It's December, and as far as I'm concerned, the 2013 baseball card season is over. I've got everything I bought cataloged and scanned. Now it's time to start putting them away to prepare for 2014.
By my count, there were 35 sets released in 2013. This pretty much agrees with
baseballcardpedia.com. They don't list Upper Deck Goodwin Champions but I do. I don't count some very limited release sets, like Topps Turkey Red.
I bought 2,118 2013 cards. This is a bit down from 2012, when I bought 2,779 cards. I'm trying to be a bit more targeted this year.
My oft stated (and pretty much impossible) collecting goal is to get at least one of every type of card released. I figure there were 1,153 different cards released in 2013 (counting each base set, parallels, insert sets, etc). So how did I do? I got 176 of them. I fall further behind each year but it's still fun trying. 1,153 cards is the most in a year since Upper Deck went down in 2008. I attribute this to Panini's aggressive move into the market.
These 176 cards go into my reference album for the year. I also add subset cards (like rookie cards) to the album, although I don't count them in the total of different cards for the year. All in all, I'm adding 294 cards for 2013. This also counts any promo cards which came in packs.
I thought I'd spend most of the rest of the month presenting the additions to my Reference Album. Pretty self-indulgent of me, but it's my blog. Let's get started, more or less, in alphabetical order.
Bowman
I raved about 2012 Bowman because it was the first major design change in close to 20 years. I like this year's set as well, although, it's not much different than last year. Do we have to wait another 20 years?
Base cards
I usually try to go with big name players for the Reference Album.
There isn't much difference in the Rookie card beyond the addition of the goofy rookie card logo. Picking rookies for the Reference Album is pretty much a crap shoot, unless there is a player with a lot of buzz.
I never get enough cards like this to make it worth it to go and "unlock my code". So this number is free to the first person to access it. Good luck!
Parallel Cards
As usual, Bowman parallels came in multiple flavors: Blue, Gold, Orange, Red, State & Hometown, Silver Ice, Red Ice, Purple Ice and White Ice. The Blues are serial numbered to 500. This is the only one I got.
The Golds are not serial numbered so they are easier to get. I pulled 5, Garcia was the only rookie card.
The State & Hometown parallel are also not numbered but I only pulled two of them. I like these as a parallel better than just a different colored border.
Inserts
Bowman used to include Prospects as just a subset, but a few years ago, Topps started making the prospects as a separate insert set. This was done to accommodate new MLB rules as to what cards could be labeled as "rookie cards". The backs are the same as the base set.
The Prospect cards come in all the same parallel flavors as the base set, but with a purple one as well. These are only available in rack packs and come in a separate 3-card package. I bought one rack pack just to get some.
This is one of the Silver Ice parallels. If I can, I try to use the same player card from a parallel set as I used for the base set.
A Bowman Top 100 Prospects insert. I generally don't like to use Astros or Phillies cards as reference cards but this is the only one I have.
Who says you can't pull autographs from a blaster? You can't really tell from the scan but it's a sticker auto.
Next entry will be Bowman Chrome.
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