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This is a series I’ve thought about doing for a little while. Those that read the blog with moderate consistency will know that I am collecting most of the 2016 World Series champion Cubs. Obviously, I’ve already starting showing off some of those cards, but I wanted to offer a formal introduction to the various players. With my legacy player collections, I’m still going to attempt to show every single card on the blog, but with these new guys I’m taking a different approach as you’ll see here, and will probably skip many of the more basic cards I get unless I can get a good theme together.
Enough preamble ramble, let’s take a look at former lead-off man, Dexter Fowler.
 Some of the cards I had in my possession when I started Dexter broke into the majors with the Rockies and stayed there for a few years before being traded over to Houston. The Cubs picked him up in exchange for Luis Valbuena and Dan Straily. I remember there being some analysis at the time about if this was a good idea for the Cubs and I was in the “Yes” camp. At that time, Valbuena was producing at his highest levels and Fowler’s numbers were pretty similar. I thought Dexter had a greater chance at staying consistent, and I knew that he would likely be our lead-off man and center fielder, which were both things we needed, so it sounded good to me.
 And the others See, there are two 2015 Topps cards, one from Houston and then later with the Cubs (even though I mixed the order). Turns out I was right this time. Valbuena started off strong with Houston, but then regressed and Fowler was a solid cog in the Cubs offense for a couple years. As you can also see (through two different versions of the World Series card – one from the 15 card blister and one from the 25 card box), Fowler lead off the infamous game 7 of the World Series with a home run.
 The rest of these cards are from a COMC binge 1.5 years back Fowler came on strong in Colorado by showing off his speed and being a semi-decent hitter. His first full year saw him get a still career-high 27 steals.
 Love the blue refractors He’s not much of a home run hitter, but will be good for plenty of extra base hits overall. He’s been near the top of the triples leader boards a couple times
 That hat is too big for that head He had one post-season series with Colorado in which he got three hits and drove in two. But they lost to the Phillies in 2009 and his next chance would come with Chicago.
 Told you I like the blue The Rockies decided to trade Fowler away to Houston for Brandon Barnes and Jordan Lyles. I think Houston won that trade.
 Pink parallel insert #/99 Dexter’s time in Houston was quite limited because it wouldn’t be long before they would start bringing up their farm hands to replace the order you see here and become strong contenders and eventual champions.
 Not a refractor, but still blue We already talked about how he spent two productive seasons with the Cubs, but it was almost only one. He nearly signed with the Orioles in the 2016 off season, I think. Very shortly before spring training (or maybe it was right after it started, I’m too lazy to look it up), Dexter cut a deal to return to the Cubs and I think most fans were pretty happy about that. I know I was.
 Not blue. It was sad to see him go, and to the rival Cardinals no less! Look at how sad he is to be in red for the first time. I know his bank account is happy though, because he signed a nice big contract to go over to St. Louis and he had a good year with them in slightly limited play. Here’s hoping him the best (unless they’re playing the Cubs or in the playoffs). It’ll take a while to adjust to seeing him in this uniform, but I’m sure there will be plenty of cards to help me in the next few years. Ugh, I have to collect Cardinals cards…. Is it too late to rethink this thing?
How about this blast from the past? Part 3 of this feature came 4 years after the first two. Now, #4 comes back into the fold over two years after that. Crazy how time flies when you have insufficient time to blog. I have quite a few autographs in my collection now, so I hope to keep this going for a bit.
Even after having a hand in the case-breaking world, Autographed cards still fascinate me. Allow me to explain with this series introduction from the early days of the blog. To see the other parts of the series, click on the “Card-ography” tag at the bottom.
Now that I’m back into collecting, one of the biggest surprises greeting me at the door was that signatures on cardboard (or on stickers placed on cardboard) are now a regular part of the hobby. In fact, it’s basically expected at this point. I know there are plenty of people who feel that if their box doesn’t have an auto – or even the RIGHT auto – then it’s a waste of money. Hell, I’m still not completely jaded by relics, so I can’t understand this theory.
I know that most of the autos aren’t all that valuable, but seeing that blue, red, and sometimes black ink on a card in your hands still holds significance to me. It still makes for some of the most enjoyable moments in collecting.
That’s why I’m starting a series that will analyze the signatures we see. It’s common to see people lump them into “good” and “bad” categories, but I want to take it farther than that. This player took the time to sign your card (although some of them don’t take tons of time). I’m going to take the time to inspect it.
