The Fisk Obsession: 2019

Monday, May 27, 2019

2019 Topps Series 1 150 Years of Baseball Rainbow

Another set of chase cards from the current year. From top left: Red /10, Green Target hangar pack exclusive, Base, Platinum Parallel #1/1, Gold 150 Foil stamp parallel.

2018 Topps Series 2 Instant Impact Insert Rainbow

Real simple Topps Flagship insert, but the chase of getting the oddballs and low-numbered parallels of a current Topps release makes this really fun. Finally just piked up the Gold parallel to complete the rainbow started last year (minus the 1 of 1). Front top left: Black /299, Blue, Base, Red /10 and Gold /50.

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

2019 Series 1 150 Years of Baseball Platinum Parallel

Some day soon I'll post up the whole rainbow of all the parallels of this release. For now, just putting up one of my big "gets" in my collection history, that of getting a Topps Platinum parallel #1/1. I've seen and heard about Platinum parallels for many years and like a lot of those cards, they seemed like a white ghost, something that you'll not only NEVER pull from a pack in your lifetime, but you'll probably never even SEE one. Had the opportunity to grab this one on eBay. The fact that it's a Series 1 "flagship" card of Fisk from a current issue is just the icing on the cake. Love this card!

Front

Back

2008 Upper Deck Remnants Quad Jersey Relic #21/37

2008 UD Remnants Quad Jersey Relic #21/37

1992 Stadium Club Topps Vault 4 color mask negative

Yet another bad-ical 1 of 1 Topps Vault item. This time a 4-color mask of 1992 Stadium Club. Love it.

1986 Topps Super Topps Vault 4 Color Mask Negative

Well as cards go, this is about as boring as it could possibly get. The 4-color mask of a dark color, probably black, means you don't get much here. But it's an authentic Topps Vault piece of memorabilia. So there.

1983 Topps Strip of 3 Uncut Cards from Topps Vault

Bit of catch up here at The Obsession, just toss off a few 1 of 1 rare treats on a Tuesday. Grabbed this from the Topps Vault last year. 1983 was the peak of my childhood collecting so this is super cool to me.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

2010 Topps Triple Threads Relics Emerald Parallel "The Wave" #11/18

The final post of The Great Triple Threads Spasm of 2018

2006 Topps Triple Threads

Now comes the big orgy of 2006 Triple Threads. There were no base cards in 2006 and the hits don't come up very often. In my view the most scarce Triple Threads year for Fisk for sure. Here are a few pickups I made from one seller, including the #1/3 Platinum parallel down below.

2008 Topps Triple Threads Relic Combos with Johnny Bench and Pudge Rodriguez "Backstop" Gold Parallel #1/9

2010 Topps Triple Threads Autographed Relics #9/18

2018 Topps Triple Threads pickups

2018 Topps Triple Threads Gold Autographed Relics Gold Parallel #4/9

2018 Topps Triple Threads Autographed Relics Emerald Parallel # /18

2018 Topps Triple Threads Legend Relics Gold Parallel #8/9

2004 Donruss Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Absolutely Ink Material GU Jersey Relic Sticker Auto #4/5

This is Absolutely Ink and I absolutely love this card. Out of all the stuff I've picked up lately, this one went on the bathroom shrine shelf so I can look at it every day. Graphically, this is a very good design. Even with the sticker auto, a beautiful card and numbered to 5! Fifteen years ago this was a big pull and now I grabbed it for cheap!!

2001 Topps Tribute Franchise Figures

Have been wanting to get both of these cards for a very long time, but they come up very rarely and when they do they are usually very expensive. I got the White Sox version a few months ago and did a previous post on that. Recently, several of the Yaz Red Sox were put up for auction. I waited until the third one sold and grabbed it for half of what the first one sold for. Really fun pick ups.

2004 Leaf Certified Materials Fabric of the Game Jersey Auto #7/10

Another cool throwback pickup, paid 12 bucks!

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings Hall of Fame Heroes Green Frame Jersey / Bat / Auto #10/10

Again, love the explosion of crap that is 2005 Donruss. Got this for 8 bucks!

2011 In The Game Heroes and Prospects Dual Cut Autos with Bryce Brentz

Kinda dig funky stuff like In The Game. I believe this was before they were bought out by Leaf. A guy going all in trying to start a card company is inspiring, a dream I will probably never live, and more than likely a great way to lose a BUNCH of money. I have several different In The Game cards from 2011 but this is the only dual cut auto. Pretty cool.

