- Scan turned out a lot better than I thought it would. I was worried that everything would be really dark when the scan completed, but I was wrong (not the first time, nor the last).
- If I remember correctly, the Platinum Players Club parallels were seeded one per box, meaning finding your favorite player in this format was tough. It took me a long time to find the other Sakic PPC card for my collection.
- Weird: went to look at prices for this card, and there's a TON of them on COMC. 104 to be exact. Almost as if someone found a cache of them and started listing. Wild range of prices as well, the high end is $32.65, while the low end is just 75 cents. Where was that 75 cent card when I was looking for this years ago?!
- Robert
- Unlike some parallels in other sets, the Players Club parallel was easy to spot. The border gray instead of white, and the Players Club stamp along the left hand side in foil.
- Seeded one per pack, these weren't hard to come by at all. I'm still about 90 cards away from putting together the set. Maybe one day I'll get it together and scoop up the rest.
- 95-96 CC is another set that Beckett has moved to the back burner and not included on their pages. So as always, I move to COMC to get a price range. There are currently 9 copies of the card on the site, ranging from $1.49 (cheap) to $5.25. I would say that this card would normally range in the 2-3 dollar area (my best guess anyhow).
- Robert
- Insanity, thy name is Collectors Choice. I have 6 cards to show from this set for Sakic, 2 base cards with 2 parallels apiece. A bit of overkill for sure...
- I do like the design of the card. The lettering is easy to read, nothing fancy on the card at all. If I remember correctly, packs were a buck a piece back then, and the quality of these cards were well worth the price.
- There were a lot of cards for Joe in 95-96, I didn't realize how many until I took a look this morning to see how many Nordiques cards were remaining before the transition to the Avalanche logo.
- Robert
- There was one aspect of the post title I couldn't get wrong for this card. The year. It's written right on the front of the card.
- With all the room there is in the dugout, I always wondered why players tucked their batting gloves in their back pocket when they went out to the field. None the less, the gloves in pocket look works for this photo.
- Bio on the back: "Los 38 cuadrangulares conectados por Jim durante la pasada temorada, es la mayor cantidad conectada por cualquier jugador del cuadro de Cleveland desde 1953. Yep, Pacific wrote the top of the bio in Spanish. In case you don't want to go to Google translate, Jim hit the most homers for a Cleveland infielder since 1953, with 38.
- Robert
- 2nd straight card I've featured of Joe that I've been able to the Trading Card Database. I enjoy being able to help that site out, so I have to make an effort each time I post a card to check to see if it needs added.
- I've had this card for quite a while, and for some reason I thought it was more pricey. There's currently 5 copies of this card on COMC, ranging in price from $1.45 to $2.75. Cheap in my opinion.
- Don't think I've noticed until now, but this might be the only card I've featured of Joe that shows him sporting a mouse under one of his eyes. A nice one too....
- Robert
- Like the bit of wood grain at the bottom that UD employed. Different look for them, and I don't think it was a bad choice. If the Indians logo wasn't in foil, I think the card would have been even better looking.
- Finally! Starting to get low on the '97 cards, only 3 more to go that need posted. My '98 total currently stands at 36, which likely will not be improved upon for a while.
- Career HR #113 was hit off the same pitcher as #112, Brad Radke of the Twins. Yes, they were both hit in the same game, June 23/97. They were both solo shots, and were the only runs the Indians scored in a 7-2 loss.
- Robert
- At the beginning of 2016, I started this blog on lark, wondering just how long I would keep up with it. Well, this is post #300 and I have no desire to slow down. 400 by the end of the calendar year is definitely within reach, and is a lot more than what I expected of myself. Stay tuned!
- It was surprising to me that this card wasn't on the trading card database site. I figured that since there are 10000 of these out there, someone would have added it by now. I took care of that tonight.
- This is serial #2780/10000 in case you were wondering.
- Love how this scan turned out. One of the best scans of a foil card that I've managed in quite a while.
- Robert
- There is 1167 career HRs in this photo. Don't see that very often.
- Love the usage of the blue in the design. There's just enough of the blue that it's evident without taking over the card.
