Hollywood42's Rolling Pickups Thread- 2021 edition

[Hollywood42]

Had a really fun mailday last week consisting of a bunch of sweet cards of Joe Nathan, one of the better players on some extremely talented Twins teams in the 2000s. It can be a little easy to overlook his cards overshadowed by guys like Mauer, Morneau, Johan, plus Nathan's rookies are with the Giants. But I have a lot of fun collecting his cards so this was a really fun package to work through!

2004s-




2005s-




2006s-




2007s-




2008s-




2009s-

[Hollywood42]

Couple new adds to clear out of the backlog- First, another pair of foilboards, including a Rooker RC. Such nice looking cards.




Then a pair of Morneaus, really happy with the TTT /3 in particular




And lastly, checking off another Hope Diamond from the slow burn build of the Twins set from 2011 flagship and Update, just in is a Trevor Plouffe

[Slette]

Very nice - you are definitely correct that Nathan gets overshadowed. It was fun seeing the variety of nice cards of his you landed.

[Hollywood42]

Honestly, even putting hometown bias aside, Nathan should get a way closer look at the HOF than he will. I doubt he gets there, but man if you take a look, he has a legit case for consideration

Originally Posted by Slette

Very nice - you are definitely correct that Nathan gets overshadowed. It was fun seeing the variety of nice cards of his you landed.

[Hollywood42]

I have not been good about keeping this thread updated this year. Well, here's a handful of fun cards from the past month or two.

Let's start with a pair of Cuddy RCs that were big holes in my collection- an International Refractor and a Golden Anniversary /50 out of 1998 Bowman Chrome.




Filling in RC holes of the key guys I grew up watching has been a lot of fun. These two complete my Cuddy rainbow minus the impossible to find Golden Anniversary Refractor /5. Here's the run of them-




Next let's hop over randomly to 2021 Heritage- I had been working on the Twins run of red refractors from the set, thought the color would really well with the Twins and knew I wanted to put this one together. It took me a long time to find a reasonably priced Jeffers/RCs card, but it got finished up the other week!




Sticking in 2021, got my first few Finest Flashback cards in lately. They're nice in person, but just don't have the same allure that last year's set in the 1993 design had. That must be reflected in the prices, as I paid no more than $8.50 DLVD for any of these. I'll continue picking up this year's here and there but it's not going to be as big a priority or goal as it was last year for me




Next up will be a few new Morneau cards. The Stadium Club Triumvirate auto/relic is pretty sweet, it's not one I was really looking for, but it's not something I had remembered seeing before either. Was pretty excited to get that one in

[IMG][/IMG]


We'll do a few more recent cards again- The Target Field dirt relic/Arraez auto is pretty sweet IMO. The gold Berrios RC /50 had been on my list for a long time, so fun to finally track that one down, even if he was traded away this year. And 2009 Goodwin continues to be one of my favorite sets. A seller on eBay has had a bunch of the Twins plates from the set, and I've picked up a lot of them this year. This Liriano black is the latest




And lastly, here's one that I thought was pretty sweet- The 2012 Scott Baker 1/1 with a piece of gold embedded in it. I hadn't seen one of these in person before, so when a pair of Twins from this set his eBay lately, I wanted to land one of them. It's a pretty fun and unique card to have!

[TGutta]

Always enjoy seeing your updates! Where are you sitting at on the 2011 Topps Hope Diamonds? I've been working on that set for what seems like forever myself and am getting closer, just got some duplicates in the other day.

[dashcol]

Nice as always Hollywood! That Scott Baker is awesome! Never seen those before.

[Hollywood42]

Funny you should ask, one of the things I've gotten in this year and haven't posted up yet are a few big lots of Hope Diamonds that I was still missing. They took me from not even being halfway to just needing 3 more to complete the full Twins run. I'll work on getting some pics up of the new ones to my collection

Originally Posted by TGutta

Always enjoy seeing your updates! Where are you sitting at on the 2011 Topps Hope Diamonds? I've been working on that set for what seems like forever myself and am getting closer, just got some duplicates in the other day.

[TGutta]

Originally Posted by Hollywood42

Funny you should ask, one of the things I've gotten in this year and haven't posted up yet are a few big lots of Hope Diamonds that I was still missing. They took me from not even being halfway to just needing 3 more to complete the full Twins run. I'll work on getting some pics up of the new ones to my collection

You'll have to let me know which ones you need and maybe I can help out! I only need 3 myself.

