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Monday, January 29, 2018

A Haul For the Kimbrel Collection Part 1

I recently placed an order on COMC to add a large number of cards to the Kimbrel Collection, and I was very pleased when I saw the package from COMC had arrived just over a week ago with over 50 new cards to bring my grand total of Kimbrel cards up to 87 different cards. 

When speculating how I should go about adding to the collection, I decided to go for quantity over quality since I really wanted to add bulk to the collection. I came to the conclusion that 1 order of a lot of cards would be beneficial in the long run, and make it easier for me to purchase more expensive cards for the super-collection later on.

The way I decided which cards to buy was actually quite simple. I basically searched Craig Kimbrel on COMC and filtered the cards to show the least expensive cards first. These results included a lot of simple base cards from 2012-2013, including a 2012 Bowman base card as well as the gold parallel. I think the gold parallels in Bowman look pretty good, but I don't understand why they include them. They could at least number them like the basic Topps gold parallel to make them a bit more interesting.

Speaking of Bowman, the 2013 cards were going for an excellent price. So I picked up the base card and gold parallel like I did for 2012 along with a Home State Flag variation and a Bowman Chrome base card. The Bowman Chrome card is from the Bowman Chrome set, not a chrome parallel despite using the same image as the base card. I'm glad that Bowman doesn't do this anymore, it's just way too confusing. 

Keeping with the theme of acquiring different cards from the same set, I found the 2013 Bowman Chrome base card as well as the refractor that looks like a weird sunset parallel thanks to the scanner (which makes it look way cooler than I could've imagined).

I believe this is my very first X-fractor card from the Topps Chrome set. The chrome design on the card shines as you move the card around, creating a pretty cool and unique card if you ask me. I like how it's different and how it's not like a normal Topps Chrome Refractor. I'm pretty sure these are exclusive to Wal-Mart Topps Chrome mega boxes, and as I've said probably a dozen times before, the Wal-Mart closest to me doesn't even sell baseball cards, so I doubt I'll be acquiring many of these when 2018 Topps Chrome comes out. 

Kimbrel was included in 2 sets from 2013 that paid tribute to 1972 Topps as he was included in the base mini insert set and the Topps Chrome insert set, both of which are now part of the collection. In a way, I do understand using the same images, but come on Topps you must've been able to use 2 different images of Kimbrel in 2013, the time where he was more popular than nearly any other moment in his career.

The amount of different cards Topps makes has been astonishing over the past few years, but it really hit me just how much was out there when I saw these 2 different cards for basically the same price on COMC. They're both red parallels from 2014 Topps. One is a Red Hot Foil parallel and the other is a Target Exclusive red parallel. I guess Target really wanted their own exclusive cards, because why else would you need 2 different red parallels in 1 set?

There were even some numbered cards available for the same price as the other base cards, which wasn't too surprising considering the value of stuff has majorly gone down over the years. This is the gold parallel of his 2013 Topps base card numbered 476/2013 on the back of the card. Now, if Bowman did this for their gold parallels than that would be a huge plus for the set.

Today I decided to show just Braves cards, but don't worry. The Padres and Red Sox cards acquired in the same purchase will be featured in a post later this week. 





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