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 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.  

2004 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Card Number: 70

Card Type: Base

I really miss the Upper Deck Sweet Spot brand.  I never opened any, but I love the cards and the fact that years later I can pick up great base cards like this for next to nothing.  The design has a very Art Deco feel, especially when they use a sepia filtered photo.

Robin has lots of great stats and fact that go along with this 20 year career, but after a while you start to notice that some of the big ones get used over and over again. I suppose it's inevitable since Robin's not making anymore of them.  Maybe after I retire I'll sort through all my cards and make a list of how many times a certain factoid was used for back filler.

Still a great card. Maybe a little much with all the gold foil, but hey it's Sweet Spot.

2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Signatures Silver Stitch Blue Ink Autographed card #d to 19!

Card Manufacturer: Upper Deck

Card Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Year: 2007

Card Number: SPS-RY

Card Type: Insert

Insert Set: Signatures Silver Stitch Blue Ink Parallel

Card Attributes: Autograph, Serial numbered

Serial Number: 15/19

Here we have the saddest of autographs in my autograph collection.  I will say I really like this card.  I really miss the Sweet Spot brand. The idea behind this card is pretty awesome.  You get an autograph on the sweetspot of a baseball mounted in a card.  Of course the idea was a good one, however using sub par leather, or maybe even pleather here has doomed this auto like so many others. The ink is slowly fading and being absorbed.  I haven't checked on this auto since I made this scan a while back so I'm not sure what stage of decay the card is in right now, but at least it was still readable.  This is also an insanely low numbered set, numbered to Robin's number and very, very thick.

I'm actually surprised Topps hasn't tried to copy this.  It looked like for a while it might do something like this with a manurelic back when it was churning out manufactured bat barrels and glove cards.

But still a great card in the collection, even if time is not on my side.

2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Memorabilia

Card Manufacturer:  Upper Deck

Card Set: Sweet Spot Classic

Year:  2007

Card Number: CM-YO

Card Type: Insert Relic

Relic Type: Bat

Sweet Spot was a great offering from Upper Deck.  A higher end product that wasn't so higher end that you had to blow you rent money to buy a box or pack.  And included in the set were some pretty cool cards.  

Of course there are always your run of the mill relic cards inserted too.  I'll take a bat relic with some nice wood grain over a single color swatch relic any day. Nowadays it seems like the only Yount relics begin put out are bat relics and soon we'll probably only be left with his golf shirts.  I really miss the Upper Deck style of cards, with the borderless full bleed photos and nice simple designs.  I always wonder why Topps doesn't use this style more or why Panini doesn't use this style at all.  Just a classically simple relic card.