2019 Topps Clear Travel

Today's pack was originally intended to be passed out at participating ballparks and airports to using the Clear Travel service.  That's not how I acquired it though.  I purchased a bunch of these at a local flea market last month and noticed nobody had reviewed it yet.

Inside of the clear cellophane package you'll find six cards.  The top card is a player:

On the back, there's an advertisement card for Clear, which is a membership program at airports that allow people to get through security faster:

If you're wondering if these cards are the same as the ones pulled from 2019 Topps flagship packs... the short answer is no.  But let's use this pack to point out the differences...

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-4

Based on the packs that I've opened so far, the card fronts look almost identical to the ones issued in the flagship packs. 

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-59

However if you look closely at the Topps logo, it's printed in white.  The logo on the flagship cards are printed in silver foil.

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-34

The easiest way to differentiate these cards from the ones in the flagship base set is to flip them over.  There's a CP- prefix in front of the card number.

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-26

And if you look closely, you might notice that these cards lack the CMP code under the stats that the flagship cards have.

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-10

Other than those three things, I didn't spot any other differences.  All five player cards utilized the same photo Topps used in the flagship set.  That being said... there's always a chance that one of the other ninety-five cards in the set has a different photo.

The final card in the pack is the Clear ad card:

For those who are curious... I had two packs with Freeman on the front and wanted to know if players were inserted into packs randomly or if there was a pattern.  Both Freeman packs contained the exact same cards.

However it should be noted that I opened up two packs that featured Trea Turner on the front and the results were different.  The first two cards in both packs featured Turner and Justin Verlander... while the final three cards were different.

If you're interested in checking out the entire 100 card checklist, click here.  Based on my brief research on this set, these cards seem to be in much smaller supply compared to the flagship set.  But considering the state of our hobby, that's not too surprising.  But I am curious if any of you have been able to track down any of these cards for your own collection.

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!

2024 Topps Heritage

 

I get the feeling people are waiting for me to post a pack of 2024 Heritage here, so I've got a quick opening.

This is actually a hanger pack that I received from Torren' Up Cards. He said in the accompanying note that sending unopened packs in the mail was underrated. We shall see, I guess.

 

Let's get started.

 

276 - Corbin Burnes, Brewers

383 - Christian Walker, Diamondbacks

402 - Zach Remillard, White Sox

331 - Gerrit Cole, Yankees

Those who read my blog know I pulled these exact cards in probably the same order from the hobby box I bought. I still have no idea who Zach Remillard is (he's spent most of the season in the minors). Also, to those new to 2024 Heritage, the All-Star cards in this set do not have yellow and red borders.

387 - Osleivis Basabe, Blue Jays

236 - Clarke Schmidt, Yankees

299 - Bryce Miller, Mariners

224 - Korey Lee, White Sox

That's a youthful crew. Nobody here has come close to hitting age 30. Also, the Basabe card was incorrectly labeled a Blue Jays card. Basabe has only played for the Rays.

485 - Tyler Rogers, Giants

446 - CJ Abrams, Nationals

127 - Marcus Semien, Rangers

158 - Joey Estes, Athletics

After pulling 11 straight dupes, I finally landed a card I don't have in Joey Estes, who has two whole major league games to his credit.

 

 

215 - Vidal Brujan, Rays

245 - Bryan Woo, Mariners

494 - Forrest Wall, Braves, white border parallel

352 - Triston Casas, Red Sox

Now we're cooking. The first three here are new to me. I found a white border in each of the hanger packs I opened, I don't know if that's a regular thing with these.

82 - Nathan Eovaldi, Rangers

337 - Declan Cronin, White Sox

273 - Oswald Peraza, Yankees

294 - Miguel Amaya, Cubs

Back to more dupes. And guys with limited major league experience. At least Eovaldi has been around for a good while. Also, the Eovaldi card is the only card numbered below 100 to not be a short-print. So no SPs were pulled in this pack.

That will do it. I don't blame you if you don't know who anybody is here.

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