All I've Got of Him: Jon Lester

The 2018 season will be Jon Lester's fourth with the Cubs.  He was an expensive free-agent signing in 2015.  It was money well spent as he helped lead the Cubs to the title in 2016.  Right now he's the Cubs #1 starter and will be taking the hill on opening day.

Topps has not been shy about including him in various sets.  I've got 61 different cards of him over those three years and a bit of the fourth.  I'm guessing the total will grow to nearly 70 cards by the end of 2018.

While putting the tile together, I got a laugh out of this card...

...which shows him tossing to first to get an out.  He had a problem doing that this past Sunday.

Here's a look at all 61 cards:

My First 2018 Heritage Cards

The two retail insert sets (Decals and Collector Card Transogram) are cards that I have to get via Ebay, since Brentandbecca busts only hobby cases.  Yesterday the first of the cards arrived.

 

These are the ones I wrote about yesterday, the Transogram cards.

Now lets look at the Heritage and Transogram cards side by side to see how well Topps did.

 

Mistakes in the Heritage version include:

• Putting the name too close to the bottom of the picture
• Writing out the position instead of using numbers - 1st Base vs. First Baseman
• Putting the team name in italics
• RIght justifying the weight and birthdate
• Left justifying bats and Home

And the biggest mistake of all...

No lines for cutting out the cards!

They Should Be Called "Transogram"

The 2018 Heritage set has four insert sets that mimic some 1969 inserts or brands.

 

There's the Deckle Edge..

 

... and Decals that were inserts in the 1969 set.

 

The Bazooka set copies the one that was on boxes of Bazooka gum.

And then there are these:

 

The Heritage checklist calls them Collector Cards.  But I don't know of any collectors who use that name to refer to the originals.  The originals are Transogram cards.  They were put out by the Transogram company and were found on the box of a player figure.

The box says "Collector Card on Back" but no one refers the them as that.  They are Transogram.  If you Google "Collector Cards 1969" you won't get these.  Google "Transogram cards 1969" and you get a bunch of sites referring to these yellow gems.

I never knew that Topps made the Transogram cards, though it has been pointed out that the name font is almost identical to that on the 1968 cards.

Some of the Transogram cards have the same pictures as Topps cards, too.  The clues were there, I just never noticed.

The Transogram company were belly-up in the early 1970s, so I'd assume there's no legal reason for Topps to not call them "Transogram."  I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong.

But it seems wrong to me for the yellow cards to be called anything other than "Transogram."

FIve Random Cubs Cards

I've got 15,464 Cubs cards from 130 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1963 Exhibits Billy Williams  This 1963 cards is using Billy's team press photo from 1962.   This card has the earliest example of his autograph.  It was very legible then, and is still...

...pretty easy to read.

1980s: 1988 Leaf #69 Jody Davis  Two things with this card... I never noticed before that the C decal on his helmet is torn.  Can anybody figure out what the writing on his T-shirt says?

1990s: 1991 Star Stellar #96 Ryne Sandberg  Stellar is one of eight different sets put out by Star in 1991.  Ryno was included in seven of them, which makes 63 different Sandberg Star cards from that year.  Yes, the junk wax era was in full swing.

2000s: 2000 Bowman #411 Scott Downs  He made his big league debut with the Cubs in 2000 and was 4-3 over 18 starts before being traded to the Expos at the trade deadline.  

2010s: 2016 Topps Chrome #25 Jake Arrieta  Will he sign with anyone for the 2018 season?  Only if he lowers his asking price and the contract length.  

1996 Bowman's Best Cubs

I got sidetracked getting my new Bowman's Best sets shown.  Now is as good a time as any to get back to it, as I wait for my Heritage cards to arrive.

The 1996 version of Bowman's Best had a checklist of 180 cards.  Half were prospects, with silver backgrounds and the other half were established players and their backgrounds were gold.

The Cubs have four prospects, and none of the four panned out.

 

 

 

Brooks Kieschnick is included for the third year in a row, while Kevin Orie is a repeat from 1994.  Jennings and Telemaco are making their one and only Bowman's Best appearance.

 

 

Grace, Sandberg, and Sosa were the golden boys, appropriate choices for 1996.

Looking Forward to Heritage

Heritage is out.  Auctions are up on Ebay.  I wait patiently.

I am really looking forward to this year's Heritage because the 1969 set it the first one I collected.  I used many nickels to buy stacks of wax packs.

 

Last year I made my own version of what I thought Kris Bryant's card would look like.  Mine in on the left, the Topps version is on the right.  I put him in a 1960's Wrigley Field.  Topps put him in Mesa. I also used the same position designation as was used in 1969.  Topps changed it.  Sorry, Topps, but I think mine is better looking.

There is a decent number of Cubs cards in the set, and Brentandbecca will be sending them to me.  The checklist includes:

Base Cards:
20 Anthony Rizzo
43 Jon Lester
63 Ian Happ
80 Kris Bryant
106 Chicago Clubbers - Bryant and Rizzo
107 Kris Bryant - checklist

126 Jose Quintana

171 Javier Baez
241 Addison Russell
247 Willson Contreras
264 Carl Edwards Jr.
268 Kyle Schwarber
288 Jake Arrieta
362 Kris Bryant All Star
368 Jason Heyward
297 Dillon Maples
297 Jen Ho Tsent
297 Taylor Davis

The Dreaded Shortprints:
403 Ben Zobrist
411 Albert Almora
423 Kyle Hendricks
430 Wade Davis
455 Drew Smyly

Inserts:
1969 Collectors Cards - Target Only
69CC-AR Anthony Rizzo
69CC-KB Kris Bryant

1969 Decals Set - Walmart only
4 Kris Bryant
7 Anthony Rizzo

1969 Deckle Edge Set
18 Kris Bryant
19 Anthony Rizzo

Baseball Flashback
BF-FJ Fergie Jenkins

Clubhouse Collection
CCR-AR Anthony Rizzo
CCR-ARU Addison Russell
CCR-JB Javier Baez
CCR-KB Kris Bryant
CCR-JL Jon Lester
CCR-KSC Kyle Schwarber

New Age Performers
NAP-18 Kris Bryant
NAP-19 Anthony Rizzo

Then and Now
TN-14 Fergie Jenkins

Fixed the Bryant Highlights

I was mistakenly sent several blue and black versions of the Kris Bryant Highlights set.  While I was happy to have all 30 cards, my OCD wouldn't let me keep the mixed up cards.

A quick trip to Sportlots got me the cards I needed and they all came without any seller shenanigans.

Ahhh! Much better!