The Grady Chronicles:Optical Color

This new short-term segment is based on my mail day from SCC reader, Grady M.

If you enjoy shiny cards especially, tune in as I take you on this journey.

Today, I will take a look at some Optic baseball shinyness.

Pink Optic parallels. Nice Pujols.

Silver Optic Paralells.

Neon Green Optic parallels

 

And Red Wave Optic parallels. The Soto looks really sharp.

This is just the first part of many in this series of showing off the shiny goods. 

Lords Of The Diamond

 

For a few months now, @Jake1725 and myself have been working on and off on a trade and knocking out the details on it. I knew in the end we would work it out like we always do, its just sometimes it takes a little longer to do so.

I didn't know completely what I was getting on my end from Jake and on his end was the same from me. All I know is kicking it off with this beautiful Lords Of The Diamond Ken Griffey Jr is a heck of a start.

Wanna feel older? This was Topps 55th anniversary design. We are now in Year 70....Also, remember when we used to be able to spot a gold parallel from Topps easier?

Juan's gone the right way. If you know Donruss 90 and this card, you will get that.

Another new Griffey Jr! Big Fly Zone, he definitely sent plenty of balls that way.

The Franchise Big Hurt

Alex Rodriguez

Three more new Griffey Jr's. I like the Drawing Power insert but the photography on Big Shots takes the medal here.

Five-Tool Talent A-Rod. His sixth tool was cheating the game.

Revolution always came out with a nice base card design, I believe this is my first taste of the 1998 baseball.

I hate to admit it, I like Stick Ums

Randy Johnson Proview. Except this is the gold version I have never seen before.

Some fun 90's chromed inserts

Upper Deck MVP had some nice cards despite being on the same level as Collectors Choice as a brand and cost. These Swing Times also are foiled.

Super Tools. Revert to the comment above about MVP

Some shiny Topps inserts. I wished Topps would do more of these and not so much bland like today's

Bonds Home Run cards. Not sure how many of these should count

Up next, I know it's Collectors Choice and that these Star Quests fell one-per-pack, but these were probably the most eye-pleasers of this group of cards for me.

The blue ones/one star are the easiest to find falling one-per-pack

The green falls 1:8 packs. A tad tougher than the blue level

The Red level falls 1:23 packs.

Almost a complete rainbow of Clemens, just lacking the Gold. That one is really tough to find and numbered to 100. I tried to look on eBay for one just for kicks and didn't see one.

Thanks to Jake for another terrific trade and looking forward to more.

CARDBOARD REVIEW:2020 Topps Heritage Baseball

Welcome to 1971! Well, a look at what a card design looked like in 1971.

Last year we saw Heritage take on the 1970 design and today we dig in 1971, the dark year. Once again, I am talking about baseball cards.

When seeing mockups for the design I was worried about having a black border like that on cards again. I could see chipping issues galore!

But, would I feel that way after I opened the box? Well, read on to see my thoughts.

In every hobby box of 2020 Topps Heritage baseball, there are 24 packs of 9 cards. There is one hit per box either autograph or relic and boxes currently sit at $70 or so.

Each box also comes with 1 buyback box topper

Here is what my pack had. PC add. So can't complain.

BASE:

 Like I said earlier, the base card design tackles 1971 design in spectacular fashion. I also must mention now that I didn't run into any dinged corners but that doesn't mean with this design that there won't be any.

There is also a whopping 500 cards in the base set including Sp's. That's insane for a product from today. I didn't say it was a bad insane either for those set chasers that still exist this is heaven.

Those darn short prints are out again to make us blind. Here is the back of the base card Pujols which tells us the CMP code ends in 13 which means base.

HOWEVER, a big HOWEVER, this years version labels the variations on the back of the card just below the name. If only I had known that before hand I wouldn't have wasted my time looking at the CMP codes. You still have to turn the card over to see what you have, but, that's easier to read than the code.

If you still want the codes to help you decipher what you have, here they are,

• Base cards 1-400 are 13
• Base SP cards 401-500 are #27
• French Text  have a #40
• Error has a #44
• Missing Signature has a #45
• Silver Team Name has #46
• Action Image has #47
• Throwback has #48
• Nickname has #49

BASE SP's

 Here were the Sp's I found in my box. These fall 1:3 packs.

 CMP CODE on the back.

Here's a couple of my favorite base cards in the set

 My first Cole in a Yanks uniform

And this photo of Judge is superb!

Along with some great photos, there are a few subsets as well.

Such as teams celebrating World Series wins and LCS wins. They are just missing the Yankees celebrating.....

 League Leaders

Rookies

Rookie Cups

BASE CARD VARIATIONS
Falling at 1:27, easiest to find of the variations, was this Action Photo.  Luckily for me out of all of them I landed this guy...

 Mike stinkin' Trout!

CMP is 47

BASE CARD PARALLELS
There is two parallels to find White which is limited to 50 copies and Flip Stock which is to 5 copies and to my surprise I found one that is 1:67 packs

White Parallel

Base and Parallel side by side. I think the black looks better.

INSERTS

 25 of the leagues youngest talent is here in New Age Performers. Found that Vlad guy here.

 Flashbacks has 15 cards to collect and commemorates things that happened at that time.

 20 Giants has well, 20 cards.

Then and Now has 15 cards to chase as well.

HITS:
The odds of hitting an autograph card from this product is astronomical, at least in my opinion. A box that doesn't pass by where I don't land a relic from this product and I did once again with a familiar face. This will make the 5th Pujols relic I have pulled in the past year from a one-hit product.

At least this time it's  a bat swatch. I also dig the design.

Other hits not found in my box but could be in yours includes,

• Base Chrome
• Base Mini Set
• Real One Autographs
• Real One Dual Autographs
• Real One Triple Autographs
• Senators Final Season Autographs
• Cut Signatures
• Clubhouse Collection Autograph Relics
• Clubhouse Collection Dual Autograph Relics
• Flashbacks Autograph Relics
• Clubhouse Collection Dual Relics
• Clubhouse Collection Triple Relics
• Clubhouse Collection Quad Relics
• 1971 Mint Relics
• 1971 U.S. Postage Stamp Relics

OVERALL:I was actually quite impressed with my break. Nice Trout find, Pujols white, even a Pujols relic. Probably the best break I have had of the product by far.

I do like this years design as the black really makes the color photos pop and the insert themes keeping that throughout is great as well.

If you have collected Heritage in the past and are a fan, I don't think you will be disappointed by this years. I like this years a lot.

Thanks to Topps for providing me this box to review and to giveaway some of the cards on Twitter. You can check out Topps website HERE. And find them on FACEBOOK  and TWITTER as well! Don't forget to give them a follow on each!