[Hollywood42]

I'm down to just needing the Mauer/Miggy/Josh Hamilton batting leaders and both of the 2 Thome copies. I thought I had one extra of a common guy like Casilla or something like that, but I didn't find it when I checked my dup box just now. But let me know who you're still on the hunt for too and my dup (if it exists) is yours if you need it

Originally Posted by TGutta

You'll have to let me know which ones you need and maybe I can help out! I only need 3 myself.

[Hollywood42]

Ok, here's the new Hope Diamonds from the past couple months. It was a ton of fun to get all of these in at basically the same time and get myself real close to completing the Twins set. I hadn't had a super high priority on this set, but a couple opportunities presented themselves and I'm really happy to have all these in. The Mauer and the legends in Killebrew and Blyleven are particularly sweet to have

These batches helped complete my Update run, and again down to just 3 to complete the flagship run

[Hollywood42]

Well we're suddenly running out of 2021, and the only card I have incoming probably won't get here until the new year, so it's time to get caught up with my last few pickups of 2021-

Let's start with some new Red Ice parallels. I finished off the Twins team set from Series 1, but the Series 2 and Update runs have been much more of a slow burn. Here's a few from S2/Update I have already, the rookies in particular are a lot of fun-




Let's stay on the theme of rookies for a bit and share a few new Kirilloff cards. His prices have still seemed pretty strong this offseason in my opinion (not to say they won't go higher if he plays how many seem to hope/expect), and I had been waiting for things to go down a bit before jumping in. But I've stomached it a bit and picked up a handful of things that I'm pretty happy with. Update's Black Gold cards have to be some of the nicest cards Topps has put out this year, I love em. HHN has Kirilloff's cards that I've jumped into the most, still looking for a few more but so far have a purple, refractor, action SP, and missing stars SP, plus a posters insert I'll list later. And lastly, I was actually pleasantly surprised with what I was able to pick up a TC auto at. I'll probably have to wait a bit for any auto parallels, and I'm still stomaching prices for even the common TC non-auto parallels, but those are both on my list to get to at some point




Hopping over to some oversized cards, here's the Kirilloff poster I mentioned above. This is even bigger than I realized and I'm not sure how I'll stored/display it yet, but I'm a big fan. High quality and it's a fun card. Not quite as big of a card, despite the set name, is a '64 Topps Giants Tony Oliva. One of baseball's newest Hall of Famers! This is my first Giants card in my collection, but man I'm a big fan (no pun intended). Great clear photography and just a fun piece of cardboard to have




We'll go from some of the biggest cards I own to some of the smallest- It took me awhile to warm up to the idea of Allen & Ginter Chrome, but I picked up a few mini refractors from this year's set, and I'm a big fan of them. I don't see myself going all in on the various parallels, but completing a Twins set of the mini refractors is on my to-do list. Can't say I'm a fan of Topps recycling so many different things and chroming everything left and right, but I have to admit that some things just look really good




This week I was really excited to get two new Brian Dozier RCs in. I've been hunting a HHN base for quite some time, these are base cards but have popped up fairly infrequently. Makes sense as the 2012 HHN set was an early online exclusive and only 1,000 sets were made, but even just a base has eluded me for a long time. Still have to cross off an auto from the set, but I'm really happy to track down a base. The same seller also had a Draft Red Ice /25 listed, I hadn't seen one before so gobbled that up right away too! Very pleased with these both, it's getting tougher and tougher to find Doze's RCs I don't have yet so it's exciting when new ones surface




Just a couple more new era RCs that have come in lately, I haven't gone in deep on these guys yet but will be looking forward to picking up more rookies of both Ober and Larnach. I think both can be solid contributors for the Twins and fit well into the type of tier of cards that I have a lot of fun chasing




And lastly, here's a variety of other cards I've gotten in lately. Arraez has become one of my favorite current players and has been fun to keep an eye out for good cards of. The Ginter mini auto has a kind of funny backstory to it that I won't rehash here, but you can read up on here if you're so inclined. I'm really glad Topps put out some Cruz autographs while he was still with the Twins, he was such a joy to watch and a great role model off the field, I was really happy to see some Twins autos of him come up in recent sets. I also have to give a special shoutout to one of my fantasy baseball buddies on the forums who sent me a care package for winning one of our leagues this year, which included the Frank Viola auto- my first auto of him in my collection, long overdue as a Twins fan!