- There are 3 parallel versions of this card, the artist proof, the select company and the registered gold. Two of the 3 are up for grabs on COMC, and at reasonably decent prices. The artist proof is as low as $3.25, while the registered gold can be had for $5.25.
- Robert
- Closing in on 300 posts, so I'm going to try and get a couple of cards on the blog today. Heaven knows I have plenty of cards to show...
- I kind of have mixed reviews about this GQ set. It's not bad, it's not great, it's another card to add to the McCutchen and Lawrie PCs (if Brett has one in the set).
- Too little, too late. Andrew extended his hitting streak last night to 11 games, hitting .404 over the span with 4 HR and 13 RBI, and raising his average 14 points. Pittsburgh has gone 8-3 in those 11 games. He can carry the team on his back when he's hot, it's just a shame that it's this late in the season that we finally see the real Andrew.
- Robert
- I have really slowed down on the Brett Lawrie posts lately. It's been a lot of the same pose from Topps and Topps Chrome, so I've backed off quite a bit.
- Serial # 236/2013. I actually have a page of Lawrie cards down the pipe that has five serial #'d cards in it. Craziness....
- After a while when you show the same card, you run out of things to say. I know that the picture was taken in SkyDome, I've mentioned the tats on more than one occasion, so what else is there? Maybe the fact that the ticket packages advertisement showed up on the photo. I know that going to games in Toronto can get pretty damn expensive, so I'm sure that packages have got to the way to go.
- Only 2 copies of this card currently on COMC. One at $1.20, the other at $1.23. Wonder if the extra 3 cents is a tax?
- Robert
- In among the boxes and boxes of hockey cards I own, is the complete Border Battle insert set. One of the few insert sets I ever wanted bad enough to go out and complete.
- Bio on the back: "The leader of the NHL's youngest team, he's led the club in scoring in five of his seven seasons". The leading scorer for the Nords in Joe's rookie season? Peter Stastny. Joe lead for the next 4 seasons, then in 92-93 Mats Sundin tallied 114 points, 9 more than Sakic.
- Quite a few copies of this card on COMC right now, 17 to be exact. They range in price from 70 cents (cheap) to $2.75 (not too far off).
- Robert
- I was kind of surprised to see that this card hadn't been added to the Trading Card Database. Yours truly took care of that.
- Not too smart that Score put Joe's name and position in even lighter gold than the background. Came out almost invisible on the scan.
- 95-96 Score is another set that Beckett has forgotten. Just one copy of this card on the COMC site, listed at $6.99. Not bad...
- Robert
- I was quite shocked after the scan popped up on my screen, it scanned a lot lighter shade of purple than what the card actually is. It almost looks like the pink parallels that Topps has used the past few years.
- Career chase: "With 73 RBI, Lawrie is 2,154 away from Hank Aaron's all time record of 2,227". I think it would have been smarter to keep stats like this to guys that had played a few years in the bigs, instead of a 3rd year pro like Lawrie was at the time of release. The line actually seems ridiculous, right?
- Brett hasn't played since July 21st this year, so it appears that he's going to finish the '16 season with a .248/12/36 line, with his strikeout total being his 2nd highest for a season.
- Lawrie is arbitration eligible in 2017, it'll be interesting to see what kind of deal he asks for...
- Robert
- I remember when this set came out that the Parkie parallels were the big chase card. Beckett lists the parallels at one per pack, which surprised me because I thought that these were a lot more scarce.
- But with the multiplier at 2.5x, it makes sense. This Sakic card would be valued at $1.50, while the base card shown earlier today is just 60 cents.
- Bio on the back: "With the off season moves by the Nordiques, Sakic's offensive skills will be backed up by a more effective defense." Uwe Krupp and Sylvain Lefebvre were two big pieces that allowed the Nords to move from cellar dwellers to winning the division in 94-95.
- Robert
- I'm not sure of two things. One, why Parkhurst felt a need to release two different products in 1994-95, and two, what made this set a "special edition"?
- Appears to be a Revlon ad in the background. It's not too often you see a set of big red lips on the boards of a hockey rink.
- Goal #108 came on 3/19/91 against the Oilers as part of that hat trick I mentioned on the last Sakic post. During that month of March, the Nords played 15 games, and Joe had a point in all but 2 of those. The hat trick was already the 4th of Joe's career in just his 3rd season.
