A Real Diamond Gem in my Reverse Box

I've been showing off some incredible cards for my 2014 National Treasures Reverse Box.  The card I'm going to show off today is a true gem though (pun intended).

Randomly inserted in packs of 2014 National Treasures are gem cards of some of the game's greatest ball players of All-Time.  Each card features an actual diamond or emerald inside the card.

For $45 I grabbed a Paul Waner diamond numbered 12/20.

The back of the card authenticates the diamond as real so I may have gotten a major savings on that.  LOL!

This marks my 7th card of the reverse box and brings my box total to $279.  That leaves $146 for the remaining autograph of my reverse box. HINT: I'M WAAAAYYYY UNDER THE AMOUNT.


Other cards I have shown already in my reverse box of /50 copies and all Pirates include
2 Hall of Famer autographs (Stargell and Mazeroski)
1 Hall of Famer bat relic (Clemente)
1 Hall of Fame jumbo bat relic (Stargell)
2 patches of the Pirates youth movement (Taillon & Polanco)
1 Jumbo Jersey Relic and On Card Autograph of one of baseball's top young pitchers (Gerrit Cole)
EVERYTHING CAN BE SEEN BELOW

Roberto Clemente bat relic 6/25

Willie Stargell Cut AUTO and jumbo bat booklet 7/10

Gerrit Cole on card AUTO and jumbo jersey 32/49

Jameson Taillon Jersey Patch 2/25

Gregory Polanco Colossal Prime Jersey Patch 14/25

Bill Mazeroski On Card Autograph Hall of Fame 2/10

Seeing Red: A new feature on the PTR

With all the rainbow color parallels that companies are producing these days, I am going to start to highlight them in monthly features.  I've already introduced my followers to Black is the New Black, where I show off a black parallel of Pirates players.

Today, I'm going to introduce you all to Seeing Red.  This monthly feature will highlight some of my red parallels I have acquired over the years and more recently.  What better way to introduce this segment than by showing off a pair of Hall of Famers, Pie Traynor and Paul Waner.

These two beloved Pittsburgh athletes played the majority of their careers with the Pirates and were some of the earlier members enshrined in the HOF.

The above two cards were purchased shortly after Cooperstown came out and were had for $4 shipped.

This card reminds me of...

It's been a long time since I did a this card reminds me of feature so here's my latest interpretation of a baseball card.

Today's Subject:
2013 Panini Cooperstown Paul Waner (green parallel)

This card reminds me of....

STEAMPUNK COSPLAY!

The Waner Brothers BAT RELICS

I've been wanting to add more of the Pittsburgh Pirates HOF players relics to my collection over the past year and came across a handful of Panini relics featuring the HOF Waner Brothers.  All these cards below were added to my collection for less than $10 a piece over the past couple months.

Known as Big Poison (Paul) and Little Poison (Lloyd) were key pieces of the Pirates early success in the 20th century.

2012 Prime Cuts Biography BAT RELIC Paul Waner 87/99

Paul went on to collect 3,152 career hits (2,868 in a Pittsburgh uniform) and finished his career with a .333 career batting average over his 20 year career.  Paul also won the MVP award in 1927 (second year in majors) with his .380 batting average and 131 RBI.

2012 Prime Cuts Icons Bat Relic Lloyd Waner 74/99 BAT RELIC

Lloyd, Lil' Poison, was not as talented as his older brother but still manage to have a long and successful career himself.  He finished his career with 2,459 career hits and a .316 batting average.  What's most impressive of the younger Waner though is that he struck out only 173 times over his 18 year career.  5 players in baseball had more strikeouts last year than Lloyd had in his entire career.  That's insane!!! It would be nearly 45 plate appearances before Lloyd would strike out.  Only 2 players have better numbers in the history of the game (Willie Keeler and Joe Sewell).

Morton Monday & a HOF Bat

Continuing the Charlie Morton madness comes a serially numbered black bordered 2011 Topps Update.  This card is numbered 43/60 and features the same stock photo as all other parallels of the 2011 Charlie Morton base card.  I'm not a huge fan of parallels unless they are very rare like this one.  Only 60 in distribution is pretty rare, but that's not my rarest of the Charlie Morton cards I own.  I'm still hoping to get some 1 of 1s in the near future, but I do have a few cards of print runs of 50, 25, 10, and 5 in my collection.
Charlie was awarded a 1 year contract this off season to avoid arbitration. 

Up next is a 2000 Upper Deck Piece of History bat relic of Hall of Famer Paul "Big Poison" Waner.  Paul and his brother Lloyd are both members of the Hall of Fame and had played their best years patrolling the Pittsburgh outfield.  His lifetime batting average is .333 and he had 3,152 hits in his 20 year career that ended with the New York Yankess in 1945.  Paul and Chipper Jones are the only players to have had 14 consecutive games of extra base hits.  The 1927 NL MVp and 4 time all-star had his number 11 retired by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2007.  This is my first relic card of Paul Waner that I own.