 Sweet! I picked this up April 2017, and it had been a long time coming. I’ve had a saved search for years without seeing this pop up once. Makes sense with a print run of 50. Still, patience paid off, and also paid the seller.
I own a lot of Carlos Marmol autographs, but I’m still chasing only 4 more. One that’s missing is the 2007 Bowman Signs of the Future, which I see a lot but always slightly more expensive than I’m willing to pay, and the 2008 Stadium Club Beam Team autos (normal, B&W, Gold) which are going to be a lot tougher thanks to some tenacious super collectors.
Anyway, let’s break down this signature.
Literal:
If you didn’t know his name, what would you think this said? “Cry h down-arrow”
Style points:
Well, this is more substance than style. It’s quite scraggly and staggered. It’s not trying to look nice, it’s meant to get the job done. The only real “style” is that his signature always creeps upwards, which is interesting.
Space Usage:
Marmol doesn’t cheat you on this. Seam to seam coverage and plenty of real estate covered by plenty of…I want to say letters….
Laziness:
Not everything has to be perfect cursive. I’d call this efficient rather than lazy. Hit the main points, but still give some scratches to represent the full name.
Intangibles:
In most of his autos, he also adds in his jersey number, which is a wonderful personal touch I love. Not only does it show that he cares about his autos, but also there’s a sense of pride in his status by doing that.
Overall:
It’s not the prettiest autograph I’ve seen, but with the number of times I’ve seen it in my collection, it’s become a bit of comfort. I especially like looking at a stack of signed cards all in a row. It’ll be bitter sweet when I can finally nab those last four autographs.
Back in late September, I posted the first part of a significant trade I made with Bill. As a quick refresher, he responded to some of my Gypsy Queen trade bait posts and we worked out a nice, large exchange – mostly for my budding 2016 WS champ players. Far too many cards for one, or even a few posts. So, this is part 2 of many. As mentioned before, he doesn’t have a blog of his own, but he’s known as minibbcards on the Trading Card Database and his want lists are fantastic (and found here).
In this episode, we’ll be looking at the Allen & Ginter portion of the haul.
 You can almost see him I gotta start small when we’re dealing with the mini collector – This regular mini must have been an extra in his growing collection, and it just may be SP to boot.
 Freckles Dennis the Menace, er, I mean Jon started his career in 2006, but for some reason the back talks mostly about what other things happened during the debut date. I guess the Starting Point was to look up the date, but no one finished the point to say what the result was.
 Purple freckles I still need a lot of base cards from a lot of sets, so getting a stack of them was great.
 Orange Freckles It’s weird to think that Javy’s rookie cards were in 2015. It seems simultaneously like they should be longer and newer than that.
 Blue almost freckles Speaking of the colors behind the players, why wouldn’t they stay consistent among teams. Three players shown. Three colors.
 Already weird to see him as a Brave I hate to say it, but this does not look like Jason Heyward. By the way, that’s supposed to by Heyward. The sketch is commemorating his debut home run, but that’s not very obvious either.
 Put a pin in it Heyward is a longer way from home now. It’s really cool that he got to play for his local team like that. And, according to the back, some scenes from Smokey and the Bandit were filmed in his town (before he was born), so that’s a thing.
 The man who took Prior’s number Okay, one more Heyward. This is all about the jersey number which is a good concept that wasn’t well executed in my mind.
 The man who took Kyle Farnsworth’s number The picture selection here is pretty good too. Nice that they didn’t simply rehash the one from the set.
 The man that took Carlos Marmol’s number – not mentioned as a Cubs great on the back of the card Tonight, we end with the third Cubs Numbers Game insert, and I’m still missing Bryant and Lester, if you can believe it. Still, Bill gave me a solid head start and I can’t thank him enough for that. I’ll be thanking Bill a few more times in future posts, so stay tuned. Next time, we’ll probably check out some Heritage!
The National Sports Collector’s Convention was held in Chicago several months ago, and it was the second one I was lucky enough to attend. My rookie year on 2015 was quite the adventure. I bought a lot of cards and was able to write about a small percentage of them. Thanks to a better financial situation, a better understanding of the layout and what to expect on the show floor, and a slew of additional players to collect, my haul was significantly larger.
It was a great show, and I really look forward to going again in 2019 when it comes back this way. In the meantime, I’ll try to get caught up a bit on all the cards I got in ’15 and ’17.
