Roberto Alomar Collector's Thread

Oh. Yes, well, I may have had a few barley pops by the time I read your post...and didn't actually read it!

As far as the entire crusade run goes...there's of course the CTA red/purple/green. Then that "regular" unreleased card in green, then an executive CTA promo in purple. Those are the ones I've seen, all the others are anyone's guess.

JVHaste said:

Yeah, I know that Alomar's main released Crusade was a CTA (I might have it somewhere), so Hastradamus inferred that one in the photo was a prototype. :grouphug:
Some don't have a purp or red so that might be the only proto ever.

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I think the promos that have a red and purple are /2 green 1/1 purp 1/1 red, and the ones without it seems the greens are 1/1s. ... but who knows, there could be an employee stash somewhere.

The other day I finally found a 2019 Panini Prizm gold /10, which completed the 28-card rainbow. I can't really explain why I decided to chase this thing. When I first read about it I remember seeing parallels called "lime green donut circles" and "power plaid" and "cosmic haze" and I guess something just snapped in my brain. I was all in. I've promised (threatened?) to make a poast about this rainbow once I got it done, so here it is.

First the entire silly thing:


Now in batches. For the non-numbered parallels, I spent some time today going through COMC and Ebay listings trying to estimate the print runs for these things. The numbers in parentheses are the rough guesses I came up with.

Batch #1 of the non-numbered parallels:
Base card
Silver - (450 copies) 3 per box - not the most inspired parallel, easy to mistake it for the base in the wrong light
Red - (750 copies) - 5 per box
Blue - (600 copies) - 4 per box
Red/White/Blue - (150 copies) - exclusive to retail multi-packs


Batch #2 of the non-numbered parallels:
Purple - (100 copies) - exclusive to retail blaster boxes
Pink - (85 copies)
Carolina Blue - (25 copies) - initially many breakers were confused about what parallel was what, especially this one, and and were calling the blue or the blue mojo "Carolina blue".
Green - (5 copies) - exclusive to retail - never thought I'd see this one!


Batch #3 of the non-numbered parallels:
Hyper Blue - (200 copies)
Hyper Purple/Green - (125 copies)
Hyper Green/Yellow - (75 copies) all the "hypers" have the same geometrical design, just different color combos
Cosmic Haze - (100 copies)
White Sparkle - (5 copies) - exclusive to Donruss Mega Boxes - I didn't have any idea how rare this was when I found one...haven't seen another once since.


Batch #1 of the serial-numbered parallels:
Blue Mojo - 399 copies - this same "mojo" pattern was used by Topps for the 2019 silver pack 1984 design cards
Red Mojo - 299 copies
Lime Green Donut Circles - 199 copies - love the donuts!
Orange Donut Circles - 150 copies


Batch #2 of the serial-numbered parallels - a series of black & white designs:
Zebra Stripes - 99 copies
Power Plaid - 75 copies
Silver Wave - 60 copies
Snake Skin - 50 copies


Batch #3 of the serial-numbered parallels:
Navy Blue Kaleidescopie - 35 copies - this one is cool with the little pinwheel effects, kind of like the 1998 PMG cards
Burgundy Shimmer - 25 copies
Gold Prizm - 10 copies
Silver Shimmer - 7 copies - exclusive to First Off The Line boxes
Forest Green Flash - 5 copies
Black Finite - 1 copy - pretty cool pattern, have seen it before on other cards but can't remember where

It's been lean times lately when it comes to the ol' PC, but the pocketbook has gotten a rest so that's OK. I have added a few new pickups though...

2003 Donruss Timeless Treasures Past & Present Prime /25. This one has two jersey bits, one from the Indians and one from the Mets, and on the back it shows photos of the actual jerseys. I have never really been into GU cards and probably never will be, but this is one of the better ones.


2019 Topps 1984 design pink mini /25. A pink mini? Had to have it. I also picked up the base mini card, which was printed on demand and ended up with only 13 copies. Like I've said before, I picked up more 2019 cards than I should have, and fully intend to rein in the spending on 2020 issues.


This was a major acquisition. I find most of my PC cards on ebay, followed by comc and then beckett. Probably the same as most of us right? But every now and then I head to sportlots and see what's there. That site is great for picking up $0.18 commons and other low-end cards, but not so much for supercollectors chasing those weird and rare issues. But every now and then it pays off. I found this 2000 Pacific Prism Tinsel Silver card for $5 and could not believe my eyes. Other than the little-known seldom-seen "proof" parallel /10 (which I have), the Tinsel is definitely the rarest of the multitude of 2000 Prism parallels. I'm still missing the woodgrain and pebbly dots, but in time those will come. This was the one I thought I'd never see. Just goes to show you.


