2016 Bowman hand collated set

Bowman is the flagship brand of prospects and rather than buying into the product by picking up a blaster and loose packs - I went with the sure thing and for about the same price, went with a full paper 300-card set featuring veterans, rookies and prospects.

Admittedly, it's the Chrome autographs and related parallels prospectors are chasing - so presumably the big volume breakers dump the basic cards in various ways [hand-collated sets, lots, team sets] as a complement to whatever key cards they may pull and speculate on.

The Maeda is my first U.S. card of the 28-year old Japanese rookie sensation - by the end of the year, it will likely be his least important card [actually a prospect card and not a MLB rookie logo card], but it's nice to have at the moment before there are all sorts of cards printed for the guy.

2015 Topps Allen and Ginter X set

I've typically picked up a hand collated set of the regular Allen and Ginter as my personal 'flagship brand' to get random in-person / TTM autographs on - there might have been a point where picking up a 2015 set was something I wasn't going to do anymore since I maybe burnt out on trying to attempt to do particular sets.

I did end up picking up a regular A&G set to continue the tradition perhaps, though it's like I'm getting further away on actually working knocking out set cards for the Ginter lines [2006-2015] - Topps produced an 'X' version of the Ginter product last year as an online exclusive, with the black stock for the card surface being the only difference.

I don't think the 'X' was a success by any means and it may have taken a few sales promotions on Topps.com to sell many of the boxes - I picked up a hand collated X set, probably because the black stock for the card surface is a wrinkle that makes the 'X' set a little more attractive than the usual 'dull' white card stock.

Maybe my 'X' set purchase loses it's importance if I break the cards down to try and get autographs on - I think the plan for my 'X' set is to put them into plastic sheets to display in a binder somewhere, so I can look at them once in a while without worrying about getting them inked up.

2015 Topps Heritage High Number set

Though I haven't kept up with most baseball releases, I picked up a 2015 Topps Heritage High hand-collated 200-card non-SP set as a tease - there may not be the cheap thrills gained by pulling assorted inserts and short prints in blaster and/or loose pack breaks, but at least I can go through all the regular cards in the set.

MLB/MLBPA rookie logo cards of Kris Bryant, Francisco Lindor, Carlos Rodon, Jung Ho Kang, Addison Russell and Byron Buxton are in the short print set - so I'll figure out if I want to seek those guys' cards out as singles or go through some blaster and/or loose pack breaks.

While I've probably pulled his cards from various draft / prospect products over the last several years - this Carlos Correa MLB / MLBPA rookie logo card is a keeper.

It's a fun story to have a player named 'Odubel' come out of nowhere to have mostly a fine rookie year with the Philadelphia Phillies - with all the success he has had, it remains to be seen if he can build upon his success or be exposed in 2016.

Venditte is a journeyman otherwise who doesn't really look the part of a Major League pitcher - though because he can throw with both hands, his story takes a life on its own.

In the few times I've actually seen him on TV this year, probably when MLB Network cuts into a Oakland A's game and/or is showing an A's game - it's fun watching Venditte switch gloves from batter to batter, depending on whether he is facing a righty or lefty and battle them with his 'pure stuff.'

2014 Topps HC set - the breakdown

I finally got my hand collated set in the mail and randomly created a Google Sheets file - I cut and paste a 2014 Topps checklist from Sports Card Radio and scrutinized each of the 330 cards [minus the retired #7].

I added three rows labeled 'Collecting Topic 1,' 'Collecting Topic 2' and 'Collecting Topic 3,' to list whether a card stood out as interesting - when I looked at a card, the first collecting topic collection that comes to mind is listed in category 1, then perhaps the card can count for another collecting topic [category 2] and maybe a third [category 3].

I added some comments as whether or not to count a particular card as a new addition [I may already have cards of a particular player from previous years] - as well as cards I'm looking to get autographed in-person.

Not quite, but sort of related - is this Michael Young card [#72] the worst card from Topps' Series I set?

Thoughts on 2014 Topps

I supposedly have a hand collated set 2014 Topps I bought on eBay - hopefully I didn't pick up a set from a seller who can't deliver the goods, like last year when I bought a 2013 Topps Series I hc set that never arrived.

I hope the set purchase serves as a ‘preemptive’ strike to purchasing any 2014 Topps packs, blasters, retail jumbo packs, retail hangers, hobby, etc - it doesn’t mean I won’t seek any 2014 Topps cards from the quarter bins at my LCS or buy unopened product, but I’m trying to secure the basic cards before blindly jumping into anymore offerings of this year's flagship brand.

