Monthly Mailbag - June 2025

Just as I had suspected, things have cooled down somewhat for The Rolen Collection. While my daily purchasing has slowed down quite a bit, it's partially due to working on some other acquisitions for the collection which will be outlined in a separate blog post. Anyway, even though my day to day purchases have slowed down, they haven't stopped altogether. Here is what I was able to pick up this month:

2005 Playoff Prestige - Prestigious Pros Platinum #PP-50, SN25. In 2005 the parallel game was taking on a life of it's own. As such, there were so many different parallels of different cards. This is one of those parallels. After adding this one to the collection, I reviewed my checklist. I only need the Gold (#/50) and the Black (#/10) to finish off the full run of these parallels. In and of itself, it's not an overly attractive card, especially in the scans. In hand though, the use of foil on the front of these cards looks pretty good (for a landscape oriented card.)

2006 Upper Deck Hawaii Trade Conference Signature Dual Jumbos #HTC2WR, SN10. I am really excited to be able to add this one to my collection this month! I've not been able to find a lot of information on these, but they were available at the Hawaii Trade Conference and they were distributed in wooden boxes that served as the "pack". This isn't a standard sized card; it's actually a 5x7 which precludes it from being stored with the majority of my collection. I do have it nicely displayed on my memorabilia shelf next to my card collection though!

2015 Topps Allen & Ginter - 10th Anniversary Buyback 2012 A&G Framed mini #236. Back in 2015, there wasn't a lot of stuff being released of Scott. He had retired just a few years prior and he wasn't really on the radar for the Hall of Fame just yet. That's where Topps Allen & Ginter entered the space for Rolen. They were celebrating their 10th anniversary and started buying back a lot of cards throughout the years. They then stamped them with a 10th Anniversary Issue foil on the front and inserted them into packs at a rate of 1 in every 12 packs. There isn't a checklist of these cards that I've been able to find, but I always keep my eyes open for new ones that I'm missing.

2024 Leaf Vivid - Crystal Red #57, SN8. I'm really torn on these Leaf cards. On one hand - there are just too many of them. On the other hand - they are done really well. There are a ton of different foils and different color parallels of all the different foils. With that said, I am drawn to these cracked ice versions of these cards. They are all really low serial numbered cards, so some sellers want to sell them for the equivalent of a mortgage payment. I just can't bring myself to pay that kind of money, so when these show up for cheap enough, I'll certainly add them to my collection.

2024 Leaf Vivid - Crystal Yellow #57, SN10. Just as I have covered above, here is the yellow parallel of the card. With this one being serial numbered to 10, it is the most "common" parallel of the cracked ice or "Crystal" as Leaf calls it. There are 10 different color parallels for the Crystal lineup. With the addition of these this month, I'm still missing the Navy Blue (#/7), White (#/6), Green (#/4), Orange (#/3), Purple (#2), and Teal (#/1). I also have several of the "Pre-Production Proof" cards that are basically just the foil front and completely missing the backs of the cards.

2024 Panini Donruss - Presidential Collection #12, SN46. Another product that has a litany of parallels! This particular parallel has been quite elusive. Outside of the printing plates, and the Black 1/1, this was one of the last two cards I needed to complete this run. The other card that I still need to find is the Black Artist Proof (#/25). I'm not even sure if that card exists as I haven't seen one listed for sale anywhere. It is very possible that I may have missed one, but it's not for lack of looking for it. I really like this photo of Rolen on these cards and I'd love to get all of the parallels in my collection.

2024 Panini Donruss - Signature Series Black #SS-SR, SN1. This card was originally pulled from a pack back in August of last year. The collector that pulled it reached out to me on Instagram and asked if I was interested in buying the card. We chatted about it for a short time and then nothing ever came of it. I'm guessing he was looking to get more money for the card since it is a 1/1. I'm not mad at him for trying to get as much as he could for the card. I wasn't completely heartbroken that we couldn't get a deal done back then. Fast forward to this month and he reached back out to me saying he still had the card and, if I was still interested, he'd sell it to me for the price we had agreed on back in August. I sent him a message letting him know that I was definitely still interested and a deal was quickly done. The auto on this sticker isn't the finest copy of Rolen's autograph, but I'll forgive him because this was likely the 10,000th sticker he signed. This is another example of a card that looks far better in person than it does in this scan. It has some great shine to it!

2024 Panini Select - Tie-Dye Prizms #72, SN25. You have all heard it before - I'm not a huge fan of landscape oriented cards. Especially if they don't feature an autograph or some kind of memorabilia. With all of that said, I do appreciate when the photo used on the card makes the orientation make sense. I believe this card is a great example of that. Even though they had to remove all team logos, the photograph they used of Scott in mid-swing on this card makes it a really nice card! This Tie-Dye parallel reminds me of some of our favorite 90s Chrome refractors too...it has some great etching that makes the light really dance off the surface of the card!

2024 Topps Pro Debut - MiLB Legends Autograph #MILB-SR, SN25. For some reason, this card wasn't even on my checklist. I typically source my checklist from multiple sources including TCDB and Beckett along with the manufacturer's website. I'm not sure how, but this one didn't make my main Rolen checklist. That made it even sweeter for me when I saw this one pop up for sale this month. Sure, it's a sticker auto, but it's a clean version of his signature (much nicer than those Panini stickers).

2025 Topps - 1990 Topps Autographs Gold #90B2-SR, SN50. I jumped on this card early on and I'm glad I did! It was the first Gold parallel that I saw pop up on ebay. The seller listed it for a Buy It Now price with the Best Offer turned on. I shot him an offer, he countered, and I quickly accepted. I'm not sure why these cards are selling for so much right now, but I feel like it'll be a while before I'm able to add any more of them to my collection. I realize that they're still relatively new, but there's no way I can justify paying the current prices. As for the card itself, I'm a huge fan. The 1990 Topps design really pulls at my nostalgic heartstrings. I had SO many of those cards in my collection back in the day.

While I was able to add 10 cards to my collection this month, it doesn't really seem like very many compared to previous months recently. With that said, it was a really great month! I love all the cards I was able to pick up and I still have more that I added this month that will be covered in a future post. Be sure to check back soon to read about those!