Ultimate Checklist: 2008 Topps (Part I)

I'm not sure that this is out in the open, but I am a Topps collector at heart. When I got back into collecting at the end of 2006 I decided that I was going to collect Topps Detroit Tiger team sets. While I have expanded to include cards from elsewhere, it remains my primary mission to complete a set of all Tigers base cards and inserts (including Autographs and Game Used Cards, excluding parallels) from each year. Yes, that actually supercedes my collection of Granderson cards. With this in mind, I will split my Topps post into two parts. Part I is for the Curtis Granderson collection and Part II will be for the Tigers in general.

Granderson is a part of three separate releases from 2008 Topps:
1. The main Topps set (series I & series II)
2. The factory team set
3. A special 55-card Detroit Tigers gift set

In the regular Topps set, there is a nice distribution of cards. There is his base card, #330 (the last card in Series I):

From Curtis Granderson Collection

Which comes in Base, Gold Foil (unnumbered parallel), Gold (#/2008), Black (#/57), and Platinum (1/1) versions, along with the requisite printing plates. There are also a handful of inserts. Curtis joins the Year in Review (YR159) insert set for his 20-20-20-20 season,

From Curtis Granderson Collection

and he is featured in Topps' "Trading Card History" set (TCH49) on the front of a card designed after 1961 Topps. Unfortunately, I do not have this card in my collection, hence no picture to show off.

Most notably, Curtis made the cut into Topps' "silk" collection--a parallel series in which his base card is reprinted onto a miniature piece of silk and placed into a protective border the size of a normal card. His card is one of 100 base cards to be included in the Silk Collection, each of which is serial numbered to 50. See?

From Curtis Granderson Collection

This may be my favorite card from the set. Yes, I know it is gimmicky and not particularly practical, but you know what? It is kind of neat. There's even a little opening in the plastic so that you can touch the silk. It is a fun insert that provides a nice break in the general monotony of cards with an overpowering amount of white. That card wraps up the main release.

In the Team set, Granderson has card DET10 which uses the same picture as his base card, but is inverted out of a landscape format.

From Curtis Granderson Collection

The 55 card factory set (more about this in Part II) features 8 Granderson cards, many of which recognize his accomplishments from the previous year. My favorite of these, depicting Granderson having just competed doing something awesome, is featured below. The rest can be found in my collection.

From Curtis Granderson Collection

There is a whole lot more Tigers fun in 2008 Topps, which I will cover in Part II, but Granderson's involvement can be summarized into 13 different cards and 4 parallels + 4 (?) printing plates of base card #330. More Topps Fun to follow!