Donruss 2018 Cubs

Yesterday I had an autograph card from the 2018 Donruss set.  Today I've got all the Cubs base cards.

There are a total of 270 cards in the complete Donruss set for this year.  They are divided into four subsets.  Cards 1-30 are the Diamond Kings.  The next 20 cards are the rated rookies.  The base set is next, with card #51 - 200.  They are followed by 20 two player combo cards.  Wrapping up the set are 50 Retro 1984 cards.

Anthony Rizzo is the Cubs Diamond King.  What a very blah looking card, especially for the Diamond King series.  The Cubs were shut out with the rated rookies, so we move onto the base cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are ten Cubs among the 150 cards of the base set.  The Contreras card is my favorite, since, as I said yesterday, you don't usually see much of the logos are catchers cards.

Ryno is the only Cubs on a combo card.  This is from the 1992 All Star game in San Diego, when these two were among the National League starters.

 

 

Bryant, Happ, and Rizzo were included in the final subset, the 1984 retro cards.

 

Here's a look at the original and the retro versions side by side.  I don't know why they have Bryant's name over a red background instead of purple.  Also, the 8 from 18 is not the same style as the 8 in 84.

Gambled and Won!

I took a gamble on the possibility of a rule-following autograph and I won!

This is from the 2018 Donruss set.  Catcher cards are about the only ones that look good without the logos, since they are usually covered up by his gear.  Topps has Bryant, Rizzo, Baez, Lester, etc, and Donruss had Victor Caratini.  But I did learn my lesson last year and am now checking any Panini products checklist  for lesser known Cubs players.

My gamble was that Caratini was make the Cubs roster sometime during the 2018 season.  If that were to happen, then that means this card follows my rule of showing him as a Cub during a season he played for the Cubs.  I was thinking he might be a September call-up or a replacement for an injured catcher.  It was just a $5 gamble, so I wasn't risking my retirement fund or anything like that.

This weekend the Cubs announced that Victor has made the team as the backup catcher.  It was a bit of a surprise as he went into camp in the #3 spot.  But by being placed on the roster, with his first appearance in the 2018 season I can add this card to my list.  He will be the 131st player on the autograph list.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 15,568 Cubs cards from 132 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1974 Kelloggs #32 Billy Williams  This is the fifth and final Kelloggs card for Billy Williams.  He was the only Cub in all of their sets up to this point.

1980s: 1986 Topps #46 Billy Hatcher  Though shown with the Cubs in the '86 set, Hatcher was traded to the Astros in December, 1985.  The Cubs got Jerry Mumphrey in return, a trade of youth for experience.

1990s: 1996 Stadium Club #326 Kevin Foster This is a nice looking action shot of the Cubs pitcher.  Its nice to see a pitcher in action not showing that goof looking grunt face that we see too often on today's cards.

2000s: 2002 Upper Deck #731 Sammy Sosa  Looks like Sammy is celebrating a home run at Wrigley hit off the Brewers.  Sosa hit just two homers off of the Brewers in 2001, both on August 20 as the Cubs and Brewers played a double header.  The first games started at 4:05, the second at 7:38, so this has to be from game 1.  He hit a homer in the fifth inning with Delino DeShields on base.

2010s: 2012 Topps #381 David DeJesus  This picture is a Photoshop job because Alfonso Soriano was #12 for the Cubs.  

World Series Autograph Collection Completed!!

Not too long ago the Cubs dropped Justin Grimm from the roster.

Not too long ago I added Justin Grimm to my autograph roster.

Grimm was the last of the 2016 Cubs needed for my World Series roster collection.  This 2010 Elite Extra Edition is his only certified autograph.  The two available on Ebay were priced higher than I was comfortable with.  Then two things happened.

First, a third was listed as an auction.  This was my chance for a bargain!

No it wasn't.  Two buyers got into a bidding war and within a day the high bid was steep.

But, one of the two Buy It Now cards had a price drop. In fact, the price of the BIN was below the price of the card in the bidding war.  I grabbed the BIN ASAP.

Here are the autographs I've got of each member of  the Cubs World Series team. 

This was a fun project to complete.

I hope I get to do it again!

2018 Opening Day Inserts

It seems like there are more insert sets in Opening Day this year than in the past.  Topps has also made some very tough to find.  The Dugout Peeks set is seeded 1:1971 packs.  Ben Zobrist is in that set and just two have shown up on Ebay thus far.

 

Bryant and Rizzo are the Cubs in the 20 card Before Opening Day set.

Kyle Schwarber is the lone Cub Opening Day star.

Clark is one of 25 mascots.  I do like the way the Cubs use him, as just a thing for the kids.  During a game you do not see him on the field or in the stands.

This is from the Opening Day Stadium set.  So why don't you show the actual stadium..... in a set called Opening Day Stadium.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.

2018 Opening Day Cubs

Topps is back with Opening Day, also known as Flagship Light.  The 200 card set includes eleven Cubs, which is a pretty decent number.

One nice thing with Opening Day is that it can be a preview of Series Two cards.  There are four Cubs among the eleven that did not have a card in Series One, so here is what their flagship card may look like...

 

 

 

Will Topps keep Arrieta as a Cub in Series Two?

It doesn't happen very often any more, but sometimes the pictures in Opening Day are different that what was used in Series One...

 

The rest of the cards are Series One reruns...

 

 

 

 

Blog Bat Around - My Various Collecting Projects

Night Owl has initiated another Blog Bat Around and I'm in.  The topic this time is to describe your various card collecting projects.  I've written about most of these over the years, but never in a single post.

Here we go:

Cubs Team Sets  This would be my primary project, Cubs cards.  I'm up to 130 different brands, totalling nearly 15,600 cards.  And with those 130 brands, I've got all the base Cubs cards for all of them.  That is my Cub collecting MO - identify a brand and then get all the cards.  At this point, I've got all the big boys, so my focus has been on getting the smaller brands filled in.

Topps Complete Sets  I have a 50 year run of complete sets, from 1969 to 2018.  I started with 1969 because that was the first year I collected cards.

Wax Pack Collection  This coincides with my run of complete sets.

Player Collection  I have a player collection for five players - Darwin Barney, Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Billy Williams.  The ones that get the most of my attention are the Barney and Williams collections.

Relics and Autographs  My rule -- if a player has a relic card issued in a year he played for the Cubs and it shows him as a Cub, I have a relic.  Same rule for autographs.  As far as I'm aware, I've got all the players covered that meet the rule.

Allen and Ginter Complete Sets  This set really caught my fancy when I returned to collecting in 2008.  The first Ginter set came out just two years earlier, so I was simple to go back and get the missing sets and then add a new one each year.

First Year Complete Sets  This compliments my Cubs team sets.  I have first year complete sets of 58 of the 130 brands in my Cubs collection.  I was much more into this seven or eight years ago, but have really cooled off. 

I have a few other baseball, but not cards, collections and they are all Cubs-related:
Roster Books / Media Guides - from 1957 to 2017 (with 2018 to come in a few weeks)
Scorecards - from 1948 - 2017 (I'll pick up 2018 once the season begins)
Schedules - from 1961 - 2018