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Best Mets Cards of 2013

Posted by on 6 January 2014 Comments Off on Best Mets Cards of 2013

Pitching dominates this year’s awards

It’s 2014, which means I’m running a bit behind on my 2013 wrap-up articles. The last few posts have covered most of the interesting cards from the last year, so now it’s time to narrow things down to just the best of the best so you don’t have to dig through 5,000 words for just the few things you’re interested in. Only 1,800 words…

Best Manufactured Material

2013 Topps Series 2 Tom Seaver Proven Mettle Coin

Not much has improved in this category since last year, so this award goes to a Seaver coin again. At least there was more player diversity this year and it wasn’t just all Seaver all the time.

Worst Manufactured Material

2013 Topps Pro Debut Travis d’Arnaud Hat Logo Patch

So many things are going on here, all of them wrong. Wrong team, wrong logo, wrong, wrong, wrong. I don’t know what Topps was going for with this one, but it sure wasn’t anything that made sense.

Best Parallel Insert Set

2013 Topps Archives Orange Parallel

Last year, I went with the Archives gold parallel here. This year, Topps changed the formula and the gold parallel just didn’t look that good. The orange parallel on the other hand was something unique among the multitudes of parallels released in 2013. Available only one per pack in 25 cent Archives packs at participating hobby shops, these cards fluoresce in UV light. Unfortunately, I didn’t pull a single Met out of more than 100 packs and had to go to eBay for these…

Best Base Insert

2013 Bowman Inception Jose Reyes Sapphire Reprint

With parallels, autographs, game-used, and manufactured material accounting for most of the inserts out there, it can be hard to find contenders for this category. I found three: the Jose Reyes sapphire rookie reprint from Bowman Inception, the Tom Seaver Cut to the Chase die-cut chrome insert from Topps Series 2, and the Matt Harvey Prodigies die-cut refractor from Topps Finest. I’ll give Reyes the edge here, though it should be noted that a David Wright version could be found in Bowman Sterling (the Reyes looks better).

Best Rookie Card

2013 Panini Prizm Scott Rice

Five Mets had Rookie Cards in 2013: Jeurys Familia, Collin McHugh, Zack Wheeler, Scott Rice, and Juan Lagares. All of them had at least a Rookie Card (and all of the standard parallels) in base Topps except for Scott Rice. After 14 years in professional baseball, Rice made his MLB debut with the Mets in 2013 and received Rookie Cards in just 2013 Panini Prizm.

Best Sticker Autograph

2013 Topps Opening Day Mr. Met Mascot Autograph

An autograph from the best sports mascot ever? Nothing else even comes close.

Best On-Card Autograph

2011 Bowman Platinum Matt Harvey

How does a card from 2011 Bowman Platinum qualify for the 2013 awards? Well, when it takes two full years for the cards to just be signed, you can’t really call these 2011 autograph cards. Harvey autographs were some of the hottest cards released this year and none were dated 2013. It’s been a strange year.

If you insist on having autographs from the actual 2013 product year in this category, here are a few worth noting.  Shown here are the first Mets autographs from Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard, the last Mets autograph from R.A. Dickey, and an autograph on a thick slab of clear plastic.

Worst Autograph

2013 Topps Series 2 Collin Cowgill Chasing History Autograph

Sticker autograph, photoshopped black jersey, player who was traded shortly after the card was released. And then Topps made a second attempt in Topps Update that at least fixed the jersey issue. This card has no reason to exist.

Best Uniform Memorabilia Card

2013 Topps Tier One Matt Harvey
2013 Topps Triple Threads Jeurys Familia
2013 Topps Five Star David Wright Jumbo Jersey (blue jersey variant)

Technically, this should probably go to the 2013 Topps Triple Threads Harvey/Wright/Wheeler triple jersey card, but that was out of my price range. Instead, have a bunch of blue jerseys. Except for the Wright, which I haven’t been able to get yet…

Best Patch Card

2012 Panini National Treasures Matt Harvey

Depending on the variant, this one could qualify for best jersey or patch. Either way, this is one of those cards that was a must-have regardless of the price before Harvey’s card prices went through the roof. Because now you sure can’t afford it.

Best Bat Card

2013 Topps Triple Threads R.A. Dickey

Bat cards just aren’t very common anymore. This year, the only Mets bat card worthy of this award isn’t a Mets bat card at all. R.A. Dickey’s first bat cards came after all of his cards had been changed over to the Blue Jays, but I’ll let that slide.

Worst Memorabilia Card

2013 Topps Triple Threads Kirk Nieuwenhuis

Poor Kirk Nieuwenhuis. After being all over 2012’s autograph and memorabilia cards, he found himself with very little MLB playing time in 2013 and far too many cards. He got September off after the AAA season ended and then had loads of memorabilia cards in Triple Threads. After already having triple jersey autograph cards in last year’s Triple Threads. As if the unnecessary Future Phenoms card weren’t enough, Nieuwenhuis had three single jersey autograph cards. The green jersey cards I can see, but everything else is just filler. I suppose it isn’t really fair to single out Kirk when so much of Triple Threads was unnecessary filler, but the award has to go to someone.

Best Hobby Shop Promotion

Panini Black Friday

Every year, card companies try to find ways to get people to visit their local hobby shops. 2013 was filled with various promotions, from the Topps Series 1 Spring Fever redemption packs to Panini’s Boxing Day packs. Topps Archives had the most with vintage card redemptions, 25 cent packs, and ’80s card redemption packs with Topps Series 2 base, blue sparkle, and silver slate parallels. The best of the bunch, as usual, was Panini’s Black Friday promotion that combines discounts on Panini products with bonus packs containing cards featuring some of the hottest players in four sports with parallels, autographs, and unique memorabilia. Matt Harvey was the lone Met featured in this promotion.

Best New Product

2013 Bowman Inception

Coming into 2013, I thought the last thing the hobby needed was another Bowman product. With five Bowman products on the market already, what more was there to cover? Bowman Inception brought premium thick autograph cards and no filler. All on-card autographs, no chipping problems, no base cards, and no chrome. In other words, something different. Travis d’Arnaud and Jeurys Familia are the only two Mets in the base autograph sets, about average for the 62 total cards between the rookie and prospect autographs. As an added bonus, Jose Reyes was also among the sapphire reprints in this product.