To start, we’re looking at the first booth I hit on the first day: the dimeboxes. Yes, the National actually had a booth with dimeboxes! They were quite busy, as you could imagine, but I managed to wedge my way in.
After the damage was done, I wound up with 31 cards I needed and several I didn’t. I figured at a dime each, why bother checking the want lists. I would rely on my memory and if it was wrong, then oh well. Besides, all of these cards came in toploaders, so if it’s a duplicate, I bought a 10 cent toploader.
 Why did people like this set? This isn’t bad freebie with a 10 cent toploader. Obviously most of the pairings in Bowman’s Best were not going to work out well for the new guy, but Dmitri had himself a respectable career. Tough to match a HOF player.
 Just say “no” to peeling This Finest was already freed. I’m anti-peeling, but this card came that way. It’s the No-Protectors version, which can not only be determined from the lack of the coating on the front, but also from this metallic finish on the back. Glad they did that, because otherwise it would very tough to tell these days with all those peel monsters out there!
 This would be a terrible SI cover So, to review, 1997 was a year. Moving on.
 Still weird to see him as a Blue Jay This looks like some of the crappy 1995-96 basketball inserts Topps put out that I’m collecting. Overabundance of shine and an off-putting clunky border.
 For a dime! RBI #32
May 15, 1994 – White Sox at Rangers
Frank drove in two runs in this 9-6 victory. The first came in the top of the first to put the Sox up 1-0. After a Joey Cora double, Thomas decided to add a double of his own to bring him home.
 Too many of these I don’t know if leading the league in OBP is worth a 20th Anniversary tribute.
 Don’t care how good the season was, the card is basic I don’t know if Maddux’s 1998 card is worth being called one of Berger’s Best.
 Picture just as good as 1998 Topps Now this is an accomplishment worthy of a baseball card. I’m not wild about the design, but like that the highlight is mentioned on the front.
 The smile of a 2-time MVP The last of the Thomas and Maddux cards I found from the dimebox was this. As you can imagine there were a ton of recent inserts in there so I saw this one several times over. Had to pick up one copy.
There it is! I’m finally talking about the National. I’ll do a couple more dimebox posts and then we’ll theme it up in other ways. I have a TON to cover from the show eventually, including some really big time cards.
[The twenty-sixth in a series: I’m picking one player that I associate with a team (whether they spent the majority of their career there or not) that I would strongly consider adding to my official want lists. They may not always be superstars, or the most popular, and honestly they may not always be my favorite player from the team, but that’s what will make this fun, no?]
Can you believe this thing is still not finished? Are you new here? Well, if so, read on and check out some of those links and you’ll see this has been going on for several years (originally planned to get it all done in a season). Well, we’re in the home stretch. Join me as I try to actually finish something I’ve started.
 An underappreciated classic Bo Jackson is a pretty obvious pick for a kid that grew up in the 80s and 90s. It’s hard to quantify how much excitement he brought and how he transcended sports in such a short amount of time. He ran up a wall and across it horizontally. He broke his bats. He played some other sport as well. He knew things. A lot of things. The man was a member of the Pro Stars cartoon show, for crying out loud! There’s a reason he’s still highly sought after, despite his short, injury-shortened career. And I would be one of them in a different world.
 Not a flattering photo effect Current player runner-up: Salvador Perez
There are now a few former Cubs on the Royals, but I’m collecting most of them anyway so I could choose them. Unless I wanted to go with Jon Jay, and I don’t (even though I enjoyed his time with Chicago). Perez is one of the more senior players on the team, and an All-Star, so why not?
 1989 Fleer scans horribly Retired player runner-up: Bret Saberhagen
This decision is based solely on the original RBI baseball game on NES. I loved the sidearm delivery programming and how it easily fooled those terribly stupid AI computer opponents. It doesn’t hurt that he was a pretty good pitcher as well.
The Series So Far
Angels – (tie) Jim Abbott & Vladimir Guerrero
Astros – J.R. Richard
Athletics
Blue Jays – Carlos Delgado
Braves – Steve Avery
Brewers – Bob Eucker
Cardinals – Jim Edmonds
Cubs
Diamondbacks – Randy Johnson
Dodgers – Jackie Robinson
Giants – Kevin Mitchell
Indians – Jim Thome
Mariners – Felix Hernandez
Marlins – Giancarlo Stanton
Mets – (tie) Darryl Strawberry & Dwight Gooden
Nationals/Expos – (tie) Marquis Grissom & Delino DeShields
Orioles – Adam Jones
Padres
Phillies – Mike Schmidt
Pirates – Andrew McCutchen
Rangers – Nolan Ryan
Rays/Devil Rays – Evan Longoria
Red Sox – Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd
Reds – Eric Davis
Rockies – Carlos Gonzalez
Royals – Bo Jackson
Tigers – Alan Trammell
Twins
White Sox – Paul Konerko
Yankees – Mariano Rivera
Okay, I’m a few months behind on this now. August was a lighter month for me. I wouldn’t say I took a break from Ebay, but I was a little more discerning. I was coming off of the National, so the vast majority of my card budget was already well-spent. I needed to stay focused a bit to let the funds replenish.
