20 Cards For $20; National Recap Part #2

As I begin to make progress with these National recaps, I also begin to recall certain aspects of the show, both major and minor, through the cards that I brought back. The vintage cards I included on my first National recap are from the same vendor that I completed a major set from (which I'll post later this week). 

Additionally, the 20 cards I'm about to show you came from a dealer at the show that I went on to do much more business with which will be the subject of tomorrow's post. But first, I have the carefully chosen 20 cards that I got for a very good price. Keep in mind, the original price was $2 per card, but if you bought 20 of them which I did, the price became 20 for $20, a dollar per card.

The good part of the cards being 20 for $20 is that it was a perfect total to have. I wouldn't have wanted another card in the entire box beside the 20 that I got. This may have to do with the fact that the box was mixed sports, but I still feel like I got the perfect number and perfect variety of cards. 

Eric Hosmer's first year of his 8-year $144 million dollar contract that he signed with the San Diego Padres hasn't been ideal thus far. His 10 homers and 46 RBI is about average for this point in a year for him, but his .254 average is not what he's used to producing. Typically, Hosmer's average will hover around .280 or better for a full season. Still, he has 7 more years to turn it around, so I figured it couldn't hurt to pay a buck for his 2011 Bowman Chrome rookie card.

For some reason, I had never even seen Rafael Devers' 2015 Bowman prospect card before until spotting it in this 20 for $20 bin. The addition of his 2015 Bowman card to my Rafael Devers PC gives me a brief Bowman prospect timeline of Devers, including his base prospect cards from his 2014 First Bowman card to his 2016 card as well.

Before even noticing that this green parallel of Marcell Ozuna from 2013 Topps Finest was numbered, I already knew it was a fantastic price for a high-end rookie card of a very talented and still young player. To make things even better, I learned once I got home that this card is actually serial numbered 187/189. Not to mention that I like Marcell Ozuna quite a lot and that 2013 Topps Finest is one of my favorite years of the set besides the 2014 set.

These 3,000 Hit Club inserts are from the 2016 Topps Chrome Update. I've never purchased a single pack of Chrome Update in my life and I have zero intentions of doing so. To me, it's simply paying more for a set that's already pretty bad and has been for a couple years now. With that being said, I love the design of these 3,000 Hit Club inserts and the chrome parallel design of the 2016 Topps Chrome Update set.

I'm must say that I'm not entirely sure what this card actually is. I only bought it for the Derek Jeter PC because I really like the gold design with a little bit of blue for the player name and signature. Also, this is actually a dual player card with Alex Rodriguez on the back, but I like Jeter a bit more (can't believe I'm saying this), so I decided to put it in my Jeter player collection over my A-Rod player collection.

Ironically, this Jake Arrieta card numbered 11/99 is a card exclusive to the 2016 National Sports Collectors Convention which took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey if I'm not mistaken. I'm also very impressed with how cool this card looks scanned. For the first time in nearly a year of having this card blog, I think the card looks better when scanned than it does in person. Either way, it's a great card and a fantastic purchase.

If the Panini Donruss Optic set was licensed and had logos, I think it would be a favorite set of mine as well as many collectors year after year. Even though this Mike Trout DK aqua parallel doesn't have any logos, I feel the colors and angle at which Trout is it makes for a nice card, especially for Panini. It almost makes you take a moment to figure out that the card is unlicensed. Plus, it's a numbered card (003/299) of the best player in baseball. It's hard to beat something like that for only $1.

I believe the name of this set is Panini 75 Years of the Hall of Fame, but don't hold me to it. No matter what the name is, this is yet another set that would look great if it were licensed by MLB. Not only is the checklist one of my favorites due to all the old-time players, but the parallels like the Stan Musial card above could be way more desirable if the set was made by Topps. I don't see why they don't do something like this. I believe it would be a great success.

Moving on to the biggest and best cards from the 20 for $20 purchase; those being the relics and autographs. I'll begin with a relic that I immediately recognized was in the 1960 Topps set design. I originally assumed it was from 2009 Topps Heritage, but I later learned it was a part of the 2013 Topps Archives set. Still, it was too nice of a card of a player that is still very relevant so I couldn't pass up such a nice relic card for the purchase.

Although he's missing the majority of his 2018 season which is really disappointing considering he'll be in his prime very soon, Corey Seager is still a player I have a lot of faith in and know he can come back strong. That's why I dedicated 2 of the 20 spots to Corey Seager cards. One is a refractor prospect card from 2014 Bowman Chrome while the other is a numbered relic from the 2018 Topps Tier One product.

While I already have this exact Jean Segura autograph, I couldn't resist including this card of such a talented player in the 20 for $20 deal. Segura has been extremely consistent for years now and the 2018 season is no exception. Neither one of these players remains in Milwaukee as Jonathan Villar was just traded to the Orioles for Jonathan Schoop. Villar's hit .471 in 17 at-bats with the O's so far and led the league in stolen bases back in 2016. These 2 former Brewers 2nd basemen each have something special which is why their autos for $1 each make perfect sense. 

I also went for a couple of Red Sox autos of guys who have shown flashes of brilliance in their careers and as of late. Blake Swihart had a hit streak of over 10 games before hitting the DL a little over a week ago. On the other hand, Drew Pomeranz's whose autograph is also from the 2018 Topps Tier One set, had a magnificent season last year in which he went 17-6 with a 3.32 ERA including winning a large majority of his starts in the 2nd half of the season.

Joe Panik is another example of a player who's shown flashes of brilliance over his career but has struggled a lot this year and a couple years ago in 2016. In 2015 he was an All-Star who hit .312 and in 2017 he managed a .288 average. However, a .239 batting average in 2016 and a .233 average so far in 2018 would make this pickup a bit risky. With that being said, I feel far more comfortable with the purchase knowing it only set me back a buck just like all the other cards here.

This is not my first Eduardo Rodriguez autograph, and if he comes back from the disabled-list pitching as well as he did before he got hurt, I don't think it'll be my last. This triple relic autograph is numbered to 99 and is from the Topps Tribute set. Although he's also had his share of struggles, the left-handed pitcher only just turned 25 a couple of months ago. The main thing E-Rod needs to work on is his pitch count. Once he's mastered that, he'll have secured a spot in the rotation along with Chris Sale, David Price, and Rick Porcello.