Most Improved Product

2013 Bowman Sterling

Elsewhere in the Bowman franchise, Sterling was in sorry shape in 2012. With some of the most boring and uninspired autograph cards on the market and little else going for it, Bowman Sterling was a product without a purpose. For 2013, Sterling kept much of the same structure as the previous year’s product with a few key changes. Autograph orientation switched from landscape to portrait, a minor change that greatly improved the design. Other design changes improved how the base cards scanned to the point that the signatures no longer blended into the background. The biggest change though was with the refractor parallels. 2012 Bowman Sterling had six refractor parallels and none between base refractors (numbered to 199) and gold refractors (numbered to 50). The 2013 edition reduced the numbering on base refractors (now numbered to 150) and added three tiers above gold: green (numbered to 125), ruby (numbered to 99), and orange (numbered to 75). Canary diamond print runs were also increased from 1 to 3 and 1/1 superfractors were added. On top of that, the autograph checklist was increased from 88 to 106 with the Mets representation including the first certified autographs from L.J. Mazzilli and the first Mets autographs from Noah Syndergaard. More players and more parallels with a better design made 2013 Bowman Sterling a welcome improvement over last year’s afterthought.

Most Disappointing Product

2013 Panini Hometown Heroes

I’m tempted here to go with 2013 Topps Finest, but at this point I have no expectations for a product with lots of history and no real direction. Panini Hometown Heroes on the other hand was a new product that promised a new take on the formula that brought us Topps Archives and Leaf Memories. What it delivered was a bland design filled with autographs that have been done better by Topps over the last two years. While it did bring a few new or hard-to-find autographs, the design deficiencies made it hard to get excited about any of them.

Autograph Product of the Year

2013 Topps Archives

No surprises here. With 15 former Mets in the Fan Favorites Autographs set, including 8 shown as Mets (and the first autographs from Keith Miller), nothing else comes close. What’s even more impressive is that Topps featured an entirely new group of autographs in the second year of the new incarnation of Archives, for a total of 32 former Mets (15 shown as Mets) over two years of Fan Favorites Autographs. That’s still well under ten percent of the former Mets with certified autograph cards, so there’s plenty of room for next year’s Archives to keep the streak going.

Honorable Mention

2013 Leaf Memories

Leaf is no slouch in the autograph department and Leaf Memories combines 1990-style autographs from their three prospects, Rafael Montero, Domingo Tapia, and Dominic Smith, with buyback autographs from players from the 1980s and early 1990s. Among the buyback autographs are the first from Kevin Elster and Rick Aguilera, plus countless favorites from some of the best Mets teams in recent memory. Well, relatively recent at least. The large number of redemption cards though keeps Leaf Memories from threatening to dethrone Archives.

Game-Used Product of the Year

2013 Topps Museum Collection

Now in its third year (though only its second under the Museum Collection brand), some of the shine is beginning to wear off Topps Museum Collection. It has all of the memorabilia variety we’ve come to expect: jumbo jersey and bat relics, autographed memorabilia cards, quad relics, four-player relics, etc. This year, the highlights were jumbo bat cards from Darryl Strawberry, autographed double and triple memorabilia cards from R.A. Dickey, and jumbo Matt Harvey jersey cards. Jumbo jerseys from Johan Santana and Ike Davis weren’t quite as exciting and the usual assortment from David Wright seemed like a repeat of last year. Still, this year’s cards sold better than last year’s counterparts, which may be why I wasn’t quite as interested in them this year.

Honorable Mention

2012 Panini National Treasures

As usual, nothing could match the quality and player/material diversity of Museum Collection. Panini made a good showing though with 2012 Panini National Treasures. With autographed jersey and patch cards from Dwight Gooden, David Wright, Matt Harvey, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis, plus various booklets featuring Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, and David Wright and plenty of other former Mets like Duke Snider, Richie Ashburn, Keith Hernandez, and Jose Reyes featured in the other memorabilia sets, it should be obvious why National Treasures was a big hit.

The Essentials: 2013 Mets Autographs

Posted by on 31 December 2013 Comments Off on The Essentials: 2013 Mets Autographs

Return of the Prospects

A lot of baseball cards have been released in 2013.  Between Topps (MLB and MLBPA licenses), Panini (MLBPA license), Leaf (no licenses), and Upper Deck (MLBPA license but strict MLB oversight), more than 40 baseball products have been released this year.  So which cards stand out from the rest?  To answer that question, we’ll break down the key Mets cards from 2013 in The Essentials.

2013 was filled with new Mets autographs from the first days of the year all the way to the last.  Add in a few current stars (well, as much as the current team has stars) and loads of former favorites and you’ve got a pretty decent bunch of cards for one year.  Best of all, 2012’s prospect drought didn’t carry over to 2013.  Instead, we were treated to a bountiful prospect crop, so let’s start there.

Prospects

Aside from a few 2011 draft picks in Elite Extra Edition and a couple of 2012 draft picks in Bowman Draft, the prospect autographs in 2012 were limited to, well, Chris Schwinden.  And maybe some Reese Havens, if he and/or SP Signature count.  Things started off much the same in 2013 with the first Panini-branded Elite Extra Edition.

EEE gave us the first autographs from 2012 draft picks Branden Kaupe, Logan Taylor, Matt Koch, and Matt Reynolds (Reynolds was supposed to have his first autographs in 2012 Bowman Sterling, but redemptions were issued instead and the cards were released in 2013 Bowman Chrome).  Gavin Cecchini also made an appearance with Kevin Plawecki showing up as redemptions (that have yet to be fulfilled as of the end of 2013).

Coming into 2013, two dozen Mets prospects had been featured on Bowman Chrome autographs in Bowman, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman Draft, from Bob Keppel in 2001 to Kevin Plawecki in 2012.  2013 Bowman had just Jeurys Familia RC autographs, but Bowman Chrome picked up the slack with Luis Mateo, Matt Reynolds (now signing with just his first initial instead of the full name) and Rafael Montero.  Bowman Draft added 2013 draft picks Dominic Smith and Andrew Church.  Mateo, Reynolds, and Smith had their first autographs in other products (2013 Bowman Platinum, 2012 Panini EEE, and 2013 Panini Perennial Draft Picks, respectively), but Bowman Chrome is king of the prospect autographs.

Not that Panini is going down without a fight.  They may not have a license from MLB Properties, but they’re still making a big push to get a piece of the baseball card market.  Traditionally, Panini wouldn’t put out autographs from draft picks until January’s EEE.  This year, Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks was positioned to challenge the prospect aspects of Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects (hence the overly alliterative name).  Not only did Panini get top pick Dominic Smith, but they also landed autographs from third round pick Ivan Wilson and past picks Jayce Boyd and Cory Vaughn.  Rainy Lara and Amed Rosario were included as redemptions, but there’s no word on when those will be fulfilled (Panini’s got a lot of signing to do…).