- Robert
- Compared to this afternoon's card, the wording for the peel is a lot less conspicuous (?). Thome's face isn't covered, and what's interesting is the Topps Finest logo is covered. For me, the card looks better than it's Pinnacle counterpart.
- Bio on the back: "Ranked 8th in the AL in slugging at .612". What?? .612 right now would be 2nd in the AL behind only David Ortiz (.631). In '96, .730 was the leader (McGwire), and Thome's slugging pct. was still 30 points behind 2nd place Juan Gonzalez at .643. Sick.
- Career HR #111 for Jim was hit 6/14/97 in the 2nd game of a doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals. Matt Morris was the victim of Jim's solo shot, but the Cardinals would take the nightcap 5-2 to split the doubleheader.
- Robert
- Both cards of Jim Thome that I'll show today have the same peel off sticker on the front. I saw them on the same page in the binder and figured, why not post both of them?
- It's interesting how the Pinnacle card only has the "Peel Off" on it. Kind of bad though that the words run through Jim's face. After all this time I don't think I'm going to try and peel it off.
- Pinnacle Certified is another set that Beckett has forgotten over time. COMC has a couple of copies up for grabs, one listed at 94 cents and the other for a dollar. Sounds right to me.
- Robert
- Love the look on Andrew's face in this photo. It's as if he's holding his breath and just about to burst.
- Bio on the back: "Only 17 Pirates have stolen 3 or more bases in a game. McCutchen has already done it twice in three seasons". He's only stolen 6 in 2016, and unless he goes on a bit of a tear in the final couple of weeks, this will be his first season that he doesn't steal in double digits.
- Andrew needs just 3 more HRs to pass Barry Bonds for 4th on the all time Pirates list. He will not catch Stargell (475) and probably not Kiner (301), but Clemente is very reachable (240). Andrew is currently at 174.
- Ding-a-ling. Look at that ding in the top left corner. For shame...
- Robert
- For all the issues I've had scanning cards with foil on them, this one didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would. Still a bit hard to read Thome's name or the word "metal", but other than that the scan is ok.
- Found a handful of copies of this card on ebay (didn't see any on COMC), all listed in the range of 99 cents to $1.50. Seems about right...
- Jim's 107th career homer was his 4th in 3 games, a solo shot off of Tom Gordon in Fenway Park, 6/6/1997. The Indians won the game 7-3 behind 7 innings of 8 hit ball by Orel Hershiser, who won his 6th game of the season.
- Robert
- This is a rare post for Sakic in that the year designated on the card is not a combination of 2 consecutive years. This card is specifically listed as a 1994 product.
- Surprisingly, this card hadn't been added to the Trading Card Database as of yet. That has been taken care of by yours truly.
- Goal #107 for Joe was scored on 3/19/91. It was the 2nd goal of a hat trick he potted against the Edmonton Oilers in a 7-6 loss at Le Colisee. Bill Ranford was the goaltender for the Oilers, and the visitors had 7 different goal scorers on the night.
- Robert
- Anyone else out there see this card and think of Chris at the Nachos Grande blog? 'Cause I sure did when I saw this come out of the binder.
- I'm sure you are wondering who won the game featured on the card, it was the Reds by a 4-1 margin. Larkin had only one PA, a double before leaving the game injured not to return until the beginning of August. Thome was 0 for 3 with a walk that day.
- It's almost as if Barry has thrown the ball and Jim is catching it at first. Pretty good shot of the ball right at the point of hitting the leather in Jim's glove.
- Robert
- This is another card that shows me that the late 90's was a dead collecting period for me. I didn't think that Topps Gallery came on the scene until around 2000 or 2001. What do I know?
- Here I am hunting high and low on the back of the card for the card number. Flip the card over only to find the card # on the front. I'm closing in on 300 posts on this blog, and I don't think that I've had one card numbered on the front.
- Just looking through the Trading Card Database for this card made me realize just how many damn cards that I still need for the '97 portion of Thome's checklist. How in the world did people do it back in the day?
- Robert
- The scan comes out very dark, which makes sense since this is the black ice parallel. I believe that these were seeded one per box (36 packs), making them a tough pull.
