Tigers Gallery Checklist: 2010 Topps Finest

Oh Topps Finest, how I adore you. For some reason, you were never on my radar as a young collector--too expensive, I suppose--and I was blissfully ignorant of your existence right up until I saw these staring back at me. Now, three years into my world, you've done it again. Bold, Shiny and Colorful you make any collector smile, and any player collector giddy with anticipation over completing the coveted "rainbow" of your cards--despite the fact that they know in their heart of hearts that it probably is not to be.

Alas, I am out of the player collection business, but I can't help but create a scenario in which I start picking up some Finest just because.

Base Set The knock on the Finest base set is that it is little. 5 Tigers, one of whom is this season's "rookie that is in every set even though he won't make the team and isn't even the third most important rookie in the system," Brent Dlugach. Dollars to Donuts says that Austin Jackson is treated to a redemption a la Rick Porcello in 2009 Finest.

As is my way, I will highlight the "base set" in the form of much better looking refractor parallels. In this case, the Blue Refractor. The "rainbow," for those keeping score, would include the base card, and the following refractors: regular (#/599), Blue (#/299), Green (#/99), Gold (#/50), Red (#/25), Purple (1/1)

Note: This is one of those sets for which there is no checklist yet, but based on what I'm seeing on eBay, I think I'm in the ballpark on this one, even as it pertains to inserts and autographs etc. As always, if I'm wrong let me know and I will correct as necessary.

#31 Miguel Cabrera	#58 Brandon Inge	#87 Justin Verlander
#101 Rick Porcello	#145 Brent Dlugach RC

Autographs Bare bones Tigers inserts and hits this year: Rick Porcello gets a "Finest Moments" autograph, which is on a sticker (BOOOOOOOO!!!). As far as I can tell, that (with it's parallel versions) is it for non-base Tiger cards in the set. Oh well. Multi-colored refractors it is then...

2010 Topps Finest #FMA-RP Rick Porcello "Finest Moments" Autograph

And that's all she wrote for Finest. I need to get some of these in hand, but from the looks of things, they stack up very nicely to the 2009 version, which was arguably my favorite design from last year.

...But Wait, There's more! Thanks to sruchris, in the comments, it turns out that there is another card on the Tigers checklist that is worth mentioning. It is a "RC Patch" for Brent Dlugach. This is different from the Manufactured Letter patches, as you will see, and is numbered to 50 copies. Essentially, it is just the picture from Dlugach's regular card, turned horizontal and with a huge rookie logo patch on it. To wit:

2010 Topps Finest #145 Brent Dlugach RC Patch Logo (#/50)

Also in the manufactured patch realm, the first Tiger to make an appearance in Topps' year-long, cross-producted "Logoman" continuity set has come to the fore. It is none other than Miguel Cabrera looking shiny and awesome:

2010 Topps Finest #LM-25 Miguel Cabrera (#/50)

It isn't a Finest card per se, it isn't branded "Finest", after all, but it comes in the packs so it goes on the list. Once they're all out, I may re-label these as part of a different Topps subset, but we'll just have to wait and see for that.

And, barring a secret redemption announcement (I wouldn't rule out a Rookie Redemption), that should be it for Tigers in Finest.