Without licenses from either MLB Properties or the MLBPA, Leaf didn’t have much to work with except retired players and prospects.  They did an impressive job with that limitation, getting Dominic Smith and Rafael Montero to sign for them in multiple products alongside their one exclusive signer, Domingo Tapia.  All three had autographs in Leaf Metal, Leaf Memories, and Leaf Trinity, the latter of which featured thick plastic slabs, memorabilia, or inscriptions on all of its cards.  Though limited in its scope, Leaf’s offering in 2013 was quite noteworthy.  Hopefully the MLBPA is paying attention, too bad MLB Properties has hitched itself to Topps for the foreseeable future.

Not that Topps has been all that bad lately.  In addition to the players with Bowman Chrome autos, Topps also managed to get signatures from 2012 7th round pick Corey Oswalt (winner of the “Most random prospect to have an autograph card in 2013” award that doesn’t exist) and 2013 4th round pick L.J. Mazzilli, son of former Met Lee Mazzilli.  On top of that, they also produced the first Mets autographs of top prospects Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard.  That leaves most of the Mets’ top 20 or so prospects with autograph cards of some soft except for Jacob deGrom and Gabriel Ynoa.

Rookie Cards

When it comes to Rookie Card autographs in 2013, the big name was Jeurys Familia.  Seriously, he was in just about everything for the first 8 months of the year, at which point Zack Wheeler took over and finished off the year’s RC auto appearances.  The pair accounted for all of the Mets RC autos released by Topps in 2013.

But not all of the Mets RC autos in 2013.  Panini Pinnacle was perfectly positioned to provide the premier penmanship piece from recently departed Mets pitcher Collin McHugh.  Familia was in there too because, well, just because.

2012 Rookies

Last year’s default rookie signers Jordany Valdespin and Kirk Nieuwenhuis were back again in 2013, though JV1’s first autograph this year will probably also be his last as a Met.  Things aren’t looking too good for Nieuwenhuis, who wasn’t even called up in September.  He still had a bunch of autographs in Gypsy Queen, Tier One, and Triple Threads.

2013 All-Stars

Both of the Mets All-Stars from 2013 had autographs released in 2013, though all of Matt Harvey’s were dated either 2012 (all of his Panini autos) or 2011 (Bowman Platinum redemptions that finally made it out two years late).  Hopefully you got your fill of Harvey autos early because prices spiked in April and haven’t cooled off all that much since then.

New Old Mets

A few new faces we’ve already forgotten also managed to get some autographs out in 2013.  Collin Cowgill and Shaun Marcum were featured in Topps Series 2, then Cowgill came back in Topps Update to commemorate the one thing of significance he did in his very brief Mets career.  Marcum also had a few autographs in Topps Tier One alongside Kirk Nieuwenhuis and (of course) Jeurys Familia.

Dickey

R.A. Dickey continued to have Mets autographs into 2013, including these three on-card beauties.  The Gypsy Queen and Tribute Dickey autos were released as redemption cards and were sent out shortly after the Museum Collection card was released (Museum Collection also included several cards with Dickey sticker autos).

Fan Favorites

This year had another good haul of Mets autographs in Topps Archives.  Gregg Jefferies, Howard Johnson, Jesse Orosco, Kevin McReynolds, Keith Miller, Mookie Wilson, Ron Darling, and Sid Fernandez were all featured in the Fan Favorites Autographs set, though several of these were in card styles that were used in previous Fan Favorites Autographs sets.  This is Keith Miller’s first autograph card because, well, he’s Keith Miller.

Hometown Heroes

Panini’s attempt at an Archives clone didn’t come out all that well but still managed to include autographs from several Mets favorites including Darryl Strawberry, Lee Mazzilli, Lenny Dykstra, Ron Darling, Mookie Wilson, Dave Kingman, and Tom Seaver.  Pat Tabler, not shown as a Met, has his first certified autographs here.

Memories

Leaf’s Archives clone on the other hand is starting to come into its own in its second year.  In addition to the previously mentioned prospects, Leaf Memories was loaded with buyback autographs from retired favorites like Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Sid Fernandez, Kevin Mitchell, Dave Magadan, Kevin Elster (his first certified autographs), and Barry Lyons.  Many others Mets were shown in other uniforms, including Rick Aguilera with his first certified autographs.  Unfortunately, many of the buybacks were issued as redemption cards, some of which couldn’t be entered into the online redemption system and had to be redeemed through Leaf customer service.  As of the end of 2013, only the Elster autos are known to have been fulfilled.

Chasing History

As usual, Topps threw a few sticker autographs from retired Mets in its main base autograph insert, Chasing History.  Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden, and Howard Johnson are featured here in autographs from Series 1 (Carter and Gooden) and Update (Johnson).  Carter autographs are getting harder to find and his Chasing History Autograph insert was available at surprisingly low prices.

Heritage

After having only one Mets autograph last year, 2013 Heritage was loaded with Mets.  Al Moran, Amado Samuel, Jay Hook, Mike Joyce (never actually played for the Mets), Pumpsie Green, and Tim Harkness represented the biggest Mets contingent in Heritage history (though at this point the Mets have only existed for three years).  Ken MacKenzie has his first certified autographs in 2013 Heritage as a Giant.

New Ink Colors

In 2013, Topps expanded its use of various colored markers into more products than ever before.  While the use of different colors has been common in Tier One and Museum Collection Framed Autographs from their start, Topps Chrome and Topps Triple Threads have added metallic marker variants for the first time.  Tier One itself added a new color, copper rose, to replace the white that was easily confused with silver in the past.

And that will do it for this year’s installment of The Essentials.  The remainder of 2013’s wrap-up posts will go up later this week.  Happy New Year!

The Essentials: 2013 Mets Manufactured Material

Posted by on 13 December 2013 Comments Off on The Essentials: 2013 Mets Manufactured Material

The kitchen sink of baseball cards has standouts and oddities

A lot of baseball cards have been released in 2013. Between Topps (MLB and MLBPA licenses), Panini (MLBPA license), Leaf (no licenses), and Upper Deck (MLBPA license but strict MLB oversight), more than 40 baseball products have been released this year. So which cards stand out from the rest? To answer that question, we’ll break down the key Mets cards from 2013 in The Essentials.

