I mentioned yesterday that I found the one multi-team card I need for my set by buying a 60+ card lot from a dealer. He had a pile of the “Rookie Stars” cards and some various inserts that he apparently couldn’t move otherwise, so he lumped them all together and I bought them for $2 and free shipping. It was a win-win for me as I got the one card I needed and some random trade bait that I wouldn’t have otherwise purchased. I never have a problem buying large lots like this because I figure I can always give away some of the extra cards to you guys later on. Plus, with the “Rookie Stars” cards being unofficial RCs, sort of, it might be good to hang on to a couple of them.
Regardless of the reason, I buy the lot and the seller ships them fairly quickly and this week the whole box shows up in my mailbox. I thumb through them, pull out the Sox/Tigers card I need (see yesterday’s post), and start scanning the rest…
Of course, as I’m scanning these, I’m putting them face-down on my scanner. Everything is normal until I scan the last batch…
Looks normal from the front, but one of these things is not like the others…
This card is especially interesting…
It’s didn’t click for a minute. I’m used to seeing different color backs thanks to A&G and GQ. Meh, it’s blue, so what…
Blue backs are one of this years case hits. Allegedly they are /10, although they’re not numbered. They’re selling for quite a bit. They are a 1:462 pull. I had to look all that up. I didn’t know. Apparently neither did the original seller, or maybe they just missed it. I’m going to chalk that up to random luck/card karma. I haven’t actually caught a lucky break in a long time, so I don’t mind seeming slightly hypocritical on this one.
Despite my stance on SPs in Heritage being completely ridiculous, I don’t mind when they’re free. I don’t think anyone minds free. It doesn’t change my opinion on their existence in the first place. I continue to stand by my statement about the most important players should never be short-prints in a product and that designing it that way is either completely disingenuous to your customers or the most obvious of ploys to sell more cards. Either way it needs to stop. This card however, is short printed because it’s a parallel, something I’m ok with.
Let me clarify my position: SPs that are extra, above and beyond a complete set, and/or parallels of regular cards, I’m ok with. I don’t personally seek those cards out, but I don’t mind if they end up in my collection. I know my limits, focus on base sets, and I’m ok with that. What I’m not ok with, is cards that should be the main staple of the base set itself, intentionally shorted, for no reason. Heritage is the perfect example of this. It should not be 425 cards, plus 75 short prints. It should be 500 regular cards. The chrome parallels and/or colored borders should be the short prints.
If you want to chase /64 black borders, go right ahead. I applaud you for having the time/energy/money to hunt those down. Your collection will be infinitely cooler than mine. I’m good with my team set. My plain, ordinary, celebration of the sport I love, team set.
So, in closing, “Thank You” to Topps for making a product so confusing that case busters didn’t notice a case hit, and it found it’s way to me.
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