- I decided to do a two a day of Sakic today, well just because. Now that I have the time on the weekends again to write, I'm going to try and fire off as many of these posts as possible.
- There are 3 of these listed on eBay (none on COMC), ranging from $5.35 to $6.50 (including shipping). Quite reasonable, as there are copies of other players on there that are asking $20+.
- Robert
- Can't quite tell who the Islanders player is in the background, but it appears that he's about to trip Sakic. For shame!
- Bio on the back: "When I played against him, I knew he was a good player said teammate Wendel Clark. Now that I play with him, I know that he's a great one." High praise indeed.
- Another set that has disappeared from the monthly Beckett listing is the 95-96 Score set. So, I checked out COMC and there's 4 copies of this card available, all between 94 cents and a dollar. Now that's a tight grouping.
- Robert
- OK, let's play "who is in the background?". Easy one is Dmitri Khristich of the Capitals. The #4 for the Nordiques is a little tougher. But assuming that the picture was taken the season before, the only #4 on the Nords was Uwe Krupp. The goalie was easy to identify, because the same goalie played both games at home vs. the Caps. Stephane Fiset's ice brick design is also easy to pick out.
- Career stats for Joe vs. the Capitals weren't bad, 14 goals and 17 assists in 36 career contests. The -17 total in those contests is the only stat that really stands out as a negative (poor pun).
- It just so happens that career goal #104 for Sakic came against the Capitals, 3/14/1991. It was the first of two goals for Joe in a 5-3 loss at the Capital Center. Don Beaupre was the victim that night.
- Robert
- The never ending year: I've posted 18 cards including this one from 1997 for Thome. I still have 11 more to go. I'm sure that when I look at my checklist there will be a boat load more to pick up. Holy shit...
- Kind of a shock seeing this card after last night's Circa card, huh? Even the feel of the card is blah compared to the high gloss cards that have been the staple for years.
- Fleer '97 was quite a set, 761 cards in total. Have the David Ortiz (Arias) RC? Excellent, it still lists for $30 and should go up as he climbs up the home run charts. I like him for the Hall of Fame as well in a few years. That speech will be interesting to say the least...
- Robert
- Less is more. I like most of the other Stadium Club designs, but this logo leaves something to be desired for me. For me, it's just too much for a SC card.
- Bio on the back: "Powered most HR's in 60 years by an Indian LH hitter." You know I had to find out who the player was 60 years ago. It was Hal Trosky. A little coincidence here, Jim wore #25 throughout his time in Cleveland, Trosky wore #25 during his first season with the Tribe in 1933.
- The comparison ends there though as far as team power. Trosky hit 32 of the Indians 103 HR in 1937, while Thome hit 38 of the 218 HRs that the mighty '96 Tribe club hit. That '96 team may be the best offensive club ever not to win the World Series.
- Robert
- The Gypsy Queen and Heritage cards for Lawrie will be a nice break from the insane amount of Topps and Bowman versions of their cards. Did I mention that the number of parallels for both those sets are insane?
- I don't know why, but I kind of like this particular design. The back is even kind of soothing (for lack of a better word) because of the yellow background. Makes me think I am a bit weird...
- Bio on the back: "From his August 5, 2011 MLB Debut through July 31, 2012, Lawrie led Toronto with 155 hits." Part of the reason I thought he had a lot of promise when he first came up to the big club. The injuries just kept coming and made him expendable.
- Robert
- What's the word I'm looking for to describe this card. Let me think. Oh ya, LOUD!
- OK, be honest with me out there. Did anyone buy packs of these when they came out in 1997? I'm not going to disparage you if you did, because people collect what they want to collect. Please tell me what attracted you to packs of these. I'd love to hear some thought processes when it comes to this set.
- Looking at the back, I like this stat that you don't see every day. XB/H. Basically it's the percentage of base hits that went for extra bases. Jim's XBH was .452 in 1996, or in other words 45.2% of Jim's hits were either doubles, triples or home runs. Just another way of expressing slugging percentage, without the actual total bases being computed.
- Robert
- Still trying to make up for the missing days in August by running another 2 a day here in September. Don't ask me why, just enjoy...
