Update keeping me busy despite being the worst set ever

We all know that 2020 Topps Update is one of the worst sets ever. 

It truly is.

I don't envy what Topps had to do here. They work on advanced print runs and they did what they could with it, including a random assortment of newly signed or traded players. The rest was choc full of past All-Stars, active leaders, and Home Run Derby cards. 

Many said "why even have it?" and I am going to assume it has to do with advance sales and obligations, and the headache of canceling a product release. It's not as easy as "ah, nevermind, we just won't do it." 

However, since Tino Martinez is taking up card number US-122, I've been busy tracking down many of the parallels that come along with it. I haven't paid crazy amounts, but as a player collector, I pick up what I can. A nice assortment has slowly been coming in:

Here is a smattering of what has trickled in, highlighted by the Independence Day /76:

The Stars and Stripes fit this card so well, matching up with the red, white, and blue All-Star jersey. Easily my favorite parallel of the group.

Standard rainbow foil:

Father's Day Powered Blue /50:

Apparently this one is "hot pink" Mother's Day /50. Topps and I have different definitions of hot pink.

Target Red and Walmart Blue and Meijer Purple...whatever Meijers are. I've never seen one of the stores in real life.

Including the base card, I have nine versions of this card. Here is what I am still missing:

• Gold /2012 (these keep popping up on eBay but are overpriced)
• Vintage Stock /99
• Advanced Stats /300
• Gold Foil
• Memorial Day Camo /25
• Platinum /1
• Any of the plates

I should be able to track down the Gold Foil and Advanced Stats. The others might be tough. We'll see.

But for a very crappy set, I sure have been keeping an out for the ones on the list above.

Not a Cole collector, but I want his cards

I don't anticipate becoming a Gerrit Cole collector over the next 9 years. I anticipate accumulating many of his cards the way I did a guy like CC Sabathia or Masahiro Tanaka. But I don't plan on making him a focus of mine.

That doesn't mean I won't stray here and there. In fact, I made a purchase this past week to pick up his 2013 Topps Update RC. I probably had it at one time or another, but sent it away in a batch of Pirates cards. It felt like a smart thing to own, even if he's in the wrong uniform.

Now on to the photoshopped right uniform cards. Both of these came in over the last two days via various TCDB trades.

This is my first look at Gypsy Queen, a set I like but don't love. Similar to Donruss and Ginter, all of the GQ designs are now blending together for me.

I was surprised to see Cole's Opening Day card is different than his flagship SP. I wonder if his real Topps base card will look like this, or if it'll be a shot from spring training. Time will tell...maybe.

I'm sure when all is said and done 9 years from now, I'll be sitting on a few hundred Cole cards. I hope some of them have his signature on them. But at worst, one for sure will have the little "RC" logo on it, and that's a great start.

Update should be released a little later in the year

In 2018, Topps Update was released on October 22.

I always enjoy update because of the checklist. I'm not talking about half the set being All-Star or HR Derby cards. Those are overdone.

I'm talking about cards of rookies, free agents, and late-season acquisitions.

For the most part, Topps does a really good job of getting players traded at the non-waiver trade deadline into update. I was very happy to see guys like Zack Britton and JA App make their Yankee card debuts.

However, over the last few seasons, we're seeing more and more meaningful acquisitions happening in late August around bigger names. In 2018, Andrew McCutchen, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, and Curtis Granderson were among the names traded prior to September 1. In 2017, Justin Verlander and Justin Upton were moved during this time.

I know Topps has checklist and production deadlines, but when cards like the one below make an appearance as an SP, it makes me wish they'd push those deadlines back a few weeks to get a full scope of the players who were traded, rather than waiting until 2019 Series One, when a lot of those players are likely on a new team.

If the set came out around Thanksgiving time or so, it'd be much more representative. I know then one could say - why not push it further and get in World Series highlights or post-season awards? All fair. But I think that pushing deadlines through August acquisitions versus pushing through the World Series and postseason awards sounds a bit more manageable, and would make for a few happier collectors, me included.

I get that it's easier than ever now to get these acquisition cards with the emergence of Topps NOW, but I'd still love Update to be an actual regular season update versus an update through July 31 with a possible SP or two snuck in.

Dipping back into buying some 2018 cards

It was a very slow summer for me for buying 2018 cards for a few reasons. First and foremost, my Target just never restocked 2018 cards. After flagship, I found a blaster of GQ and then never found anything new after that.

But that wasn't the only reason. I just wasn't inspired by very many 2018 releases. I'm not sure why. Maybe I got Aaron Judge'd last year and was tired of trying to keep up with all of the releases. Also I just feel like each set is the same year after year, and that gets a little tiring. I end up just accumulating without being overly excited about the cards.