2000 Barry Colla Indians Postcards. No great shakes, but I like it. I had found two copies of the 2001 Colla Indians Postcard issue, but this one eluded me. Then it appeared for like $7 delivered, so the BIN button was summarily mashed. Curiously, the backs of the 2000 and 2001 cards are identical, with the same bits of data and the same text in the same positions. Only difference is that the facsimile autograph is distinctly different between the two cards.


Last one for today - 2014 Topps Five Star Auto of the Cobra himself! Back in the day, meaning 1990, I was a teenage kid trying to figure out his newfound love for baseball cards. My little brother - who is now taller than me - had started collecting earlier that year, and I thought it was totally lame - probably just because my little brother was interested in it. But before long I too realized that baseball cards were awesome. So we both really got into it, and of course we thought that all those junk wax rookie cards of Greg Jefferies and Todd Zeile were going to put us through college. But regardless of all that money that was coming my way in the FUTURE, I had to decide how to keep collecting as the hobby started exploding with a proliferation of sets, all of which were more expensive than the last.

So at first I decided I'd just collect certain sets. But that was too spendy. So then I thought I'd just collect rookie cards of all new players. More manageable, but still...I didn't really give a crap about Don Heinkel and Paul Gibson, so why was I buying their cards just because they were rookies? So then I decided I'd just collect my favorite players. At the time they were Robbie, Dave Parker, and Ramon Martinez. Robbie was a stud rookie who had a solid season for the Padres at age 20, and followed it up with even better numbers the next two seasons. Dave had a renaissance of sorts with the A's and Brewers, and some of his cards at the time had great photos which totally made him look like the badass he was (and is). And Ramon was a 22-year old 20-game winner. So I decided I'd collect every card of those three guys. Simple, right?

Well, it didn't take long to realize that this was also unmanageable. So I decided to pare down my collecting to just my favorite player, and that's how my collection of 4343 different Robbie cards got its start. BUT! I still have a bunch of the old Dave Parker cards, including his 1974 Topps rookie, and last month I decided I needed a nice on-card auto. So here it is. The 2014 Five Star auto design is awesome. I love this card, and I still love Dave Parker.


PS - Is that a badass card or what? If anyone says the 2014 Topps Five Star Auto cards blow, I'm ready to fight you right now!

Back in 2017 I posted an 11-card almost rainbow of 2003 Topps. Only missing the Topps Black /52. Well, that one came in late last year so since I have nothing better to do at the moment, here's a pic of all 12!

banjar said:

Back in 2017 I posted an 11-card almost rainbow of 2003 Topps. Only missing the Topps Black /52. Well, that one came in late last year so since I have nothing better to do at the moment, here's a pic of all 12!

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Nice to see a fellow Mets collector


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Where oh where do you find this sh!t?

JVHaste said:

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Ouch. That hurts

MrMet said:

Nice to see a fellow Mets collector


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And now...

Some Alomar Cards I Feel Like Talking About: The Coronavirus Edition

First an interesting little "rainbow" from 1994 Collector's Choice - the Up Close & Personal run. The first one with the white-ish bar is the factory set base card. Next with the black bar is the pack-issued base card. Next is the silver signature with a black bar, probably an error. Seems they later corrected the silver signature and used a silver bar. Last is gold signature with gold bar, which was surprisingly hard to find.



Authentic Images "card" from 1998. I had seen this one before but thought the asking price was a little high. Last week another one appeared with a BO option, and I was able to pick it up. It's a thin plastic card in its own screw-down holder, with a 24kt gold signature on the bottom. It also came with a little plastic stand, plus two informational notecards. Until I read the notecards I didn't realize there were actually two different issues, a Gold Signature card (which is what I got) and a Gold Metal card (which I haven't seen).



Two cards from 2020. No biggies, but that's the point. I've resolved to buy fewer new releases than last year, and so far so good. As of today March 24, 113 unique Alomar cards have been released and I've picked up exactly 6 of them. Feeling good about myself! These two are really cool. First is the Donruss 1986-style autograph card, and second is the Topps 582 Montgomery card which mimics the 1968 Topps Stickers. Apparently that sticker design was a prototype thing they found in the "vault".



Yes, the all head-case team! Mike Tyson, Dennis Rodman, Deion Sanders, and Robbie. When this Leaf set came out I knew I had to get a copy. This is the "base" card /30. I forgot about it for a while, but a couple weeks ago it popped into my mind again and I snagged one.