 Bonafide Ebay 1/1 I managed to get three cards in the month. One was this Bryant Bunt parallel. You know the set is unpopular when one of the highest priced guys in the collecting world can be had for the bare minimum. I put the bid in, but didn’t expect to be the winner.
 Weird to see him in red Next was this Fowler gold refractor /50 from the NSCC wrapper redemptions. There are a few players I still need to track down, but I’m a cheap bastard and most I see come through my saved searches are high priced Buy It Nows.
 Almost colored outside the sticker lines To end the month, I picked up a Kerry Wood autograph. There’s a tiny bit of competition for his autos, still. I wanted to try my luck at this one from the really fun Hometown Heroes set, because I know how infrequently they come around. I see most of the same autos come across my emails all the time, but this is a bit of a rarity. I saw a Tony Gwynn auto from this product pop up for the first time in a long time as well, but it ended a lot higher than I expected, so you won’t see that soon.
 Pitch with your mouth closed September was much more robust. That also means that the cards may be a little less interesting. Sorry, Lackey, but the vintage parallel doesn’t have the same appeal.
 Ron Don This is the first Hector Rondon card featured on the blog so far (and now he’s not even part of the team). I think it’s also the first 2017 Pink parallel. Relievers don’t get much play.
 Still need the gold wave version Lastly for today is another #/50 card. A lovely gold refractor of another former Cub pitcher. This wasn’t the only Arrieta card I bought in September, but that will come in a different post. I can’t get through all the September purchases here. What can I say, after the NSCC, I got the itch to get more cards quickly.
Last year, I wrote a multi-part trade post of an over two year old deal I made with Kyle from Nolan’s Dugout. Because of all the fun stuff that went along with my job, even after I started in April, it took me a few months to get through all 5 parts (ended in July).
Well, by that time, Kyle and I had already arranged another trade. He responded to my newest attempts at trade bait posts, offering to take some of my Gypsy Queen cards. I was of course, happy to oblige and so here we are, back in action.
This will likely end up being a 3 part-er, because of the new self-imposed limit of trying to show 9 cards or less per post (to help get content out faster – I’m slow enough – and make me feel like I’m making progress). Now, will it take 3-4 months to get through those parts? Maybe, but that’s only because most of my trades this year have also been large, and I’m trying to even things out and not just show trades all the time.
Enough jabbering. More carding.
 The J is a boot. Never noticed that before To start, we’re going food issue. Sausage man was proud to plaster that big MLBPA logo on the front (since the other logos weren’t allowed). C’mon food companies, let’s get more of these produced.
 Sunday, Sunday, Sunday Even if they looked like Pacific cards, I would still be happy if they were lightly glued to the side of a cereal box.
 Daaamnn that was a lot of foil in the Pacific card I don’t know what the result of this AB was, but that’s an expression of concern that might follow a ball going into the stands too fast. Hopefully not the case here.
 No Spoilers Frank Thomas is in the Upside Down. Look, I can make semi-topical jokes!
 Certainly not the real NNOF Oh, 2010s, the decade where reprints ran amok. How about this card your mom threw away insert from 2010? Those were kind of fun, even if the original backs were a bit annoying.
 An underrated picture What about these 60 years of Topps reprints in 2011? That seemed like a little bit of overkill only one year later. Still love that 1992 design, though.
 Strange mix of old and…new? It’s weird that Donruss is still being produced after this revival, but the Prizm cards are not. Both are pretty fun breaks.
 Respect the Authority, or don’t. Quickly moving on to the Greg Maddux portion of our program, we see evidence of early 2000s Fleer putting out so many sets that they throw random things together and call it a day.
 Classic Braves uniform I’ve talked before how I love this insert. It’s part of the reason I got back into collecting in 2009. Buying random packs and seeing the interesting inserts was part of the draw.
