Top 5 Relics/Autographs: Cincinnati Reds

The top 5 relics/autographs series hasn't been a regular occurrence on the blog like the frankenset and standard top 5 cards posts have been, but I still appreciate having these posts as an option for when I'm looking for a post idea.

I've also refrained from making too much progress with this series so that I can (possibly) accumulate more cards for these countdowns, thus boosting the quality of the lists.

For instance, I held off on creating a Cincinnati Reds top 5 relics/autographs post until today, and 2 of the top 5 cards were brought back from The National. Had I rushed and written these posts more frequently, the quality of the cards in the countdown wouldn't be as high as it is if I wait a little longer.

When I began this series over a year ago, I started out with top 5 Red Sox and Cubs relic cards, 2 posts that I'd like to update soon to feature autographs and/or expand the number of cards featured.

I also have to have a fair number of cards to consider for one of these posts, hence why I've only done them for a handful of teams thus far. Now, the Cincinnati Reds are about to join that group.

The list features 3 relic cards and 2 autographs, highlighting some of the greatest players in franchise history. Let's begin with #5, a jersey relic from a pretty well-known catcher, perhaps the greatest to ever play the position.

#5 2016 Panini Diamond Kings Masters of the Game Johnny Bench

I might as well get my sole complaint out of the way immediately; I think the jersey relic is a little too small. That said, I believe that collectors take relic cards, particularly those of Hall of Famers, for granted.

The jersey piece on this card, however small it may be, was worn by Bench in an MLB game, and he's a top 2 catcher of all-time alongside Yogi Berra. Not to mention, Panini also did a pretty nice job with the overall design of the card.

I realize that autographs are where it's at and that no one pays all that much attention to relics anymore, but it's important, from time to time, to take a step back and realizes how much history and significance these overlooked cards contain.

#4 2005 Fleer Tradition Cooperstown Tribute Johnny Bench

And so the list begins with back-to-back Johnny Bench jersey relics with this one being from his home uniform. For whatever reason, my relic/autographs bins have a ton of 2005 Fleer Tradition relics, featuring Hall of Famers and then-active stars like Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez.

The Cooperstown Tribute design is near-perfect for its subject set, and I'm thrilled to have a reasonable number of these cards in my collection. Though they're not serial numbered, these relics are some of my personal favorites in my entire collection.

#3 2000 Upper Deck Legends Legendary Signatures Dave Concepcion

This Dave Concepcion autograph was produced right around the time of the first autographs and relic cards, and I think Upper Deck did a pretty sensational job. After all, this card is from the very beginning of the relic/autograph era.

For starters, Concepcion's autograph is beautiful, and Upper Deck was smart to have him use a blue sharpie even though the card was produced before the autograph soared in popularity. I'm also a huge fan of the black and white filter, particularly how it pairs with the simple card design.

While the autograph may not be groundbreaking, Upper Deck did an excellent job considering that this card is almost 20 years old. It just so happens that, as time went on, companies perfected this art.

#2 2006 Topps Heritage Flashbacks Stadium Seat Relics

The stadium seat piece on this card is from Crosley Field, the tiny home of the Cincinnati Reds from 1924-1970. Throughout its existence, the ballpark was among the smallest in the game in terms of capacity, which never topped 30,000, and field size.

Midway through the 1970 season, the Reds moved to Riverfront Stadium where they'd achieve a great deal of success, including a World Series appearance later that season and consecutive Fall Classic victories in 1975 and 1976.

Stadium seat relics aren't as common as jersey and bat pieces, but I, nevertheless, appreciate the history and context that they provide.

#1 2018 Topps Luminaries Home Run Kings Black Parallel Frank Robinson

This gorgeous Frank Robinson 1/1 on-card autograph was the crown jewel of my Dad and I's trip to the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago earlier this year, and as long as I collect, it'll rank as one of the greatest cards I own.

Certainly, a card of this caliber didn't have any trouble claiming the #1 spot on the list. The Luminaries design, however expensive the cards are, is beautiful, and Frank Robinson's signature is one of the best that I've ever seen.

It's challenging to see the full beauty of this card without looking at it in person, but the longer I stare at it, I notice more details that help make this card one of the prized possessions of my card collection.

PC Overview; Johnny Bench

Back in the early months of 2019, I vowed to add the PC overview posts to my list of reoccurring series here on the blog, the others being frankenset pages and top 5 cards. Despite this wish, it has been over 3 months since I wrote one of these posts with the most recent being Cal Ripken Jr at the end of June.

In case you're unfamiliar with this type of post, PC overviews are a chance for me to discuss one of the many players I collect by going more in-depth.