Manufactured material, like game-used memorabilia and certified autographs, traces its roots in the modern sports card era back to the late 1990s. Aside from its use as a surface for autographs though, it wasn’t until recent years that manufactured material came into its own as a hobby offering with diversity and innovation. Topps raised the bar in 2012 with premium metal manufactured relics and continued this trend into 2013.

Minor League Logos

So many things wrong with that d’Arnaud card…

Back again after their debut in 2012, minor league hat logo patches from many minor league teams were included in Topps Pro Debut and Topps Heritage Minor League. Oddly, it looks like these are the exact same patches that were used in 2012. Topps must have had a few extras left over… Note the use of last year’s logos for the St. Lucie Mets and Buffalo Bisons (as for why Travis d’Arnaud is shown with the Bisons, well…). Between the two products, six Mets were featured on logo patch cards, covering most of the top prospects in the Mets farm system. Unlike last year, a consistent style was used for both sets of logo patch inserts in 2013. It would be nice to see Topps continue this moving forward to create a running set with top prospects for years to come. The logos need a bit of an update though.

Mascot Patches

Not shown: Buster T. Bison. Not sure I even want to…

New for 2013, Topps Pro Debut added patch cards for various minor league mascots. Cyclones mascot Sandy the Seagull was the only mascot from a current Mets farm team featured in this set, but Buffalo Bisons mascots Buster T. Bison and Belle the Ballpark Diva were shown in their 2012 incarnations, so I guess they count (though I wouldn’t exactly call them essential). I’m not quite sold on these just yet.

Retail Commemorative Patches

At the major league level, the bulk of the manufactured material was released in the base Topps products: Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, and Topps Update. Many of those were the cracker jack-style prize inside $20 retail blasters, included as a consolation prize for spending $20 on a few packs of cards with terrible odds on getting anything good (with most of those “good” cards not worth much of anything anyway). Of course, with typical selling prices between $5 and $25, they sometimes make you feel like a bit of a chump for spending $100 a pop on hobby jumbo boxes where the only decent card is a manufactured relic that sells for between $5 and $25… But I digress.

The first of the retail manufactured patch sets feature miniature versions of commemorative shoulder patches or anything else Topps felt like making. Only two Mets were included here, David Wright with the Mets 50th anniversary patch and Tom Seaver with the 1969 World Series patch. I guess these can get filed away with all of the similar cards Topps has produced over the last few years.

The second retail manufactured patch set consists of framed mini card patches featuring an assortment of rookie cards and other random stuff. For the Mets, that meant rookie card patches from Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, and Jose Reyes and a very off-center 1970 Topps Nolan Ryan.

Silk Collection

Shoulder surgery starting pitchers for the, um, DL I guess…

Honestly, I’m not really sure how to classify silk cards. They’re not typically considered relics, but they are technically manufactured material, so here they are. R.A. Dickey, David Wright, and Matt Harvey are the big Mets names with silk cards in 2013, but I don’t have any of them so here’s Johan Santana and Shaun Marcum.

Award Winner Relics

This year’s theme for hobby manufactured relics was award winners. Each card featured a tiny metal replica of one of several featured awards, including MVPs, Cy Youngs, Silver Sluggers, Rookies of the Year, World Series MVPs, etc. The best looking of the bunch were the MVP relics, but the Mets have never had an MVP.

They have had a bunch of Cy Young winners though, most recently R.A. Dickey in 2012. Who was not featured in this set. Instead, we got Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden.

Darryl Strawberry’s Silver Slugger rounds out the three Mets featured in Series 1 with a photo that somewhat ironically crops out the bat he is swinging. Series 2 featured Mets Rookies of the Year Tom Seaver, Darryl Strawberry, and Dwight Gooden. Um, what happened to Jon Matlack? Am I the only one who remembers that he existed?

Proven Mettle Coins

And that brings us to the last and best category of manufactured relics, the coins. Last year, Topps introduced manufactured coin relics, the first I’ve seen since some pretty lame attempts in the late ’90s that embedded what looked like amusement park tokens into cards. The Topps version uses huge coins with the card barely wrapped around them. Only one Met, Tom Seaver of course, was featured in last year’s coins. In 2013, the Proven Mettle (get it?) coins featured a three-tier parallel with copper (#d/99), wrought iron (#d/50), and steel (#d/10) versions. David Wright joins Seaver this time for a total of six Mets cards. If you only get one manufactured material card from 2013, it should be one of these coins.

Did I miss anything?  Let me know in the comments.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Triple Threads

Posted by on 3 January 2013 Comments Off on Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Triple Threads

Finally, an excuse to say “Dickey pants”

Triple Threads is one of the most-loved Topps products, so of course I am largely indifferent towards it.  This is one of the products born from the post-Playoff/Donruss era, when most of the products I liked were discontinued or marginalized, so I’m holding a bit of a grudge.  And as a “Let’s face it, you’re not going to get a big hit out of this, just buy what you want on eBay and save some money” product, I get annoyed waiting for the few cards I want most to show up in auctions at prices that aren’t completely insane.  Note to sellers: most of these cards will sell for less than $20, stop it with the “Everything $99” approach.  The most annoying thing about this product though is the trademarked Topps infinite parallelization of every single card.  In addition to the base version (typically numbered to 99 for autographed cards and 36 for non-autographed cards), there are Sepia, Emerald, Gold, Sapphire, Ruby, and occasionally a few other parallels, plus a set of 1/1 printing plates for every single card.  This makes every card both rare (everything numbered to less than 100!) and common (more than 250 of each if you ignore silly color variations, with many players appearing on multiple cards in the same insert set).

Base Cards

Serial Numbering: None-625-250-125-99-50-25-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Gary Carter, Tom Seaver, David Wright
Non-Mets: Jose Reyes, Nolan Ryan, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider, Rickey Henderson

Sadly, Topps did not drop the base cards from Triple Threads like they did for Tier 1.  They seemed really excited to show off this design on Twitter.  Am I missing something here?  This is about as dull a design as you can get.  Good thing these aren’t the main draw and only serve as filler along with their six parallels numbered to between 25 and 625, two parallels numbered to 1, and four printing plates per card.  Three Mets out of 100 cards is about average, so whatever.

