Topps Living Set

[brentandbecca]

Originally Posted by scottagibson

I love the weak weeks. It will only add value over time in my opinion. They can't all be superstars or the program would die quickly.

Machado HAD to get a card soon. Most saw that coming.

Villanueva while not on a huge market team has had a very nice season for a rookie thus far. Years down the road, if this continues, we'll be glad he had a "RC" in this set. If not, it will be one of the lower end cards. Which is OK. This set can afford to take chances... it has nothing but... Time.

The Sogard selection is so quickly being criticized, but he was a fan-favorite while in Oakland. "Nerd Power", if I remember the nickname correctly, had him as a very popular player. He is obviously not a huge member of the Brewers (8 for 71 currently.. OUCH) but still one of those type players that has to be in this for it to last a while. I'm sure he was not batting .113 when they decided to have her draw him up.

Again I emphasize, for those that want to see the set last for years and years to come... The Sogards, Mercers and Morrows of the league have to be included too.

I get that for sure, yet at 150 or so cards a year (if they do these in the of-season), between new rookies, stars, legends, new team guys, kinda easy to fill up most of those 150 with some stronger names
But I also see value in having a variety of teams and player caliber

Trout is one they can wait a long time for as he will do well whatever year, no need to put him out there this year IMO

[kpete42]

Did the sales window close an hour earlier than normal today? I went to go buy another Gleyber 20 lot a little past noon Central time and I had Machado and a weird looking dude in rec specs starting at me. Haha, oh well. PR will be 20 cards less.

[scottagibson]

Originally Posted by brentandbecca

I get that for sure, yet at 150 or so cards a year (if they do these in the of-season), between new rookies, stars, legends, new team guys, kinda easy to fill up most of those 150 with some stronger names
But I also see value in having a variety of teams and player caliber

Trout is one they can wait a long time for as he will do well whatever year, no need to put him out there this year IMO

I hear ya. This was my argument in a much earlier thread... that the names needed to be stronger across the board. I spent a long time coming up with a "2 year plan" just to show the number of great players that could be had. Truth is, even with legends/HOFs... after 300 names, it got a little dicey. Granted it... 2 years from now there will be a whole bunch of players who emerege.

I know there will ALWAYS be guys that they can fill in. But for me... a star, a semi-star rookie and a common each week is just fine. This is a weaker week compared to others, yes. My overall point is that these type of weeks are nearly inevitable. This type of week in the off-season might challenge Markakis. I think we will see strong checklists each week starting in October/ November. But during the season, this is just fine imo.

[JLEICHTER35]

Still no PRs for last week...

Hasn't been this much of a delay since Acuna. Possible north of 30K?

[Rhys Phillies]

It sounds like a lot of people only want all stars, tier 1 players and hall of fame players. I personally don’t like that idea. I like the way they are releasing different players.

[dherm360]

Originally Posted by scottagibson

I love the weak weeks. It will only add value over time in my opinion. They can't all be superstars or the program would die quickly.

Machado HAD to get a card soon. Most saw that coming.

Villanueva while not on a huge market team has had a very nice season for a rookie thus far. Years down the road, if this continues, we'll be glad he had a "RC" in this set. If not, it will be one of the lower end cards. Which is OK. This set can afford to take chances... it has nothing but... Time.

The Sogard selection is so quickly being criticized, but he was a fan-favorite while in Oakland. "Nerd Power", if I remember the nickname correctly, had him as a very popular player. He is obviously not a huge member of the Brewers (8 for 71 currently.. OUCH) but still one of those type players that has to be in this for it to last a while. I'm sure he was not batting .113 when they decided to have her draw him up.

Again I emphasize, for those that want to see the set last for years and years to come... The Sogards, Mercers and Morrows of the league have to be included too.

You are correct, he was hitting below .100 and just recently got a hit or two to raise it to .113

[WednesdayWoady]

Originally Posted by scottagibson

I hear ya. This was my argument in a much earlier thread... that the names needed to be stronger across the board. I spent a long time coming up with a "2 year plan" just to show the number of great players that could be had. Truth is, even with legends/HOFs... after 300 names, it got a little dicey. Granted it... 2 years from now there will be a whole bunch of players who emerege.

I am glad someone did a 2-year plan, it's been on my mind.

My only criticism of Machado is that it appears to be a foregone conclusion that he'll be elsewhere very soon. This means that we'll:

1) Have a long wait before his second card on his new team; which is lame for that fanbase or;

2) Have 2 Machado's long before we have 2 of anyone else (also lame)

I think as a precedent, this was a bad choice. Also would have been more fun if he got traded at the deadline and then we got the new Machado early August, or whatever.

In the early stages of this set, I think it makes sense to try to include players that are on their first deal or at the start of a long-deal. If I were involved in picking players this would be a major, major concern.

[Card Addiction]

Just a heads-up for those like myself, who sell Topps Living on Ebay. I've broken up a lot of complete sets and will continue to do so. This past Sunday I had a broken set end on Ebay. Every card was a separate auction. I say all this to make you aware of a non-paying Ebay buyer by the name: cardsdeals. He has a feedback of 12 as of today, but a couple of those are for items in which he previously didn't pay another seller. However, due to Ebay's wonderful policy of not allowing sellers to leave negative feedback for a buyer, that seller had to leave positive feedback in order to explain that he was stiffed. This buyer won three of my auctions (three Living cards total) for almost $400 and has not responded to my messages. I've opened a case for each item and they'll all close with an unpaid item strike hopefully. However, it's not a good thing that we as sellers cannot leave negative feedback for "buyers". I'm very patient and understand that things happen, but if his "perfect" feedback is any indicator and in conjunction with the lack of a message, I'm being stiffed. You'd all be wise to add this lovely winner to the "blocked buyer" list.

