Super 70's Sports Cubs

 Topps partnered with the Twitter site Super 70's Sports to create an online set called Super 70's Sports.  The set consists of a combination of 90 current and retired players.

The design of the cards used elements from the last three sets of the 1970's

They took to pennant  from 1977, the team name from 1978, and the ribbon from 1979 to create...

... the 2020 Super 70s Sports card.

The Cubs did quite well in the set, with six of the 90 cards, which is double the number if Topps decided to divide the cards evenly among the 30 teams.  There are four retired Cubs and two active.

 

 

The inclusion of two of these in a set called Super 70's is a bit confusing.  Ernie Banks played just 111 games in the 70's, which is 4% of his total games played.  He's belong in a Super 60's set.  And Ryno?  He was still in the low minors in the 1970s, making his MLB debut in 1981.  

Jenkins and Kingman make much more sense.  And how about a Jose Cardenal or Bill Buckner instead of Banks and Jenkins?

 

The selection of current Cubs, Rizzo and Baez, are no surprise.

A Long, Long Ride on This Side of the Pond

 Topps put out a baseball card set that was exclusive to the Topps UK website.  It was a 200 card version of the US series one and two.  It sold out within ten hours, though I'd guess that a majority of the buyers were American collectors.

There are ten Cubs in the set, and I bought them from a US seller on December 8.  The long, long ride began.

The Pennsylvania-based dealer got the package to the post office on December 9.  It then sat in Philadelphia.  And sat.  And sat so more.  Eight days later it finally started moving and got to Grand Rapids, the hub that would be my service hub, that same day.

When a package get to the Grand Rapids hub, it them goes to Kalamazoo and then my local Sturgis post office within 24 hours.

Not this time.

For reasons known only by the USPS, it went to Indianapolis.  Then back to Grand Rapids.  And then it sat for another eight days

When it finally started moving again, instead of heading to Kalamazoo next, it went to Des Moines.  Twice now it has gone from Grand Rapids to the wrong place.

It didn't swing back to Grand Rapids, but instead headed to Detroit.  And then Kalamazoo.  But then, not Kalamazoo to Sturgis, but back to Grand Rapids.

Then finally, it went to Kalamazoo and after a 23 day journey, to Sturgis and to me.  

I could have ordered this from a seller in the UK and gotten it quicker!

How crazy is that!

And all that waiting for....

... another card of Robel Garcia! Noooooo!

 

 

 

 

Sure, there were nine other Cubs, but in a set that is limited to just 200 players, why include Robel Garcia!

Collection Growth During 2020

 I like to take some time at the start of each year to check out the growth of my collection.  I mention the number of Cubs cards and brands each Sunday in my Five Random Cubs Card posts, so that gives me a weekly update.  I use those numbers and put them on a chart to show the changes each quarter.

The number of Cubs cards shows a pretty steady increase each year.  I don't do it on purpose, but the gains are pretty consistent, especially since 2011.  In 2020 I added an additional 1355 cards.  

The brands have jumped up a couple of times recently.  In 2018 I added a bunch of retail brands from the 1980s and 1990s.  That didn't add a bunch of cards since many of the sets have just a few cards each, but it really goosed the number of brands. The same thing happened in the early part of 2020 as I picked up a bunch of the MSA sets.  My set total in 2020 jumped from 207 to 276.

Billy Is Now Framed

 

  

I've had these Billy Williams autographs for years. They are a Hall of Fame postcard, three Perez- Steele postcards, and a couple of first day release envelopes.  My intent was to have them all matted into a single frame.  I looked into the price for getting that done, and it was well over $100.  Sorry, nope.  Instead, the autographs were stacked on my desk in oversized top loaders.

Every so often I'd get them out, take a look at them, consider a frame, and then put them back.  I finally had a change of heart a couple of weeks ago.  I was looking for a project to do over the Christmas break and decided to try to frame them myself.  I figured I could do it for much less than what a framing shop would charge me.

I did some online investigating first.  The best deals on frames I could find were at Amazon and I ordered a frame.  It would be in Cub's blue.  YouTube had some helpful videos on the matting process.  I learned what to do and the tools I'd need to do it.

Mrs. WW and I headed to Hobby Lobby.  I found a black piece that was large enough to make four mats, which meant I had some test pieces.  I picked up the mat cutting tool, too. We went home and I started practicing.

Early on it was rough.  I had a hard time because I had to hold the straight edge steady, keep the mat from moving, and slide the cutter.  I was one hand short to do that.  Mrs. WW stepped in to help.  I also discovered that the tool was made for right handed people.  I'm a lefty.  It took some practice to get the hang of doing it with my off hand.

The practice paid off and soon I was ready to make the actual cuts.  The six autographs meant 24 cuts.  I knew that one bad slip and I'd have to start over. No pressure, right? As I went along, I got pretty good at it and by the final cuts, I was no longer worried about a mistake.

After the cuts were made, the cards were mounted and put into the frame. Right away we noticed that the black edge of the mat next to the dark blue frame didn't look good.  Mrs. WW suggested a second mat, in white, to make a small border around the black mat.  A second trip to Hobby Lobby was needed.  We went the next day, got the white mat. and made the cuts.

