topps...(sheesh)...again.

As most of you know (mostly due to me mentioning it numerous times), I am putting together the legends variations sets from 2009, 2010 and 2011. I've worked the most on '10 and '11, as I figure I'll do '09 once these are done. Now, being that we, the collectors, have only one company to rely on for our cards, we are no stranger to Topps. Topps likes to reuse photos on their cards, or even just use older photos for a current release. Just check out Luke Hochevar from 2011 series 2 (card #620), you'll notice that on his arm is a 40th anniversary patch for the Royals organization. Seeing as how the Royals debuted in 1969, I believe this photo was taken in 2009. Used on a 2011 card. They couldn't get another picture of him? Or at least airbrush the patch out? Or look at Aaron Hill from 2010 and 2011. Both the same picture, taken probably in 2009. Seriously. This however, was the one that takes the cake:

George Sisler. Certainly one of the greats of the game but they had no other photos of him? Every one of these came out in 2010! Two short prints on top (series 1 and Update for the team card) and two inserts on the bottom (Turkey Red and Vintage Legends). I know he played from 1915 to 1930 and photos were limited back then but really, find a new picture. I know they exist, I've seen them! Conlon had a couple. Even a few Topps cards from other sets or years had different ones. Just laziness I guess. That or money. They probably have the license to certain photos from his estate and are limited to them. Ah, well.

On the legends variation front, I am almost finished with 2010 and 2011. As of right now, I need 4 for 2011 (3 are on the way) and 5 for 2010 (4 are on the way). For the 2010, some of the series 1 cards get tough to find. Roger Maris and Stan Musial proved to be the toughest and I had to get Musial off of checkoutmycards.com because it never really surfaces on eBay. Maris also rarely appears and I still have trouble locating one. 2011 I only need the Mantle but it's not a matter of finding it, I just don't want to pay $20 just because its Mickey. Once these two years I'll work on 2009, which I have about 8 of so far.

stuff you may have missed (part2)

Here is the second installment of stuff you may have missed. As stated yesterday, Topps added a few exclusive cards to their factory sets this year. Lets see what we have today, shall we?

Here are cards numbered RC1-RC5:

Here are cards numbered RC6-RC10:

The rookies, or at least the most popular rookies of this season. My reason for showing these off are simple; maybe you haven't seen them. I know some of you guys collect Braves, Orioles, Marlins, Tigers, etc. and in your quest of collecting these teams and players, you may not have come across these cards before and maybe you want to add them to your collection. These are not for trade, but I assure you that they can be found relatively cheap. Plus its another Strasburg! Don't we all collect him? Or is that just what Topps wants us to do? I forget. They did have three more exclusive sets that I haven't gotten my hands on yet. Those being 5 card sets for the following teams: Phillies, Red Sox and Yankees. Each team got an exclusive themed box and a 5 card pack of variations. I think I'll get them eventually.

A 54 came today too!

a Rookie of the Moose! His birthday is in three days too as it states on the back of the card. Though a quick Wikipedia look-up suggests that his birth year was 1930, when the card says 1928. I wonder who is right.

stuff you may have missed (part1)

Topps added some cards to their factory sets this year. I know this is nothing new, they add gimmicks to their sets all the time. Be it a Mantle manu-patch like 2009, or the Mantle relics of 2007, there is always something extra. I thought I would take the time to show you guys some of the cards they did add to the factory sets this year, in case you missed them.

This set came in the All Star game edition of the factory set. It is only Angels cards numbered AS1-AS5. All horizontal and great in game shots makes for some great cards for Angels collectors (there has to be some of you....right?)

This next set of five are the veteran variations, numbered RS1-RS5. Just different shots of some of the star players in either series. I'm not exact on which factory set these came in but I'll guess retail until I find out otherwise.

You can find these cards individually or by the set on eBay as I did, and for relatively cheap too. I think the Angels set ran me 5 bucks and the Veterans ran me 10. I believe it was the hobby sets that came with the red bordered, numbered to 299 parallels but I am not positive if they came with any sort of variation set. As the title mentions, this is part 1. I will be posting up the second part tomorrow.