2007 Topps Series 1 Hobby

Here's a pack I picked up for a buck at a recent card show. You don't see a lot of Topps flagship packs this old in the wild anymore, so I had to do it.

194 - Edwin Encarnacion - Here's the familiar '07 design with the black borders. It's tough to find these cards in perfect shape.

122 - Luke Scott - Here's a wide shot of an Astros player from their NL era.

33 - Ervin Santana - Born Johan Santana, Ervin may not have been as famous as the guy he formerly shared a name with, but he had a nice long career of his own that included a couple of All-Star appearances and a no-hitter. 

219 - Chris Gomez - It's all oranges and reds so far.

304 - Kenny Rogers Award Winner - I recently watched the Reno 911! episode with Kenny Rogers (the late singer and occasional actor) and it was pretty hilarious.

164 - Zach Duke Gold 1331/2007 - Hey, it's former Cardinal Zach Duke!

310 - Jonathan Papelbon Red Back - For a couple of years, the Topps flagship set had parallels that were a bit more subtle than what you see today. Instead of white lettering, you get red on these.

74 - Jose Valverde Red Back - I don't recall these being so easy to come by. Two in a pack of ten cards?

158 - Noah Lowry - He was definitely a pitcher.

273 - Miguel Montero - Here's a look at the old Rookie Card logo.

2022 SAGE Artistry

I picked up this mysterious pack out of a repack thing at Walgreen's the other day. I'm mostly familiar with SAGE's "Hit" brand of cards, but apparently this seems to be an attempt to do something a little classier.

I have no idea what the heck a micro-printer would be or how it would benefit a sports card manufacturer, but the pack wrapper makes it sound extra-important.

11 - Darrian Beavers - This design definitely has a motivational poster vibe to it.

50 - Hassan Haskins - The cards definitely use photographs with some sort of computer magic applied. I'm not sure if the Artistry here is supposed to refer to the player's work on the field or what filter the good people at SAGE used on their photo-editing software.

34 - Breece Hall - This looks to be a silver or grey parallel. I've had a lot of people send me colored parallels from SAGE over the years, so this appears to be a thing that they do.

106 - Pierre Strong, Jr. - This one uses a different design but still appears to be part of the base set.

71 - Kyle Hamilton - Last up we have a safety from Notre Dame. This uses a special background, so it might be a parallel as well.

Here's a look at the back of the last card. There's a decent amount of bio info here, but no stats. It's still a lot better than Panini (and... ugh... Leaf) give you typically.

1991 Comic Images Frazetta

 

Here we have a pack of 1991 Comic Images Frazetta. The set consists of 90 cards. 

The card fronts feature prints of the artist Frank Frazetta. Each card showcases a borderless image of the fantasy-themed artwork. Some of the images are definitely adult-oriented and those have been edited for general public consumption.

The back of the cards feature a black border styled like a hedge row or old parchment or something. The "FRAZETTA" name dominates the top portion of the back. Below that is the card number and title of the featured piece. That is followed by a paragraph related to Frazetta more than the artwork itself. There is a line art drawing of two people engaged in melee combat. At the bottom, we have copyright information.

The full checklist is found below:

https://nslists.com/fraz1.htm

1991 Comic Images X-Force

 

Today, we have a pack of 1991 Comic Images X-Force cards. The set contains 90 base cards and there is an autograph chase card of Rob Liefield. 

The card fronts feature comic-style renditions of X-Force characters. The central image is surrounded in an outline border that resembles the X-Force logo. The outer edge of the cards are color-filled in different colors. Centered at the bottom of each card, in a different color than the filled border, the X-Force character name or caption appears.

The backs of the cards feature an uncolored border. Inside this border, a black stylized border surrounds an orange center area. At the top of this orange area, the "X-Force trading cards" logo appears. Below that, in black text is the card number and caption from the front. Below this, a paragraph gives context to the item featured on the front. Serving as a watermark in the orange area, a large head of  Cable (I believe that's who that is) leers out at the collector. At the bottom, copyright information appears.

The full checklist can be found below:

https://nslists.com/xforce.htm

1993 Skybox Return of Superman

 

Here we have a pack of 1993 Skybox Return of Superman cards. The set contains 100 base cards. In addition to those, there are foil cards, an uncut sheet, a silver factory set, a gold factory set, and several promo cards.

Each card features a comic-style image surrounded by a Superman logo border. The border is gray/silver with a darker gray/silver Superman "S" emblem. The center image occupies the majority of the front. At the bottom, in white text, the card's caption appears (usually left-justified). In the opposite lower corner, the Superman insignia appears in a stylized metallic appearance. The logo is not metallic, it's just drawn that way - a la Jessica Rabbitt.

The backs of the cards feature the text, "The Return of Superman" at the top center. This has a background designed to look like Superman's cape with the logo below the word "Superman" in a yellow-ish color. Below that, the card's caption from the front is repeated, here in black. Below that, text related to the card gives background info or context. Below that, the card's number is centered in a small blue oval. The number itself is white. And finally, we have copyright info at the very bottom.

The full checklist can be found below:

https://nslists.com/superret.htm

2001 Dart FlipCards I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary

In this post, we feature a pack of 2001 Dart FlipCards "I Love Lucy 50th Anniversary" cards. There are 72 cards in the base set and a slew of chase sets including stickers, foil cards, holographic cards, box loaders, promos and more.

The front of each card features a black and white or sepia-toned scene from the series. In a lower corner, a pink heart with "I Love Lucy" script mimics the show's iconic logo.

The backs of the cards feature multiple additional stills, the heart logo, copyright info and the card number also inside a heart logo. The center of th back is dominated by a large pink heart. Inside the heart, a teal card title appears in a script font. Below this, curved to match the curve of the heart, text related to the image(s) portrayed on the card give background info and insights.

 

The full checklist can be found below:

http://nslists.com/lucy50.htm