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Fun With Topps Baseball Cards

A while back, I wrote about how I was trying to fill in some missing Topps baseball card sets. Mission accomplished, and I now own every Topps set from 1978 through 2005. A key set that comes out every year is the Topps Traded set. Not only does this set show their player in the correct uniform at year end (so Placido Polanco has a card in a Tiger uniform, while in the base set, he was in a Phillies attire), it also have all of the rookies that debuted during the season and it also has a card for each of the draft picks. So I believe Felix Hernandez’s first card is in this set as is Justin verlander’s.

One thing they did change is, it’s no longer the “Traded” set, it’s the “Updates and Highlights” set. And it’s a lot larger. This year’s set checks in at 330 cards, while a lot of the older sets barely topped the 100 card mark. I liken this to Series 3 of the Topps set.

The problem is, they’re not sold in sets. I bought a couple of boxes of packs from Sports Card Central. My local card shop closed up and I found Sports Card Central through ebay and I’ve been using them ever since. Very professional and if you buy enough stuff, they’ll eat the shipping.

Anyway, I’ve been busy opening up and sorting my cards. I bought what I thought was well more then I needed to complete the set and I was pretty much correct. I say pretty much, because I now have a dilemma.

I’m missing one card. Carlos Lee’s Homerun Derby card. And the odds of a card shop having loose cards this soon for this set are pretty slim. So my options are to wait and hope I can pick up the card from someone, or buy another box of packs, which could produce a second set. I’m still on the fence.

What I did find was how much fun I had going through them. It’s something I miss, and now I think instead of buying factory sets, I’ll buy packs and build my own sets. This is beneficial because you get some special inserts now and then and you also get extras. So even though I’m a card short of the set, I have three Felix Hernandez cards. Not too shabby.

***UPDATE***

Well, I finished the sorting last night (Wed) and it looks like I do only need the one card.



Buy more packs!
You can never go wrong with just a couple of more packs to open on a snowy and cold day.

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Posted by Nook Logan Fan on November 30th, 2005 at 3:35 pm

go to beckett.com, go to “shop”, then scroll down to “buy, sell, trade”.there you can search for any card you need.you will need to become a member but its free and quick and you can also sell your extras.-jon

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Posted by jon on November 30th, 2005 at 8:39 pm

right there on the main page of your Sports Card Central website, is:

“2005 Topps Update & Highlights Factory Set
$39.00”

just buy that and be done with it…

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Posted by Fred on December 1st, 2005 at 7:52 am

Is my memory failing, or is it you that has a young son? Trust me, the available time to go through packs of cards will soon be an oh-so-distant memory, so enjoy this one. It might be your last for a while.

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Posted by jeff k on December 1st, 2005 at 10:29 am

Fred – The set wasn’t available (or at least I didn’t see it) when I preordered my cards. At this point, if I were going to drop $40, I’d be better off just buying another box of packs, knowing I might build a second set.

Jeff – Yeah, my son is almost a year and a half. And I have time to sort cards and go through packs, it’s just later in the evening when he goes down.

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Posted by Brian on December 1st, 2005 at 3:35 pm


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