Flashing Some Green

For no reason whatsoever, I felt compelled to show off all the Green cards that I have in my still-intact Granderson collection:

2008 Triple Threads #187a Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/50)

2008 Triple Threads #187b Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/50)

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/499)

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson Emerald Relic (#/25)

2008 UD Spectrum #SS-GR Curtis Granderson Green Relic (#/50)

2008 UD First Edition #SQ-39 Curtis Granderson Starquest

2008 Goudey #69 Curtis Granderson Green Mini (#/88)

2007 Triple Threads #129a Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/50)n

2008 Topps Co-Signers #33a Curtis Granderson Green (#/200)

2009 Topps Finest #102 Curtis Granderson Green (#/99)

2009 Topps #CBQR-CG Curtis Granderson Career Best Quad (#/20)

Now please continue to enjoy your otherwise nondescript Wednesday.

Shiny Happy Cardboard People

Blogging is an outlet, which means that I can project shiny happiness despite having just spent all of yesterday at airports, being delayed by multiple hours to get down to my final destination of the not-New Orleans or Baton Rouge parts of Louisiana. Where it is raining. Consider prolonged blog absence explained.

Anyway, this is a good early morning post, as I set myself up for some positive thinking. All of these cards came in over the last few weeks.

I love Refractors on cards. They are awesome. In fact, I've found that I have grown tired of regular chrome cards, to the point where they don't capture my attention at all, but give me some rainbow-reflecting parallels and I'll just lap them up. Like this one:

2009 Bowman Chrome #26 Curtis Granderson Refractor

I already liked Curtis' regular Bowman card this year, and the chrome refractor--especially when you can capture it with the right ratio of colored streaks--is outstanding. Truly outstanding are things like the blue-border refractors and the lower numbered parallels, but those are harder to come by, and therefore not yet in my collection.

With the technology the same, it is no surprise that the Topps Chrome version looks just as good.

2009 Topps Chrome #120 Curtis Granderson Refractor

Seriously. I might consider abandoning my entire collection just to go after all of Granderson's chrome refractors of things, in their multi-paralleled glory. Just look how much better it is than the regular card:

2009 Topps Chrome #120 Curtis Granderson

Not even close.

One exception to this can be found in Topps Finest, where this years cards were uniformly outstanding. The base cards were nothing to sneeze at--they had more dimension than your typical shiny cards--but again, the refractors really pop:

2009 Topps Finest #102 Curtis Granderson Refractor

Of course, Topps hasn't always hit the nail on the head. I was thoroughly unimpressed with what they offered in Topps Co-Signers. To quote myself:

It is fine, I guess, but for me it is way too shiny. That shine is not classy and visually stimulating like Topps Chrome, it is disorienting and bothersome, like a mirror to a cat. Notice my hands and camera sharply reflecting off the card.

2008 Topps Co-Signers #33 Curtis Granderson Green Parallel (#180/200)

See? Way too shiny. Co-Signers was card fail, even in the rarer parallel versions. Kind of. It was fail until I got the "hyper-plaid" parallel versions. I will use my pictures here in place of 3000 words:

2008 Topps Co-Signers #33 Curtis Granderson HyperPlaid Blue (#18/50)

2009 Topps Co-Signers #33 Curtis Granderson HyperPlaid Red (#024/100)

2008 Topps Co-Signers #33 Curtis Granderson HyperPlaid Bronze (#12/75)

Those are awesome. It just goes to show that there are good cards in bad products. Topps may never make these again, and the pictures may not even do them proper justice, so I recommend running out and picking up a "hyper-plaid" card for yourself. They are like Xfractors on acid.

So, that's it for today. Shiny cards abound to brighten up my dreary day on the Bayou. Regular posting should continue in the future as soon as I'm back surrounded by the comforts of home (and can take more pictures of new cards).

This Just In: Topps Co-Signers with Curtis and a Yank

I've never been a big fan of Topps Co-Signers. In fact, the 2008 iteration drew considerable ire in my Ultimate Checklist review last year. So many parallels! So little difference! Of course, there is one thing about Co-Signers that kind of works and is free from the parallel bug --the whole reason that the set is called Co-Signers in the first place:

2007 Topps Co-Signers #CS-GC Curtis Granderson/Melky Cabrera

First of all, in 2007 this pairing made a lot of sense. Two up-and-coming centerfielders destined for stardom, or at least solid MLB careers. This is Granderson's only pairing with a non-Tiger in this set. His other two cards feature Jeremy Bonderman, who used to be a pitcher, and Craig Monroe, who used to play in the Major Leagues.