Then I started blogging, and trading with people like Kyle made me want to stay. Thank you again, and to all that made it this far, I hope I’ll see you in part 2.
The day is finally upon us. Baseball season has started. Everything rides on this one game. Start 0-1 and the season is doomed. Win this one, and you’re going to win them all.
The Cubs versus Marlins match-up today has already happened, but I’m writing this in advance so I don’t know the result. I’ll guess good since it is the Marlins, a gutted fish of a team. Could be wrong, though. Baseball is crazy and fun like that.
Longtime readers of the blog know that I tend to like the Opening Day cards and in trade posts, I always tried to feature them. Well, throughout my time, it turns out there were some that I still haven’t posted. And of course, new players to collect means more opportunities. Let’s start this season off right (but don’t go expecting these timely posts from me).
 Did not get the nod Carlos Zambrano opened up 2005 for the Cubs, but didn’t get the official win. That went to Glendon Rusch as the Cubs trounced the Diamondbacks 16-6
 The gold parallel that looks too much like the normal Topps set Jake Peavy got the win for the Padres on opening day 2008. They beat the Astros 4-0.
 Most of the team set from a hobby box After winning the last game of the season in 2016, the Cubs managed to lose 4-3 to the Cardinals. All this star power and nothing to show for it.
 More 2017 box results Honestly, without looking at my want lists, I’m not sure if I have the full Cubs base set that I need, but it’s dang close if not. Inserts are going to be a much different thing, but that Javy picture is great. I might have zoomed in a little bit, but that’s nitpicking.
 What a sinister look he has! This is from the previous year, 2016. For 2016, the Cubs beat the Angels 9-0 on their way to the World Series. Bryant was not a significant part of that particular victory.
 Who doesn’t like glow in the dark cards In 2011, the Braves beat the Nationals 2-0 in their opening day match. Heyward homered in the first game of his sophomore campaign to lead off the second inning for the last run of the game. It was not played at night, however.
 I like the silver more than the gold border Lastly today, we’re going back 20 years (already…yikes!) to 1998, where we have another victory. Padres beat the Reds 10-2, and Tony Gwynn even homered in that game, something he was not known for. Not a bad way to start the season.
I wonder what hometown heroes we’ll see (if any) this year. Should be a fun season.
Spring Training is now over, and I have to say that I haven’t been all that excited about it the past couple years. I hate to keep bringing it up, but I think the main reason is that February and March have been the busiest months of work. It’s been rare that I could focus on any hobbies or fun or social activities at all sometimes, and so trying to follow games that didn’t matter…didn’t matter to me.
The other big reason is that lately there weren’t many surprises expected to come out of camp. The roster is basically set, even with (or because of) the young talent. So, there are no prospects you hope to make a good showing, because they’re all blocked by others. Sure you could possibly keep tabs on how well the 25-man people are performing, but there’s no point in that either. A good spring training doesn’t mean they’ll have a good season.
Still, it’s something that plenty of people care about, which is good. And the games are good opportunities for new pictures for baseball cards. That’s where Topps comes in. They made a Topps Now Road to Opening Day set for every team and I decided to pull the trigger on it. There were some incentives built in so that if certain things happened in the season, you got bonus cards. Cubs didn’t hit any of those milestones. But I still got the set – the one with an autograph packed in. You could get one of 4 players and so there was little downside.
Let’s take a look.
 New father Baez We’ll start with Javy. I know some people hate the posed shots, but I like them. This looks like it was done in a studio with a backdrop instead of on the field, though.
 As far as I know, the MLB review of his abuse accusations are still pending I’m using Russell to show the backs. These have a nice foilboard shimmer going on, which was a surprise. Overall the stock is solid.
 Wad Now we come to the part of the program where we look at players that are no longer with the team. Our big 2017 acquisition was a good one. We weren’t able to keep Wade for more than that season, however. Not collecting him, but also not breaking up the set, either.
 Miggs Montero was dropped from the team under some weird circumstances. I thought the situation was B.S. but we’ll discuss that another time.
 No Hitta! Jake served us well in his time with the Cubs. Much better than anyone expected, but I’m not sad to see him leave. 2017 was a bit of a decline and personally I get the feeling that this will continue.
 Lack One drawback to not following the team in the off-season was I wasn’t sure if Lackey actually decided to retire or not. Looks like he has indeed put his teeth out to pasture.