Rookies and Future Phenoms Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 99-75-50-25-10-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Ike Davis
Non-Mets: None

As usual, Triple Threads includes a bunch of inserts as an extension of the base set.  I do not know why they do this, probably just to make sure you can’t build a complete set that makes any sense.  Serial numbering on these follows the 99 sequence, so that’s 265 total cards for those of you playing along at home, with cards numbered to 10 or less featuring patches if patches are available.  Two of the 65 cards feature Mets, which is again about average.  As with all of the “triple” relics in this product, there are exactly three pieces of material in each card regardless of how many holes are cut in the card placed over them.  Putting 23 holes in a card does not mean that there are 23 pieces of material in the card!  Why are people on eBay so stupid?  Next thing you know, they’ll be calling every serial numbered card a 1/1 because every one is unique.  Oh, wait, they already do that…  Autographs on these cards are on the cards and not stickers, because Kirk Nieuwenhuis doesn’t sign stickers.  Seriously, have you seen how many cards this kid signed this year?  He’s at more than 1600 just counting serial numbered cards.  I’m amazed he’s not on the DL from a hand injury.

Triple Threads Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Dave Kingman, Ike Davis (4), David Wright
Non-Mets: Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider (2)

And here’s the gimmick that everyone (except me) loves, multiple variations of every card with stupid things written in the windows over the game-used material!  Lumbering lefty?  I guess it’s better than “send me an angel” or “heaven sent.”  Whoever comes up with this stuff must have been fired from a greeting card company for being too cheesy.  These follow the 36 numbering sequence minus the 36 and 27 for 36 total copies of each.

Triple Threads Relics / Relic Legends

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: David Wright (5)
Non-Mets: Jose Reyes (3), Rickey henderson, Eddie Murray, Willie Mays

If you need more Wright, just head over to the non-autographed Triple Threads Relics insert set, which features five more variants on the full 36 numbering scheme minus the wood 1/1 for 98 total copies of each stupid phrase.  Among this year’s winners are “Wright Stuff” and “D-Money.”  Jose Reyes on the other hand got tagged with “Fresh Fish.”  As I’m sure Jay Sherman would say about this, it stinks.

Triple Threads Flashback Relics

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Johan Santana, Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Rickey Henderson

Here’s an idea that’s so obvious that I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before: put windowing on both sides of a jersey card (Topps did something similar with several relic sets a decade ago by making the bottom layer transparent, but these are the first I’ve seen that are open on both sides).  Two of these feature the Mets on the front and another two on the back.  Of particular interest here is the Dwight Gooden card with sewn-in pinstripes visible from both sides.  Numbering follows the 36 sequence we’ve been seeing on most of these non-autographed triple relics.

Unity Autographed Relics

Serial Numbering: 99-75-50-25-10-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Daniel Murphy (2), Ike Davis, Josh Thole (2), Lucas Duda (2), R.A. Dickey (2), Ruben Tejada (2), Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden (2), Gary Carter.
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

OK, let’s cut the crap.  The whole “triple” gimmick is nice and makes for interesting display pieces and once-in-a-lifetime pulls, but the bulk of the interesting cards in this product are in the Unity insert sets.  While last year’s Unity inserts could be combined in groups of three to create a panorama of the team’s stadium (or a frankenstadium if you combine players from different teams), this year’s Unity design is completely generic.  On the plus side, this is what Topps has been saving the bulk of the material from new players and players who haven’t been seen since last year for.  So if you were wondering why Lucas Duda and Josh Thole have been getting the shaft for the bulk of the year, it was so Topps could make them the big draw in this insert set.  Well, that and Dickey pants.  Double Dickey pants.  Fresh off Dickey’s second consecutive one-hitter this year, stains and all.  This may be the only game-used item whose authenticity has not been called into question by the recent counterfeit merchandise scandals.

Each card lists a specific accomplishment for the depicted player, with some players featured on multiple cards.  Accomplishments include a mix of awards, events, and on-field performances.  All autographs are on stickers and numbering follows the 99 sequence minus wood.  That’s right, there’s no Dickey wood parallel.  Deal with it.

Unity Relics

Serial Numbering: 36-27-18-9-3-1-1-1-1-1
Mets: Rickey Henderson (3), David Wright (3), Johan Santana (3), Daniel Murphy
Non-Mets: Willie Mays, Warren Spahn, Carlos Beltran (3), Eddie Murray (2).

For players without a ready supply of sticker autographs, there’s the non-autographed variety of Unity.  These follow the 36 numbering sequence (without wood, like the autographed variety), making them harder to find than their autographed brethren (particularly when it comes to patches, which are at the 3 or less parallels as opposed to 10 or less for the autographed versions).

2011 All-Star Workout Jerseys

Heath Bell, Carlos Beltran, and Jose Reyes appear here with various pieces of their 2011 All-Star workout jerseys.  Base patch cards are numbered to 9 or less, all others are numbered to 1.  They’re nice, I guess.

Multiple Player Cards, Booklets, Oddballs, and Other Assorted Rarities

There are a bunch of them.  I don’t care about any of this stuff though and most of it is out of my price range, terribly boring, or both.  Go somewhere else if you want an unbiased review, or just look at the pre-launch tweets from Topps for some of the many cards you will never own.  This is the only reason to open boxes of this stuff, which I don’t do.  These cards might as well not exist.

Bottom Line

While I may not care for the card design, Triple Threads never fails to deliver new material.  Mets with their first MLB uniform material include R.A. Dickey, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Daniel Murphy, Ruben Tejada, and Lucas Duda.  Tejada and Josh Thole have their first blue jerseys in this product and Dickey has the first Mets pinstripe material since the change to cream/ivory base material in 2010 (and on top of that it’s from the pants he wore during his second consecutive one-hitter this year).  Dwight Gooden has the first Mets sewn-in pinstripes visible from both sides.  And Nieuwenhuis’s black jersey swatches can only be from the jersey he wore on June 3 to honor John Franco.

Players who recently changed teams haven’t been left out either.  Carlos Beltran, fresh off having pieces of a Giants uniform in Museum Collection, has his first Cardinals patch cards in Triple Threads.  While these are all numbered to 3 or 1, there are three different cards for a total of 12 patch cards.  Yeah, that’s still not very many.  More common though are pieces from Jose Reyes’s spring training jersey, which Topps tweeted a picture of back in the spring.  Material available for Reyes in his various cards includes black, black mesh, and orange mesh fabric swatches as well as some patches numbered to 10 and 1.

And then there’s the retired players who are shown on other teams on cards featuring pieces of Mets uniforms…  Rickey Henderson and Eddie Murray have some beautiful big Mets patch cards that show them in other teams’ uniforms.  They’re way out of my price range in any case, but it bugs me to see such great cards marred by showing the player in the wrong uniform.

