McCutchen Mailday #7: This card is rarer than you think

It's not often that a card numbered to 2013 is more sought after than a 1/1 or actually rarer than /62 blacks, but such is the case for this gold parallel of Andrew McCutchen from 2013 Topps Update.

What makes this card so rare?

Well, as legend has it, a large portion of the print run was horribly off centered and very few actually made it into packs.

I was finally able to add this slightly off centered gold to my PC.

It's not quite as rare as a No Name on Front Frank Thomas 1990 Topps, but in terms of my Cutch collection, it helps fill a two year void.

McCutchen Mailday #30-39: Card Show Pickups

I grabbed 10 new Andrew McCutchen cards all from one location last month.

For a combined $12, I walked away with a pair of numbered Opening Day blue parallels from year's past, a trinity of 2012 Topps Gold Parallels, a 2015 insert, and some vintage designs in recent years.

Overall it was a very good haul for me at that show because I also snagged a bunch of vintage cards that I will show off in the very near future.

The Quest for 100 is getting close to the halfway mark and the year isn't even a third of the way complete.

Tony Tuesday: I struck gold!!!

For under $2 I was able to win a low numbered gold parallel of Tony's 2014 chrome update card.

Couldn't be happier with this purchase.  I just don't know where Tony fits into the Pirates plans for the 2015 season.  With Spring Training starting up, maybe we will get some answers soon.

Couldn't pass up a golden opportunity

Being a supercollector of a non superstar player is great.  It allows me to attempt to collect 100% of all cards of a favorite player of mine without having to eat ramen noodles every night and live in a cardboard box.  Charlie Morton, while a very good pitcher, is not labeled as an ace or one of the game's top pitchers.  This allows me the opportunity to add numbered parallels of his very very cheap.

2013 Topps Update Gold Parallel (515/2013)

Such was the case for the above 2013 Topps Update gold parallel you see above.  It cost me a winning bid of 10 cents with a respectable 49 cents shipping.  I just couldn't pass up the golden opportunity to add this card to my collection for 59 cents especially since I somehow had previously not added it to my collection.

The Bucs are in Colorado this weekend and are only a few games out of first place.  Let's hope Charlie can keep the ball low and get a lot of weakly hit groundball outs and the offense continues to roll like it has the fast few nights.  Let's Go Bucs!!!!

The Best 1/1 in my Supercollection????

As many (if not all) of you know, I own most likely the largest Charlie Morton baseball card collection on the planet.  I have nearly 1 copy of every card produced of the veteran right hander and have been adding multiple copies of the rarer low print runs to my collection on an ongoing basis.  Getting a chance to meet him back in 2010 when he was one of the worse (statistically) pitchers in franchise history to where he is now, makes me very proud of the hard work he has put in to reinventing himself as a true pitcher and not just a guy that throws hard.

Last night, the Pirates lost a tough pitching duel between Adam Wainwright and Charlie Morton.  Wainwright, for as good as he was and all his accomplishments just wasn't as good as Charlie.  In 7 shutout innings, Morton used only 84 pitches to surrender only 1 hit and 2 walks while striking out 5.  Wainwright on the other hand, used 112 pitches to sprinkle 7 hits and 3 walks over 7 innings.  The Pirates left 12 men on base during the game.

Despite not being able to add another win to the back of Charlie's baseball card, I am still on the hunt for his cardboard and besides the 2008 Superfractor I added last December, I can't think of a card I am more happy to add to my collection than this.

The grading on it is subpar, yes....but it's a 1/1 2012 Topps Gold Embedded piece of cardboard of Ground Chuck!!!!  To my understanding, the Topps Golden Embedded 1/1 cards fell 1:20,000 codes which were distributed 1 in every 6 hobby packs.  That means that to get a code like this that there were 120,000 hobby packs opened to get 1 of these kinds of cards.  Now multiply that by the 661 card base set and you can see how elusive this card is.

It marks the 10th 1/1 I have shown off on the PTR.

Here's a recap of the others.
2008 Superfractor
2011 Topps Printing Plate
2012 Topps Wood
2012 Topps Mini Printing Plate
2012 Leaf A Sign of History Cut Auto
2013 Printing Plate
2013 Topps Blank Back
2014 Topps Blank Back
2014 Topps Heritage Blank Back

So Many Cards, So Little Time: The Sequel

Yesterday I showed off all the new additions to the blog for my 2013 Topps Update Charlie Morton additions.  Today, I'm going to show off some of the easier to find 2014 Topps parallels I have grabbed over the past few months.

The above 6 cards ran me $12.73 delivered which isn't terrible for 6 serially numbered or retail exclusive cards.

Up first is the Gold Parallel which came in at a hefty price of 6 cents which I smartly combined with a bunch of other cards to make the shipping free.

Of all the recent parallels that Topps has started to put out, I think this ugly shade of green is my least favorite.  Nothing about this card excites me......except that it's another card to chase of my favorite player.  It ran me $1.98 shipped and I am happy I won't have to type in Charlie Morton green into my save searches for the rest of the card season.

This purple variant ran me $1.26.  How did Toys R Us become the purple variant exclusive?  I get WalMart Blue and Target Red because their logos reflect those colors.

Can someone please point out to me what letter in their logo is purple because I sure as hell don't see it?

The Yellow retail exclusive was one of the more expensive cards to track down at $3.25.  Seeing how nice this card looks, makes me want to complete the team set for the yellow parallels.

The Camos were won around the same time and I put feeler bids in on both, thinking that if I lost one I could win the other.  I managed to win both these /99 parallels for a combined price of $5.98 (roughly $3 a card after shipping) 

I struck Gold!!!!

Pack pulled Gerrit Cole Gold parallel from 2013 Topps Update.

2013 Topps Update Gerrit Cole 1783/2013

Zoltan!

For those that don't know the Zoltan! sign, it's from the movie "Dude, Where's My Car?"  One night at the Pirates clubhouse, the team was watching the ridiculous movie and after a Rod Barajas homerun with the Z symbol coming home, it just kinda stuck.  Well, to further implement that the Pirates are the team of destiny this year, the Steelers have just signed a punter named Zoltan Mesko.  Pittsburgh is going to go nuts!!!!!

Since the Zoltan craze started for the Pirates last year Topps has had a few releases showing the Zoltan symbol being used.

The first was Josh Harrison's Topps card from last year.

While it is exciting to remember Josh's walkoff, it's incredibly depressing to remember that he had no idea how to make a Z.  No Mr. Harrison, that is an S. Not a Z.  This is why you had to go back and forth between the minors and majors last year.  Learn the symbol, then you can come back up and play with the big boys.

2013 Topps Museum Collection Momentous Material 8/50

The first card from this year to feature the Z is a Topps Museum Andrew McCutchen jumbo jersey relic.  The same image of Cutch is also shared on a booklet with Starling Marte from the Museum collection.  So far no other releases have shown the "Z"

2013 Topps Pirates Team Issued Travis Snider 

The 3rd card that I became aware of using the Z was the Pirates Team Set version of Travis Snider.