After seeing all the breaks and pictures from other cards blogs and forums, I spent about 20 minutes at a card shop and dug into a bunch of 2014 Topps leftover from someone else's recent break - I suppose in the limited amount of time I had, I went to work, looking on doing the following:

A.) Fill out my 1978-present Topps sampler set - maybe a pie in the sky project for me, where I try to pick up a random [or not] card to represent all 30 MLB teams [obviously expansion teams like the Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Tampa Bay Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks will have less cards while Montreal Expos and Washington Nationals are counted as one team].

B.) Be able to scrutinize many of the cards for collecting topics - it looks like Topps has put together a flagship set with all sorts of interesting images pulled from Getty Images and put them into cards.

I like the idea of randomly discovering cards that are kind of 'fun' in their own unique way - but it maybe more practical to go through a hand collated set of cards and see where I can fit each card.

C.) Pick up cards to be autographed in-person - mostly rookie cards and players who may have had a couple of years of MLB experience with not quite a lot of cards out.

In the mail box - a 2013 Topps Heritage Minors set

I sorted the cards from the hand collated set by their MLB parent teams and grouped them together by their Arizona Fall League affiliations - so I have them as extras for my AFL trip in case a player with a 2013 Topps Heritage Minors card gets added.

I might have missed listing at least a player or two, but the first set of cards I'm looking to get autographed are those featuring players already on AFL rosters:

Jorge Soler 
Corey Seager 
Eddie Rosario 
Mike Freeman 
Adalberto Mejia 
Kyle Crick 
Joe Wendle 
Eduardo Rodriguez 
Jorge Alfaro 
Kyle Parker 
Byron Buxton 
Max Kepler 
Zach Jones 
Alex Meyer 
Micah Johnson 
Peter O' Brien 
Marcus Stroman 
James Ramsey 
Stephen Piscotty
Stephen Romero 
Tyler Austin 
Patrick Kivlehan 
Trevor May 

My purchase - a 2010 Bowman Draft set

I picked up a hand-collated set [around $25 shipped] of 2010 Bowman Draft and while there are Mike Stanton, Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward and Buster Posey cards in the set - Topps has already rolled the presses on releasing various basic, non-autograph MLBPA rookie cards of these guys and the basic cards from the set are only worth a couple of bucks each.

Maybe the most redeeming if not exactly noteworthy feature to the set - is Topps decided to include non-auto base cards of the guys who do have Bowman Draft Chrome autographs in the set, like Manny Machado of the Baltimore Orioles, Zach Lee of the Los Angeles Dodgers or Zack Cox of the St. Louis Cardinals.

For an in-person or through the mail autograph collector, Topps almost gets a thumbs up - except for the foil stamped facsimile signatures [not like Peter Tago's card, which doesn't have the facsimile signature] on the cards .

A signed 2010 Bowman Draft card with a foil stamped fascimile signature is probably not going to look as good autographed in-person / through the mail - particularly when the facsimile is stamped across the card.

I realize Bowman Draft is a prospector's product where gripes about aesthetics aren't always valued as long as there is a good crop of signed Bowman Draft Chrome cards and corresponding parallels - however some of the Photoshop work is off in trying to show the draft picks wearing Major League uniforms, particularly the doctored 'in-action' shots of particular players in high school or college.

My purchase - a 2010 Bowman Prospects set

I wanted to see what the 2010 Bowman cards looked like, but obviously it has been an overhyped product since its release - with the lottery / rat race mentality of speculators and collectors alike chasing Stephen Strasburg's first-year [non-USA team, not unlicensed Tristar] parallels / autographed cards. 

I ended up getting a hand collated base set of the prospects [around $30 shipped from a seller on eBay] - so at least I can have a basic Stephen Strasburg first-year card for my personal collection and also get a complete set of 109 other prospect cards featuring such up-and-comers like Jose Iglesias [Boston Red Sox], Starlin Castro [Chicago Cubs], Aroldis Chapman [Cincinnati Reds], Dustin Ackley [Seattle Mariners; card looks too dark for an autograph], Donavan Tate [San Diego Padres; card looks too dark for an autograph], Hak-Ju Lee [Chicago Cubs], Wilmer Font [Texas Rangers], Brett Jackson [Chicago Cubs], Thomas Neal [San Francisco Giants], Grant Green [Oakland Athletics], et al.  

The Strasburg card should be a $10-$15 card by itself, though by the end of the year - Topps will have likely rolled the presses on releasing various basic, non-autograph MLBPA rookie cards [~Actual rookie cards people! Not just these silly 'first year' cards printed of guys who haven't thrown one pitch or had one at-bat in the Major Leagues~] of Strasburg, along with more valuable parallels/ autograph cards.