More From One of My Favorite Sets; Card Show Recap #22 Part 2

In a strange turn of events, I took a couple days off from my Baseball card show recap posts from Monday's Labor Day show.

Though I wanted to enter Collecting Cutch's newest contest ASAP, there's no real reason why I couldn't continue the recap posts yesterday other than the fact that I wanted to dedicate as much attention as I could to the next 2 posts in the series.

Back on Tuesday, I began recapping this show with a few singles that I picked up that included a small sampling of the 2019 Panini Chronicles set. After making this initial purchase, however, I found it challenging to move around the show, much less look through a vendor's inventory.

The crowdedness of this show was something I'd never experienced before at such a profound level, not even at The National. It was nearly impossible to get a good look at the tables around the show, no matter where I went.

Following almost 20 minutes of attempting to make my way through the show, I figured that the crowd wasn't going to die down anytime soon. The show was simply too crowded to hold all of the attendees, so I made a rash decision to grab a box of 2019 Panini Chronicles and head on out.

I certainly wish that I could've stayed and purchased something that I couldn't find at my LCS, but there's not much else that could be done. All things considered, I think I made the best possible choice.

Each Chronicles box promises 3 autographs and 1 relic card. With 6 packs and 8 cards per pack, I decided to split this hobby box into 2 separate posts.

Because this is such a rookie-heavy set, I'll be keeping tally of the number of rookie cards I pull.

Pack #1

#19 Nick Senzel Classics (RC Count; 1)

With all the flashy and shiny cards in this jam-packed set, I appreciate Classics because of its simplicity and retro style. Even as a returning product, this year's cards remain true to the brand while offering a brand new look.

#1 Joey Votto Chronicles

It's hard to believe how far this product has come from the disaster that was the 2017 Chronicles release. Though the base cards still don't do much for me, you only pull a few of them in each hobby box.

#1 Pete Alonso Ascension (RC Count; 2)

I recognize the first 2 Panini brands from last year's Chronicles, but Ascension is totally foreign to me. My initial impression is that the cards are comparable to Topps Fire, but barely. There isn't really a Topps equivalent of Panini Ascension.

#ARA-DP C.D. Pelham Absolute Rookie Autographs (RC Count; 3)

With 3 autographs per box on average, one should expect a couple of lackluster names. However, I was hoping for something better than a sticker auto of a Rangers pitcher who's only pitched 7 innings so far this season.

The low numbering (4/23) and the cracked ice (which is far more noticeable in-person) certainly helps this card's cause, but it's still a bit of a disappointment.

#12 Shohei Ohtani Contenders Optic

Last year, the Contenders Optic portion of this set was extremely generous to me as far as numbered parallels were concerned. I ended up with a Devers #/149, Andujar #/99, and, best of all, an Acuña Jr #/50.

Ohtani isn't a rookie anymore, and this is just the base version of the Contenders Optic cards, but I still view these cards as one of the best brands in this set.

#6 Yusei Kikuchi Titan Prizm Parallel (RC Count; 4)

There's a lot to appreciate about Chronicles, but the serial numbered parallels would have to rank as my favorite aspect of this crazy set. I've never landed all that great of a hit from any of my past packs, retail or hobby, but I can't say the same about numbered cards.

Panini featured these Prizm parallels (#/299) in certain parts of last year's Chronicles set as well. It appears that Titan, a brand-new release, is replacing Select this time around. Does this mean we could be seeing a Panini Select Baseball release sometime soon?

#25 Kyle Tucker Status (RC Count; 5)

From the box breaks that I've watched, most of the Chronicles brands, including Status, are back in the product once again in 2019. These cards tend to appear at the end of the pack, just like they did in last year's release.

#2 Chris Paddack Status Green Parallel (RC Count; 6)

The beauty of 2018 Chronicles was that Panini didn't make all that much of it, so you could expect multiple serial numbered cards in each pack. Now, given its popularity, there are non-numbered parallels, like the one above, so that Panini can produce and release more boxes.

Pack #2

#3 Fernando Tatis Jr Playoff (RC Count; 7)

This ended up being the first and only Fernando Tatis Jr card out of the entire 48-card hobby box. Though I intend to keep all the cards from this set together, for the time being, I'll make an exception and pull the Tatis card for my brand new PC.

#17 Brandon Nimmo Limited

Brandon Nimmo is an interesting choice for the Limited checklist. He's never blossomed into the player that Mets fans wish he'd be, not to mention he's struggled with injuries throughout the 2019 season.

