Grand Cards: Now What Are These?

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Now What Are These?

Note: 2011 Topps moratorium over

Some of my favorite cards every year are retail exclusive inserts. To me, they present a true collector's challenge that can't be solved by buying case after case. Hell, half the time, we don't even know these cards exist. They are never officially released by Topps, they seldom make their way to Beckett, even Baseballcardpedia, which is fast becoming the go-to resource for checklists and product information, misses some of these.

Sure, we know about the Red Diamonds (Target), and the Blue Diamonds (Walmart). But did you know that there are Purple Diamonds (Toys R Us)? Does anybody have a clue as to what that checklist looks like? No.

But that's not all. Now, there are these:




Those are "Blue Sapphire" inserts that are allegedly exclusive to Wal Mart. I have no idea what product option they come from, no idea if there is a Target equivalent, and no idea of the checklist. There are at least two (and probably only two) Tigers though. WHM-3 (Cobb) and WHM-15 (Cabrera).

Other than the fact that they really, really look like they belong in 2010, I like them.

Let the chase begin!

Update--the appear to come from WalMart "Hanger Packs," whatever those are. Rack packs, maybe?