2010 Topps Triple Threads Relics Combos Double Sepia Parallel Booklet 13x Jersey/Bat w/ Mauer/Posada/Ivan/Bench/Berra spells "FIELD GENERALS" #19/27

What can you say about this beauty? My first ever Triple Threads booklet. Just love it.

Monday, February 11, 2019

2003 Topps Tribute World Series Tribute Relic GU Bat Relic + Green Monster Relic #278/425

I paid too much for this but I love it. I really love the Topps Tribute brand, probably my second favorite Topps after Triple Threads. In spite of the 425 print run these don't show up very often and certainly seem to be holding their value.

2002 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Signatures

Friggin Sweet card. Love grabbing old autos for super cheap.

2005 Donruss Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Marks of Fame Sticker Auto #41/77

Super Cheap. For some reason I love the sheer glut of cards that spewed forth from the Donruss Corporation in the single year of 2005. As most of you know, Donruss knew they were losing their MLB license at the end of 2005, so they dumped a hundred cards on the market for every man, woman and child in America. To this day, 2005 is still the single largest quantity of any year in the Fisk Obsession collection. Fun facts.

2018 Topps Luminaries Home Run Kings On-Card Auto Encased #9/10

I hope Topps keeps going with the Luminaries set. The breaks I've seen online are pretty loaded and the designs are good. On-Card autos, encapsulated and low-numbered is the way to the collector's heart these days.

2018 Panini Immaculate Tweed Weave Parallel Gold Auto #9/10

This looks pretty basic in the scan. It's better looking in person, but still not an amazing card. The gold sharpie auto is cool as it's a rare color to get an auto in. Low numbered. But the overall design is plain which is a Panini hallmark. Just seems like Panini cranks out some vanilla stuff to get cards on the street. They seem more focused on quality products for other sports like basketball. The photo not showing anything except grey and a sliver of his "7" makes it even more plain. Lotsa white in the background. Anyway, here it is.

The Topps Vault 1981 Topps Traded 4-Color Printing Mask - Red

I've been waiting to post this for a minute, got the card before Christmas. Was super stoked to have a Topps Vault item from 1981 Topps Traded which is the first White Sox card for Fisk ever made. It's not much to look at on the blog, but such a cool item to hold in my hand. A piece of baseball card history for sure.

From the auction detail: Direct from the legendary Topps Vault, this auction features an original 4-color mask film negative. Color separation mask film negatives were used in the set's printing and proofing process. This auction features the RED tone example. Four different colors: red, blue, black and yellow are used in this process. Although this production item is B&W in color, it rendered the RED tones in the finished card.

Friday, February 8, 2019

2017 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Rainbow

Throwing in one more rainbow on my day off here. The one-year only Topps Gallery. Pretty cheesy throwback to the old Gallery issues of the early 2000's. The rainbow still looks good though. From left to right they are: Green Parallel # 46/250, Blue Parallel #42/99, Orange Parallel #7/25 and the base card.

2017 Topps On Demand Set #9 Post Season Heroes & Current Stars Rainbows

As an obsessive completest I pretty well like everything that everyone puts out that has a Fisk image on it. I'm not picky, that's part of being an obsessive. So while I think as artwork, these Topps On Demand cards really suck hard, there is the fun of trying to pickup and collect all these little oddball parallels that are a bit more rare because their only available online to other obsessives.

So the rainbows in the image from left to right are: Black Parallel #3/10, Red Parallel #5/25, and the blue Base card which has a stated print run from the Topps website of /1129.

Below are the Postseason Impact Dual Chase Cards with Gary Sanchez. On the left is the Silver Parallel #2/5 and on the right the Black Parallel #9/10. I believe the way this worked was that you ordered a base set from the website which was available for one week only, and Topps randomly inserted the low numbered chase cards as a sweetener. I'm just gonna throw out there that I picked up the Silver Parallel numbered to five over the Holidays this year for......$1.99. Two bucks. Score!

Throwing a single scan of the # /5 below.