If Panini's looking for a New York Mets player to appear in this set, why not Michael Conforto instead?

#12 Shohei Ohtani Ascension Red Parallel

I'll give it to Panini; this red foil parallel is a lot more apparent than some of their other cards, especially if you hold the card in-hand. This is only my 2nd Ascension card, but I'm already a huge fan of these vibrant cards.

I suppose, however, that pulling a Shohei Ohtani card, serial numbered out of 50 copies, helped with that.

#14 Mike Trout Spectra

Each Chronicles box also delivers 2 Spectra cards, another reoccurring part of this action-packed set. Aside from the top tier rookies, I couldn't have asked for a better player than the face of Baseball, Mike Trout.

#17 Juan Soto Crusade

As much as I loved Crusade in the 2018 set, the cards weren't quite as polished as I wanted them to be. Thankfully, Panini upped their game and brought the brand back in 2018 with a much-improved design.

#54 Luis Urias Obsidian (RC Count; 8)

Along with Titan and Spectra, Obsidian is one of the focal points of the 25+ brands in 2019 Panini Chronicles. The cards are quite heavy, especially given that they're relatively thin, and feature an all-black background.

I may not have pulled the Padres rookie that I wanted, but Obsidian has instantly become one of my favorite parts of this year's set.

#11 Eloy Jimenez Status (RC Count; 9)

Eloy's stats don't particularly blow me away, but he's put up great numbers for a rookie. I guess I prefer contact hitters to a guy who can hit .250 with 22 home runs.

#34 Darwinzon Hernandez Certified (RC Count; 10)

He may not be very well-known, but Darwinzon Hernandez has become an integral part of the Red Sox bullpen at the age of 22. With Rick Porcello likely on his way out, Hernandez could join Boston's rotation as early as next season.

#20 Shohei Ohtani Score

If nothing else, I appreciate the concept behind the Score inserts in this year's Chronicles set as they remind me of the Whammy cards from the standard Donruss set. They might not be my favorites, but there are enough other brands in the Chronicles set that I can overlook one sub-part design.

#37 Mike Trout Chronicles

First, we had a Spectra card, now a Chronicles base. I don't care if the latter of the 2 is merely a Chronicles base card. I'd call 2 Mike Trout cards in 3 packs a success by any means.

#9 Bryce Harper Timeless Treasures

Timeless Treasures is another Panini product new to Baseball in the 2019 Chronicles set. I purchased a single of Ohtani from the show's case breaker, and now I have a Bryce Harper card from this gorgeous set.

#AB-GT Gleyber Torres Absolute Gold Parallel Triple Relic

As far as relic cards are concerned, I'm pretty stoked with a triple relic, including 3 pinstripes, of one of the most talented young players in the game today. It's hard to notice when scanned, but there's a gold half-square around each jersey swatch, causing the card to be serially numbered out of 99 copies.

With 1/2 of the hits down, there are still 2 autographs as well as 1 spectra card remaining for the 2nd half of this box.

#11 Kris Bryant Phoenix

#6 Yusei Kikuchi TitanHolo Parallel (RC Count; 11)

This is my 2nd pull from the Titan Kikuchi rainbow out of the first half of this box. While the Prizm parallel was numbered out of 299, this base holo card isn't numbered, but it's just as beautiful.

#20 Chris Paddack Certified (RC Count; 12)

#32 Michael Chavis Certified Green Parallel (RC Count; 13)

Chavis may not have achieved the same hype as Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers throughout his rookie season, but I'm excited to see what's to come for the 24-year old. Once he comes back healthy in 2020, I fully expect him to be Boston's everyday 2nd baseman.

Maybe I'm blinded by my love of this set, but I'm pretty pleased with the 1st half of this box. The autograph wasn't too great, but Chronicles isn't necessarily about the hits.

With 2 autos to go, I'm excited to see what else this box has in store for me.

Passing Time At the Card Shop

Today's been a pretty gloomy New England day overall even though it hasn't rained so far at the time in which I'm writing this post. Still, clouds have been in the sky since I woke up this morning, and I don't think I'll be seeing the sun whatsoever until at least tomorrow.

In an effort to pass some time and open a couple packs of the recently-released 2019 Bowman Baseball cards, I took a quick trip to my LCS earlier today. Though I was only inside the card shop for around 20 minutes, it was a nice departure from the poor weather.

