Card #110: A Golden Opportunity

I have been actively seeking "older" color refractors that feature Roberto Clemente.  There are so many parallels in today's cards and a lot of the legendary players are showing up in every single release that Topps puts out.  That wasn't always the case, especially for products released before 2005.

I have discovered the pure beauty of the first few years of Topps Tribute and holy smokes are they awesome to look at.

 Back in April I picked up this gold parallel of Roberto Clemente from 2003 Topps Tribute.  The gold really pops on this card.

This card is numbered to only 60 copies and it commemorates Roberto's 1st of 12 All-Star seasons that began in 1960.

Card #109: The Man Who Laughs

I have a bunch of oddball Roberto Clemente cards to show off, but I thought this one was appropriate given the subject material I used on my main blog, Collecting Cutch.

Today I wrote about bad comic book movies and this 1980 Laughlin made me think about a really good comic movie.

I am unfamilar with Laughlin products, but I know a good laugh is always good.

The Joker from 2019 starring Joaquin Phoenix is one of the best big screen adaptations of a comic book character ever.

When Jerry Robinson, Bob Kane, and Bill Finger put their creative efforts for the creation of Batman's archnemesis The Joker they used the 1928 horror film, The Man Who Laughs, as inspiration.

One look at the above poster and you can see the influence this movie had on the creation and imagery of The Joker.

It becomes even more noticable in the above production photo.

Card #108: Another Big Relic

I planned on getting back on track with posting on this blog 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday).  Since that commitment I have been doing a fairly good job with it.  I missed a Monday post last week and the previous week.  (Evidently Monday deadlines are tough for me)

I currently have over 300 Clemente cards in my collection so I should be good for showing off my old cards while still acquiring new cards.  I am hoping that in July I will have some free time to actually get caught up and update my haves list.

When it comes to Clemente I don't have much of the modern parallel cards.  There's literally hundreds of his cards produced each year.

The current total of Clemente cards produced according to TCDB is 4,969 cards.

In the year 2020 there has already been 77 cards produced.  In 2019 there was 365 cards produced.

I have plenty of options to continue this life long goal.

My first options are always cards that feature Clemente with McCutchen.  These two players are my two main PCs so if I can get a card featuring both them it is an automatic "I need that card."

Such was the case with this 2015 Topps Heritage High Numbers quad relic featuring Clemente, Stargell, Marte, and McCutchen.

Had Marte and McCutchen won a World Series for the franchise in the 2013-2015 stretch I could certainly see them both being long remembered in future tales of All-Time Great Pirates in the way that Wagner, Mazeroski, Clemente, Stargell, and the Waner Brothers are remembered.  McCutchen might still fall into that category despite not winning a Championship for the Steel City.

I showed off a similar card back in February 2019 when I posted this card.

I like that Topps used different photos for all the players involved between the quad relic and triple relics.

Card #107: It's only Naturel

Last month I showed off the first of the Project 2020 cards of Roberto Clemente.  It was done by an artist known as Mister Cartoon.  Since that post there have been four more cards produced of Clemente.

However since that late April post the prices on Project 2020 cards have skyrocketed.  That $20 card that was available through Topps.com for 48 hours is now selling in upwards of $500.  The card was one of the earliest cards printed and had a low print run of "only" 1,844 copies. 

I say "only" because in terms of low print runs that is actually kind of high compared to some others on the early releases.  However, the card with the highest print run was just announced.  The Keith Shore artist interpretation of the 1989 Ken Griffey Jr card sold nearly 100,000 copies equating to almost $1.98M in sales for Topps.

Strange things are happening with this card project and I am contemplating about selling my Clemente cards. 

This card is done by the artist Naturel.

I am contemplating the value of these cards long term and doubt that this can be sustainable. 

Would you sell any of your early low print run Project 2020 cards if you had them?

Card #106: Spring Has Sprung

The weather today is beautiful. 
It is a sunny and breezy 60 degrees. 

Spring has sprung

Let's hope baseball is back soon. 

Card #105: Only The Select

I recently picked up another of the 1994 All-Star Game cards featuring Roberto Clemente.

Attendants at the All-Star Game could receive cards from Topps, Select, Donruss, and Upper Deck.

This is card #3 in the 5 card set.

I really like the look of this card.  It has some etching and a nice shine to it.

Card # 104: A View To A Thrill

I decided to show off this 2002 Topps Super Teams Forbes Seat Relic card because it relates to the last card I showed on this blog.

These relic cards were found in the now defunct Topps Super Teams card release.  The relics were part of a set of old stadium benches and seats purchased by Topps and subsequently cut up for multiple card releases.  I have a few different Forbes Field relics, but the image used on this card is what I really like about this "A View To A Thrill"

The image matches Roberto Clemente's 1972 card release image (his last LIVING release) and was also used in the 1987 Turn Back The Clock release.


A lot of these old stadium seat relics can be had very cheaply compared to other style relics of the same player.

Now granted all Clemente did was sit his butt down on the bench in the dugout, but the presentation of this card looks awesome!

Do you have any stadium seat or clubhouse bench relics in your collection?