More so than in past years, I've taken to attempting to complete my favorite releases from this year rather than buying these products simply for hits and player collection additions. However, I do have a very good reason for this.
Simply put, I like the 2018 sets (Archives, Allen & Ginter, Stadium Club, Chrome) way more than I like the 2017 sets and card designs. All in all, 2018 has been a better year for card collecting than 2017, made even better by the fact that these cards are actually available at Target and Walmart and not selling out after a couple days.
I decided not to pursue Stadium Club, but I have decided to try and collect the Topps Chrome, Allen & Ginter, and Archives sets (excluding the numberless Topps Rookie History inserts). This will not only provide me with a couple of interesting sets to collect, but it also limits the number of base cards without any place to go.
With all this in mind, the main focus for the next part of my trip to the baseball card show yesterday. I spotted the case break vendor who had Topps Chrome and Allen & Ginter base along with, surprisingly, Topps Archives. I wasn't expecting him to have it since the hobby boxes aren't being released for another month, so he must've bought a couple retail cases.
Going into the show, I had less than 15 base cards remaining for my Topps Chrome set and while I wasn't able to complete it today, I came awfully close. I spotted 8 cards that I needed for the set in his Topps Chrome base stacks, leaving 5 cards left before I complete the 200-card set.
Although most of what I needed was veteran base cards, I was missing the cards of 2 big-name rookies. As I've learned in the past, the prices for his base cards vary depending on the player. However, neither one of these cards could've cost me more than $1. Otherwise, they'd be separated and put with the more expensive cards on display.
Like I said, I'm also piecing together this years' Allen & Ginter set. Before my trip to the show, I had just 5 cards remaining in the base set. Now, that number has gone down to 2 after I grabbed 3 cards I needed from the Allen & Ginter section of the bin. The highlight of the 3 cards was Greg Maddux with the other 2 cards being Taijuan Walker and a non-baseball figure.
Having opened 2 blasters, I had far less of the Topps Archives set than any of the other 3 sets before making this purchase at yesterday's show. After the initial shock of the vendor having Topps Archives in the first place, I began to look through and pick up what I needed from the set, starting with the 1959 cards. There were some big retired names that I ended up needing, names that, in the case of 2017 Archives, would've ended up in the player collections. With that being said, I'm happy I'm doing things this way in 2018.
Next came the cards I needed from the 1977 portion of this year's Topps Archives set. Contrary to the 1959 cards, I ended up needing more current players than retired players from the 1977 design. For one reason or another, each card shown above stood out to me with my favorite of the group being the Raisel Iglesias, featuring his giant, bright red glove.
Finally, the 1981 cards I picked up, the set that has done the least to impress me in 2018 Archives so far, delivered some knock-out cards, the Harmon Killebrew and Reggie Jackson cards, in particular, stand out to me. Between the progress I made with each of the 3 set designs in the Topps Archives set, I think it's safe to say I'm about 25 cards away from completing the Archives base set, with about 15 short prints still left as well.
Even with me sticking to only Archives base cards in this purchase, I was still fortunate enough to take home a valuable and fantastic card. Originally, I thought card #100 was a simple Kris Bryant base card. However, another glance at the card proved otherwise.
If the capital first and last letters of his name were not enough, you can see on eBay that this card is, in fact, an image variation. Considering there are only 9 variations in the entire set, it's a pretty big deal that this is my 2nd image variation card of the set with the first being a Clayton Kershaw variation in the 1977 design that I pulled last week.
In a way, I feel kind of guilty about keeping this card. The dealer clearly didn't spot that it was a variation, otherwise, he would've put it with the special cards from the Archives set. On the other hand, it's a card of one of my favorite players that can go right with the Kershaw variation.
I'm kind of stuck on what to do. Should I bring the card back because it's a variation, or keep it because I was able to spot the difference when he did not?
You bought it in good faith at the price the dealer asked for it. Nothing to feel bad about at all. Keep it and enjoy.
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