Still, it’s hard to get too excited about this product.  Triple Threads has a lot of stuff, but none of it really stands out.  It doesn’t have the on-card autographs of Tier One or Five Star, the attainable jumbo relics of Five Star or Museum Collection, or the card design of Bowman, Finest, or Museum Collection.  But I suspect that I might be just a bit biased.  Player selection is this product’s real strength, but even that just makes it a placeholder for many players until something better comes along.

Best Mets Cards of 2012

Posted by on 3 January 2013 Comments Off on Best Mets Cards of 2012

Looking back at things that didn’t suck about the Mets in 2012

Well, the Mets didn’t win the World Series last year.  Or make the playoffs.  Or finish with a winning record.  They didn’t finish in last place, but that’s more because of the Marlins than anything the Mets did.  The year started off with the Mets in contention, but the second half crash and burn was in full effect in 2012.  What a miserable year.

Except for a few bright spots.  After just over 50 years, the Mets got their first no-hitter, courtesy of Johan Santana and a questionable foul ball call on Carlos Beltran.  After more than 20 years, the Mets had a 20-game winner in R.A. Dickey, who then went on to become the first knuckleball pitcher to win the Cy Young Award (before being traded to the Blue Jays).  Matt Harvey made an impressive debut and Zack Wheeler worked his way up to be in position to do the same in 2013.  And of course David Wright was back in MVP form and signed a contract that should keep him in a Mets uniform until the end of his playing days.

In the errata category, the Mets brought back Banner Day and will have it back again this year.  They also finally announced that Citi Field will host the 2013 All-Star game.  And that pesky black drop shadow has finally been banished from the uniforms.  The black uniforms themselves refuse to die, but a pair of new blue alternates should keep their use to a minimum.  And how about those $20 clearance blue Dickey jerseys that everyone except me was able to get?  I am still accepting Christmas presents if anyone has an extra road version in XL.

As for baseball cards, 2012 had a few bright spots.  While Mets representation in some products (Topps Heritage) was very poor, there was still a good supply of new game-used and autograph cards, plus plenty of official Rookie Cards and actual first cards.  Here’s a few of the best (and worst) cards that 2012 had to offer.

Best Manufactured Material

2012 Topps Series 1 Golden Greats Coin Tom Seaver

Topps had some interesting manufactured material inserts this year, but none could come close to their coin relic cards.  These huge double-sided medallions are absolutely stunning in person.  Topps Update introduced the runner-up, the Hall of Fame Plaque manufactured material relic.  It’s hard to beat a heavy chunk of metal.

Best Parallel Insert Set

2012 Topps Archives Gold Foil Parallel

Topps introduced even more types of parallel cards this year with the various colors of Ice and Wave Refractor parallels in addition to the usual colored borders, sparkles, refractors, xfractors, atomic refractors, superfractors, etc.  None of them were even close to being a match for the gold foil parallels in Topps Archives.  These look great in person and get even better when scanned (unlike most chrome/refractor cards).

Best Sticker Autograph

2012 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autograph Gary Carter

Sure, he’s not shown as a Met, but there isn’t a Mets sticker autograph that can come close to this.  Not only is this an autograph from the late Gary Carter on a 1975-style card, but this is the first-ever sticker autograph to appear in a Topps Archives product.

Best On-Card Autograph

2012 Topps Five Star Silver Ink Gold Signature R.A. Dickey

Alternatives to the usual blue (and occasional black or red) autographs have been in short supply in recent years, but Topps released some nice specimens in silver, gold, and white marker in several of its premium products.  The best of the bunch has to be R.A. Dickey’s gold signature in Topps Five Star.  Between the strokes of the signature and the picture chosen to accompany it, there’s really nothing more you could want from this card (well, other than less chipping).  The card itself has three color variants (all numbered to 10 or 5), but I like the look of the purple version.

One problem with the silver and gold markers Topps used this year is that they don’t always write evenly, leaving many signatures looking weak and washed out.  That wasn’t a problem for the white ink parallels in Topps Tier One though.  Combine the strength of the ink with David Wright’s signature and you have a clear winner (or runner-up in this case).  These were released as redemptions (boo!), but they were fulfilled fairly quickly (woo!).

Worst Autograph

2012 Panini Signature Series MLBPA Logo Autograph Jordany Valdespin

This card had a lot going against it before it even got to the autograph.  First, without a license from MLB Properties, Panini couldn’t use proper team names or logos, instead settling for “New York Baseball Club” in place of Mets and cropping out all logos.  Next, their style of patch isn’t terribly exciting, essentially being just some embroidery on the fabric.  And the use of the MLBPA logo, while something to brag about because it is the one license they do have, just isn’t all that interesting (and the detail doesn’t really come through all that well).  Add in the two other manufactured material autograph sets with the same checklist (one with the iconic Rated Rookie logo and one on simulated baseballs), and this card looks like a dud.

Add in the autograph and it’s a total bomb.  J-stroke, dot, V-stroke, dot.  Look, I know these kids have a lot of autographs to sign, and nobody writes anything by hand anymore, but has it really come to this?  That’s not an autograph, those are initials.  I’m not expecting calligraphy or anything, but is it too much to ask for these guys to at least come up with a symbol they can draw?  I’ll even take a random scribble over something like this.  The autograph market is in trouble if the future holds nothing but simple initials.

Best Uniform Memorabilia Card

2012 Topps Triple Threads Unity Autographed Relic R.A. Dickey

Did you even need to ask?  They may not be big, but Dickey’s pants swatches are the only Mets pinstripe material from an active Mets player in 2012 and are the first Mets pinstripes from the last three seasons’ uniforms.  And he also threw a one-hitter wearing them.  There’s just no way to top that.

Best Patch Card

2012 Topps Update All-Star Jumbo Patch R.A. Dickey

A mockup of what this card sort of looks like

Dickey’s jumbo All-Star Patches are a thing of beauty, but being numbered to 6 has kept them from my hands (and scanner).  I’ve got the whole (non-Dickey-worn) jersey in my closet though, so I can make do without it.

Best Bat Card

2012 Topps Museum Collection Dual Jumbo Lumber Ike Davis David Wright

Bat cards aren’t that big of a draw anymore and in most cases are just variants of generic relic cards that may contain a piece of bat or jersey.  Museum Collection offered one of the only bat-only memorabilia inserts in its Jumbo Lumber relics.  Not only were these limited to bats specifically, but every piece was nice and big.  The dual version paired David Wright, the Mets’ lone representative in the single Jumbo Lumber relics, with Ike Davis.  For Ike, this was his first memorabilia card of the year.

