The Bane that is Short Prints

I've come to expect that each year I'll have to track down a short print or two in the Topps flagship set. Photo variations, retired stars or hall of famers, you name it and Topps has done it all for the sake of adding cards we collectors must chase if we want to have a "complete" team set. Sure, I could choose to ignore them completely and stick with only collecting the standard checklist, but the ocd portion of my brain would always be stewing over these cards. Of course it wasn't always like that. I still remember the junk wax days fondly knowing that I could put together a Reds team set for less than $5. Now it's not uncommon for me to spend around $20. If there's a super short print involved then all bets are off. That being said, I just noticed this past weekend that Topps released it's series 2 set for this year and I wasn't surprised to find out that there were 3 short prints in the series. I was able to track down the 12 card base set as well as the 3 short prints on eBay for just over $23. I wonder if there will come a day when Topps decides to go back to the way things were and put a stick of gum back in a pack of cards and remove those nefarious short prints from flagship. Who am I kidding, that's just asking too much.

It ain't over til it's over

It's been a year and a half since I've been able to add another card to the 2013 Topps Votto Rainbow. Patience definitely pays. I was surprised last week to see this black printing plate pop up on eBay. I already have printing plates for Opening Day, Chrome and Topps Mini but I had yet to find a printing plate for the base Topps. On top of that the other three printing plates I had were for different colors: yellow, cyan and magenta. Luckily I was able to come out as the high bidder and I'm now anxiously awaiting for it's arrival in the mail. With this pick up I'm down to just needing five more cards for my rainbow: 2013 Topps Factory Orange numbered to 230, 2013 Topps Wrapper Redemption Silver Slate numbered to 10, 2013 Topps Opening Day Toy's R Us Purple parallel, 2013 Topps Chrome Camo Refractor numbered to 15 and 2013 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor numbered to 5.

Lou Gehrig says...

Lou Gehrig says that I got this Tony Piet for a steal. I stumbled across this listing last week on eBay with a starting bid of $.99. Once the auction wrapped up this past Sunday the auction ended with a final price of $.99. There are no creases in the card and with a few fuzzy corners and a little bit of surface wear I would say that for once I came out way ahead on a listing. I love the design of the 1934 Goudeys. With the Gehrig tag line on the bottom to the sharp colors and baseball diamond drawing in the background, this is one of my favorite pre-war card sets ever produced. The Piet is the first Goudey to enter my collection and I hope to add a few more before the end of the year.

Not Everything is Black and White

That being said, everything is black and white when it comes to the 1948 Bowman set. Last week I was able to purchase 4 out of the 5 Reds cards I needed for this set at a decent price. While I'm not a huge fan of the 48 Bowman set, it still holds some significance being the first set distributed after World War II. Almost every single card I've seen of the set is either a portrait or staged photo. Bowman did follow up the 48 set with a 49 set that incorporated color, but that wasn't much of an improvement. My opinion is that if Bowman was going to use a black and white color pallet for their intro into the baseball card arena, try to make the border exciting or something. Just look at the 1922 American Carmel cards. Those cards are black and white but their design is amazing. Just my two cents. I still find it fascinating that Hank Sauer started his major league career playing for the Reds.

Milling Around

Here's the latest T206 to enter my collection. This marks my 12th T206 card and the first to feature the Old Mill advertising. I'm 11 cards shy of completing the Reds team set so I'm officially past the halfway mark on completing this team set. On a side note, I discovered that Dubuc was caught up in the largest scandal in baseball history. During the 1920 investigation into the Black Sox Scandal, evidence was discovered showing that Sleepy Bill Burns had advised Dubuc that the 1919 World Series had been fixed and that Dubuc should, therefore, bet on the Cincinnati Reds. Dubuc was neither a participant nor a conspirator in the scandal, but was pursued for his "guilty knowledge" of the fix. (according to Wikipedia).

2019 Topps

I realize that Topps released their 2019 flagship series one cards a few days ago, so I'm a little late to the party. I do like the design of this year's set. Although there aren't any borders, the hockey stick style that's reminiscent of the 1982 design comes close to providing one. I just wish Topps hadn't included the pixel effect on the cards. There are a few Reds base cards that immediately grabbed my attention in this year's series one release. The first being Billy Hamilton with the ivy at Wrigley.

I'm still disappointed that Hamilton is no longer with the Reds. Defensively, he's a beast and has some of the greatest catches I've ever seen a center fielder make. Offensively, he just doesn't have the bat to at least get on base. Maybe he'll be able to pull it together in Kansas City. The second card I admire is Joey Votto stretching before his at bat. For whatever reason, this card reminds me of all the Leaf Pete Rose cards that show Charlie Hustle doing the exact same thing.

Finally, this Votto short print is fantastic. It's something you don't see very often from Topps in a base flagship set. Every time I look at this card I hear the same phrase repeated over and over in my head, "Damn he's smooth."

So, that's my thoughts about 2019 Topps series one. I'm already looking forward to series two as long as there are no super short prints I have to chase.

Reevaluating My Collection

I'll be honest...I'm to the point of burnout when it comes to my collection. So much so that I've decided to thin out my collection in a big way. I've spent the past week posting A LOT of stuff on eBay. I've sold my 2015 Topps All Star Stitch set as well as my 1990-91 Skybox set with prototypes. I've listed my complete Kahn's Cincinnati Reds team sets as well as my HOF rookie card project and my recently started Joey Votto rookie card project. One project that I started on the beginning of last year that I never got around to blogging about was the 2015 Topps Strata Shadowbox set. I was able to acquire half of the set but decided I'll probably never finish it so I've listed the cards separately. Not sure if I'll stop here or if I'll keep purging. I know that I plan on keeping my Topps Reds cards from 1952-present as well as my 1949-51 Bowman Reds cards and my t206 Reds cards. I just feel like my collection has gotten out of hand and I want to get back to actually enjoying collecting again instead of it feeling like a chore. If anyone's interested here's the link to the stuff I have listed https://www.ebay.com/sch/shaneluck/m.html?item=123577310247&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562