So, unless that one last card happens to come in by the end of the week, that'll be a wrap on my 2021 PC pickups. I'll make some time to come back and do my annual top 10 summary, but after that we'll be on to 2022. Thanks for following along with me this year!

[jszczech]

Interested in a Kirilloff Topps Holiday lot? It would be the base, sp code 426,427 and the relic card.

[Hollywood42]

Yeah I'd take a price on them at least! I'll shoot you a PM

Originally Posted by jszczech

Interested in a Kirilloff Topps Holiday lot? It would be the base, sp code 426,427 and the relic card.

[Hollywood42]

As it turns out, my last incoming package for the year made it to me in 2021 with a full day to spare. Fun auto of Garver to pair with the Arraez posted above from the same set. Arraez and Garv may be my favorite two current Twins right now, so really fun to track these down!

[Hollywood42]

Alright, and here's the first of several final wrap-up posts for 2021. First up, I'm a numbers guy so wanted to get a few different stats out there summarizing my collecting of the Twins in 2021. Mostly just for me and for fun looking back on later on, but I enjoy it!

• Total cards added in 2021: 1,441 (up 97 from 2020's 1,344)
• Top 5 players added by # of cards
  1. Max Kepler: 72
  2. Joe Nathan: 42
  3. Joe Mauer: 39
  4. Torii Hunter: 34
  5. Byron Buxton: 31
• Total unique players with a card added in 2021: 345
• # of ___ added in 2021:
  • Autos: 41
  • Relics: 31
  • Rookies: 205
  • Numbered cards: 217
  • 1/1s: 9
• Top 5 years added by # of cards
  1. 2021: 140
  2. 2020: 115
  3. 2003: 104
  4. 2005: 62
  5. 2018: 60
• Top 5 sets added by # of cards
  1. 2021 Topps: 40
  2. 2021 Allen & Ginter: 36
  3. 2000 Pacific Prism: 29
  4. 1994 Stadium Club: 20
  5. 2011 Topps: 19
• Top 5 set/subset added by # of cards
  1. 2011 Topps Hope Diamond Anniversary: 16
  2. 2003 Bowman Chrome: 16
  3. 2021 Topps Red Ice: 15
  4. 2021 Allen & Ginter base: 15
  5. 1983 Fleer base: 15
• First card added in 2021: 2020 Panini Prizm Prizms Bronze Donut Circles Mitch Garver 115 #ed 14/25 (1/2/21)
• Last card added in 2021: 2020 Topps Allen & Ginter Autographs Red Ink Mitch Garver MA-MG #ed 02/10 (12/30/21)
• Oldest card added: 1964 Topps Giants Tony Oliva 44

[Hollywood42]

Looking back at the goals I had for 2021 quick and seeing how I did-

1. Finish and publish "version 2.0" of my website

Technically this has not been fully released. But I am extremely close to finishing off coding a few admin type functions to be able to do everything I want to do, and at that point I can start using v2.0 and consider this goal complete. The biggest thing that went into this goal this year was finally finishing up typing all Twins cards from 1961 - present to use as a master checklist. That task was literally years in the making, and I'm very pleased to say that I am finally caught up and now only have to worry about typing up new sets as they release. That is a huge success for the year

2. Become more active on social media

I'd consider this a success. My activity on my collecting Instagram account (@Hollywood42cards) is still a little sporadic, but I'm counting 36 different posts for the year which has felt like a good amount to me, and I've gotten to know a few new people a little bit, which was one of the reasons I was looking to pick it up on socials. I'm not going to be someone that lives on Instagram/etc, but I am enjoying this level of activity so far

3. Reach 10,000 Twins cards in my collection

I knew I was going to come up a bit short on this one, but I got all the way to 9,470 this year, so I'm primed to surpass the 10k mark probably in the first half of 2022. Stay tuned!

Specific cards I was targeting in 2021-

No pics for now, but it's safe to say all of these will be in my top 10 summary that I'll get up at some point this weekend. I had only picked out a few cards to ID as targets for the year, but I did pretty well on this list!

• 2003 Topps Chrome Black Refractors Joe Mauer/Justin Morneau /199 complete!
• 2003 Topps Chrome X-Fractors Joe Mauer/Justin Morneau /57 complete!
• 2002 Bowman Chrome Autograph Joe Mauer - refractor, X-Fractor, or gold refractor complete! (refractor only)
• 2001 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractors Justin Morneau /99 didn't land this one
• 1998 Bowman Chrome International Refractors Michael Cuddyer complete!