Anyhow, two weeks ago I went to a different Target with my son. We were out running errands so tried a different location. They did have a much better selection of cards, and I found one lonely Chrome Update Mega Box, as well as a hanger of 2018 Update.

Side note, the term Mega Box does not make sense to me. 28 cards (7 packs of 4 cards) do not need to be in such a giant box. I'm not a conscious save-the-environment type of person, but the size of this box, and all blasters really, are so over the top for the contents inside.

Despite the usual buyer's remorse after buying retail, I still managed to pull some great cards. 28 cards of Chrome for $20 is pretty dumb, but at least there's a strong rookie class this year. Here are some of the highlights:

I was very happy to get the Gleyber RC from Chrome, as it's my first pack-pulled Torres. I didn't get Ohtani, but did well with Soto and Acuna for sure. Those guys are studs.

Also, it feels like Hoskins has been around forever, so weird to still be getting his RCs still.

This Bryce Harper card is very awesome. It must look event better as a Refractor. I really wish the Yankees would open up their large checkbook and sign Harper. I prefer him to Machado. I would also really relish all the whiny "Harper and the Yankees are made for each other" or "now I can hate the Yankees even more" freezing cold takes and tweets. It would be awesome. But it's not going to happen.

Lastly, these International Affair cards fall 1:2 and are very nice. I don't understand the premise of the set at all, but the cards look great and I was very happy to get a Judge. Probably the second nicest insert set after the 1983 Chrome Refractors.

As for the hanger box, nothing specular, but a solid break for $10. I prefer these to blasters since you get about the same amount of cards, but the 72-card brick is less fun to open. Basically you have about 35 cards on top, the inserts all stuck together in the middle, then all of the horizontal cards pack together as well. Kind of weird and unexciting.

I managed two Torres cards this time, which is great. I guess neither is his true flagship RC because of the 2018 Series 2 SP (which I don't have....GRRR). The debut card of him coming out of the dugout is great. And the AS card isn't a shot of him from the game, as he didn't play due to injury.

Stanton was the card on top of the bricks, and I love cards of trade deadline acquisitions.

I got a nice Ohtani!

And a great looking Bo Jackson.

The Bruce Harper cards come 2 per hanger at Target. The design is a little too political for me, but I get it. Washington DC.

That's it. Overall, I did ok with the break given the players I got, but I still think I should have spent the $30 on something else. But I always feel like that after buying retail.

K-Mart saves the day

This past week, I took Tuesday-Thursday off. It was kind of weird to take three mid-week days off, especially during a busy time. My wife traveled for work, and without family members able to come down to help with school drop-offs and pick-ups, I just decided to burn a few extra vacation days and stay home.

On the final day, I decided that I'd swing by Target after I dropped off each kid at school. I was hoping to look for a a few card products, in this order: Topps Chrome Mega box, Topps Fire, Topps Update.

Here is what I found:

No baseball cards. Ok, I should clarify. There are two baseball cards. A blaster of 2016 Series One, and a bunch of untouched Mets team sets. Plus some baseball stickers. Meh.

Now on one hand, this is the cleanest I've ever seen the card aisle at this particular Target. Usually it's a mess and has a cart filled with all the store returns just sitting there.

On the other hand, baseball cards were sold out. In speaking with someone in the industry recently, he told me what a huge year it was for cards. Obviously this is the Judge/Bellinger effect, but the hobby is strong right now. This is a good thing. I don't want cards to be a scarcity, but it's good seeing them fly off of the shelves versus collecting dust like the hockey cards.

Disappointed, I headed to the toy aisles and picked up a few small Christmas gifts for the kids. Cruz Ramirez and Hudson Hornet McQueen!

On the way home, I decided to stop at a local shopping plaza that has a Dollar Tree and K-Mart. I went into the Dollar Tree first to see if they had any of their repacks. Bone dry.

I then went to K-Mart, and luckily found some Update. Salvation!

They had two 36-card jumbo backs and two 72-card hanger boxes. For some reason, K-Mart doesn't participate in the same pricing as the other big box store, as the hangers were each $12.99 instead of the standard $9.99. I decided to buy the two jumbo packs and leave the hanger boxes.

Overall, I did pretty well! This is the very first card that greeted me.

I also snagged this HR Derby Bellinger, and three Judge cards total, two of which I didn't have. Those are certainly worth the price of the packs.

 

 

This Gary Sanchez was new for me as well.

I was happy to see these guys get some Update love. TTM fodder for the spring! Higashioka is a great signer. I'm not sure about Torreyes. I sent to him once without success.

Is this the first card to feature a dab?

Lastly, a few more solid pulls. I thought the Rizzo was a buyback, but it's actually a Rookie Cup insert.

