30-Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 4

Day 4: A rookie card of one of your favorite players.

The obvious card here would be Mike Schmidt's rookie card but this would be the answer for several of the days, so I'm gonna hold it for now.

Besides the Phillies, my favorite team is the Astros and my favorite Astro (from even before I moved to Houston) is Jeff Bagwell, finally elected to the Hall of Fame.

1991 Stadium Club Members Only #11

30-Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 3

Day 3 - A card from the first set you tried to complete.

I am not a set collector. The only set I've actually tried to complete is 1987 Topps. I attempted to complete the set not so much because I like it (although I do like it) but because you used to see a lot of it in repacks and one day I realized I was near completing the set. With the help of several trades and out right gifts arranged through the blog, I was able to complete it a few years ago.

This is one of my favorite cards, because it is the last known baseball card of Yogi Berra during his career.

Hall of Fame Inductee Jeff Bagwell Cards

Jeff Bagwell finally got nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. I've already made one post recently about him, and I've got enough Bagwell cards (536) to do several more. With this post I want to show some recently acquired Bagwell cards.

I was idly searching for Bagwell cards on eBay the other week and came across an offer for 30 different Bagwell cards for $10.75 (including shipping). The seller was nice enough to actually list the cards he was offering and I saw that I needed 27 of them. Most were 1990s inserts and parallels.  Here are my favorites.

1992 Score 100 Rising Stars #35

 24-year-old Bagwell looks like he just ran in off the high school playing field on this card.

1993 Topps Inaugural Rockies #227

Topps put out an entire parallel set to honor the new Rockies and another for the Marlins inaugural season. I believe these were only available as boxed sets. I had one other from the Rockies set but I've never seen one from the Marlins set. Pretty rare, I'd say.

1994 Pinnacle Power Surge #16

Not only a Bagwell card I didn't have but an insert set I didn't know about. This goes right into the reference books.

1994 Stadium Club Golden Rainbow #108

1994 saw a sharp rise in parallel sets. And this was how it was often done, putting foil on the front, or if the card already had foil, putting different foil. These weren't particularly hard to get in packs of 1994 Stadium Club.

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #480

I always like this parallel. My recollection is that it was a tough pull in 1994 Upper Deck.

1995 Fleer Update Headliners #1

I have several cards from this insert but never noticed the text on the story from "The Fleer Times" behind the photograph on the front. It's describing a Phillies game where Tony Longmire hit a pinch hit home run to win a game over the Cardinals. Since Tony Longmire only hit 3 home runs in 1995 it probably wouldn't be too hard to find what game it was. I looked at the other cards I have and they all have the same background.

1995 Ultra Hitting Machines #1

1995 Ultra Hitting Machines Gold Medallion #1

I had the Frank Thomas version of the base card. Now I have the Gold Medallion version as well.

1996 Collector's Choice Crash The Game #19

Pretty extravagant finish for a contest card.

1998 Leaf Fractal Foundations #149

Leaf had a pretty complicated system of parallel cards in 1998.

1999 Sp Authentic Home Run Chronicles

1998, of course, was the year of the Home Run. I only have a few of these cards and find them unattractive. Lots of gold foil nonsense on the front. Since the card mentions a specific home run on a specific date, you'd think that maybe the photo would be of the player hitting that home run. Not in this case since the Astros were at home and Bagwell is in an away uniform.

2002 UD Superstars Keys to the City

This is an insert in a 2002 multi-sport set that I never heard of. 

2017 Topps Gypsy Queen

According to baseballcardpedia.com, Topps was trying a lower price point for Gypsy Queen this year. I paid $0.47/card this year for a blaster and a couple of packs, which is the same as I paid last year, and pretty much for every year of this product.

Topps did revamp the product. There are no mini cards in this set, which is OK by me. There are also very few insert sets (in fact only two) which aren't either parallels or autos/relics.

I've not been much of a fan of the Gypsy Queen designs over the years.

There are some nice design features this year. I like the lighter borders, the way the photo fades into the border, the curlycue things on either side of the city name, and the player name plate. I even like the fake age burn. But, the bottom part of the card is just horrible. I like the ornate Gypsy Queen logo on the back but it just takes up too much room on the front. There is also no team name on the front and no team logo anywhere, which I don't like.

Topps maintained, what I believe, is the main Gypsy Queen feature, the treatment of the photograph. This feature I've always liked, regardless the rest of the design.

I pulled two Astros (of 12 cards in the set) and two Phillies (also 12). I guess I'll buy the rest on eBay. Both teams are a bit over represented in the set.

There aren't a lot of cards featuring players in the field.

I guess this photo is from last year's All-Star game or it's a joke. In the back ground we can see various team caps (Mariners, Blue Jays, Indians, Phillies) and several team shirts (Brewers, Dodgers, Padres, or maybe it's the Nationals All-Star shirt). Even though the game was in the Padres park, the American League was the home team. Arenado was hitless in 3 ABs.

Randy Johnson rocking an Expos uni. Gypsy Queen always included a few retired players. This year they collected the retired players as cards 301-320 and made them short prints. The box proudly proclaims "1 Short Printed Base Card Guaranteed!".

I pulled two of the 10 different parallels. Can you spot the gimmick in this one?

It's apparently supposed to have been printed without the black printing plate. I don't know why the name plate is black however.

This one is a little easier.

Here are the 2 non-auto/relic inserts.

This is called the "Fortune Teller mini". It's as tall as a regular card but thinner.

Looks like 2009 Upper Deck Goudey, one of the creepiest issues of the past 20 years.

Random Cards From My Collection #83

Card #55,489 - 2016 Topps #1 Mike Trout

Can Mike Trout jump really high is is this a short fence?

Card #16,799 - 2006 Fleer Tradition #31 Bubba Crosby

The first (and only) Upper Deck produced Fleer Tradition set. At the time, I actually thought it was the best Fleer Tradition set in years. I still like it.

Card #32,549 - 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #217 Eric Thames

The second year for Gypsy Queen, and already wearing out its welcome.

Card #2,731 - 1974 Topps traded #139 Aurelio Monteagudo

If it weren't for this card, I'd have never heard of this guy. The Phillies got him from the Angels in an off-season trade after the 1973 season and then released him before the start of the 1974 season. 

Card #48,052 - 1991 Topps Micro #618 Sil Campusano

Topps issued these 'micro' cards in 1991 and 1992. I have the entire 1992 set which I just happened to see for sale in a Toys R Us in 1992. $10 for the entire boxed set. The cards are about the size of a postage stamp, and, as I'm sure I mentioned before, are a pain in the butt to own.

Card #38,851 - 2009 O-Pee-Chee #85 Joba Chamberlain

In its final death throws, Upper Deck managed to produce this fairly decent retro set.

Card #44,437 - 2007 Fleer #145 Torri Hunter

2007 was the last year for Upper Deck Fleer branded cards. The only decent set, in my opinion was the 2006 Fleer Tradition shown above.

Card #24,380 - 2008 Upper Deck First Edition #16 Carlos Lee

The ole' random number generator just keeps popping up cards from the latter days of Upper Deck. If you like Topps Opening Day, then you'll love Upper Deck First Edition. Or at least that must be what UD was thinking.

Card #27,027 - 2011 Bowman #101 Aramis Ramirez

If you're a Cubs fan, does that Citi logo bother you? I'm not a Cubs fan and it bothers me.

Card #46,833 - 1992 Topps #414 Jeff Ware

All of the 1992 Topps Draft Pick subset featured the players in street clothes. Jeff Ware is currently the pitching coach for the Lansing Lugnuts, one of my favorite minor league team names.