The Legend

The Legend

Friday, March 31, 2017

Blog Bat Around: My Hardest Set

As most of you know I'm not much of a set builder.  I like finding team sets of the Pirates, but other than that I just don't full around with it much.  The only time I went full throttle in set building was 2014.  This is the year in which I had a tumor removed from my leg and kept pretty much bound to my recliner the whole summer.  Nothing makes you feel better than buying boxes!

I think that year I attempted Heritage, GQ, Donruss and Prizm.  Heritage and GQ are a huge money crunch and I vowed never to do them again.  I finished them more out of spite than enjoyment.  Those two are pretty much the whole reason I stopped looking to complete sets.  The sp's were maddening.

Donruss and Prizm were ugly sets, but really fun boxes to open for the price.  Right around the time of the National Card Show, Dave and Adams put Donruss on sale for an astronomically low price.  I think I bought half a case.  At that time I got the bright idea that I would complete the 2014 Donruss Signatures set. I pulled half the set myself and noticed that the remaining players were manageable. The set didn't have the likes of Trout and Harper and the older players were fun gets like Dave Parker and Don Baylor.  A few redemptions existed, but they were filled in record time.  Overall the set has 50 autos.

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I had thought this Machado would be the hardest to find.  He was the biggest name on the list and carried the most value. Fortunately, it was easy and relatively affordable as Machado suffered an injury and his card prices came down.  The big issue turned out to be that some of these autos were unannounced short prints. SHIT!

As far as I know the Glaus, Castellanos. Flores and Laroche are all super short prints.  I was able to nab the Glaus, but have never seen the Castellanos or Laroche hit the open mark.  I know the Castellanos exists, but have never seen the Laroche.  Who knows if I'll ever find them. 



Here is the checklist.

1 Billy Hamilton
2 Dave Parker
3 Wil Myers
4 Jason Kipnis
5 Mike Zunino
6 Manny Machado
7 Bucky Dent
8 Kris Medlen
9 Chris Sale
10 Dusty Baker
11 Oscar Gamble
12 Willie Horton
13 Brandon Barnes
14 Martin Prado
15 Brandon Maurer
16 Alex Wilson
17 Andrew Brown
18 Starling Marte
19 Chris Rusin
20 Jordan Zimmermann
21 Evan Gattis
22 Mitch Moreland
23 Josh Donaldson
24 Bruce Rondon
25 Asdrubal Cabrera
26 Troy Glaus
27 James Shields
28 Jeurys Familia
29 Wilmer Flores
30 Didi Gregorius
31 Reymond Fuentes
32 Ivan Nova
33 Kevin Gausman
34 Jay Bruce
35 Michael Choice
36 Daniel Nava
37 Nick Castellanos
38 Lance Lynn
39 Taijuan Walker
40 Xander Bogaerts
41 Kolten Wong
42 Jurickson Profar
43 Mike Napoli
44 Zack Wheeler
45 Vinnie Pestano
46 Michael Morse
47 Jay Buhner
48 Oscar Taveras
49 Adam LaRoche
50 Miguel Sano


10 comments:

  1. There are some decent players on that checklist for sure. And yes, SPs really can the fun out of collecting.

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    1. The bad thing is that no information was released on them. I was so pissed after I found out that many of them may not be found.

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  2. Yes, I think opening boxes would be a nice reward for that kind of traumatic experience. Hope all that is in the past now. Good luck finding the missing guys. I'll keep an eye out. Or, maybe both eyes.

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    1. All is well now! Just took me out of commission for a summer.

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  3. Good luck with this set. I'll keep an eye out incase any of my contacts overseas have anything you need.

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    1. I'm worried about the Laroche. I've never seen that one at all.

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  4. I've got mixed feelings towards SP's. If they're reasonable, then I don't have a problem with them. But when you get to the point where you only see a card pop up a few times each year... or worse, you don't even know if it exists, then there's a problem.

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    Replies
    1. I don't mind sp's either....just hate that they were sneaky on these and didn't even announce it.

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  5. I havent seen many of these cards. love all the color but doubt i'd ever be up to the challenge building this set. good luck!! i'll be on the lookout as well. Glad you are healthy - that's most important!

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    Replies
    1. I'll never attempt anything like this again. Not worth the time or the money.

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