Roberto Alomar Collector's Thread

[banjar]

It's been a long time since my last post here. Partly because I've just been busy. Partly because the flow of new cards has slowed to a trickle. And in a related note, Robbie got himself banned from MLB for life. Some incident involving harassment of a woman back in 2014 or so. MLB has not released details, but apparently Manfred had a look at the case and made that decision. I'm not sure what to think. These days an accusation by itself can go a long way, even when it shouldn't. On the other hand it must have been serious to warrant a lifetime ban, right? Right? It is pretty clear that over the years there have been a LOT of accusations, rumors, and what have you when it comes to Robbie. Mostly involving sex. None of it ever really stuck, but this one sure did. At some point you have to wonder...

Well, so it goes. But will I stop this collection? Hell no! And with any luck prices will come down. Yeah right.

Anyway, some new pickups.

The 1989 Star Alomar Brothers Promo, with Autograph. A COA generally comes with these, but of course COA's aren't always worth the paper they're printed on. But I've noticed a lot of these up for sale, from different sellers, and they all have the same COA. Plus there are not a ton of other autographed Star promos being sold. If you're going to fake them, why not Griffey and Thomas instead? So I guess they're probably legit.

In a related note, Beckett lists this mysterious "1992 Star Promos" set, with Alomar included. But damned if I have ever been able to find one, or any info about this set at all. I had assumed it was a bogus set listing, and I still do. But I did see an example of this card, slabbed by BGS, with the title "1992 Star Promos". Now did the Beckett graders know this auto'd card was part of this 1992 set? Who knows. But glad to have an example, since I do think that Star actually did have Robbie sign a bunch of these back in the day.



2004 Donruss Studio Platinum Proof /10. Got this in the mail yesterday and glad to add it to the old collection.



2002 Playoff Absolute Team Tandems Spectrum /100. This was the last one I needed to complete the entire run from this set. Surprising the /100 took so long to find!



Now a big one - a new Pacific parallel! The 2000 Pacific base set, portrait photo, emerald green /99. I'm just missing one to complete this run now. It'll show sometime.



Last and probably least, I finally completed the 2019 Tek run. The swan song for my beloved Tek, it seems. This was a crap set, where Topps just reverted to their default colored parallels. No different patterns at all. But, being Tek, I am glad to have it done. Includes the gold /1.

 

[bstanwood]

I was wondering when we'd see this update. I didn't see much about it but I heard there was also another accusation against him from the same time period. I think these things just carry more weight than back in the day, he also didn't seem to deny much so I'm sure there were some behind closed doors conversations between him and the various parties.
I love a good pacific pickup! And you're right the last tek set was so crazy lame it hurt, did they let the guy go who made patterns so they just brought the guy over that does color!?!?

 

[banjar]

Hah, yeah, I suppose I was procrastinating about updating to this thread. But I still love my collection more than I should, and I really doubt I'll ever stop adding to it.

That 2019 Tek set was abysmal. I remember posting here at the time that Topps should either get back to what made Tek special, or just kill it. I think they listened to me

How are things in the Biggio and Wakefield universes these days?

 

[bstanwood]

I mostly put a hold on the biggio collection, there's too much to chase and I don't contain myself well only added a handful of nice ones in the past 18mo.
Wakefield collection is good, but slow, I just have such a high percentage not much shows up, there's not much more than 3-5 cards that have been released in the last 4 years I haven't been able to get. He was in flawless the past two years and I missed a version last month from the 2020 release because I confused it with 2019. Looking forward to chase the 2021 t206 variations though!

 

[banjar]

Historically I've also had a hard time limiting what I buy, especially when it comes to new issues. But I found plans on 8chan for a DIY electroshock machine, and built one in my basement. After about a hundred self-administered treatments, the desire to collect new issues of a player who's been retired for 17 years has been fully expunged from my body!

Looking at the ol' checklist, I see that so far for 2021, there are 227 unique cards and counting. And I own exactly one of them, from the Topps Living Set. And there are four other ones I'll probably pick up. The two 1986 Topps All Star Style ones (one with relic, one without), the 1986 Topps Style with auto, and the Finest one with Vladdy Jr.

 

[banjar]

In other news, about a week ago I received an email from COMC. It said my shipment is being packaged with an expected ship date of 5/4/21. Yes, an expected ship date of 6 weeks ago. This was a shipment I requested back on February 1. Have I mentioned before how completely sick I am of these jackasses?