[Hollywood42]

Ok, final post for 2021's thread- my top 10 favorite adds to my Twins collection this year. I'm holding myself firm to not cheating, and posting only a single card per slot this time around...

...except for my honorable mention, which I have to share It just doesn't do my collecting year justice not to use an honorable mention slot to post up a big chunk of 2011 Hope Diamonds. I didn't quite complete the Twins set this year, but I'm down to just a few, and they're a lot of fun to see side by side.




10. 2012 Finest Rookie Autographs Red Refractors Brian Dozier /25

If you've followed my pickup threads in the past, you've probably picked up that Dozier is one of my favorite players. Even before this year I was getting closer to the point of having a copy of most of his rookies already, so when something pops up that I don't have a copy of yet, it's generally a notable card. This one of March was really exciting, one of the scarcest parallels from his 2012 Finest autographs




9. 1998 Bowman Chrome International Refractors Michael Cuddyer RC

Along with filling gaps in my current/recent players RC collection, it's been a big focus over the last year or two to go back and collect a bunch of rookies from Twins guys that I followed growing up, but who debuted early enough that I didn't come across many rookies of them naturally as I started collecting. Cuddyer, Mauer, Johan Santana, Morneau, etc all fit that bill. This Cuddyer RC isn't the rarest that I have, nor the rarest I added this year, but it's my favorite Cuddy RC in my collection- nice clean look with Cuddyer's hometown displayed in the background




8. 2016 Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs Printing Plates Magenta Tyler Duffey RC 1/1

I've been working on this Duffey rainbow for quite some time. I got my first place in the 2018 iteration of Blowout's secret santa, and I managed to land the superfractor in March 2019. From there it's been a long wait until any more of the rainbow cards (3 plates remaining) popped up. A year and a half later, this one hit eBay in September 2021, and now I'm 2 plates away from completely finishing this one off.






7. 2012 Bowman Draft Red Ice Brian Dozier RC /25

As I said before, at this point when Dozier RCs that I don't already have surface from time to time, they're generally more notable cards. I was really excited to see a red ice /25 hit eBay and it was a quick BIN. Draft is probably Dozier's RC set that I'm the least complete on, so it's fun to knock out a tough one. Plus I've always liked the red ice parallels




6. 2003 Topps Chrome Black Refractors Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau /199

This card has been one of my favorites in my collection for awhile. I think it's so cool that Mauer and Morneau, two of my favorite players of all time, were on a card together before either of them hit it big in the majors. Finishing up the rainbow of this card was a collecting bucket list item. I was down to needing just the black /199 and X-Fractor /57 this year to finish it off, but both cards don't pop up very often, so I didn't know if it would happen. But in July this one surfaced and I was able to add it to the collection! Brought me down to just needing the super scarce X-Fractor...




5. 2002 Topps Chrome Gold Refractors Joe Mauer RC

Despite Mauer being one of my favorite players and one of the best Twins players of all time, I've felt like my rookie collection of him has been a little bit lacking. They're not the cheapest cards, and seem to be on the incline, so it was a good year to find a way to pick up a few more of them. The gold refractor isn't all that uncommon, but it's a fun one to have and great to be able to cross it off the list




4. 2012 Bowman Draft Purple Ice Brian Dozier RC /10 BGS 9.5

It was super exciting to see this card come up in April this year. I hadn't seen a copy of it before and wasn't counting on one ever coming up. I added a handful of new scarce Dozier rookies this year, but this one is the scarcest and really, really fun to have in my collection




3. 2020 Finest Flashbacks Superfractors Jorge Polanco 1/1

This pickup comes from all the way back in January. I had a really, really fun time in 2020 going after the Twins runs from Finest Flashbacks. I was able to complete the base, refractor, gold refractor /50, and black refractor /25 runs, and I've been sitting at 3 of the 6 red refractors /5 for a long time (pics of the run here). A few of the superfractors have come up over time, but this is the only one I've been able to add. I was never planning on being able to add the supers, so just being able to have one from the set is a ton of fun and really fulfilling




2. 2002 Bowman Chrome Refractors Joe Mauer RC auto

Here's another great Mauer RC that I added this year. I was lucky to get this one in Feburary, for less money than the last few base autographs have gone for now. I had a base auto of this card already, so now I'm down to needing an X-Fractor and a gold refractor. These ones will be tougher and certainly pricier, so I'm not sure when/if that'll happen. But I'm a big fan of the refractor and this is definitely one of my favorite pickups on the year




1. 2003 Topps Chrome X-Fractors Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau /57

