Originals

Still have a few Younts left from my Black Friday shipment.  Next up is a great insert from last year's Diamond Kings.  I bought a couple packs hoping I might just luck into this card, but in the end I found a cheap one on COMC.  And then not to long ago I also received one in a trade package from Julie who write the blog A Cracked Bat.  In the age of all these low numbered auto relics that I have no chance of picking up I love that Robin gets included in sets like this and he rightfully deserves to be there.  

2017 Donruss Retro Variations Career Stat Line parallel

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Panini

Set: Donruss Baseball

Card Number: RV-43

Card Type: Insert Parallel

Insert Set: Retro Variations

Parallel Set: Career Stat Lines

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 236/500

I've already featured the Aqueous Test back parallel for this insert and I was also able to snag the Career Stat Line parallel last year and had it included with my most recent COMC Black Friday delivery.  The Career Stat Line cards are numbered to 500 and not the stat, unlike the season stat line cards which are numbered to whatever stat Panini decided to feature for the card.  Robin's card features his career hits total, which Robin is currently 17th in total.

The Yount Collector 2017 Year in Review and 2018 outlook

Here we are another year gone.  This year marked a very low point in my collecting in just about every way I collect.  The biggest event was buying a new house.  Late in 2016 I pretty much boxed up most of my collection and moved it into storage so we could get read to sell our old house.  That took longer than expected, but eventually everything fell into place and we moved into a beautiful new home, or at least new to me, in early June this year.  What that meant was a lot more space.  In fact my wife was nice enough to offer up one of the larger spare bedrooms as an office/man-cave/studio.  That also meant I got to unpack, organize, re-organize, re-re-organize, stack, unstack, restack,  you get the idea.  It's taken the better part of the last half of the year to get the office to a point where I could find stuff.  My winter project has been going through my major collections, which include my player and team collections and finally using the tools that the Trading Card Database has to catalog those collections.  I've also been scanning and adding images of anything that need one on the database and that's been time consuming.  I have yet to fully tackle my Yount collection, but it's on the list.

I also took over a year off of eBay.  Both buying and selling.  I started to dip my feet back in this past September selling a few cards and I bought my most recent Yount autograph.  Most of my collection acquisitions have been through luck (opening packs), trades, the occasional justcommons.com purchase (which is now cardbarrel.com for those interested), and my annual COMC delivery.  Actually I would say 90% of my new Yount cards came from my most recent COMC delivery from their Black Friday event.  I had been picking up Yount cards all year.

Last year, by my count and Beckett's, Robin had 139 new cards released.  Many of those were 1 of 1's and very low numbered, but there were still quite a few base cards, inserts, and parallels to be had for a budge collector like myself.  I did not add the HITS Memorabilia cards for lack of a decent checklist and product description.  I'm still not sure if it's just two guys in a garage cranking that stuff out.  But I also haven't taken a lot of time to look into their products, I've just seen a lot of their cards pop up on ebay. I did include the Topps Online 10x14 and 5x7 cards.

As it stands my collection stands at 1130 pieces.  That includes cards, magazines, drinkware, rulers, art, etc.  I've set a goal to get the collection to 1200, but I'm not worried if I don't make it.  I've always found it funny how we put milestones like hitting 100, 500, 1000 in such places of honor.  We humans like a our round numbers. 

As for the year to come.  I still plan on featuring individual cards from my collection on the blog.  I also plan on posting about and adding images of new Yount cards as they come out and adding them to the running 2018 checklist.  I really like the format I've got on the blog and I plan on keeping that up.  My goal is to still have every item on my collection page linked to a featured blog post and it's a project that's still years away from being complete if it ever is.  I would like to add at least one new Yount auto to the collection this year.  I follow a lot of auctions simply to track what prices are doing and it seems like Yount autographs have been dipping in price pretty significantly.  That's not to say that the old products and rarer stuff doesn't pull in decent prices, but I think Robin's autograph is now averaging about $30 a pop, down from about $50 from the past couple years.  And I ended up picking up my Leaf Q auto numbered to 15 for under $20.

I want to thank all the readers who stop by and occasionally leave a comment.  I'm not a writer by any means, but I do love to blog about my Yount cards.

With that said I hope everyone had a great holidays and here's looking to a great 2018!!