- Did you know? On the back, it says that Bernie Nicholls became the first NHL player ever to record a goal in all three periods and an overtime goal in a win on 11/13/84 against Quebec. Not sure why Parkhurst put this on the card, since Sakic didn't become a Nordiques player for another 4 years after that.
- It does remind me somewhat of older Parkhurst cards, but would rather have had the original design come back. Someone got it right in 2003 when they released a set with the 51-52 design. It will be a while before you see that card here on this blog.
- Robert
- Happy Labor Day to all that are reading this! Hope you're having a relaxing end to your long weekend.
- This is where my condition known as "parallelitis" came into being. I managed to pull a lot of these from packs back in the mid 90's, and I still have a want list for these to this day. Still a long way to go because...
- The multiplier on the Electric Ice cards is still an incredible 20x! So for a 60 cent card such as Sakic, the EI version goes for $12. The Gretzky's run $2 for the base, so multiply that by 20 and you see why there's a large want list for those cards...
- You'll see why Upper Deck scrapped the Electric Ice parallels when I show the 95-96 version in a few weeks.
- Robert
- Decided to finish off the 2012 cards I currently have of Andrew today by having a 2 post day today.
- The gold works really well with the yellow border. Personally, I'd love to see the old gold jerseys come back full time for the Bucs.
- I'd love to see Bowman serial number the gold parallels similar to how the flagship numbers theirs. The numbering makes the golds a little more special for me...
- I'm currently deciding just how far I want to take some of my player PCs, such as McCutchen. I'm thinking about setting a cap on how many cards I want for the collection. Stay tuned for more on this...
- Robert
- Love the look an Andrew's face here. It's almost as if he's saying "you called that a strike, really?"
- Unless a minor miracle happens in September, Andrew's run of 4 straight seasons of .400+ OBP is going to come to an end. He needs to gain 69 points over the last month of the year to get there.
- Finally figured out that I have the gold parallel version of this card, need to find the base version to go along with it.
- Pricey set, $40 for just 100 cards might be a bit steep for some, but I'm guessing that people bought packs to chase the relics and autos that were in there. The Trout and Darvish relic/auto cards are both listed for $250 each. White whale sighting!
- Robert
- I wasn't collecting a lot around 1997, which is largely why I don't remember Topps Chrome coming on the scene at that time. My earliest memories of Chrome aren't until the early 2000's.
- I wanted to take a look at the leader board for the '96 season, as Thome's numbers were pretty solid. His OPS and OBP were both in the top 10 in the AL, but 36 HRs and 116 RBIs couldn't crack the top 10 in either category. It also surprised me to see that his 123 walks were 2nd in the AL to Tony Phillips. Really, Phillips?
- The '97 Chrome set is still holding strong price wise after 2 decades; the 195 card set still lists for $50, and the singles unlisted stars like Thome have a high Beckett of $2.
- Robert
- 94-95 Upper Deck will always be one of my all time favorite hockey sets. It will also be one of my biggest banes as well, as the set introduced me to the wonderful world of parallels. The Electric Ice version of this card is the next Sakic post, and I'll expand a little more on this point then.
- Love this photo! Look down by the stick blade, and work your way up the card. you will see the bits of ice in the air, which on a hockey card is absolutely fantastic.
- Maybe it was to get all the rookies in the set, but the only thing weird about the 94-95 UD set is the breakdown. 270 cards in the first series, 300 in the second. Might have made more sense to even each series, but what do I know?
- Even though there were a lot of RC's in the 2nd series, there aren't any that truly stand out. The Ryan Smyth is still the priciest at $2, but using the word "priciest" might be pushing it a bit.
- Robert
- OK, that train wreck of a month I called August is out of the way. Back to posts every day on this blog.
- Not sure what to make of this design. It's OK, I don't think it's bad really, but it doesn't jump out at you either, does it? I do like the photo of Thome, it appears as if he's popped another ball up.
- Bio on the back: "In Cleveland, he is hailed as the team's most dangerous third baseman since Al Rosen. "
- 496 cards does not a Topps set make. I think that's the lowest total for a flagship set since the 50's, makes me wonder why Topps cut so many of the fringe players out.
- Robert
