Wednesday, October 3, 2018

I Am a Fan of Fan Favorite Autos

Topps Archives has had a very weird release this year.  The retail version has been out for weeks but I don't think the hobby version is out yet.  I bought a few retail hangers and was thinking of picking up a couple boxes and building the set.  I got impatient and bought the 300 card base set, have started picking up some of the short prints, bought both McCovey cards (the base and SP) along with purple and silver parallels of the base and have the entire Giants team set of base cards on the way.  There is a lot of the retail product out there.

Each year I get excited to see if any of my Giants favorites are on the Fan Favorites Auto checklist and I did a little victory dance when I saw this year's list.  Former Giants closer Robb Nen was listed as having a 2001 Topps themed autograph.  I set up a search on eBay and was a little disappointed to see the card was a redemption.  I bought one, got it, scratched the code and redeemed it online.  Luckily it was a quick turnaround and I got the card last week.






I really like this card, nice representation of the 2001 Topps design, perfect player selection, solid photo selection, career stats on the back and a good clear autograph.

Archives is a set I have collected most years and have typically picked up a couple hobby boxes.  Yes I want to build the set but the primary driver is the presence of 2 Fan Favorite autos per box.  I have very rarely traded/sold/gotten rid of any of those autos.  Many of them are designs I collected when they came out and the new pics on familiar players is always a nice surprise.  More than once I have thought about starting a collection and going after all the Fan Favorite Autos but that thought quickly dissipates when I look at the lengthy checklist peppered with some pretty high valued cards each year.

With JT Snow released in 2015 and Robb Nen this year, two of my most wanted Giants have shown up in this set.  Some other guys I wouldn't mind seeing in a Giants uni on Fan Favorites Autos would be Jeff Kent, Shawn Estes, Rich Aurilia, Greg Minton, Jack Clark and Johnnie LeMaster come to mind.  

Anyone you are hoping to see as a Fan Favorite auto member?

6 comments:

  1. Jeffrey Leonard. But Tito Fuentes, Robby Thompson, or Brian Johnson would also all be fun.

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  2. Great ones, I should have thought of Robby.

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  3. I want Omar Moreno, Bobby Bonilla (Pirates uniform), and AJ Burnett (Pirates uniform). Topps has been good about getting Pirates fan favorites in each set in recent years. Phil Garner and Bob Friend appear this year.

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  4. I'd totally love to see Jeff Kent and Robby Thompson autographs on a future Fan Favorites autograph checklist.

    On the other side of the Bay, I'd like to see Dwayne Murphy, Mark Ellis, Steve McCatty, Mike Davis, Ken Holtzman, Terry Steinbach, Rick Langford, Gene Tenace, and Ray Fosse get an Archives Fan Favorites autographed card at some point. It would have been cool to see Fan Favorites autographs of Dave Henderson and Tony Phillips too.

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    Replies
    1. Sweet. Just need hobby to come out and flood eBay with his signatures, so I can pick one up ;)

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