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Ultimate Robin Yount Checklist and Gallery

Robin has a few cards to chase in this set. And by a few I mean 85 total copies of all of the cards.  This also marks the end of the 2017 baseball cardboard season.  Leaf has one more product early next year, but it's unlikely Robin will be in it.  So here is the checklist for this set.  I'll update the card numbering when we find out what they actually are, as Panini doesn't know how to put out a checklist with the correct card designations on it.  I'll add images as I find them.

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Legendary Signatures #LC-RY  #/25

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Legendary Signatures Ruby #LC-RY  #/20

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Legendary Signatures Sapphire #LC-RY #/15

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Legendary Signatures Gold #LC-RY #/10

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Legendary Signatures Emerald #LC-RY #/5

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Legendary Signatures Black #LC-RY #/1

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Patches Black  #P-RY #/1

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Patches  Emerald #P-RY #/3

2017 Panini Flawless Baseball Patches Gold #P-RY #/5

2017 Topps Bunt Perspectives - Green Parallel

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Topps

Set: Bunt (Physical)

Card Type: Insert Parallel

Insert Set: Perspectives

Parallel: Green

Card Number: P-RY

Card Attributes: Serial Numbered

Serial Number: 68/99

Hulk Smash!!

Another new card from my Black Friday delivery from COMC.  I was able to snag this green parallel card of Robin's Perspective insert from this year's Bunt set.  The most numerous of the inserts, but numbered only to 99, it looks like Robin's been hit by a good dose of gamma radiation.  There are 3 other color parallels to chase and 4 printing plates.  I personally thing the Bunt set is one of the best product Topps has put this year and last year.  Cheap, but the base set has a decent design, fun inserts, added value with serial numbered parallels, and there's always a chance to hit an auto. 

2017 Leaf Q Base Autograph Blue Parallel

Year: 2017

Manufacturer: Leaf

Set: Leaf Q

Card Type: Base Autograph Parallel

Parallel: Blue Foil

Card Number: BA-RY1

Card Attributes: Autographed, Serial Number

Autograph type: On Card

Serial Number: 6/15

It's been well over a year since I last purchased something off of ebay.  I stopped selling about a year ago, because I had to pack up my scanner and most of my cards to begin the process of selling and buying a house.  This June that finally all came together and I was able to start unpacking and reorganizing my collection.  So a couple months ago I started listing a few things on eBay to pare down the inventory and to give myself a little fun money to play with.  

I've been watching current Yount autos for the better part of a year and for some reason prices seem to really have dropped off. Not totally, but for the unlicensed stuff it's been really noticeable.  Leaf Q came out about a month ago and I've been watching a lot of Robin's cards and noting what things have been going for.  I decided to try my luck and was able to snag this auto for less than the price of a blaster.  That's pretty insane and it's by far the lowest priced Yount auto I've ever added to the collection. And that includes my super ugly 2008 TriStar auto. Not that I'm complaining at all.  Brian Gray really likes to use a lot of foil on his cards and this set has plenty.  These blue foil parallel autos are numbered to just 15 and the autograph is on card to make it even sweeter.  Sure I'd love a logo on that batting helmet, but it's still a very pretty card in hand.

2017 Rediscover Topps 1988 Gold Foil Stamped Buyback

Year: 2017 sort of

Manufacturer: Topps

Card Number: 165

Card Type: Buyback

Card Set: Rediscover Topps - Gold Foil

It's rare that I find a card of Robin's that I don't already own at my LCS.  I stopped in the other day having not set foot in Don's Sportcards in a couple months.  I really just wanted to say and hi and maybe pick up a few cheap cards if I found anything that piqued my interest.

While looking through the 50 cent boxes I came across this guy.  I'm not big on these buybacks.  And I'll be damned if I'm going to pay the crazy money some people want for these.  This exact card is up on COMC with a price of over $20!  But for a couple quarters I couldn't pass it up.  Plus it's the Gold Foil parallel of the buybacks.  There are 5 levels of rarity with Gold being the middle level.  

On the Radar - Panini Chronicles Baseball - Yount Checklist and Gallery

Robin has an card in the Chronicles Autograph set with 3 parallels, which are extremely low numbered.  I'll add images as cards start to show up.  Also I'll update card numbering if I can confirm the actual card designation as Panini tend to just number the cards in their checklist and not use the card designation that is printed on the card.

2017 Panini Chronicles Baseball Chronicles Autographs #40
2017 Panini Chronicles Baseball Chronicles Autographs Black #40 - #/1
2017 Panini Chronicles Baseball Chronicles Autographs Blue #40 - #/3
2017 Panini Chronicles Baseball Chronicles Autographs Gold #40 - #/5

On the Radar - 2017 Topps Gallery Yount Checklist and Gallery

Another surprise offering, this time a Wal-mart exclusive. Robin has a couple cards in the set.
I'll be adding images as I find them.

