2021 Topps Archives Cubs

 I've got the base set from 2021 Archives now in hand.  

Topps has finally caught up to the trades the Cubs made in late July, so Baez, Bryant, and Rizzo don't have Cubs cards.  There are nine Cubs in the set, but only four are active players.

The set uses the designs from 1957, 1962, 1973, 1983, 1991, 2001, and 2011.  They also threw in a fantasy design from 2091.  That seems really dumb since the set is called "Archives."  Seem kinda tough to archive something from 50 years in the future.

 

 

 

 

The Cubs have a card for each of the years except 1973.  That's since since we're getting 1973 in next year's Heritage.  1983 was the big Cubs winner with three cards.  And did we really need another card for Brailyn Marquez?

2021 T206 Wave 8 Cubs

 Wave 8 arrived recently and it's one of the best waves yet

 

Two hall of famers and a player that is actually still on the team!

Four More - We're into the S's Now

 I keep plugging away at the 48 homemade cards I needed to make so each of the 69 Cubs has a 2021 Topps card.  I've been working through alphabetically and I'm up to the S's now.

 

 

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 19,558 Cubs cards from 285 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1933 Goudey #67 Guy Bush The is the second week in a row that the RNG starts us off with a card from the 1933 Goudey set.

1980s: 1989 Donruss Rookies #36 Phil Stephenson  The Cubs had Rafael Palmeiro and then Mark Grace to play first base.  Stephenson got locked out.  He was traded to the Padres in August, 1989.  His career average over four MLB seasons was .201.

1990s: 1992 Star #8 Ryne Sandberg This is card #8 of 11 in the Sandberg set.  The picture is not very exciting looking.

2000s: 2005 Heritage #300 Sammy Sosa  This is the SP version of Sammy's card.  The regular card has a different picture in the background

2010s: 2019 Finest Blue Chip Ian Happ While he's not a cow chip, Happ hasn't been what I'd consider a blue chip either.

A Look at All of the 2021 Flagship Cubs

The 31 base cards from the 2021 set along with another 48 inserts give me a total of 79 Cubs cards from the Topps set.

Here are all 79 Topps Cubs in a 79 seconds.

Wrapping Up The 2021 Flagship Inserts

 I've got the inserts recap today.

There are 48 Cubs inserts in the 2021 set.  That's a little better than last year, when there were 45.  But those numbers are way down from the years prior to that, with 63 in 2019, 101 in 2018,  87 in 2017, and 81 in 2016.  It would be nice if  the number of inserts and the number of team wins goes up in 2022, but I'm doubtful that either will happen.

The 2021 Cubs inserts....

• Cubs were included in 17 of the 19 sets (they are missing in DH Debuts and Significant Statistics)
• 12 different players were shown
• 2 of the 12 players are with the Cubs right now (Contreras and Marquez)
• 7 of of the 12 are on different teams (Baez, Bryant, Darvish, Kimbrel, Lester, Rizzo, Schwarber)
• 3 of the 12 are retired (Banks, Maddux, Sandberg)
• The most popular players were Javier Baez with 14 cards and Kris Bryant with 10
• just 4 of the inserts are horizontal
• 44 are vertical

Wrapping Up The 2021 Flagship Base Cards

 I can wrap up the 2021 flagship set now that I have Update in hand.  I'll have the base set recap today, the inserts on Friday, and I'll put them all together on Saturday.

The Cubs netted a total of 31 base cards.  Its down quite a bit from the previous two years, which each had 39 cards. 

Among the 31 cards, there are...

• 26 vertical layout
• only 5 with a horizontal layout... good for me because I prefer the verticals
• 1 team card
• 0 combo cards
• 1 League Leader
• 30 different players, including 1 HOF photo variation
• 12 players on the Cubs 40 man roster today
• 17 no longer on the roster
• 8 players that never played an inning for the 2021 Cubs - that's a fourth of the players with Cubs cards
• 15 pictures taken at Wrigley Field
• 16 pictures on the road