"Reporting live from the crime-scene, I'm Card-Addiction. Now back to you in the studio..."

[ThoseBackPages]

Villanueva will be 27 in two weeks

my wallet is happy that i can now pass on RCs and not just scrubs in this set lol

[gamboooler]

Only the second time I've had problems with a set. I order 2 a week... the 2 Ozzie Albies cards have weird reddish orange print defects at the top right front edge of the card. Checked eBay and saw there were some up that didn't have the mark. Annoying but they have to go back.

[WednesdayWoady]

In defense of Sogard...here are the 4 bespectacled gentlemen from 1953 Topps.

I hope Sogard is an aesthetic nod to '53. I liked Blackmon for the same reason, since this is certainly a set made to "look at".

The 792-card sets of my childhood always had room for "scrubs", "bums" and cup-of-coffee guys.

Maybe it's appropriate, (although sometimes frustrating week-to-week), for TLS to be similarly representative.

[Acidblack]

Originally Posted by Rhys Phillies

It sounds like a lot of people only want all stars, tier 1 players and hall of fame players. I personally don’t like that idea. I like the way they are releasing different players.

I agree. If they have star, rookie, scrub every week, they’ll run out of stars and rookies way before they run out of scrubs.

[Acidblack]

Maybe Sogard is looking up and pointing where he’s about to hit a home run.

[Ferg1945]

Originally Posted by Ferg1945

This set is in uncharted territory. We have nothing to compare it to. Just looking at the prices... I can't see them stopping anytime soon. And it's only Week 6...

At the ASG we will be on Week 18 with Week 19 starting the day after the game.

Week 20 will be on sale during Hall of Fame Inductions.

Week 21 will go on sale when the National Card Convention opens.

Week 30 will go on sale when the Playoffs start.

Week 33 will go on sale during the World Series.

Now add the PWCC auction that starts this Friday and will end the 18th. It will run during this week (13)...run most of Week 14 and end 2 days before Week 15 is released. When people see the price of that auction it could add quite a few more buyers to this set.

I'm in a facebook group and I bet on average 2-3 new people post they need all the early cards every week. New people are joining this set every week... that will keep the PRs steady.

[Ferg1945]

Originally Posted by okumeister

Sogard looks high lol
But I like the look with glasses.

[SaveMeTheGum]

Originally Posted by kpete42

Did the sales window close an hour earlier than normal today? I went to go buy another Gleyber 20 lot a little past noon Central time and I had Machado and a weird looking dude in rec specs starting at me. Haha, oh well. PR will be 20 cards less.

No, they had both sets for sale at the same time.

[RaysUp]

Man, what the frick is Sogard looking at. Close-up of his glasses looks like the reflection of the death star window or something.

[jdandns]

...by #LIVINGHODL club member 128:

UPDATED IMAGES OF CARDS 1-60 MOVED TO PAGE 268

Some dust under my scanner glass, but generally speaking, surface, corners, and edges look pretty good. I've always been garbage at judging centering, though. One year, for Christmas, I got 12 BGS vouchers and used them to make my only submission ever. One of the cards I sent in was an 88-89 Fleer Jordan from my complete set, as I thought it looked sharp...and it basically was, except for the centering, as I didn't consider top to bottom AT ALL, which apparently is a big deal on these Subgrade for that was a 5 and it brought the whole thing down to a 6.

How do these look?

[TwinsJake]

The Blackmon is really bad but other than that nothing I'd complain about.

[jdandns]

haha, see, when I was sleeving that one yesterday, I didn't even notice that. It's definitely obvious when set against the rest in grid form, though.
At least it's one of the later ones.

Thanks, Jake!

[monkeymcgee]

Welcome to the club

We should never lose sight of the fact of how cool these cards look together.

[dbryceo]

Count me in the group that likes the scrubs and role player types in the set. If the retired HOF are few and far between it will make them that much more special when they are released. I also hope they throw in fan favorites and colorful guys just to mix it up once in a while. Time will tell, but it seems pretty clear Topps is marketing this to set collectors, and commons are part of the fun of set collecting. Probably also worth pointing out it's called the Living Set and not the Living Investment Portfolio.

I am also really curious to see how they do second cards. Would they give Machado a card for whoever rents him this year, then another this winter when he signs his new deal? That seems unlikely. You'd think they would just wait on the new long-term deal, but then again there are those occasional rental guys who make a huge impact where you look back years later and go, "Remember when X played for Y for a few months?" Especially if the guy wins a title during the rental.

Finally, I think a lot of us assumed they would go heavy on the HOF guys during the off-season, but I just realized this is literally the perfect hot stove product. The painting format will make those first cards of Harper in pinstripes look amazing (before I light mine on fire, anyway).

[monkeymcgee]

Acuna PSA 10s are dropping like a rock. Might be worth a look soon for value if they keep going down.

[Lawmaker]

zero acuna topps living set psa 10s on ebay

[monkeymcgee]

Originally Posted by Lawmaker

zero acuna topps living set psa 10s on ebay

The seller has been putting them out about one per day, so probably it will be up later tonight or tomorrow unless he's decided to given them a rest.

Sales:

5/31 - $170
6/1 - $136
6/3 - $124 (my dumb buy)
6/4 - $100
6/5 - $72
6/6 - $61