June has been an incredibly busy month for me. Between work and buying a new home, I haven't had much time to focus on my collection. That hasn't stopped me from adding a few cards to the collection though. Here's what I was able to pick up this month:
These three beauties come from the collection of Michael (IG: doublexthebeast). A friend of mine whom I've traded with more than a few times now. Huge shout out to him for sending these my way!
Nobody really knows how many of these exist, but I can assure you, they are Bigfoots. They almost never surface for sale and when they do pop up, they command a premium regardless of the player. From player collectors to set collectors, to collectors of rare 90s inserts, there's a big market for these cards and not a whole lot of them to go around. This is a great example where the demand far exceeds the supply, thus high prices for these little pieces of acetate.
2003 Topps Chrome - Silver Refractors #316
These Silver Refractors were a Series 2 retail-only offering. To make it even tougher, all 220 cards were packed out as redemptions that expired back in 2005. I would absolutely love to find one of the redemption cards for this card to go along with this in the collection.
2004 Fleer E-X Clearly Authentics - Bronze jersey/patch #CA-SR, SN35
I really enjoy these cards. They aren't your standard cardboard cards. They're made of some kind of acetate and they're pretty thick. This one just so happens to be serial number 27/35 - Scott's jersey number!
1999 Upper Deck Ultimate Victory - Victory #82. Inserted at a rate of 1:12 packs, these weren't incredibly tough to pull, but they just don't surface on the secondary market very often. So when I saw a pair of them pop up in the same ebay auction, I knew I needed to grab them. Especially since this was one of the cards I needed to complete the run of Ultimate Victory cards.
2000 Pacific Crown Royale - Card-Supials #16. I already had this card in my collection, but as it turns out, I only had part of the card. These cards were inserted into packs with a smaller card inside of them, thus the "Card-Supials" name. The mini card inside this one is of Lance Berkman; another hard-nosed player of one of the best eras of the game.
2005 Donruss Diamond Kings - Materials Framed Green #398, SN25 (Bat-Jersey). Another one checked off of the list of 2005 cards that seems to never end. I was contacted by a fellow collector who is in a Facebook group I'm in about this card. Mike from New York asked if I needed this one and as it turns out, I needed it. A few messages back and forth and this card was on its way to my collection. Thanks, Mike, for the sweet deal that lead to this card being added to The Rolen Collection!
2005 Donruss Studio - Portraits Zenith Red #SP-27, SN60. These cards are one of the reasons Scott has just under 1,400 different cards in 2005. There are 56 different paralles of the Donruss Studio Portraits card. One of these days I hope to have all 56 of them, but until then, I'll continue to slowly add them to the collection as they show up. That is assuming the seller doesn't want a fortune for them since most of them have low serial numbering.
2021 Topps Archives Signature Series Retired Player Edition - 2009 Topps Heritage #575, SN87. I'm not a huge fan of landscape oriented cards, but I do like this one quite a bit. A nice photo of the ol' vet here with the Reds. A bold, on-card autograph. And who doesn't love that classic Topps design? These Topps Archives Signature Series seem to never end though, and it's tough to tell just exactly how many different ones there are out there. I believe I've got a rather thorough checklist of them by now though. At least of the ones that are numbered greater than /1.
2021 Topps Archives Signature Series Retired Player Edition - 2008 Topps Allen & Ginter #91, SN57. Yes, another Topps Archives was added to the collection this month! With the addition of this one, I believe I only need two more (that aren't numbered 1/1) to complete the run. I'm a huge fan of the Allen & Ginter cards to begin with. And they look great with a nice on-card autograph. I'm not sure how Topps came up with their serial numbering for these cards, but this one has plenty of copies out there to keep them relatively inexpensive. The photo on this card is also one of my favorites of Scott in a Blue Jays jersey. It was taken during Spring Training the year he was traded to Toronto, so it's one of the first of him in his new gear.
2022 Topps - 1987 Topps All-Star Baseball Autographs #87ASA-SR. The Series 2 offering of Topps brings us this beautiful autographed card of Scott featuring him in a Cardinals jersey. A welcomed change for this Cardinals fan from the Series 1 offering of him in his Phillies jersey. Once again, I love this design! The nostalgia is overflowing with the beloved wood grain borders. And Topps got this one absolutely right with another on-card autograph. Just like the Series 1 release, these come in multiple different parallels: Black/50, Gold/25, Red/10, and of course, the Platinum/1. I'm hoping to find the Black, Gold, and Red at a reasonable price.
2022 Topps x Spotlight - Spotlight70 stamp #42, SN70. For some reason, I absolutely love this card! While I don't consider myself an art aficionado, I do appreciate the talent that people like Andy Friedman have who make art. I think another reason I really enjoy this card is that it is different than your standard photograph of the player. Even the superb photography featured on cards like Stadium Club have their limitations. When you open things up to artists, their imagination and style is their only limit. Andy, and Topps, knocked it out of the park with these!
With moving to a new house, I don't anticipate too many more additions for the next few weeks. I'm hoping that I can add at least a few cards to the collection though, as I'm still trying to get to 3,000 unique Rolen cards in the collection. Current count: 2,914.