 

[thelesquad]

In other news, about a week ago I received an email from COMC. It said my shipment is being packaged with an expected ship date of 5/4/21. Yes, an expected ship date of 6 weeks ago. This was a shipment I requested back on February 1. Have I mentioned before how completely sick I am of these jackasses?

I received a similar email. There must have been a glitch or something (other than how the company has been run).

 

[banjar]

Haha, yes. Definitely a glitch...in addition to the 0% contained forest fire that COMC has been for the past 15 months.

I know that bogus ship date in their emails is just an automated copy-and-paste from some database which contains the original ship date from when you requested the shipment. So yeah, I'm definitely just piling on COMC now. But after those 15 months, I just don't care. It's just one more thing with these guys that's so damn stupid.

I received a similar email. There must have been a glitch or something (other than how the company has been run).

 

[JVHaste]

the 0% contained forest fire that COMC has been for the past 15 months.

Sounds like they need a bigger hose! I guess thats why COMC stands for Check Out My Codpiece, and not actual Cod.


Btw, to show you how long it takes to receive an item from them I recently received an encyclopedia in 5-6 days. . . . . . from Germany. COMC on the other hand waits 10 months to ship and then uses the shipping method of a Forrest Gump lookalike running across country to your house, only stopping for two breaks (one to work on a Louisiana shrimp boat, the other to marry a lady with HIV) which clocks in at a total of 18 months.

 

[banjar]

Just for the hell of it. Scans of all 28 parallels from 2019 Panini Prizm. It's pretty much the crowning achievement of my life, so why not share it

 

[banjar]

 

[banjar]

 

[jszczech]

Awesome. I finally found a green Puckett this year. Just need the 1/1

 

[banjar]

Sweet. Those greens are hard to find. Good luck on the 1/1...

 

[Dilferules]

Wow that's impressive! To imagine I felt accomplished finding all 14 of the Trent Dilfer cards in 2019 Panini Spectra.

 

[JVHaste]

Very nice!!!

I especially like the designs of Cryptic Haircut and Zebra Mouthfeels. I'm surprised they weren't the rarest.

 

[banjar]

Thanks guys. I noticed Alomar wasn't in the 2020 release, much to my relief. I think that one had 30+ parallels. I am keeping a lookout for the 2021 checklist, hoping he is also not in that one. I have only bought 8 cards issued in 2021, and am proud of that. But apparently that Prizm set is like crack for me.

 

[banjar]

While I'm at it, here are a few recent scans. Almost to the 2000 scan mark, which means the halfway point is on the horizon...


2020 Panini Select 93 Retro Cracked Ice /25
I really dug the 1993 Select set, especially the dufex parallels. If I remember right that was the set that introduced dufex, which was f'in awesome. So it didn't take long for this 2020 Select run to rope me in. The cracked ice one is probably my fave. Got them all except the 1/1, of course.


1993 Leaf Limited TNT Prime /25. For some reason, Robbie had 5 cards in the base set. And so, since each base card had mucho parallels, he had a total of 84 cards in the set (including the Player Threads insert series). Most of these are numbered 25 or less, so this is one of those runs I will never, ever complete. There are many cards I'm missing on ebay, but for whatever reason most sellers have chosen astronomical prices for them. I've set a pretty strict ceiling on what I'll pay for these, so new additions are pretty rare. This one, however, was within my range and filled a nice little gap in the run.



Got this guy in a month or two ago. There was one sitting on ebay for years at an inflated price (and its still there), but I never could strike a deal with the guy. Then one appeared at a more reasonable sum so I snagged it.


2014 Panini Hall Of Fame 75th Crusade Black /1.
Oh yeah! Well, it's a crap picture (what is with the blurry, pixellated black and white?). But I liked this "crusade" pastiche, and yes I have the whole run baby

 

[JVHaste]

Its an odd direction the Crusade cards went down.... faded grey on the front, doodoo brown on the back. Changing these cards is just tampering with perfection. I say either keep the design the same and change the colors (new parallels) or change the design but keep the colors. It feels nothing like the old cards anymore.

Still, a 1/1 is a 1/1.

 

[banjar]

I kinda like the 2014 card layout and border design, and the SHINY colors, and the fact that some were die-cut and some weren't. But otherwise I agree. The front photos blow, and all the back does is remind me of exburban earthtone tract housing. For me they were good, but coulda been so much better. Ah Panini.

Could MLB please revisit the question of whether or not Topps should be the sole official license holder?