Thursday, November 3, 2016

2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection

I'm finally getting around to cataloging the cards from repack boxes I bought during the season. There's nothing like watching the baseball playoffs while scanning and cataloging cards.

I don't remember seeing any of the 2016 Leaf Babe Ruth Collection on the big box store's shelves, but I found 5 packs in a Fairfield repack box I bought last July. I'm not sure what it means to find a 2016 set in a repack box in July 2016. My first guess is that the set came out early in the year and just didn't sell. Baseballcardpedia.com doesn't mention the set at all; tradingcarddb.com has scans of the whole 80-card set entered in March 2016.

There were 5 base cards and one insert card in each pack. I may not have bought it if I saw a blaster box but I'm pretty pleased by the cards, mainly due to the wide selection of photos, many of which feature Ruth not playing baseball. Of the 20 cards I have, all but two feature Ruth during his Yankee days. The baseball playing shots are generally less than satisfying due to the lack of team name and team logo.

Here are some of my favorites.

Babe Ruth golfing! The cards are all sepia toned, full bleed printed, non-glossy and no foil anywhere. The backs feature a head shot from the front and some text explaining the front. Altogether, a nice package.

Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey and a giant bat. Great photo.

The Babe ready for contract negotiations.

 The Babe signing autographs. Nice shot of a baseball glove from the era.

The Babe jogging on the beach.

The Babe looking really uncomfortable.

The Babe and his family. Little Dorothy will later write a memoir, "My Dad, the Babe".

1 comment:

Jupiterhill said...

I saw some boxes of them, but I thought they were a little high. I figured I would get some if they were clearanced, so who knows. Like you though I got some in repacks, and looking at what you got has me worried. I got many of the same cards. I am worried the collation of the boxes would be horrible. Unlike the Pete Rose set they released which allowed you to get the entire base set in every box (I did at least), the Babe Ruth set doesn't. Add on many doubles and it doesn't look good for the box, so I guess many more repacks will be filled with these cards.

The Giant bat card is my favorite too.