My first AJ Relic

I really wanted Topps to make an AJ Burnett relic card in a Pirates uniform at some point over the past two seasons.  Unfortunately that never happened.  I really liked having AJ as a member of the Bucs.  He was extremely competitive and even when he didn't have his best stuff or felt like he was getting squeezed by the umpires, he continued to battle on the mound.  I'm going to miss AJ being a member of the rotation this year and think that he will greatly miss the defensive shifts the Pirates put on last year, which will inevitably make his numbers revert back to "normal".

Above is my first AJ relic I have purchased.  It features 8 members of the Florida Marlins Teammate Timelines.  The card is double sided with 4 members on each side.

The card also comes with it's own certificate of authenticity.

In light of bad AJ showing up at the mound today for the Phillies, it made sense to show off this 8 relic card...

Cross another off the list

I've been actively adding to my Charlie Morton collection for about 4 years now.  You'd think that for a guy with only 85 cards produced (before 2013 hit stands), acquiring his cards wouldn't be that hard.  Hahahahaha! Think again.  Ground Chuck has over 30 1/1s somewhere on this Earth.  I have 3.  Yup! Just 3.  Not good percentages.

However, of the non 1/1s (54) I now own 50.  That's right, I added another Charlie Morton to my collection thanks in part to some kindness on my brother.

2002 UD Premiere Prospects Future Gems Quads 313/600 with David Bush, Joey Gomes, and Josh Johnson

He bought me the 2002 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Future Gems Quad featuring Joey Gomes, Josh Johnson, Charlie Morton, and David Bush. The card ran about $9 and was one of the five remaining non 1/1s I needed to complete my Charlie Morton collection.   Now I'm down to only 4.

2002 Upper Deck Prospect Premiere Future Gems Quads came in very large 1 per pack box toppers back in the day.  I included a scan of the pack next to an average sized bowman card to show the difference.

Pretty large, right?  Well it has to essentially hold an uncut piece of cardbaord for 4 baseball cards.  These cards were all numbered out of 600 and finding them on the market today is very difficult.

Here's the back of the card my brother got me.

I am still in search of another that features Charlie Morton along with Val Majewski, Joey Gomes, Daniel Cevette.  I've yet to see that card available for sale anywhere.

It's one of only 4 non 1/1s I need.

Just four!!!!  Like the amount of players on this card.  I only need 4!
I've given some thought to which player I might PC in the future where I can collect every parallel of that player.  As much as I like Cutch, it's just impossible to collect all those different parallels.  I've been leaning towards Justin Wilson who is a hard throwing lefty the Pirates have in the bullpen.  I met him several times as he was developing in the minors as a starter and was at the 2010 Eastern Conference championship game when he was awarded MVP honors.  The problem is that his name is pretty common so saving it as an ebay search tool would be very annoying.