I still wish I would have gotten a Mega Box, but my two packs ended up being pretty darn good from K-Mart. Not a bad way to end my mini staycation.

A little bit of Update

For the first time in a while, I set aside a few minutes during my all-too-busy weekends to drop by Target and grab some cards. I wanted some Topps Update before the baseball season ended.

Unexpectedly, I had my three-year-old daughter in tow...which made everything a little more difficult. I was happy to have her, as she cornered me as I was leaving and asked if she could go to the store with me. I had to pick up a few grocery items there too, and as many of you know, everything takes approximately 7x longer with a three-year-old along for the ride.

Naturally, in the 10 minute drive to Target, she falls asleep in the car. When I try to wake her up to go into the store, she has no desire whatsoever. Over the course of about 5 minutes, she went from singing a song about pumpkins to sleeping to resisting going into the store. Great.

I finally coax her in, and I decided to pick up the food items first. It took me awhile since I was unfamiliar with grocery section there. Finally, after what seems like hours (really it was probably 15 minutes), I make my way over to the cards. I had my mind made up that if I saw one, I'd get a 72-card hanger box of Update. They had a couple, so I let my daughter choose which one.

On my way home, I realized that I completely forgot to look for Topps Fire. I would have liked to grab some, but I literally didn't even browse. I saw the purple box with Aaron Judge on it, snagged it, and got out of the store.

Overall, not the best nor the worst break. I got a few cards I liked. I will say that although these have about the same number of cards as a blaster, it's less fun opening the big brick versus individual packs.

Here are a few of the highlights:

I got three Yankees cards, and two were of of retired Hall of Famers. I was happy to get the Boggs, as I may send this to him (along with the $5 fee) for a TTM request. Would be a cool card to have signed.

I like the Judge/Bird combo. I assume this shot is from Bird's first homer of the season on April 16th versus St. Louis.

Jaime Garcia is pictured as a Brave. That was two teams ago, as he was traded to the Twins then Yankees. I would have liked a Yankee card of him, as I don't anticipate him coming back to NY.

This is a great card! Glad it was captured.

I did get one of the vintage cardstock parallels of Astros rookie Derek Fisher, not to be confused with the former Knicks coach.

I seem to pull a lot of Rockies parallels, as I did here with this Topps Gold of Antonio Senzatela.

I also pulled a photo variation SP of Tyler Glasnow. I wouldn't have noticed except I did look at each cards back for a different ID number on the bottom. Interestingly, this is actually a Series One card.

I'm still looking for a bunch of the Yankees from this set, so if you've got any extras, please let me know.

Trip to a new LCS

Since moving to my new town over a year ago, I've been wanting to visit a local card shop that is just 15 minutes away. Not a bad distance at all, as many collectors don't have anything nearly that close.

I'm a little ashamed it took me over a year to get there. However, both kids went down for a nap yesterday, so I told my wife I was sneaking out for a few minutes.

I made the drive to the shop, which was about two towns over. The store is not visible from the outside, which confused me a little. However, around back there is a glass door that leads to the second floor of a small strip mall, and the card shop is on the second floor.

It was fairly small, with piles and boxes overflowing. It was sort of organized chaos, but I liked it. There was one other shopper in there, obviously a regular who spends a lot of time there, as I could gather that by their banter. The owner was very nice as well, saying he's been in business since 1988. No small feat!

He immediately asked what I was looking for and what I collect. Honestly, I didn't go in with a plan, so I just sort of blurted out "errr, Yankees." To which he replied, "Ok, but new, old, autographs, what?" I just said, "Yeah, a little of everything." The truth was, I'm also kind of guarded in these situations, as I was ready for him to sell me on the more expensive stuff. After a while, we started chatting a bit more and told him I collect Tino, and have about 800 different. The guy in the shop said he has a Frank Robinson collection like that.

I started to settle in and went though a box of Yankees, all priced between about $1 and $15. Most were a few bucks each. Pricing was pretty standard for a small shop, with cards selling for a bit more than you could find them online. I did find one Tino marked $1, so I snagged it:

Next, he showed me a box of very beat up vintage. They were all older than 1960, and all priced fairly well. I only bought one, but I think it was a decent find for $5. I've been wanting this card for a while.

Lastly, I decided I wanted a few packs. I asked if he had gotten any Bowman Draft in yet, and said he hadn't, which was disappointing. I settled on four packs of 2016 Update. I opened them on the spot, and in the last pack, I snagged a hit, which is unusual for me:

I definitely will be going back. The owner was nice and not pushy at all. It's not the most comfortable setting with the size and clutter, but still was fun to look around a bit, and if I had more time, I'm sure I could have done more damage. I'm looking forward to returning and going through a box of Yankees inserts he mentioned, but I had to go before I could check it out.