Nice Card File - Willie Mays and Mike Piazza Relic Cards

2003 Stadium Club Born In The USA Relic

2003 was the last year for Topps Stadium Club baseball cards. That year they published a 50-card insert set called "Born In The USA". As you can see, the card features a player game used relic (either a bat or jersey piece) in the shape of the state where the player was born. I had gotten a few in 2003 and thought that since there were 50 cards, there would be a card for each state. I don't often try to complete sets but this intrigued me and I decided to try and collect them all.

I learned pretty soon that my thought that there would be a card for every state was incorrect. Apparently there are a lot of players born in California. Maybe Topps' original plan was to have a card for each state but some states, like Alaska with 9, are not well represented by native born baseball players. All of the cards, with the exception of the Willie Mays card are current (in 2003) players, which probably made it harder to have each state represented. The Beckett catalog lists these at $10 to $25, except for the Mays card which it lists for $60. I now have 43 of the cards. The Mays card was the hardest to get. I lost 2 or 3 bids before finally shagging one for $27 (which is the most I paid for any of them). I've gotten most of them for under $10.

Completing the set has been harder than I expected. I thought that once I had the Mays card, half the battle would be won. The last 7 cards however elude me. In the four years I've been looking for these, the last 7 cards have never appeared on eBay. These cards are:

J. D. Drew
Brad Fullmer
Nomar Garciaparra
Toby Hall
Tino Martinez
Scott Rolen
Richie Sexson

If anyone out there has one of these cards and is willing to trade it to me, send me an email and make me an offer.