T206 Tinker Bat

I was able to pick up another relic card from the Cubs famous double play trio.



This bat card is from Topps 2002 T206 set. With it, I now have three relics from the three players. Unfortunately, two jersey cards are of the same player, Johnny Evers and I've got nothing for first baseman Frank Chance. I'd much rather have one relic from each of the three.

It looks like that may never happen. No relic card for Chance has ever been made. And unless Topps wants to spend a boatload of money, one never will be made.

I found a couple auctions featuring a bat and jersey that belonged to Chance.



Six years ago this bat went for $12,597.



That was a pittance compared to the jersey, which sold for $62,213 in November, 2009.

I'm just going to have to settle on a little photoshopping if I want a relic from all three.

The Golden Cubs

I've done my best to stay away from the parallel sets this year, but when I saw a Cubs Gold parallel team set for only a couple bucks, I couldn't resist.

Last year's Platinum set was very popular. As is their habit, Topps took something popular and ran it into the ground. Last year they added the Congac parallel set to the Update set. And this year, its these gold cards. 2011 was the 60th anniversary and I understand the special parallels. This year, it makes no sense. I haven't seen much buzz among the bloggers about the golden cards. I'm sure that's what made the $2 set possible.

The only noteworthy thing I found is that they were all significantly bowed. I didn't remember that being a problem with the platinum or cognac cards last year. Otherwise, I guess I got my two bucks worth from these.

The Rest of the Roster

A week ago I had the 2012 starting lineup, starting pitchers, and the top of the bullpen, a total of fifteen players. One of the fifteen, Randy Wells, didn't make the roster. So that leaves eleven more players on the roster that I need to show.

Of the eleven, five have cards showing them as a Cub:



The birdman Reed Johnson, backup outfielder



Utility players Jeff Baker



and Blake DeWitt



Lefty reliever James Russell



and backup catcher Steve Clevenger round out the five.

The six without a Cub card make up a collection of "who?" players. Most are just filling a spot at the major league minimum. It will be interesting to see how many are still on the roster at the end of the season.

I fired up my trust PhotoDeluxe software to make the cards, using Topps base as a template. Usually Ishow players in alphabetical order. Today, I'm going to show them in salary order, from lowest to highest.



Lendy Castillo, $480,000



Rafael Dalis, $480,500



Joe Mather: $490,000



Rodrigo Lopez: $????...none of my sources list a salary for Lopez.



Shawn Camp, $550,000



Chris Volstad, $2,655,000

Total for these six (I'm figuring $500,000 or Lopez) is $5,155,500. Alfonso Soriano is making more than triple that, $19,000,000.

Etopps Update

It's been more than a month since I wrote about Topps' lousy customer service as I looked for information about this



Darwin Barney etopps card I purchased. Here's what's happened since then...




....nothing.

I never got a call back or a response to my email from Topps Customer Disservice. Tired of waiting to hear from them, I called again and got a live person. I was told that the 2011 cards that were supposed to be available in mid-February were now going to be ready in March. March has come and gone and when I log in to check on the cards availability, I still get the same...



...NOT AVAILABLE message.

Topps is also making it harder to even get to the etopps site. There are no links to etopps anywhere on the main Topps page. If you search the Topps site for the term "eTopps" you'll get no hits. Instead, it says "There are no results to display." Do a Google search for "eTopps" and you'll get nothing as well. It's as if it never existed.

Luckily, the eTopps website is still live, but you'll have to type in the URL manually...www.etopps.com

I spent some time Monday morning calling customer disservice to find out when the 2011 cards will be available and to see why the links to eTopps have disappeared. The girl I talked to had no idea that the link to etopps from the main page was even missing.

And the cards, wow, this is getting ridiculous. The word is that they would be ready in...

...mid MAY! I was given the same line about the cards not being printed to their standards and having to be reprinted. They are now on their third printing, two with the first printer and now the third with a new one. We shall see if they get it right this time.

31 Year Old Stickers

Yesterday I had the 2012 stickers. Today I've got more stickers, but they are a bit older. Actually, they are 31 years old.

A while back I completed a trade with Kevin from St. Louis Cardinal Cards. Included in the stack he sent was a Bill Buckner sticker from 1982. The sticker piqued my interest and I have since picked up the all of the Cubs stickers from Topps' first run of stickers from 1981 - 1990. From time to time I'll post the stickers from a season. Today. it's the first set from 1981.