Best Other Memorabilia Card

2011 Panini Limited Hard Hats Dwight Gooden

Panini was still stuck in 2011 in May of 2012 when they released Panini Limited, a product filled with interesting memorabilia cards like what Playoff/Donruss was known for.  Dwight Gooden was well-represented with bat, jersey, hat, and fielding glove pieces in addition to the (no pun intended) crown jewel: a piece of game-used helmet.  Helmet cards are extremely rare, somewhere between wristbands and catcher’s equipment.  This is the first MLB-worn helmet card from a Mets player (previous examples are all from the 2000 Futures Game) and may have been from a Mets helmet.  No pieces of the Helmet’s logo have surfaced, so we may never know for sure.

Worst Memorabilia Card

2012 Topps Triple Threads Relic Jose Reyes “Fresh Fish”

Really, Topps?  These lame attempts to be hip and quirky are why I can’t get behind Triple Threads as a product.  What’s next, referring to David Wright and his impending contract extension as “D-Money?”  Oh, right.  These stupid phrases are almost as idiotic as eBay sellers who think there are more than three pieces of memorabilia in them because of the windowing (hint: it’s called “Triple” Threads for a reason).

Autograph Product of the Year

2012 Topps Archives

The return of Topps Archives was one of the biggest card-related stories of the year and the product did not disappoint.  Picking up where the 2005 product left off, 2012 Archives was loaded with autographs from big stars and minor favorites alike, packing in autographs from 20 former Mets (Nolan Ryan and Willie Mays are not shown, for obvious reasons), all on-card except for Carter (for obvious reasons).

Honorable Mention – 2011 Donruss Elite Extra Edition

Yeah, Panini has a different kind of calendar.  This was one of the first new Panini baseball products and it got plenty of attention.  While Topps put autographs from the Mets’ top two 2011 draft picks in 2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects and moved on, Panini went with the top four, plus Phillip Evans.  Then they threw in Chris Schwinden for good measure.  Most of the autographs are on stickers (some of the Nimmos and Fulmers are the only ones that are on-card), but the unique player selection, die-cut parallels, and interesting ink variants more than make up for that.  Topps has shown no interest in autographs from “lesser” draft picks, so this would be a good niche for Panini to focus on.

Game-Used Product of the Year

2012 Topps Museum Collection

Great card design, lots of material variety, decent player selection.  I could go on, but what more is there to say?

Honorable Mention: 2012 Topps Triple Threads

I may not personally like the style and format of Triple Threads, but you can’t ignore the material.  So many players and so much new material are in this product that it always rates as one of the most significant products of the year.  But I’m still not giving it the top spot.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Museum Collection

Posted by on 18 November 2012 2 comments

Pretty and loaded, but not very deep

If the name Museum Collection sounds familiar, you might be remembering last years amazing framed autograph cards from 2011 Topps Marquee.  This year, Museum Collection is the name of the product, with more framed autos and a few interesting changes.  This time around, multi-player cards and booklets are plentiful, as are 1/1s and Jumbo Lumber bat cards (in addition to the occasional bat card in the regular jumbo relic set).  The cards look better than ever, which may not mean much in a product with only one prior release, but it is still worth noting.  Marquee looked good, Museum Collection looks great.

Base Set

Wait, there’s a base set?  Oh, right, here’s something an eBay seller threw in as a freebie with one of the Primary Pieces Four Player Relics:

Nice try, but wrong team.  Oh well.  I’m sure if I take long enough to get this review out I’ll get a hold of a proper Met to use here.

Procrastination has its rewards

Even though these are base cards, they are still as thick as everything else in this product.  Player selection is limited though; only David Wright and Nolan Ryan made the cut.  Tom Seaver would have made more sense, but he only shows up in the Canvas Collection art card set (which are his only individual cards in this entire product, all others are with three other players).

All base cards have a version with no serial number and four serial numbered variants with print runs of 299, 199, 99, and 1, while Canvas Collection cards also have parallel versions numbered to 10.  Not bad for what is essentially filler in this product.

Game-Used and Autographs

This is what people are really after in Museum Collection.  Last year, 2011 Topps Marquee set the bar pretty high, getting my award for 2011 Mets Game-Used Product of the Year.  So is 2012 Topps Museum Collection up to the challenge?  Yes and no.

Yes, the variety of Mets cards is much improved from last year’s product, which lacked any Mets triple relic cards and had several other Metsless variant sets.  Museum Collection has a Met in every major insert category except, sadly, Framed Autographs (Archival Autographs Dual and Cut Autographs are also without Mets, but those are fairly minor in comparison).  This year’s product features Mets with autographs, large jerseys and bats (both alone and in two-player booklets), autographed single, double, triple, and quad memorabilia cards, and quad relics (featuring one or four players).  And that’s just for David Wright.

No, the player selection is extremely limited, with David Wright representing the Mets in every game-used set and single Archival Autographs, Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden (plus Tom Seaver on the quad player relics and Nolan Ryan on his Archival Autographs cards) representing retired Mets, and Dillon Gee representing the young players.  Jose Reyes is also featured as a Met on a lot of cards, while Ike Davis makes his 2012 game-used debut on a dual Jumbo Lumber relic booklet card with Wright.  Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran, and Heath Bell round out the roster with former Mets shown in other uniforms (plus a Warren Spahn Cut Autograph 1/1).  It’s not a terrible list, but it is a bit light on players who are actually, you know, on the team.  This is likely a consequence of moving it from a fall release to a spring release, but that really only explains Reyes.  Is there nobody else on the Mets worth including?  For comparison, there are 14 Yankees in the Momentous Material Jumbo Relic set alone; even the Pirates have four in that set compared to three for the Mets and eight total players shown as Mets in all of Museum Collection.

Overall, it’s not a bad mix.  Between all of the different insert sets and parallels, it adds up to over 100 autographed and/or game-used cards of current or former Mets players.  David Wright accounts for all or part of 28 of those and Jose Reyes adds 14 more.  Once you remove the cards of players not shown as Mets, that leaves you with just 26 other Mets cards to split between Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Gooden, and Gee.  The field thins out very fast in this product.