Usually, I only get the opportunity to showcase my 5 favorite cards, but when it comes to PC overviews, I can show off cards and memorabilia that relate to the player at hand.

In the past, I've written about Ripken, Roberto Clemente, and Reggie Jackson. I find it easier to talk about retired players, since there's usually more material for me to work with, hence why I selected Johnny Bench for today's post.

Following last Sunday's trip to the Baseball card show, my Johnny Bench player collection rose to 159 cards. This includes the oldest card in the PC, a 1969 Topps All-Star rookie card that I purchased at the Mansfield show a few months back.

Bench only has 2 Topps cards from the 60s, his iconic 1968 Topps rookie and the 2nd year card above. Ideally, I'd love to acquire his actual rookie card once of these days, but I'm pretty happy with this card for the time being, especially because of what I paid for it.

The 159 cards that I have of Bench is good for 20th on my list of largest player collections, though the order is constantly subject to change. The modern products make up a significant portion of the inventory, meaning I appreciate the vintage cards from the 1970s even more.

Aside from the rookie cup card, I'd have to rank Bench's 1973 Topps Flagship card above as my favorite as far as vintage is concerned. I don't have all that many Bench cards from this decade, something I'm willing to change if I come across 70s cards for a reasonable price.

The majority of my Johnny Bench player collection is made up of "modern" cards (after the 1970s), most of which are from the 21st century. Thanks to the '69 Topps card, I have something of Bench from every single decade since his major league debut.

Back when Donruss, Fleer, and Upper Deck were around, Bench was featured in Baseball card sets left and right as one of the game's legends. Though Topps does the same thing, to a lesser degree, nowadays, it was completely different when there were 4 companies making sets.

The one area where my Johnny Bench PC is lacking is when it comes to serial numbered cards. Unlike active players, there aren't many numbered cards out there of the 13-time All-Star, so I have to do some closer looking if I'm to find any.

The one numbered card of Bench in my collection is a base card from 2010 Topps Triple Threads (#/1350). It appears that if I want to add to this part of the Bench PC, high-end products are the way to go.

In addition to cards, there are a few pieces of Johnny Bench memorabilia in my collection, the first of which is an oddball oversized print from the 1990s. I also have one of these featuring 5 members of the 1975 Boston Red Sox team, so I assume there's some reasoning behind the Cincinnati Reds' version.

Bench, Morgan, Perez, and Foster are expected choices, but the inclusion of Don Gullett intrigues me. He was respectable for a few years, but most of the others were Hall of Famers, and Foster was an MVP award winner.

There's no MLB license on this oversized photo, so there's nothing preventing Spectrum from choosing Pete Rose, though there's something cool about Gullet being featured instead.

Back when I first attended the Mansfield show, I picked up a set of 9 McDonald's glasses, paying tribute to some of MLB's legends. Out of the 9 spots in the checklist (I still haven't found the regional Carl Yastrzemski version), there were 2 players from the Big Red Machine, Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench.

The promotional pieces came in a set for a very reasonable price, and I've kept them together ever since. I can't say I've been actively looking for the Yaz glass, but the last time I checked eBay, it was fairly expensive.

Honestly, even though I'd love to add some new 70s and numbered cards to my Bench PC, I don't really have to, because nothing can compare to this breathtaking piece of memorabilia. 

What you see above is a framed 1970s program from Wrigley Field, signed by Johnny Bench in the top left corner of the front side. It's not authenticated by any company, but my Aunt got this at a Cubs game back when Bench and the Big Red Machine were dominating the National League, so I have no reason to question its legitimacy.

There is a reasonable number of awesome autographs and memorabilia pieces in my collection, but I don't think any of them can compare to a signed program of the greatest catcher to ever live.

A Wide Range of PC Pickups; Card Show Recap #21

Let me preface the next few posts by declaring that today's Memorial Day Baseball card show was one of the most bizarre shows that I've ever attended, and I mean this in the best way possible. 

Although the cards featured in today's post aren't anything out of the ordinary for me (mostly player collection pickups), the Baseball card show, as a whole, was insane.

Looking back at my goals for today's show, I definitely departed from the objectives that I set for myself. Rather than searching through the dime bins and chasing down specific cards, I went for quality over quantity.

While I certainly wanted to adhere to my goals, I have no regrets about any of the purchases that I made. As you'll see in the following days, I went in a few different directions earlier today, including picking up a couple of players whose autographs I've been thinking about purchasing for over a year now.

Later this week, I'll get into my autograph pickups and the packs that I opened. For now, I'll start things off with a look at the group of player collection additions that I gradually purchased throughout today's show.

