The other day I pulled this Lonnie Chisenhall from a 2012 Archives Blaster. I asked what I thought was an obvious question, who is Lonnie Chisenhall?
I was rewarded with a number of comments, both on the blog and through email, that Chisenhall was a highly touted prospect in the Indians organization. According to one, he should be a fixture at 3rd for the Indians for a long time. Apparently, he might have also stolen some computers back in college.
I finally figured out why I haven't heard of Chisenhall. It's because Topps hasn't annointed him as the Next Big Thing.
Who had a chance to hear about any other prospects the last two years with Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper on the horizon?
Topps, also known as the Nationals Publicity Machine, did everything they could to focus the entire hobby around Strasburg and Harper. I get that Bowman is a prospectors dream, but it would be nice if every other product didn't have to focus on unproven guys like this. Oh well, that's the name of the game these days. Products are driven by the mega-case breakers and speculators who don't care about the core of the hobby. Now, it could be that I'm a little bitter about it, or it could be that I worked 24 of the last 32 hours.
I don't want to be too negative around here, so I'll include this little tidbit in this post rather than write a separate one. I'm primarily a team collector, but I do like to put together a few sets too. I'm not going to complete a master set anytime soon, but if you (I'm talkin' to you Topps) are going to include a card as a "base card" and number it in with the set, then don't make it an SP or an SSP or an SSSSSSSP. They did it with that stupid Strasburg card #661 and now they've done it with the Bryce Harper in the Archives Set. Word is that the Harper, card #241, is only available 1:15 CASES of Archives. If that is true, then someone at Topps should be fired right now. Fired, tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. If it's not true, and I'm overreacting, which is highly possible, then I apologize and take back every sour thing I've thought about Topps the last few days (not really, I'm sure they deserve it anyway).
Alright, let's get back to the positivity later tonight. I hope you're Memorial Day was a good one and you didn't have to work like Night Owl and me.
As a set collector I 100% fully agree with you. I have finally decided that those SSSPs are not going to be included in the sets that I build. However, in sets like Heritage, I give them a run. But parallels like the ones in Gypsy Queen this year or the past few years of Topps with the retired veteran parallels are not part of the sets I build.
ReplyDeleteIt is frustrating. If there's a card numbered 241 - you want it as a collector. But if it really is that rare, than Topps is dropping the ball because they are making a set that's not really collectible. If you want to do a crazy short printed Bryce Harper SP insert - that's fine. Number it BH-1 or BH-SP, or BH-CRAZINESS. Just don't make it #241.
ReplyDeleteI'll agree on the SSP thing but not on the Nationals hype machine. There is definitely an East Coast bias but its further north, the Bronx. Check out my by the team breakdown of my Archives case I posted today. Nationals are just below the middle of the pack (rightly as a newer team) but the Yankees are by far the golden child of Topps. The Nationals just sucked enough to get the top draft pick 2 years in a row and they're finally reaping the benefits.
ReplyDeleteAnd Chisenhall just missed being designated a "common" in my post the other day. In 10 boxes, I pulled 9 of his cards.
Gypsy Queen did it right. The SP's are parallel versions. You can put the base set together and have your set. If you want to go after Sp's you can, but they are not part of the set, so it's optional.
ReplyDelete#241 is laughably idiotic.
UGH I hate SPs as a set collector it is because of SPs that I will probably never get anywhere close to completing any A&G sets.
ReplyDelete