Funnily enough, this card, which was #1 on my long term list of cards that I wanted for my collection, happened to come up in August of this year, just a few weeks after I landed a black refractor. There were actually a couple X-Fractors that hit eBay this year, which was super surprising to me as in the past it's a pretty rare occasion. One first hit eBay in March that I made a run at but couldn't land, and then as PSA 10 hit eBay just a few days later! That ended way too expensive for me, so I regretfully had to keep waiting. A few months later in August though yet another happened to surface, and this one I was able to make mine! There's a couple more details to the story I'll leave out of this post but are available here. Shockingly enough, there was yet another copy of this card that hit eBay last month in December. I had my copy at this point so didn't need to make a run at it, but that marked 4 copies that surfaced this year, usually it was fun to see one, maybe two surface over a full year. So it made for a good year to be able to add a copy of this one for myself! At any rate, this card and rainbow instantly become some of my favorite cards in my collection, and will be in the PC for a long, long time. It's so fun to be able to cross off some bucket list items!

[soey10]

Looks like you had an awesome year of pickups. Great write up on each card, enjoyed your post and good luck in 2022.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[troesports]

Those Chrome Mauer/Morneaus are such beautiful cards. From one Twins fan to another, cheers and Happy New Year!

[TGutta]

Always enjoy reading your updates!

[blaze]

Originally Posted by Hollywood42

I'm super excited to share my most anticipated mailday of the year! I've finally landed a 2003 Topps Chrome Xfractor /57 of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau!




While this isn't a rookie card for either of them, this card has been a bucket list item for me for years. I've always enjoyed early refractors in general, but it's super cool to me to have a card of my two favorite players together as prospects before anybody had any idea how good they'd end up being. Mauer and Morneau were exploding onto the scene just as I was really starting to get into baseball, and their stellar play and pure class off the field cemented themselves at the top of my all time favorites list.

These Xfractors can be really hard to find. They're numbered to just 57 and were inserted at just one per hobby box, and is the scarcest parallel of this card. Surprisingly, this is actually the third I've seen come up this year after going quite some time without seeing any. The first was back in March, another one still in the original case hit eBay. I made a run at it but it got too high for me and I had to bow out. Thinking it could be months if not years before I found another, it was actually only a few days later when another one hit eBay, this one graded a PSA 10! I made a run at that one too, and it stayed in range for way longer than I thought it would. It actually stayed significantly lower than the previous ungraded one ended at, all the way until just 3 seconds left in the auction..... when it jumped almost $700 I figured it would end up something crazy, but it almost made it worse seeing that it stayed reasonable for me until just a few seconds to go

Fast forward 5 months and here we are! I actually thought I missed out on this one at first too. It was listed for a reasonable BIN but at one I thought I could make an offer on and get it lower if I moved quickly. But the next day the listing was taken down and I thought I missed yet another one. Maybe a week later and it's back up, I message the seller to confirm one of the edges was in good shape (couldn't tell from the pic), and he confirms. Shortly after he uses the send offer as a seller function offering a full hundred bucks off! I was out with friends at the time but happened to be on my phone when the offer came in so I bowed out of the conversation for a few minutes to make it happen, less than half the price of the first one that came up in March, then eagerly looked forward to the card's arrival a few days later. And here we are!

This one officially fully completes the rainbow as well! This was back before superfractors or endless parallels were a thing, so it only takes 6 cards to complete the rainbow. I just got the black refractor in a week or two ago too, so I'm pleasantly surprised but quite ecstatic with how quickly the final two and toughest cards came in!

Here's the full rainbow in all it's glory-

Base
Refractor /699
Silver refractor
Gold refractor /449
Black refractor /199
Xfractor /57



Really, really fun to have the set completed. Going to be in the PC for a long, long time!

I originally bought it the first time and after seeing it had been damaged and resealed, I returned it.

[Hollywood42]

No shade, but why bump this 11 months later, and after already having said this on my Instagram post 6 months ago?

As for the card, doesn't bother me. It's a bucket list card that doesn't come up often and I'm just happy to have one

Originally Posted by blaze

I originally bought it the first time and after seeing it had been damaged and resealed, I returned it.

[blaze]

Originally Posted by Hollywood42

No shade, but why bump this 11 months later, and after already having said this on my Instagram post 6 months ago?

As for the card, doesn't bother me. It's a bucket list card that doesn't come up often and I'm just happy to have one

Poor memory? Just saw it in a google search for Mauer stuff.