After the Angels drafted Matt Thaiss 16th overall in this year's amateur draft, I searched for some early cards of him and it looked like he had some USA baseball cards - I picked up what I assumed to be a patch card sight unseen and while I didn't know what I was getting, in-hand, this card looks pretty sweet with the noticeable patch piece and also the camo jersey material.
Hopefully the baseball material for these 2015 Panini National Treasures inserts will be durable so the autograph will not fade over the time - the most infamous examples of these types of 'sweet spot' cards going bad come from 2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot products [kind of like this example or this one], where cheap baseball material [not leather] was used.
Pacific Trading Cards may have been the first card company to incorporate a swatch of a baseball into a card - but Upper Deck was the first company to popularize this type of autograph with their Sweet Spot product in 2001.
I picked this 2001 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Signatures card of one the most fearsome big league hitters to play in 1990s - when looking at completed auctions on eBay, maybe it's a little weird to see that Belle's autographs don't really go for much.
Maybe it's hard to call Belle a typical baseball 'fan favorite' when he seemed like a mean, angry SOB as a player - but he put up numbers, hit home runs a long way and didn't take any nonsense from anyone who dared challenge him.
Belle was robbed of the 1995 American League MVP because he didn't want to deal with the media at the time - though a hip injury cut his career short in his 30s, he might have garnered stronger Hall of Fame support if he had been a little friendlier to the press.
Coghlan was the 2009 National League Rookie of the Year and while his numbers have generally been an up-and-down - he has played parts of 8 MLB seasons and seems relatively viable as a semi-regular type for a contender.
The upper left corner is a little warped though I guess this is just one of those cards that has been sitting around for the last 16 years - until it was decided some guy randomly wanted it out of the blue and it became my card.
As I fill holes in my award winners collection, I try to make 'era appropriate' card finds - this doesn't mean always looking for original player-era cards, but any cards picturing players with the teams they've won an award with as well as finding cards that sort of focus on the award winning season.
I'm trying to weed out cards in my award winners collection that seem mismatched, even if the card pictures the player - it seems odd to use a manager card for Piniella to represent an award he won as a player and for Chambliss, using a late career card that doesn't picture him with the team he won an award with.
I probably sent a TTM request out to Huff 9-10 years ago when he still had some upside to his pro career as the 39th overall pick by the Cleveland Indians in 2006 - he has pitched in parts of 8 seasons at the big league level, with his biggest run of success [3-1 W-L, 1.85 ERA] coming with the New York Yankees in 2014.
Though he fell short of his promise as a prospect, Guerra finally reached the big leagues as a 26-year old rookie last year with the Pittsburgh Pirates - he ended up with the Angels after being selected in the Rule 5 draft.
Maybe the cards from Topps Archives is what the finished product would look like - if the people putting together the original cards [whether in 1953, 1979 or even in 1991] would have been able to use current day photo editing software, print on cleaner card stock and in the case of 1953, print in the standard trading card size.
1953 Topps design - I see these as more of an extension of the 2002 Topps Heritage set, rather than the original 1953 Topps cards; maybe my favorite design because of the vintage Topps aesthetics, particularly for the guys that are playing right now.
1979 Topps design - I have an idea of the look and feel of late 1970s Topps cards and while 'old-school cool,' the original cards were a little grimy with the backs a little too drab.
1991 Topps design - I've collected my share of 1991 Topps and while I don't expect these cards to exactly mimic the originals, these remind me more of the cards from various mid 2000s Topps Fan Favorite products, than the junk wax era [some jazzy images, but low definition quality] originals.
Pack one
#105 Max Kepler
#70 David Robertson
#138 Curtis Granderson
#69 Collin McHugh
#142 Dellin Betances
#85 Joe Mauer
#172 Joey Votto
#269 Adrian Gonzalez
#292 Andrew Miller
#224 Hunter Pence
Pack two
#164 Jacob deGrom
#86 Alex Rodriguez
The card cost about $0.50, but it's pretty nice to have in-hand - red frame makes the cards feel a little more sturdy and fancy.