 Les We do still have the rest of these guys, though. Lester will be our Opening Day starter (barring some injury, I guess), and that’s quite alright with me. He’s had a lot of success with the Cubs even though he’s been overshadowed by Arrieta.
 Drick Also this guy stole some of the thunder. I don’t think anyone expected Kyle to do as well as he has, so his star is still rising after 2016 and a lesser, but still good 2017. We’re watching him closely to see if we have a fluke or not.
 Al Al Robot run! Almora was expected to be a big star, but that hasn’t fully panned out. He’s a good role player for us, though. Maybe with more playing time things would be different but the outfield is crowded.
 Bry C’mon. You know this guy. It’s weird to have an MVP winner on the team again.
 Thon I’d love to see this guy make a run to give us two MVP winners. He’s been in the top 5 a couple times.
 Hey I love this posed shot. Clearly he’s uninterested and that makes it funny to me. Here’s hoping Jason can keep improving to get back to the player we were hoping for.
 N Zob I like Zobrist, but I still think keeping Castro would have been the better move for the Cubs. Weird they call him an OF here.
 Arber This is a great non-posed shot. I’d like to see more photos of players running out of the dugout or bullpen. The angle is dynamic too.
 Illson But I saved the best photo for last. Look at those shades. Look at the reflection. The expression. The catcher’s mask! Now that’s a classic card!
Now, that’s the whole team set, but what about the autograph, you say. Bryant and Rizzo were both possible. I think Wade Davis was too, but out of the four possible players, I got….
 Auto Mister Jason Heyward. I have to say I’m not disappointed. Sure Bryant is the obvious choice for what would be ideal (just to avoid future costs of buying one), but I needed this too. Heyward has a solid autograph and you know I’m a fan of the picture, so this is a win! A win that matters! Let’s go, Cubs!
I know that yesterday I had a post announcing my annual return, but considering I actually think this could be for good… that probably warrants a second one.
Taking a look at my archives sidebar shows that over the past couple years, there have been long gaps between November and April with no posts, which makes sense in the context of my old job. And there was that 18 month absence when things were really, really bad. I don’t think I’ll be posting every day (never did), but hopefully a couple times a week and some new trade bait a couple times a month. I’ve said that before, but that was me being optimistic with my old position. Now I have a new position with different responsibilities that won’t have the same pressures forcing me to work nights and weekends.
Besides, I had a theme in mind, and that’s not a very common occurrence. Had to take advantage of that.
You see, the title is “Back in Black” and all of these cards are going to be black parallels. It’s this kind of super clever color-based blog posts that you’ve all been missing out on.
In future months, think of all the other colors that could be talked about. Red. Green. Blue. Other. So many colors…. So many. Yellow. Gold. Purple. Another other.
 Pitching into the void After adding this Wal-Mart parallel, I’m down to needing only 14 more cards from 2011. That’s a weird thing to brag about, I guess. Maybe pretty soon, I’ll be able to complete a whole year.
 Need 12 more 2017 Strops When you get rid of borders, but still want to have parallels, you gotta do something. This isn’t a bad solution. Pedro is pumped about it.
 Need 25 more, including 2 autographs I’ve scanned some cards while they were still in a toploader, and it really has an adverse affect on the colors. And it adds a bunch of fun dust specs.
 Too many too count Some people don’t like the league leaders being put on separate cards instead of the top 3 on one. I’m okay with it.
 Yup, need to get the rainbow for 2 LLs and the normal one There’s less competition for cards like this from other player collectors, and a lot of people care less about the subsets so it’s easy to get them for $1 +s/h.
 Robot bee border I picked this card up at this past year’s national convention, although I shouldn’t have. Blinded by the price, and sort of hidden by the toploader, I didn’t see that the corner is bent. It’s not creased, but definitely and significantly curved. So, someday I hope to upgrade, but it’s still nice to have a low numbered Rizzo in the collection.
 From 2014 Finest, I only need 4 more Heywards Yeah, these count as the black refractor parallels. 2014 Finest was terrible about this. So many colors along the border, but you have to analyze the background and/or rely on matching the serial numbering to know what you have.
 Only need 14 more 2015 Tribute Solers including 9 autos Another National pickup. It was a good show for Soler finds. I know the black is tough to see, but it’s in there.
 Need 5 more cards and autos from this set. Lastly, how about an autograph? There’s no mistaking the parallel here. I guess I could have used this for any future red post. Those are some bright swatches. If I luck out and find another version, maybe it will show up there. After all, I’m heading out of the darkness and the future is colorful.
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