2005 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts Significant Trips Red Sox Triple Relic w/ Rice & Lynn #04/10 (Fred Lynn bat relic MISSING)

Sports fans a card this weird does not come along too often. The pud knocker who listed this on eBay didn't bother to put the "missing/damaged/error/altered" notification in the title of the auction, but buried down in the full description which these days might as well not exist on eBay as it's nearly impossible to notice. Of course, I'm doing a lot of eBay on the phone so from a distance the missing bat piece at a quick glance just looks like an all-white jersey relic, just like the one in the lower-right. Nothing in the description, so I put in a low bid and won it. Only to receive the card in the mail and notice the error. I went back to eBay and found the notification in the full description buried underneath. Hem, haw....decided to keep it because I agree with the seller's logic. From the front of the card I immediately thought someone (a Fred Lynn fan) tore out the bat relic and used it in a custom card or some other nefarious activity. However, when you flip the card over, there is a tight, clean, smooth surface all the way across. I also can't notice any tearing or any sign that it was removed through the front. So the buyer posted that he believes it's a factory error. It's either that or somebody was DAMNED good at removing it. Either way, that makes it an interesting card to me. And the fact that at numbered to 10 and from all the way back in 2005, I've never even seen one of these before. With only 9 others in existence there's a pretty decent chance I'll never see another one. So, it's in the collection....albeit with the words MISSING in my title in all caps :)

2016 Topps Tribute - Tribute Autographs On-Card Auto #42/75

Again following my strategy of waiting a few years for the market to cool on these base autos. Somebody is always looking to dump a nice card for cash. Grabbed for cheap.

2017 Topps Bowman Chrome Draft Rainbow

This one is really fun because it's my first ever Superfractor. Throw in that I nabbed a Red parallel numbered to 5 and I feel really lucky to have this rainbow. To get both is really cool. It's kind of an ugly set which is probably why I was able to afford a Superfractor. Anyway, here's the rainbow. From left to right: Superfractor #1/1, Red Parallel #4/5, Gold Parallel #37/50, Refractor Parallel #24/250, and the base card. I'm dropping a scan of the single Superfractor underneath so I can come back to this post and DROOL.

2017 Panini Flawless Legendary Signatures Ruby Parallel #01/15

In an earlier post I have the base # /20 of this card. Picked up the /15 Ruby parallel for a good price recently. Panini has several releases like this that feature really clean designs, thick stock, some foil accents, classic photography, and all the signatures are on-card. Pretty cool overall, looks much better in person.

2016 Panini Pantheon Metropolis Monuments #04/25

Friggin' sweet card. Die cut. Bat pieces of Jimmie Foxx and Tris Speaker! Rad. So rare and so rad that I paid A LOT for this card. And am happy to have it.

2018 Panini Black Friday Rainbow

Here's another cool 2018 Rainbow for ya. Absolutely terrible scan, although this Black Friday set is rather, well....black. From top-left going clockwise: the sticker auto parallel (same card number as the base set), the Cracked Ice Parallel #06/10, the Galactic Wave Refractor Parallel #16/25, and the Base card #181/199. Again, I doubt based on the rarity of the galactic wave and cracked ice as well as the auto that anybody else has this Fisk rainbow right now. Was fun to collect this winter.

2018 Topps Factory Set Rookie Cup Medallions Rainbow

Pretty cool rainbow here. From the bottom up are the base card, the green parallel #08/50 and the blue parallel #03/25. I've only seen the one green and one blue cards on eBay so I could be fairly confident that this is the only Fisk rainbow of this card out there right now. Pretty cool. Will sit in giant 360-point magnetic holders in the collection.

Thursday, January 17, 2019

2015 Topps Supreme Supreme Scope Auto Relic Booklet #5/10

Don't know what happened to Topps Supreme, because this card is so super disgusting. It's difficult to see in the scan, but all the cutouts are see-through so when you hold it up to the light, you can see through a good percentage of the card. That, the huge jersey patch, the booklet, the auto, and numbered to 10. Just love this card!

Front

Back

2002 Topps Tribute Marching Marks Dual Bat Relic with Johnny Bench

Was pretty stoked when I found this. They come up very rarely.

2005 Topps Retired Signature Edition On Card Auto Encapsulated

2018 Topps Archives Signature Series Retired Player Edition - 1982 Topps All-Star On-Card Auto #08/10

I have to say Topps has my number with these re-issues. Collectors really want the encapsulated card with the foil security label and an on-card auto. Topps got it right with these cards for the Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers who orignally collected these cards.