On the positive side, the few players we do get bring a lot of new material.  Reyes, superfluous as he may be at this point, has his first blue jerseys in Museum Collection.  I’m hoping for some large orange jerseys in next year’s product; blue and orange (even if it is from the Marlins) would look great side-by-side.  Reyes’s quad jerseys also include swatches with orange or blue piping, another first (piping has become more common in recent years after apparently being stripped off prior to cutting in the early days of game-used).  Dillon Gee also has his first blue jersey cards, with patch and piping variants, and David Wright got in on the piping party with a few variants of his quad jersey cards.  Carter’s pinstripe jerseys are the first I’ve seen of the narrow variant of the printed zigzag stripe, calling into question everything I thought I knew about that stripe’s history, and Gooden has some great-looking dual pinstripe jersey cards.  Finally, Carlos Beltran’s large jerseys were all a very off-white, indicating that they are from his Giants uniform.  I would have preferred the orange swatches that some other Giants players got, but this is still good enough to call it a confirmed Giants colored jersey, the first in my collection.

Here’s the full list of Mets-related items you can pull from boxes of 2012 Topps Museum Collection (each box contains one autograph, one autographed relic, one jumbo relic, and one quad relic):

Archival Autographs

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

These are the base autographs in this product but are all limited-production on-card autographs of star players.

Archival Autographs Dual

Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays (with Hank Aaron)

Talk about a holy grail.  This may be one of the best dual autographs since the Mickey Mantle / Ken Griffey Jr. card back in the ’90s.  Expect to pay just shy of $1,000 if you want to pick one up.

Framed Autographs

Gold: Numbered to 15
Silver: Numbered to 10
Black: Numbered to 5

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

This year’s Framed Autographs get a three-tier parallel that brings their total production run even with the lesser Archival Autographs.  I’ll assume that these look just as good as last year’s, but you really need to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Cut Autographs

Numbered to 1

Non-Mets: Warren Spahn

Cut signature, 1/1, Hall of Famer not known for his time with the Mets.

Momentous Material Jumbo Relics

Silver: Numbered to 50
Gold: Numbered to 35
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 10
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Duke Snider

I have to say, I really like the changes they made from last year’s Titanic Threads.  While the size of the material is down a bit, the big square piece has much better presence and allows for a big player photo next to it.  Pinstripe and colored swatches look great, too bad Wright is stuck with an old gray piece.  We don’t get enough large jerseys these days, so get these while you can.

Momentous Material Jumbo Patch Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Only Wright and Reyes get the patch treatment, but they are some really outstanding patches.  At 5 apiece, don’t expect to have an easy time finding them.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright (with Evan Longoria), Jose Reyes (with Jimmy Rollins)
Non-Mets: Duke Snider (with Matt Kemp)

I don’t mind the inclusion of Longoria because a. prior to his injury, he was one of the best players in the game and b. he plays in a completely different division.  The Reyes-Rollins booklet on the other hand features the shortstops of two NL East division rivals.  And Ruben Tejada isn’t given a single game-used card anywhere.  Otherwise, I love the idea of booklet cards as long as they don’t go nuts with it like Panini did with their infinie booklet cards.  Two is plenty.

Momentous Material Jumbo Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

These have to be some of the most beautiful cards in this product.  Not only is there an autograph and a nice big piece of patch (or, in some unfortunate cases, tag), but most patches are of the premium variety – round sleeve logos or, for Carter, the 25th Anniversary patch.

Momentous Material Jumbo Lumber Relics

Silver: Numbered to 30
Gold: Numbered to 20
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 5
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield

These are just like the regular Momentous Materials Jumbo Relics, only with a round piece of bat instead of a square piece of jersey or bat.  Large bat cards are even harder to find than large jersey cards, so these are a real treat.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Lumber Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Ike Davis, David Wright (with Alex Rodriguez)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (with Harmon Killebrew)

If one is good, two must be better, right?  Wright is once more paired with a third baseman from the AL East (not a bad choice), but the real draw here is the Ike/Wright booklet – this is Ike Davis’s first game-used card in 2012 after a breakout 2011 with lots of jerseys and bats in Topps Marquee and Topps Triple Threads.  Injury and regression hit Davis hard on the field and in the hobby.  It’s still a great card though.

Signature Swatches Dual Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

With these, you get an autograph (sticker of course) and either two swatches of jersey or bat or a jersey swatch and a piece of patch/piping/multicolor jersey.  The variants numbered to 5 include two pieces of patch (if applicable).  David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Signature Swatches Triple Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

Same as the duals only with three swatches and an autograph.  As in the dual version, David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Sadly, this year’s quad relic cards are not an improvement over last year’s.  While having the jersey swatches split to the four corners of the card looks a bit better, there is very little variation between the silver, red, and gold versions.  Every card has three jersey swatches (blue for Reyes, gray or white for Wright) and one swatch with a piece of patch or piping.  As usual, the variants numbered to 5 are all patch swatches.  With a four-tier parallel and four swatches to work with, you would think there could be a bit more variety (some of last year’s went nuts with variations, including what appeared to be a piece of Phillies patch for Beltran, which makes no sense whatsoever).

Primary Pieces Quad Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

The quad relic cards left no room for autographs, so the autographed version is in booklet form.  These are hard to find and highly sought after, but that goes for most of the cards numbered to 10 or less.

Primary Pieces Four-Player Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Jose Reyes (with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez), Jose Reyes (with Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, and Elvis Andrus), Tom Seaver (with Nolan Ryan, Roy Halladay, and C.C. Sabathia)
Non-Mets: Heath Bell (with Brian Wilson, Craig Kimbrel, and Mariano Rivera), Nolan Ryan (listed above)

The four-player version of the Primary Pieces insert set includes some interesting player combinations.  Wright and Reyes appear together with their Yankees counterparts, Seaver makes his only game-used appearance with Nolan Ryan (Seaver’s material is from a Reds jersey while Ryan is shown as an Astros uniform), and Reyes appears again with his future (and now former) teammate Hanley Ramirez.  Heath Bell also has his only game-used cards in this insert set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics Legends

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

The final Primary Pieces insert set featured some of the game’s all-time greats on a slightly different card design.  Carter’s cards contained pieces from a pinstripe jersey (though many pieces did not have stripes) and Mays had a couple of quad bat cards.

And there you have it, the defending Mets Game-Used Product of the Year champion.  Once again, this is clearly the bastard child of 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade and 2005 SP Legendary Cuts raised by Topps.  With a few more players, this could have been something truly special, instead it’s just pretty damn good.  As with most premium releases, value for the money is a bit of a crap shoot, with some cards selling for less than $10 and others selling for $1000 or more.  I’ll stick with singles on the secondary market over boxes/packs.  Compared to the premium products that followed it in 2012, Museum Collection looks pretty strong.  The variety of players and material is much better than the offerings in Tier One and Five Star and Triple Threads, despite having a better player selection, can’t compete with the quality and availability of the game-used in Museum Collection.  All have their strong points, but I think Museum Collection comes out on top.