Welcome to my second installment of Monthly Mailbag! I've been picking up new cards for my collection at a pretty steady pace this month. Things have cooled off a bit though, so there weren't any huge additions to the collection. What I do have is several cards outlined below as well as a gallery of other cards I've added this month. Those cards aren't any less important to my collection, but I didn't want to keep you here for hours reading about every single card I added this month.
2000 Topps Gold Label - Class 2 Gold #9, SN/100. Don't let this dull looking scan fool you, these cards SHINE! This particular copy has some condition issues with the die cut edges, but it was pretty cheap so I decided to pick it up. Limited to 100 copies, these cards don't show up for sale very often.
2021 Topps Tier One - Tier One Talent Autographs Bronze Ink T1TA-SR. If you'll recall, I picked up another bronze ink autograph from the Tier One set last month. That card pictured Rolen in his Cardinals uniform and the ink was gold instead of bronze. It looks like the Topps representative that was witnessing the signing of these cards realized the error and had Rolen change markers to sign the rest of these cards properly.
2001 Topps - Employee #478. Back in 2001, Topps produced factory sets with special embossing to give their employees at their New York office as a bonus. The embossing says, "Limited Edition For Topps 1951-2001." It is believed that there were only 151 of these sets made that year.
Just like the regular issued Topps cards from 2001 (and several other years), these cards have a UV coating on them that is prone to "bricking" the cards if they're stored in less than ideal conditions. This particular card was a bricking victim, as you can tell by the snowy appearance. Being a player collector, I don't really mind the condition too much, especially for a card this rare.
Big thanks to Jared for hooking me up with this tough to find card!
1999 Topps MVP Promotion #125. Seeded at 1:515 packs, these cards were already tough to come by. Finding a Scott Rolen MVP Promotion is substantially more difficult than the insertion odds lead one to believe. Not only were there only 100 of these cards produced, but there were 416 different cards in the MVP Promotion!
Making the hunt for Scott's card even more difficult is the fact that he was chosen as Player of the Week by Topps during the promotion. That means that if you possessed this card, you could sent it in to Topps for a complete 25 card set of MVP exchange cards. Topps did not return the promotion card to the winners of the set. One could easily assume that there are now less than 100 of these cards in collections.
1999 Skybox Premium - Intimidation Nation #7, SN/99. This card had been a sleeper for me for years. I mean, I knew they were extremely limited with just 99 copies produced, but what I didn't know was just how gorgeous these cards are.
I had only ever seen pictures of some of the bigger names from this set and pictures alone do NOT do these cards justice.
Once I saw an Intimidation Nation in a video, the Rolen from this set quickly moved closer to the top of my want list. With guys like Griffey, Jeter, Thomas, and Chipper bringing three digit prices, I was hopeful that I'd find a copy of Rolen for a fraction of those prices.
Luck was on my side and one finally hit eBay. It was listed with what I considered to be a fair price, but I had already spent my budget on cards, so I put it on my watch list. To my surprise, when I checked on the card again, it was not only still there, but the seller lowered the price.
The BIN was hit and I had to begin the worst phase of card acquisition...USPS shipping. The sale occurred on 6/4 and the seller shipped the card the very next day. Watching the tracking information I noticed that the card got hung up at a USPS hub location. I made my way to the local post office to inquire about the package on 6/15 since there was no movement being shown on the tracking since 6/6. A mere three minutes after I inquired about the package, the tracking information was updated and the card was at my local post office. My card finally arrived the next day and I can now breath a huge sigh of relief!
1998 Finest - Centurion C4 (Missing SN). I added this card to my collection recently for a couple of reasons. I had passed it by many times because I already have the Centurion with the proper serial numbering. One of the reasons I added this card to my collection is because of the novelty of having a production quality card that is missing the serial number. I'm assuming, by the quality of this card, that it had to have been a replacement card produced by Topps in case one of the packed out versions was damaged. This card is just as nice as my copy that has the serial numbering; it even has the protective coating applied to the surface. It is the same exact size as my serial numbered copy and everything. The other reason I picked up this copy (as well as one other that the seller had) is because this card very well could be more rare than the packed out version that is serial numbered to 500.
2021 Topps Tier One - Dual Autographs w/Rhys Hoskins DA-RH. Another new release from this year added to the collection. Topps definitely did a great job with these cards getting the players to autograph the actual card and not some ugly sticker that someone would later apply to the cards. There were just 25 copies of this card produced, but that doesn't hold much weight with me. These days "manufactured scarcity" is pretty much commonplace in the hobby we love. What did draw me to this card was the pictures of Rolen and Hoskins that they used as well as the colors used on the card. The pairing of the players on this card comes not from the position they play(ed), but the team and jersey number that they share (Phillies 17).
In the gallery below you will find other cards that I've acquired this month. Nothing super special, but they were cards that I was missing from the collection and I'm happy to add them this month!
I've already got more cards incoming for next month's Monthly Mailbag, so be sure to check back to see what else I've added to the collection!