It turned out better than I could have ever hoped!  The cost was a fraction of the framing shop estimate and now I can custom mat any pictures I'd like.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 18,828 Cubs cards from 276 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1973 Topps #426 Dave LaRoche His time with the Cubs was as ugly as this card, a 5.17 ERA over 94 games.

1980s: 1988 Pacific Legends #23 Hank Sauer  This isn't part of my rule-following collection.  There weren't any certified autographs from Sauer's playing days!  I felt it was a good idea to get an autograph of the NL's 1952 MVP.

1990s: 1993 Conlon #800 Hippo Vaughn The year on the card should be 1918, not 1914.  These came out in 1993 and 75 years ago is 1918.  Vaughn was 22-10 during the year.  In the World Series he pitched three complete games and had an ERA of 1.00, yet was 1-2.

2000s: 2004 Vintage #278 Corey Patterson  This season saw the emergence of KKKorey Patterson, as he had 168 hits and struck out 168 times.

2010s: 2015 Heritage RP #9 Javier Baez I'm not sure how Baez qualified for this card.  In his rookie year of 2014 he hit .149 and had 36 hits while striking out 95 times.  Ouch!

Goals for 2021

 I'm in a rut and I've got no problem with it.  My goals for 2021 are pretty much the same as they've been for the past few years.  I like what I get and I'm not bored with it, so I see no reason to change much.

GOAL #1: Add my usual Cubs team sets as they are released: Topps flagship, Heritage, Opening Day, Factory Team set, Bowman, Allen and Ginter, Chrome, Gypsy Queen, Archives, Update and whatever else comes along.  This goal and goal #2 may get a little harder or more expensive because Brentandbecca is getting pushed out of the casebreaking business by the distributors (his 2021 series one order was cut from 100 cases to 5).

GOAL #2: Add the complete sets of the flagship, update, and Allen and Ginter. I've got a flagship run starting with 1969 and the complete run of Traded / Update and Allen and Ginter. I see no reason to stop.

GOAL #3: Add any autograph and relic cards for Cubs players that haven't previously had one. I'm done with players from previous seasons, so now its just a matter of adding new guys as cards are issued.

GOAL #4: Continue adding to the player collections of Darwin Barney, Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Billy Williams.

GOAL #5: Add odd-ball sets and sets of smaller brands that I missed earlier.  I've been having fun with this one and hope to add several more of the smaller sets.

GOAL #6: Write something about the collection every day, though if I take a day or two off, that is OK.

GOAL #7:  Thin the collection a bit.  I had this goal last year and failed miserably.  I'll keep it and see if 2021 is any better.

GOAL #8: Enjoy working on goals 1-7. I'm in trouble when I can't meet this goal.

Grading Myself

I publish my goals for the upcoming year on January 2 and then grade myself a year later. Below are my 2020 goals and my grades for the year.





GOAL #1: Add my usual Cubs team sets as they are released: Topps flagship, Heritage, Opening Day, Factory Team set, Bowman, Allen and Ginter, Chrome, Gypsy Queen, Archives, Update and whatever else comes along.

GRADE: A Though delayed due to covid, I was able to get all of my usual sets. I've added 483 Cubs cards from 2020. That's about 50 less than the past two years, but some sets weren't released and a couple more are still on the way.


GOAL #2: Add the complete sets of the flagship, update, and Allen and Ginter. I've got a flagship run starting with 1969 and the complete run of Traded / Update and Allen and Ginter. I see no reason to stop.

GRADE: A Thank you Brentandbecca!

GOAL #3: Add any autograph and relic cards for Cubs players that haven't previously had one. I'm done with players from previous seasons, so now its just a matter of adding new guys as cards are issued.

GRADE: A This was pretty easy. Just one new autograph was added (Kyle Hendricks finally got a certified auto) and one relic (Nico Hoerner).

GOAL #4: Continue adding to the player collections of Darwin Barney, Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Billy Williams.

GRADE: B+ I added some Barney, Billy, and Banks cards but didn't do much with Dawson and Sandberg.

GOAL #5: Add odd-ball sets and sets of smaller brands that I missed earlier. I've been having fun with this one and hope to add several more of the smaller sets.

GRADE: A+ I went crazy with this one, adding a boatload of MSA discs and cards. Recently I've been adding cards from price guides.

GOAL #6: Write something about the collection every day, though if I take a day or two off, that is OK.

GRADE: A The post total for 2020 was 358. I skipped a week while I was on vacation.

GOAL #7: Thin the collection a bit. I'm starting to run out of shelf space and I really don't want to add more. I won't be thinning my Cubs collection (that would be unthinkable!) but I do plan on getting rid of some non-Topps complete sets. I have several that I'm not all that interested in any longer and can clear some space by moving them out.

GRADE: F I didn't do anything here. Maybe in 2021.

GOAL #8: Enjoy working on goals 1-8. I'm in trouble when I can't meet this goal.

GRADE: A It was a fun collecting year despite the pandemic.