As I mentioned, today was one of the few shows that I've ever attended in which I avoided the dime bins altogether. I'm not always going to have this quality over quantity mentality, but it was a departure from my usual visits to the show.

Across the 2ish hours that my Dad and I passed at the show, we continuously added new cards to our player collections, both together and separately. While I was walking around the show at the beginning of the day, unsure as to what to purchase, my Dad grabbed a stack of cards that were priced 4/$1.

The cards that he ended up with consisted primarily of retired players' cards from the early 2000s, just like the 4 Mike Schmidt cards above. Although I have a ton of cards from this era, the 4 major card companies (Donruss, Fleer, Topps, and Upper Deck), produced an unprecedented number of sets, resulting in a huge volume of cards like the 4 above.

Greg Maddux is an example of a player who benefited tremendously from the significant production of cards in the 90s and early 2000s. His superstar status allowed for an insane number of Maddux cards to produced. 

Maddux has always been one of my favorite players to collect, and the cards above symbolize exactly why this is the case. Despite the 250+ cards that I have of the 4-time Cy Young award winner, we're constantly finding new ones to add to his player collection.

The affordable prices and the wide availability of these cards is what allows me to grow my player collections up to gold and even platinum tier status. Even on the rare occasions when I opt not to go through the dime bins, a Baseball card show hasn't passed in which I haven't picked up new cards for my PCs.

The Nolan Ryan card in the top left corner is from an oddball set called Starline from 1990. It may be the sole card of Ryan's that I picked up today, but it will, nevertheless, help me towards achieving my goal of 500 cards of the all-time strikeouts leader by the end of 2019.

Since 2017, Topps Inception has produced some of the most beautiful base cards out of any high-end set. The white backgrounds with a gorgeous splash of color resemble a more lavish version of Allen & Ginter.

The boxes, although not outrageously expensive, deliver just 7-8 cards for around $60-70. Because of the significant price per card, I'll likely never buy a box of Inception, but that won't stop me from keeping an eye out for the base cards from this beautiful set for some of my top tier PCs.

Up until 2015, I typically avoided new releases in favor of trips to the Baseball card show, so I never collected the Diamond Anniversary and Cognac parallels from 2011 Topps. 

Years later, I'm making up for the lost time by occasionally adding one of these beautiful parallels to my collection. Today, it was "Mike" Stanton and his 2011 Topps rookie cup card that I picked up for short money towards the end of my time at the show. 

Even though I didn't see all of my goals for today's show to fruition, I got my desired sampling of the parallels from 2019 Panini Prizm from the show's case breaker. I didn't want to go too crazy with these cards, so I limited myself to only a few parallels that piqued my interest.

Among the cards that I chose were 2 red mojo refractors, numbered to 299, of George Springer and Andrew McCutchen. Prior to the show, Collecting Cutch asked me to keep my eyes open for any low-numbered McCutchen cards, a request that I was more than happy to abide by.

If you haven't bought the red mojo card already, I'd be pleased to send it your way.

In addition to the 2 red mojo parallels, I was captivated by 1 additional parallel of a guy that I collect from 2019 Panini Prizm; a snakeskin parallel of Kris Bryant numbered to just 50 copies. 

Panini, especially with Prizm, Chronicles, and all of their Basketball and Football products, are insanely creative when it comes to parallels. Seeing this bizarre snakeskin parallel only makes me wish that they'd have the MLB license, for I cannot imagine how much these cards would improve if only Panini could use Baseball logos.

After directing most of my focus towards modern cards from the post-2000s, I gravitated towards a couple of vintage cards as the show came to an end. Specifically, I picked up 2 base cards of Johnny Bench that I'd yet to acquire for his player collection, one of them being his 1973 Topps card.

Most of my viewers know my feelings on the 1973 Topps set; I love the photography but feel that the base design is far too boring. However, the product is home to a surplus of unique images and angles that separates the photos of '73 Topps from that of virtually every other Topps Flagship product.

For a few dollars, the '73 Bench card was an easy choice and a fabulous pickup. Then, I stumbled upon another card of the HOF catcher that, even taking the condition into account, was priced at a bargain.

For far less than the price of a blaster box, I acquired Bench's 1969 Topps All-Star rookie card that, aside from the surface, is in excellent condition. For whatever reason, vintage rookie cup cards have evaded me, for I don't have all that many of them in my player collections.

Now, I have a fabulous new rookie cup card for my Johnny Bench player collection, thus becoming the oldest card in my Bench PC. I've seen reprints of this iconic card before, but I never thought about owning this beauty myself. 

That all changed today, thanks to an unusual visit to the Mansfield Baseball card show.

To be continued...