The new cards that I purchased will give me something to do tomorrow when I'll add them to my online inventories and put them in their respective collections. 

I've also started a rookie and prospect binder, for, after all these years, Topps' love for rookie cards has led me to change the way that I store a player's first-year card.

Maybe it's because I've put away a ton of dime cards over the last few days, but I wasn't feeling super inspired to search through the dime boxes. Instead, I visited the scattered 50 cents per card and price as marked boxes throughout the store.

The main difference between the dime and 50 cent boxes at my LCS is the products that are featured. Rightfully so, when you pay more per card than you do when searching through the dime bins, you'll come across more high-end products like Topps Finest and Bowman's Best.

The Altuve in the top left corner is a refractor from 2017 while the card in the bottom right corner is an insert from 2018 Topps Finest. The other 2 are replicas of the 1994-95 Finest Basketball cards, and the Ichiro insert is the only card on this page that cost me more than 50 cents ($1).

Albeit, I could've bought 25 dime cards for the same price as these 4 high-end inserts, but there comes a time when I have to choose quality over quantity. After all, it's not like I don't already have enough Ichiro or Buster Posey cards.

As I alluded to earlier, I've commenced the process of transferring my rookie and prospect cards into their own binder in order to keep these possibly valuable cards in prime condition. The only exceptions will be players I collect, but all other rookie and prospect cards, especially from the last couple of years, will be stored in this binder.

Topps has been hyping up the rookie card more so than ever before over the last few seasons, and 1st Bowman cards are not too far behind them. I figured it's time that I store these cards safely in sheets just in case one of these players ends up becoming the next Mike Trout.

That's why I sprung for an Eloy Jimenez chrome prospect card ($1) and a Victor Robles rookie from Series 1 (50 cents) at my LCS today. If they're available for a fair price, there's no harm in adding rookie or prospect cards to your collection, especially if the players have the potential to be superstars.

I may have only opened 1 "silver pack" of Topps cards in my entire life, but that hasn't stopped me from finding other means of adding these gorgeous cards to my collection. The dime bins at the Baseball card show, in particular, have been kind to me as have the various boxes of cards at my LCS.

There were around 6 or 7 cards from the 2017 silver pack promotion of players that I collect, forcing me to narrow down my choices to only 2 or 3 total cards. After much consideration, I decided to boost my gold tier player collections of guys who are still playing; Anthony Rizzo being one and Miguel Cabrera, who's turning 36 today, being another.

The final player that I chose was Joey Votto whose player collection is the 2nd largest out of any current MLB player now that Ichiro is retired. With 134 total cards in my Votto PC, the 2010 NL MVP award winner trails only Albert Pujols for most cards by a current player out of all the guys that I collect.

Moreover, Votto "accomplished" something last night that he hadn't done in any of his 6,829 career plate appearances; he popped out to the 1st baseman. That's right, after spending 11 full seasons in the majors, Votto fouled out to the Dodgers' 1st baseman Cody Bellinger for the first time in his career.

I can't believe how underrated of a player Joey Votto is. He's an established superstar with a career .310 average and likely a future Hall of Famer. As much as I'd like to see him win a ring, Votto's spend his whole career with the Cincinnati Reds, and I believe he wants to play there until he retires.

There was a time when both Hanley Ramirez and Joe Mauer were 2 of the brightest stars in all of Baseball. They made perennial trips to the All-Star game, won awards, and became the faces of their respective teams by breaking franchise records that they still hold to this day.

Although Mauer has since retired and Ramirez has jumped around with numerous teams, including his most recent stint with the Indians, I don't see a reason to ever stop collecting cards of these 2 former superstars. 

Hanley's one of my gold tier player collections with well over 100 total cards. On the other hand, Mauer is comfortably in the silver tier range with roughly 75 cards in his respective PC.

Aside from the outstanding product that was 2018 Panini Chronicles, Donruss Optic was the best effort made by Panini in 2018. When you consider the fact that they still have no logos to work with, I personally think that they did an excellent job, especially with all the different colored parallels.

For 50 cents apiece, I added a serial numbered card to 2 veteran player collections. Andrew McCutchen's aqua parallel of his DK card with the Giants is numbered out of 299 copies. On the other hand, the red parallel of Yadier Molina matches the red of his catcher's equipment and is numbered out of 199 copies.

