2024 Finest Cubs Part 1

 The 2024 edition of Topps Finest was released on August 7.  Its going to take me three posts to show all this because, for the first time since 1997, Finest has three tiers of cards in the base set.  The first 100 are the common set.  I'll be showing those today.  The next 100 cards are called "Uncommon" and they come at a rate of one per pack (there are six cards total in a pack).  The final 100 cards are "Rare" and they fall one every third pack.

The 300 card set is significantly larger than recent Finest set which had just 125 cards.  And the three tiers make it much more expensive to track down all the Cubs.  There are a total of 15 Cubs cards, with five in each of the three tiers.  While there are 15 cards, they represent just ten players.  Shota Imanaga and Pete Crow-Armstrong have cards in all three tiers and Christopher Morel is in the first and third level.

The cards below are the Cubs in the Common set.  They were pretty simple to get and weren't expensive.  Four of the five came from one Sportlots seller.  

It wasn't as easy to get the ten cards from the higher tiers.  I took my time with those, trying to find them as cheaply as possible.  I ended up buying all ten on eBay from ten different sellers.  They are all in the mail now and I'll show each tier as soon as I have the cards.

1994 Sportflics Fixed

 I still have a few more years of Sportflics to show.

The brand was on hiatus for a few years, from 1991 through 1993.  The brand returned in 1994 with a set of 193 cards and a slightly new name, Sportflics 2000.  There was also a rookies and traded set with an additional 150 cards.  Just nine Cubs were among the total of 343 cards.

2024 Cubs #50-52

 I wasn't blogging for almost a month, but I didn't have too many new Cubs players to make cards for after my return.  There were just three new players and that isn't many, especially since we are in September when rosters can be expanded.  All of the new players are pitchers.

Jack Neely came to the Cubs from the Yankees in the Mark Leiter trade.  Leiter has been a real bust in New York, so Neely doesn't have to do much to make that exchange a win for the Cubs.

 

These two are scrapheap acquisitions, Armstrong from the Cardinals and Wingenter from the Red Sox.  For both, the Cubs are their third organization this season.  Hopefully, the third time is the charm.

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,886 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1962 Topps #477 Andre Rodgers  My guess as to where this picture was taken is Candlestick Park.  Only two 1961 ballparks had tall light standards like those shown, Milwaukee and Candlestick.  Several Giant player cards are shown in their home uniforms, so there were pictures that in SF.

1980s: 1987 Baseball's All Time Greats #50 Fergie Jenkins I think that the scowl on his face put some fear into alot of National League hitters.

1990s: 1994 Studio #61 Derrick May I think that it is impressive that they not only had to take pictures of the players, but had to set up his locker too.

2000s: 2004 Bowman Heritage #341 Matt Creighton The Creighton show never made it to prime time.  He peaked with 31 games in AAA.

2010s: 2018 Heritage Clubhouse Collection #JB Javier Baez I always prefer to get relic cards with the home pinstripe showing.  This one looks good with the stripe in the middle of the piece.

Eighties Alphabetically - Jewel

Jewel grocery (or "da Jewels") is definitely a Chicago thing.  If you're not from the Chicago area, you probably never heard of the chain.  As a local Chicago store, they have been Chicago boosters and that has been shown with occasional baseball picture releases.  They issued sets of Cubs players in 1969, 1973, 1977, and 1984.

The 1984 set was like the others and featured pictures of players printed on large 6"x9" paper.  There are 16 pictures in all and they are all head shots.  The cropping was odd with this set, as it looks like the players that were picked up during spring training or the season were cropped with just their head showing while those with the team for a longer time were cropped at the waist.

I'm Back

 

We spent a couple of weeks working at Camp Arcadia, on the shore of Lake Michigan and then were busy for another week or so when we got home.  Things have settled down and I can get back to regular blogging soon.

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,868 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1915 Cracker Jack #176 James Vaughn Hippo doesn't look very happy here.

1980s: 1981 All-Star Program Steve Henderson Henderson was in the program, but he didn't make the All-Star team.  In fact, over his twelve year career, he was never an All-Star

1990s: 1995 Stadium Club World Series #235 Randy Myers The Stadium Club logo gets the upper right corner and his head is in the upper left.  That didn't leave a decent spot for the World Series logo and they stuck it under his rear end.

2000s: 2005 Topps Chrome #307 LaTroy Hawkins It looks like Hawkins is celebrating one of his 25 saves from the 2004 season.

2010s: 2011  Topps Chrome #193 Darwin Barney  Darwin!  I also have 20 parallel versions of this card.