2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Gallery #HOF-28
2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Gallery Green #HOF-28 - #/250
2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Gallery Blue #HOF-28 - #/99
2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Gallery Orange #HOF-28 - #/25
2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Gallery Red #HOF-28 - #/1
2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Gallery Autographs #HOF-28 -#/d?

On the Radar - 2017 Leaf Q Multisport Yount checklist and gallery

A very pricey offering from Leaf.  Robin has a few cards to chase.

2017 Leaf Q Base Autograph #BA-RY1
2017 Leaf Q Base Autograph Blue #BA-RY1 - #/15
2017 Leaf Q Base Autograph Red  #BA-RY1 - #/10
2017 Leaf Q Base Autograph Silver #BA-RY1 - #/5
2017 Leaf Q Base Autograph Gold #BA-RY1 - #/1
2017 Leaf Q Flashback 2015 Autograph Memorabilia #AM-RY1 - #/50
2017 Leaf Q Flashback 2015 Autograph Memorabilia Silver #AM-RY1 - #/25
2017 Leaf Q Flashback 2015 Autograph Memorabilia Gold #AM-RY1 - #/10
2017 Leaf Q Flashback 2015 Autograph Memorabilia Silver Spectrum #AM-RY1 - #/5
2017 Leaf Q Flashback 2015 Autograph Memorabilia Gold Specturm #AM-RY1 - #/1
2017 Leaf Q Numerology Signatures #NU-RY1 - #/19
2017 Leaf Q Numerology Signatures Gold Spectrum #NU-RY1 - #/1
2017 Leaf Q Respect Autographs #R-RY1 - #/35
2017 Leaf Q Respect Autographs Platinum #R-RY1 - #/10
2017 Leaf Q Respect Autographs Purple #R-RY1 - #/5
2017 Leaf Q Respect Autographs Green #R-RY1 - #/3
2017 Leaf Q Respect Autographs Gold #R-RY1 - #/1

On the Radar - 2017 Topps Luminaries

So Robin does have a card in 2017 Topps Luminaries.  And when I say a card, I mean one, and he shares it with 40 other people.  I'm almost 100% certain the card will be a redemption. (Edit: It's not!)  I have no idea what size or how you fit 40 autographs and images on a card.  Some sort of super accordian book card.  If it ever sees the light of day I'll post an image here. (It's been found and listed on ebay for an asking price of $35,000!)  

2017 Topps Luminaries Hit Kings Ultimate Book Autograph #HITB-1 #/1

Here's the checklist for the card:

HITB-1 Manny Machado - Baltimore Orioles
Ryne Sandberg - Chicago Cubs
Mike Trout - Los Angeles Angels
Nomar Garciaparra - Boston Red Sox
Lou Brock - St. Louis Cardinals
Kris Bryant - Chicago Cubs
Ichiro - Miami Marlins
Ivan Rodriguez - Texas Rangers
Johnny Bench - Cincinnati Reds
Omar Vizquel - Cleveland Indians
Ozzie Smith - St. Louis Cardinals
Rod Carew - Minnesota Twins
Tony Gwynn - San Diego Padres
Wade Boggs - Boston Red Sox
Robin Yount - Milwaukee Brewers
Roberto Alomar - Cleveland Indians
Fred McGriff - Atlanta Braves
Reggie Jackson - New York Yankees
Rickey Henderson - Oakland Athletics
Hank Aaron - Atlanta Braves
Adrian Beltre - Texas Rangers
Buster Posey - San Francisco Giants
Cal Ripken Jr. - Baltimore Orioles
Carl Yastrzemski - Boston Red Sox
Bryce Harper - Washington Nationals
Brooks Robinson - Baltimore Orioles
Albert Pujols - Los Angeles Angels
Bo Jackson - Kansas City Royals
Barry Larkin - Cincinnati Reds
Carlos Correa - Houston Astros
Chipper Jones - Atlanta Braves
Francisco Lindor - Cleveland Indians
Frank Robinson - Baltimore Orioles
Frank Thomas - Chicago White Sox
Don Mattingly - New York Yankees
Derek Jeter - New York Yankees
Corey Seager - Los Angeles Dodgers
Craig Biggio - Houston Astros
Dave Winfield - San Diego Padres
Al Kaline - Detroit Tigers