Similar to Votto, Cutch and Yadi are established veterans who could eventually end up in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I know that Molina has a high chance because he's a catcher and there aren't many stars at that position anymore. As for McCutchen, he is an MVP award winner, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Last up is the only card that I paid more than $1 for today; a silver framed parallel of Clayton Kershaw from 2018 Panini Diamond Kings that's serial numbered out of just 99 copies. 

Panini's serial numbered cards always seem to be a very fair price, whether they're from Optic, Diamond Kings, Chronicles, or regular Donruss. I can usually expect to find numbered Panini cards for short money at the Baseball card show or the LCS. 

In this case, I coughed up $2 for this Kershaw, a price I would gladly pay again. After all, he's only the greatest pitcher of this generation.

Breaking Free of My Writer's Block; Card Show Recap #17

I'll freely admit to this before I get started on today's blog post; I've had a case of writer's block over the last few weeks, and even though I've kept a steady pace with the number of posts I write, it's been a struggle to come up with new ideas.

Writer's block isn't foreign to me, though this instance of it has certainly been the longest-lasting since I began blogging. That being said, like all periods of writer's block, there's light at the end of the tunnel, and a quick trip to the card show today may be exactly what it takes to break free.

With full knowledge of there being a Mansfield show next Monday and the release of Topps Heritage the Wednesday after that, my Dad and I decided that going to today's Baseball card show on a limited budget would be exactly what I needed. 

However, with intentions of going to the Mansfield show the following week, it was understood that we'd have to limit ourselves this time around, so I made certain to stretch every possible dollar.

I have a fair number of Red Sox cards when it comes to vintage, but I'm always on the hunt for those I don't have yet as long as their a reasonable price. And when they're $1 a piece, it's hard to say no to a higher number like Dalton Jones and a Cy Young award winner, Jim Lonborg. 

Topps did an excellent job with 1969 Topps in their 2018 Heritage product, though the set is a bit too simple to royally screw up. Still, they kept it consistent and featured pink circles for the Red Sox once again, something I was very pleased to see.

It really doesn't matter what year they're from, because these hobby-exclusive silver pack cards have looked fabulous since their debut back in 2017. The best part about the cards, in my opinion, is finding them for a low price after the set is released. 

I've spotted silver pack cards before in the dime bins, but this time, I found a Devers rookie and was more than willing to pay the 75 cents that it cost me.

A high-end card of a Red Sox legend for just a buck? That was an easy choice, especially when the set is Topps Tribute, a product that featured beautiful and shiny cards in the early 2000s. They don't scan as well as they look in-person, for the actual cards are far less yellow and way more like a modern-day chrome refractor.

I've never been the biggest fan of the rainbow foil parallels from Topps Flagship, especially because of how barely noticeable they've been in recent years. Topps definitely stepped up their game with the parallels in 2019, but in the case of this Craig Kimbrel parallel, one would barely be able to tell that it's a rainbow foil parallel at first glance.

Regardless, a new Kimbrel card is always welcome in my collection, and I have now reached 119 total cards, including absolutely zero duplicates.

I'll admit, card companies have succeeded in getting me hooked on serial numbered cards, causing me to pick a few up at nearly every show for the right price (no pun intended). Case and point; this 2017 Topps Finest purple refractor of Price which I've spotted at a vendor's table at my past few trips to the show.

I don't know what caused me not to pick up the card the last few times. But today, I decided I'd finally pay the $2 necessary for this serial numbered card, but it wasn't the only one I'd pick up.

For the same price as a retail pack of 2019 Topps Series 1, I picked up a black and white parallel of Dustin Pedroia from 2018 Topps Big League which, almost every time, will beat whatever comes out of the 14-card pack.

I've always loved the look of black and white parallels, and I think it's awesome that Topps has started to include them in sets like Gypsy Queen and Big League. Pedroia's stock may be down, but for the low price it was going for, I simply couldn't resist.

I capped off a stellar selection of Red Sox cards with yet another relic card of Pedro Martinez, because why not? The dealer I bought this card from provided a reasonable price on the Clubhouse Collection relic card, and so I added what is likely my 10th Pedro relic to my collection, possibly more.

As far as standard relic cards go, Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection is basically as good as it gets. The design is always pretty great, and it's hard to get a bad name, though that doesn't make the disappointment any easier when I pulled a Brandon Phillips relic out of my hobby box 2 years ago

Still, seeing this card reminds me of the Topps Heritage set and how we're only a couple weeks from seeing its release once again, this time in the 1970 Topps design.

Until then, I'll be recapping card shows and attempting to rid myself of writer's block.