2008 Baseball Cards in Review - Finest

This will be a pretty short post as I only have one card representing this product. I never saw it for sale in the big box stores. The one I have I received in trade from someone.

It's hard to believe this is the 15th anniversary of the first Topps Finest cards issued in 1993. I only own 12 cards from that 1993 set. I remember packs going for $25 at the local card shop. I bought one pack for a friend as a birthday gift and it had the Ken Griffey card in it. The card hasn't held its value but I remember it booking at about $100. at the time.

This year's set has refractor and xfractor versions. The refractors come in black, blue, red, gold, and green versions. What I've got here is the garden variety refractor.

The xfractors come in gold and white framed versions. There are two basic insert sets, Finest Finest Moments and Finest Topps Team Favorites. These all come in most of the color/refractor/frames versions.

There are several different autograph series: the base set, the Finest Moments and the Topps Team Favorites all have autographed versions. There is also an insert called Topps TV Autographs (with black or red ink). Looking on eBay, it appears that the autos are on-card rather than on stickers.

Having only this one sample to look at limits what I can say, but I like the design. It's different than many years in that the background is part of the player photograph rather than an abstract background.

It looks like you get only one year of stats on the back, but I don't think you're buying Finest because you want stats. On this particular card, I really like the Finest 2007 Moment (being a Phillies fan and all).