The complete set consisted of 262 stickers made for Topps by Panini. The first 32 stickers were of the stars of the day. Two Cubs, Bill Buckner (#17) and Bruce Sutter (#32) made this list.





The next 208 stickers were arranged by team. The Cubs were #151-158. The final 22 stickers were more stars.

I was collecting cards in 1981 but the stickers weren't on my radar at all. The only thing I was worried about in 1981 was getting the sets from the new companies, Fleer and Donruss. Too bad for me. Though the sticker design was very plain, it was nice to see a different picture than the one on the Topps card. And in 1981, it was nice to see a non-Shea photo...for the most part.

Here are the stickers on the left and the cards on the right. It looks a bit off because I made both pictures the same height, though in reality the stickers are only 2 9/16" tall compared to the 3 1/2" of the cards.



This is the only Cub that has a duplicate picture.

Brand New Stickers

The 2012 sticker set was recently released to very little fanfare. I guess people don't bust cases of this like they do with Heritage or Ginter. This is the second straight year (after 20 years off) that Topps released a 309 sticker set. Each team gets nine players and there is also a team logo sticker.

All of the Cubs are players from last season; none are the new guys photoshopped into a Cubs uniform. In fact, I believe Topps did very little photoshopping with this set. My guess is that the stickers have a longer lead time than a cardboard product. Last year's set came out later in the season and included some spring training shots of new guys.

The design is reminiscent of the flagship brand's 2012 look, though not a copy. The pictures are decent looking too. I've grown to like the look of the stickers the past couple years.

Topps 1969 - 2011 Complete Set Prices

Here is my monthly look at complete set prices, taken from the first five completed sales listings on Ebay on April 4. I was away from home the first week of April, so I got the prices a few days later than usual.

**A couple 1969 sets went for ridiculously high prices, really skewing the average.

**One set from both 1987 and 1989 went for 99¢.

**It will set you back $6,443.59 to buy one of each. That's an increase of $337.55 over last month.

YEAR	April 4	Mar. 1	Feb. 1	12 Mo. Avg.
1969	$1,652.33	$1,049.20	$933.17	$1,128.07
1970	$722.35	$982.44	$740.78	$901.56
1971	$780.98	$634.75	$884.01	$849.41
1972	$888.35	$975.96	$994.21	$1,024.10
1973	$317.74	$395.10	$376.30	$398.66
1974	$288.00	$284.49	$277.96	$248.82
1975	$285.59	$329.39	$335.97	$283.34
1976	$209.00	$210.59	$221.42	$174.50
1977	$155.98	$100.01	$129.80	$135.29
1978	$110.13	$92.75	$95.91	$96.12
1979	$107.28	$94.80	$108.97	$83.09
1980	$71.19	$71.20	$65.57	$63.85
1981	$30.31	$51.84	$29.44	$30.28
1982	$33.50	$46.31	$50.60	$37.62
1983	$33.10	$30.89	$28.91	$34.16
1984	$18.70	$26.99	$24.70	$23.11
1985	$27.39	$38.60	$22.74	$25.62
1986	$17.25	$9.21	$15.64	$15.35
1987	$8.19	$8.50	$7.05	$10.25
1988	$11.77	$8.04	$10.34	$8.74
1989	$6.50	$7.68	$4.03	$6.37
1990	$9.68	$10.84	$6.66	$8.11
1991	$14.40	$12.00	$7.69	$10.36
1992	$10.11	$11.22	$11.48	$9.65
1993	$22.09	$25.89	$16.10	$22.63
1994	$23.50	$23.24	$20.12	$23.01
1995	$36.46	$50.96	$49.67	$46.91
1996	$20.89	$19.45	$17.30	$20.21
1997	$34.12	$46.04	$48.91	$43.19
1998	$42.80	$38.63	$35.95	$42.61
1999	$17.56	$23.89	$22.99	$22.92
2000	$21.10	$18.97	$17.99	$20.11
2001	$69.00	$54.04	$58.71	$53.99
2002	$41.49	$26.55	$30.59	$35.19
2003	$41.90	$33.90	$32.20	$32.20
2004	$25.80	$29.45	$32.98	$26.75
2005	$27.66	$31.99	$36.23	$27.96
2006	$29.98	$19.31	$15.60	$22.26
2007	$24.56	$31.21	$15.68	$19.11
2008	$36.80	$28.37	$26.70	$28.38
2009	$46.79	$41.20	$52.58	$39.50
2010	$39.57	$44.27	$29.09	$39.50
2011	$33.79	$36.00	$45.59	$31.27