The 1998 Stadium Club Co-Signers set is a good one. Robbie is on three cards, paired with three different players. I have the ones with Tino Martinez and Andy Pettitte, but have never seen the one with his brother. Why are these so rare I wondered? Then I noticed the article on baseballcardpedia.com that quotes Sandy saying that he and Robbie only signed 25 of their cards. That's the only card with on-card autos from the two brothers, and with a print run of 25 in 1998, who knows what price it would command. But in the meantime I found this unsigned proof, so that will do for now.



One day I was perusing my excel checklist, which is where all of my OCD tendencies go to hang out and drink. In this checklist I even have a column that tracks card categories, like Base, Promo, Parallel, Auto, Game Used, Minor League, and so forth. To my surprise, one day I realized that I was not quite at 100% of base cards. I was missing one! I immediately started frantically hyperventilating. What $0.50 card was I missing? After some searching I realized it was 2004 Donruss Team Heroes. I had the bronze /150 and the gold /10, but oddly enough not the base. So 5 minutes later, lo and behold, I found one on COMC. I'd love to find the silver /50.



Not a recent pickup, but kind of cool nonetheless. An oversized card from a 1999 Cleveland Indians program.



Last and certainly not least, here's my progress on the Cramer's Choice run from 1996-1998. In order, the 1996 Pacific, 1997 Pacific, 1998 Pacific (gold), and 1998 Pacific Invincible (green /99, dark blue /80, light blue /50, and red /25). I just got the red in the mail yesterday, so that is definitely the biggest pickup of 2020. I hate to say it, but I bought it from one of the hostage holders. They had been showing it off on ebay for literally 5 years, with their usual games of moving the price around by hundreds of dollars, and instantly taking "30% off", and whatever. I had a price in mind I thought it was worth, and finally last week their price dropped to a point where I thought they'd take my best offer...which they did. They have a few other cards I want, but it may take another 5 years before the venn diagram of their BS inflated pricing schemes and my price range has an overlapping area.

Donruss team heroes is the bane of my existence. Congrats again on the cramers choice. I'm digging the design on donruss this year, always liked that set back in the day

So one, of very few, good things about this damn virus is that people have been digging out baseball cards from their closets and putting them up on ebay. Even in my little world of collecting Robbie Alomar, I have noticed an uptick in listings. I've been able to pick up a few cards from his playing days, so thought I'd post a couple highlights.

First the 2003 Donruss Timeless Treasures Ink Jersey + Auto Prime /25. Here it is on the right, with the regular Jersey + Auto card on the left. The Prime card has holo foil.



This one is a slightly bigger pickup....the 1990 Sportflics Promo! I did not know this card even existed until it popped up on ebay. It was a 2-card lot with the Keith Moreland, listed at BIN for $35. It took about 28 seconds for me to buy it after I saw it. It was such a thrill to learn of a 1990 sample card I'd never known about, and obviously an even greater thrill to pick it up for what I thought was a reasonable price. These days one finds thrills where one can, you know. It's interesting to see the differences between the promo and the regular card. The front is exactly the same, but the back has several differences. Like many Score promos from those days the stat line is blank. But also several text colors were modified some time between promo and regular release.



PS: If anyone wants the 1990 Sportflics Keith Moreland promo, let me know and I'll send it to you free in a PWE

Nice find!

tpeichel said:

Nice find!

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Thanks!

Nice addition!

It's a great feeling to stumble across such finds. For me, it's the most enjoyable part of collecting for me.

I couldn't agree more. I don't know which I like better, finding this old promo card or picking up the 96 mirror gold. Well OK, maybe the mirror gold by a hair, but it's close.

nevermore said:

Nice addition!

It's a great feeling to stumble across such finds. For me, it's the most enjoyable part of collecting for me.

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banjar said:

I haven't managed to find many other Alomar collectors, but if my lost ebay auctions are any indicator, they are out there. Hopefully this thread will help get us together. So if you have righteous cards, are looking for rare or oddball stuff, or just got a good pickup, please post here. I'm sure this thread will get bigger than the Super Sweet 90's Insert thread in no time

I have a few hundred duplicates to trade or sell or give away, and also have a checklist that I'd wager is the most complete one out there (would be glad to email a copy to anyone interested). I'm also looking for those hard-to-find cards for my collection. Right now some big ones on the wantlist from early-mid 90's are:

1990 Donruss Aqueous [now have!]
1992 Barry Colla All-Star Autograph / 250 [now have!]
1992 Star Promo [now convinced Beckett is wrong (shockingly) and this does not exist]
1993 Donruss Triple Play Preview [now have!]
1993 Finest Promo Refractor [now have!]
1993 Pinnacle Cooperstown Card Promo
1995 Score Rules Jumbo / 3000
1996 Aficionado First Pitch Preview
1996 Select Mirror Blue
1996 Select Mirror Gold [now have!]
1996 Upper Deck Diamond Destiny Gold [now have!]
1997 Blue Jays Scorebook Sizzler w/Olerud & Molitor
1997 Fleer Showcase Legacy (all of them) / 100 [now have!]
1997 Fleer Ultra Platinum Medallion / 200 [now have!]
1997 Pinnacle Totally Certified Platinum Gold / 30
1997 Score Team Collection Platinum
1997 Score Team Collection Premier Club
1997 Topps Proshooters Checklist [now have!]
1997 Topps Stars '97 All Stars

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So one day I wondered how many unmarked promo cards from the 1990's I had. I have many more that say SAMPLE or PROMO, and some of those ***-numbered executive proofs. But unmarked ones? Not printer scrap cards, but actual promos used to advertise the sets. The answer is 8, and here they are! I've posted some of these before but what the hell, here's them all together.



The 1989 Upper Deck is a blank back promo. I guess that by itself is kind of a "mark" but whatever. Actually that reminds me - I have another blank back promo of the 1993 Score Select Stars card but don't want to dig it out.
The 1989 Score is missing the copyright line on the bottom.
The 1990 Sportflics has an empty stat line and different text coloring on the back.



The 1993 Triple Play has a fuzzier "TRIPLE PLAY" watermark on the back than the pack-issued card.
The 1993 Pacific has the same front as the pack-issued card but a different photo and some other minor differences on the back. Oddly enough I picked this one up back in 1993, not knowing it was a promo. Only when I got back into the hobby a few years ago did I realize the pack-issued card was different.
The 1993 Leaf is identical to the pack-issued card except for the gold foil alignment on the front. The promo has "Alomar" a bit closer to the circular foil badge.


The 1996 Bowman has different photos on front and back, along with some other minor differences with text and gold foil on front.

EDIT: I originally posted "The 1996 Pacific Prisms has holo foil, unlike the pack-issued card which had flat foil." I think I had that exactly wrong. Almost all of the cards for sale on ebay right now, and all 11 available on COMC, have holo foil. The flat foil version must have been the promo, and later they decided on holo foil for the pack-issued cards. This makes the Alomar different than all other players in the set, whose cards have flat foil. May have had something to do with the fact that in 1996 Pacific contracted Robbie to advertise this set, and his card appears on their sell sheet.

So the above two scans show the pack-issued holo-foil card. This card also has "Azuelos" on a line by itself on the back. Below is the promo, with flat foil, and "los Azuelos" on the back.

banjar said:

So one day I wondered how many unmarked promo cards from the 1990's I had. I have many more that say SAMPLE or PROMO, and some of those ***-numbered executive proofs. But unmarked ones? Not printer scrap cards, but actual promos used to advertise the sets. The answer is 8, and here they are! I've posted some of these before but what the hell, here's them all together.

View attachment 112579
View attachment 112580
The 1989 Upper Deck is a blank back promo. I guess that by itself is kind of a "mark" but whatever. Actually that reminds me - I have another blank back promo of the 1993 Score Select Stars card but don't want to dig it out.
The 1989 Score is missing the copyright line on the bottom.
The 1990 Sportflics has an empty stat line and different text coloring on the back.

View attachment 112581
View attachment 112582
The 1993 Triple Play has a fuzzier "TRIPLE PLAY" watermark on the back than the pack-issued card.
The 1993 Pacific has the same front as the pack-issued card but a different photo and some other minor differences on the back. Oddly enough I picked this one up back in 1993, not knowing it was a promo. Only when I got back into the hobby a few years ago did I realize the pack-issued card was different.
The 1993 Leaf is identical to the pack-issued card except for the gold foil alignment on the front. The promo has "Alomar" a bit closer to the circular foil badge.

View attachment 112583View attachment 112584
The 1996 Bowman has different photos on front and back, along with some other minor differences with text and gold foil on front.
The 1996 Pacific Prisms has holo foil, unlike the pack-issued card which had flat foil. Pacific used Robbie to advertise this set and this card also appears on their sell sheet.

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great info, off to check some cards...

Outstanding pickup on the 1990 Sportflix promo. Congrats!