Some Update Fun, Zippy Style

The release of 2019 Update was one I'd been looking forward to since mid-July. Mainly because Thairo Estrada had posted on his Instagram that he was signing autographs for Topps. They were the 1984 throwback motif ones and I knew that this was Update bound. And if Thairo was gonna get certified rookie card autographs in Update, it likely meant that he was going to get rookie cards too.

And he did!
This festive little holiday themed card came to me courtesy of Once A Cub. Thairo is enjoying a massive influx of cards at the moment because he's getting the token New York Yankees rookie treatment from Topps. Luckily for me I kinda got off the Thairo collecting-boat back in 2016 because I really didn't want to deal with dipshits trying to inflate his prices just because his cards were exclusive in some capacity. Now I deal strictly with MiLB issues and not much else.

That said it is great to get a rookie card. Mainly because I can now just pair it up with the 1st Bowman Chrome and really see how far he's come since I first saw him in 2014 as a member of the Staten Island Yankees. Thairo's been through a lot since 2015 when I saw him almost daily, he survived an armed robbery/gunshot, he's survived Rule-5 roster crunches, he's continued to make the most of every opportunity he's been able to get at the big league/triple-A/double-A level. Thairo will continue to be cool to me because he just won't let anything stop him from being his usual kick-ass good at baseball self.

Also to pad out this post a little more, here's a Josh VanMeter rookie card that came to me courtesy of Night Owl Cards.

I don't really give a shit about the Cincinnati Reds but this card was one I wanted for a very specific reason.

You see, VanMeter was the prospect that the San Diego Padres traded to the Reds moments after the Reds had taken Luis Torrens in the 2016 Rule 5 Draft. Without him Torrens wouldn't have gone to San Diego and he likely would've been returned to the Yankees from the Reds.

If I had to guess, the Padres very likely knew that the Reds were picking second overall and had agreed to a trade of sorts in advance for a PTBNL so that was probably going to always be the plan. But still, it's somewhat unique to me in knowing that the guy who's been (to date) the only mortal traded in exchange for Torrens made it to the big leagues in 2019. Congrats to him.

Also if you were wondering where the heck this came from, it was yet another one of Gavin's customs. This was made and sent to me months ago (alongside the Star vs the Forces of Evil cards) but I could never really find the right timing to blog about it until now. It features both the men involved in the trade and now here in 2019 I can proudly say that both have rookie cards attached to their names.

And those were a few notes on 2019 Topps Update. Even in a product loaded with no-names that probably don't mean much to most of you, it's managed to produce some really special names for me and me alone.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

Card Show Pickups: Hell of a Haul

So this past weekend a card show was hosted at a place not too far from me. Normally I wouldn't bother since it'd be the post-Thanksgiving, dinky basement show but one of the guest autograph signers was so special that even I had to attend.

Might as well cut to the chase and start from there since you could argue that's basically where the meat for this post is coming from.

Right off the bat one of the signers was John Candelaria. The Candy Man was a free signer at this show and it was pretty great getting his autograph on a card depicting him as a New York Yankee all these years after getting an inscribed 8x10 for Bob Walk The Plank (RIP).

Candelaria was also the first player I had asked to sign with black ink since, I dunno, 2014? Reason being that I've been around the blog enough to know that the blue navy sweatshirt he's got on in the picture might not go well with the blue sharpie ink, so I asked for black to help it stand out. And I think that it worked out.

John Candelaria

As cool as Candelaria was though, the real fun came courtesy of the big name that started signing an hour after Candelaria's time slot was done.

Yup, Donnie Baseball. Don The Hit Man Mattingly.
It was because of opportunities like this that I held out on buying a certified autograph, even back when I was super into getting certified autographs of notable Yankees in 2013. Ultimately this IP auto ticket cost more than the cheapest certified Mattingly on eBay, but considering how I'm meeting the man in person and everything, it's super worth it.

You'll also notice that I went with a Drake's cakes card. One might wonder "why didn't you go with something more traditional like a 1984 rookie card or a classic 1987 card? Or even your 2017 Topps SP variation?".

I did think long and hard about going with a Topps flagship card like 1987 Topps but it kinda struck me that there are a lot of signed Mattingly flagship cards out in the world, especially that one. I wanted something a little more special and less basic. Obviously the 2017 SP fits the bill but that card's charm comes from the photograph (of Mattingly signing autographs fittingly enough), and having a big signature over it seemed really counter intuitive.

My closing argument is, how many 1985 Drake's cards do you see signed by Mattingly (or really anyone in the 44 card subset) out there? I'd assume that there aren't many.

Honestly the only card that came close to serious consideration was a 1988 Topps UK mini because of the UK mini factor, but I couldn't justify spending what I did on the ticket to get a mini signed. So I went with Drake's. Except for the 2017 SP, every other Mattingly card I had left was gifted to him on the spot. I assumed that he always see's them and gets them, but he assured me that he'll make good use of them. Thanks Don.

Don Mattingly

So yeah, two kick-ass IP autographs in one day. And both were relatively reasonable prices at that. I was very happy and honestly felt good about the stuff I was taking home with me.

Other pickups of note included this Kaapo Kakko rookie. Panini has an exclusive autograph license with Kakko so Upper Deck won't be releasing any Kakko autographs anytime soon. As of now Kakko's Young Guns (the regular ones) have yet to hit the market as he'll likely be in 2019-20 Upper Deck Series 2, as of now he only has the Score rookie cards and Young Guns Canvas rookies.

This Josh Stowers is interesting as it is shoddy. It was one of the cards that was made by Blowout Cards (yes, the online card retailer) and were part of one of the bigger box breakers' promo of some sort. For now this fills the void for the Stowers autograph slot I needed to fill in my Top NYY Prospects throughout the years thing.

This Mason Williams was once worth north of $10, now it's fallen to $3. Oof. It took a long while but the 2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects Yankees autos are slowly falling into my grasp.

See? Ben Gamel here further helps. Gamel was also a welcome "upgrade" for the top prospects project because until I got this BoChro the only other auto I had was a TTM of his on a card depicting him as a Mariner. Normally I'd be just fine with that, but this Gamel BoChro was on my mind for a while (can you believe that these were only available on eBay as BINs for $30 each even though the rare auctions went for barely $6.50?). The Stowers-Williams-Gamel was part of a bundle trade so I didn't spend any cash on it. Works for me.

All in all it was a really enjoyable show for me. This was one of the few card show hauls (as little as it might seem) where I went home feeling fulfilled and happy. A complete 180 from the show that took place around Thanksgiving in 2017. Two really awesome IP autos, an NBA superstar I really wanted and some key cards acquired via trade. As light as this might seem to all of you who have different tastes than me, I was on Cloud 9.

Then I ran into credit card issues involving charges I need to dispute (and a fraud charge too), which just fucking ruined my whole Saturday night. I hate life.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2019 IP Auto Count: 64