1995 Topps Embossed Baseball

 Today, we're busting open a pack of 1995 Topps Embossed. There are 6 embossed cards in each pack, one of which is a Golden Idol Foil card. There are 140 cards in this set. The Golden Idol cards are an exact copy of the base set, but done in gold. 

The base cards actually come in two varieties. Most of the base set are picture on the right below. They feature an embossed/relief picture of the player, the "Topps MB" logo, and the player's name. A subset of the base set are the silver foil "Rookie of the Year" cards, featuring a player and the date of their ROY award. In this pack, we pulled Eric Karros:

The Golden Idol cards are certainly something to behold. Imagine, if you will, an embossed card dipped in gold foil. Now, that may sound like a cool idea, and I'm sure it was to someone at Topps. The final result, though... Well, let's say some cards didn't fair as well as others. Here we have John Valentin's Golden Idol card. Though the scanner doesn't do it justice, the fact is the scan isn't really all that different from the monstrosity that is this card:

The two remaining cards bring us Orlando Merced and Rey Sanchez:

What's really cool about these cards is that the BACKS are also embossed! The player's picture and the name line are both embossed on the back. The back features a picture of the player taking up about half the space on the left. On the right, we have biological information, some stats, the card number (in the little red box) and the player's name/position. Each card also features a "Did you know" bulleted list of facts and tidbits about the player. For the record, this card was pulled from a different pack, but when the opportunity to "Bip" comes along, you have to take it.

I busted open a sealed box of these packs. There were 24 packs. Each pack had 5 base cards and 1 gold card. For the base, I ended up with 112 singles plus 8 duplicates. That's about an 80% set completion rate from one box. Not too shabby if you're a set builder.

1992 Hi-Pro Marketing Action Packed Series 1

Here we have a pack of 1992 Hi-Pro Marketing Action Packed Series 1. Technically, these are called Action Packed All-Star Gallery Series 1. They are listed as being 1992 cards, even though the wrapper shows 1993. The cards themselves show a copyright date of 1992. Gotta love this hobby. Unfortunately, the scanner does not do the wrapper nor the cards any justice. The wrapper is black with gold lettering. There are 7 cards in each pack.

The Series 1 set consists of 84 cards. There is also a 24k Gold version with 24 cards. I was not lucky enough to pull any 24k cards... Spoiler Alert.

The cards themselves feature all-star players and hall-of-famers (and future hall of famers) in very thick embossed card stock. The players appear in a 3d relief in the middle of the card with a gold foil multi-line border surrounding the main image. In the lower corner, the words "Action Packed" appear in black surrounded by gold foil. The player's name is centered in black block lettering on a gold foil nameplate.

First up, we have Orlando Cepeda, Frankie Crosetti, and Rich Asburn:

Unfortunately, because these cards are embossed they way they are, they did not age well. Upon opening the pack, the cards were stuck together due to the coating. This means many of the cards have white spots where the card stuck to the card on top of it and/or to the inside of the wrapper. This is especially apparent when looking at the black areas of the borders.

Here we have Clem Labine and Al Kaline:

Rounding out the pack, we have Bobby Grich and Bob Horner:

The backs of the cards feature the player name in gold foil in all-caps at the top along with their primary position. Just below that in black, we see biographical information along with a list of teams the player appeared with and the years they were with those teams. A gold foil horizontal line separates this top section from the rest of the back. Below the line, we have their Major League Totals and below that, a bulleted list of career highlights. The card number, copyright and official logos appear along the bottom edge of the back of the card.

I am a sucker for raised/embossed/relief cards. There is something very satisfying in the tactile feedback one gets from rubbing the thumb across the face of an embossed card.

2020 Topps Stadium Club Retail

Greetings...

Hope everyone is doing well.  I was half-tempted to put "Retail" in all caps and include exclamation points and such because here's a pack of Stadium Club found in a Target gravity feeder a couple of weeks ago.  

I walked into Target a few minutes before closing time on a whim to see if I could get lucky.  Lo and behold, there was 1 blaster box and 3 packs in the feeder.  I bought he blaster box and the pack you all will see here and left the other 2 packs, hopefully paying it forward for a non-"card bro" to get the next day.

I usually don't get the retail packs, opting for the fat packs and the blaster boxes.  3 bucks for 5 cards usually doesn't impress me, but because virus, desperate times.  Here's what I got:

#299 - Randy Arozarena (RC)

Randy did pretty well in limited action this year, and had a good night last night to put the Rays one win away from knocking off the Yanks.

#36 - Aristides Aquino (RC)

After a big 2019, Aquino was a letdown in 2020 as he couldn't crack the Reds' outfield.  Too bad for me as well since I had him on my fantasy team.

#247 - Gerrit Cole (Chrome Refractor) 

You should be able to see a little green towards the top of the card as well as by his leg.  If I read it right, the Chrome Refractors come 1 in 96 packs, so that's cool.

#BRB-7 - Fernando Tatis Jr. (Bash & Burn)  

The Bash & Burn subset comes 1 in 8 packs.  Nice callback to the old subset, but too bad it isn't die cut.