Secondly, let me speak for a moment about the use of sticker autographs. Yesterday, Dinged Corners put together a wonderful piece on autograph collecting which included a hierarchy of autograph desirability. Using their list, which I highly recommend become the accepted standard industry-wide:

Best: meet and talk with the player in a pleasant interaction

2nd best: Player signs and says a few words but doesn't make eye contact

3rd best: Player signs but looks like he'd rather be swimming with alligators

4th best: Through the mail with a personal note from player

5th best: Through the mail, autograph only

6th best: "Certified" autograph pulled unexpectedly from a pack

7th and STINKY: Sticker autograph

Boy, those sticker autographs don't come in highly. I understand why--there is no player interaction--the player didn't even touch the card--they are impersonal, they throw off the aesthetic of the card etc. I wholly agree with this from an autograph collecting point of view. From a card collecting point of view, I'm less of a stickler. In this sense, I can get on board with sticker autographs. For one, they allow more cards of my player of choice to be autographed. For two, they can allow for interesting combination autographed cards. Three, the much maligned cold shininess of the Topps sticker can work, especially in a product like Co-Signers, which is already rather cold and much too shiny. This set was discontinued for a reason, people.

In all, the design of the card can accentuate the problems of sticker autographs--far too much attention is given to the sticker and not enough to the players--as is the case with these Co-Signers offerings. Still, all of these flaws make cards like this eminently affordable, and who doesn't like the opportunity to add a signed Curtis Granderson card to their collection for the same amount as a low-numbered hyper-plaid, X-Shininator Co-Xtreme parallel with no signature at all?

Ultimate Checklist: 2008 Topps Co-Signers

Looking at my Calendar, I realize that there are about three weeks before 2009 releases hit us full steam. By my count, there are still about 20 2008 releases that I still need to chronicle. So, I will attempt to post these at a semi-furious pace while continuing to work on my series on Card Valuation.

2008 Topps Co-Signers and I are not friends. I give you card #33, Curtis Granderson's base card. It is non-offensive, not inspiring and nothing particularly special. I have no problems with it, but I often forget that it is in my collection because it is so unremarkable.

From Curtis Granderson Collection

Clearly, with a base set like that, there must be some killer inserts and parallels to really make things exciting, right? Granderson's parallel cards are split into two sub-categories: #33a and #33b. 33a is a shiny parallel that features a silhouette-y image of Curtis in the background of the card.

From Curtis Granderson Collection

It is fine, I guess, but for me it is way too shiny. That shine is not classy and visually stimulating like Topps Chrome, it is disorienting and bothersome, like a mirror to a cat. Notice my hands and camera sharply reflecting off the card.
33b uses the Spectre of Carlos Guillen instead of Granderson in the background, and adds "Carlos Guillen" to the side of the card. Otherwise, it is exactly the same.

From Curtis Granderson Collection

I like the concept of featuring two players on the card, I really do. But seriously, this is a one player card with an almost unnoticeable shadow of the other player. Were the refractor technology really specialized so that from some angles it looks like it is one player and from others it looks like the second, then maybe we can talk. Oh well.

I know that I'm being negative and that I said that we're not friends, but up to this point I've only provided justification for why I don't think the set is great. We are not friends because Co-Signers has 11 parallels for 33a AND 33b, plus printing plates. That is ridiculous, mostly because there is not enough color in these cards to make them particularly distinguishable. I mean really, what is the difference between SilverBronze and SilverGold when the majority of the card is a reflection? Also, the hyperplaid cards (of which I have none) don't really do it for me in pictures. Maybe they're better in person. Anyway, the parallels are numbered thusly and hold for 33a and 33b:

SilverRed #/400
SilverBronze #/300
SilverBlue #/250
SilverGreen #/200
SilverGold #/150
Hyper Plaid Red #/100
Hyper Plaid Bronze #/75
Hyper Plaid Blue #/50
Hyper Plaid Green #/25
Hyper Plaid Gold #/10
Hyper Plaid Silver 1/1

The highlights of the set, are a pretty nice looking Triple Auto (#MGY) featuring Granderson, Cameron Maybin (former Tiger, current Marlin), and Chris Young of the Diamondbacks. That's a good cross-section of young outfielders and seems perfectly good, although I don't have one of my own to show off. There is also a dual autograph of Granderson and Jerome Cochran (#CG) that was released as a redemption and hasn't yet reared its head in picture form.

So there is Co-Signers. That is all.