#192 - Hank Aaron

And the pack ends with a little class.    

Here's a couple card backs:

Stadium Club rarely disappoints and this year is no exception.  

Yesterday morning, as I was leaving the Target I work at, I came across the card vendor restocking the barren card aisle.  There were 4 "card bros" respectfully keeping their distance but nonetheless waiting for the vendor to finish.  One of the 4 grabbed 4 hanger boxes of (I believe) Donruss Football and left; my store has signs in the aisle limiting the purchases to 4.  I had errands to run before going to bed so I couldn't wait around as well; I also wanted to make sure the "card bros" were sticking to the 4 pack / box limit.  I plan to run in after the store opens to see if anything's left...wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!

1991 ProSet Bill and Ted's Most Atypical Movie Cards

Hello! Welcome to a most excellent pack of collectible trading cards, dudes! Wait, there's like no inserts, man? Bogus! Okay, now that we have that out of our system, this is a pack of 1991 ProSet Bill and Ted's Most Atypical Movie Cards. As described on the pack, there are "10 Triumphant Cards" in each foil pack. The wrapper is certainly decidedly 90's. And, you could have won a trip to San Dimas. Excellent!

The cards themselves feature borderless fronts. They show scenes from the movie or have "behind the scenes" depictions. There is a "badge" in the lower left corner to designate any kind of "subset" status and the "ProSet" logo appears in the lower right.

 

The backs give some insight to the movie. Some feature "Bill and Ted Speak" so those who are lost in the vernacular can get caught up. It's something of an "Urban Dictionary" before that was even a thing. 

As mentioned above, you could enter to win a trip to San Dimas. You could also instantly win the trip and/or win various prizes.

There were 100 cards in the set. These came out just before the era ushered in with parallels, relics, autos, etc, so you'll find none of those in this set, unfortunately.

The cards are the same stock as the ProSet NFL cards of the time, so they a decent thickness and a slick feel to them. The photography is about what one might expect cards made from movie still might feature. I will say, they are better than the Topps 1991 baseball card "action photos" of the day, but that is probably more due to the type of card stock than the actual photos.

In any case, here's a trip down memory lane should you care to venture down it while watching the movie released during COVID-2020...

1993-94 Leaf Hockey Series 2

Dallas Stars defeated Las Vegas Knights in OT to move on the Cup finals. Waiting for the other half to be decided let's open hockey cards. In 1993 Leaf put out one of best designed sets first with baseball then with hockey. The back of the card shows the player in front of backdrop of a city landmark. With that in mind I'm going to post the front and back of the cards. I posted a pack of series 1 about 6 years ago. Now I'm here with series 2. Carefully on opening due to the UV coating causing the cards to brick up. You can stick the packs in the freezer then hammer the packs out with your fist on palm of your hands. It might help.

335 - Mark Fitzpatrick - like almost all of series 2 cards players wearing jerseys of their new teams. Mark played for Islanders the previous season before getting drafted by then-expansion Florida Panthers. The back shows Miami coast. I prefer showing beaches instead yachts.

340 - Pierre Turgeon/Checklist - front showing Pierre Turgeon with Lady Bing Award and checklist on the back. Leaf got a headstart on this way before Topps decide to put a highlight on the front then checklist on the back.

355 - Donald Dufresne - welcome to Tampa where the palm trees sway. I wonder which game this shot was taken since Lightning and Panthers played each other three times in October.

360 - Scott Thomas - Niagra Falls on back of the card.

375 - Enrico Ciccone - Enrico defending the capital building

380 - Pat Conacher - LA skyline gleaming on the back of the card

395 - Brad McCrimmon - there's a ship on back of the card. This card is sad. McCrimmon was the head coach of KHL Lokomotiv team in 2011. He and the entire team perished in a plane crash nine years ago.

229 - Adam Foote - night falls on Le Chateau Frontenac. Foote is one of Nordiques/Avalanche best all-time defenseman. The team retired his jersey in 2013.

240 - Jari Kurri - Multi-time Cup winner, All-Star, and a Hall of Famer. Currently GM of KHL Jokerit team. If you haven't heard of what's happening to Jokerit so far they are having a strange early KHL season journey. Summary here and there. Back of the card is same of Conacher.

235 - Adam Oates - Boston night time with Boston Clock Tower on the left. Another Hall of Fame player in this pack.

326 - Vitali Prokhorov - while some Blues' player were in front of the arch he got Union Station

321 - Peter Klima - backdrop of nighttime downtown Tampa

306 - Mike Sillinger - skating in front of the Detroit rail.

301 - Stephane Fiset - Fiset's guarding net and the Quebec City parliament.

Another fun Leaf pack. Interesting enough Gretzky (yes The Great One) was packed in series 2 as well Eric Lindros (his cards was hot at the time) and Dominik Hasek. Mario Lemieux was featured guy on that year's set. His Mario Collection insert card 6-10 are in series 2. It's enjoyable set. Like I said if planning to opening the packs carefully on peeling it or stick it in the freezer for few hours.