Face Off - rare cards

[Jazz Chisholm]

Originally Posted by dk57

The stadium giveaway that was never given away. I've never seen another.


Giancarlo Stanton DAV Giveaway rookie

I used to have a BGS 9 in 2014 when I was supercollecting Stanton. EXTREMELY tough card. I wasn’t aware it was never handed out

[Jazz Chisholm]

And to stay on topic, I think these are /3

[StateEx]

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

Figured I'd also throw out a Mirror Gold. Not many of these floating around. Stated print run of 30.



And for this one, I'll cheat because the high series prototypes don't have serial numbers and are believed to be only one in existence.

Supremely cool stuff.

[dk57]

Originally Posted by Jazz Chisholm

I used to have a BGS 9 in 2014 when I was supercollecting Stanton. EXTREMELY tough card. I wasn’t aware it was never handed out

That's awesome! I didn't know any other copies existed. I reached out to a Stanton collector that said in years of searching for his rookies, he had never seen this one pop up.

The Marlins backed out of the DAV program about a month before they were supposed to be shipped. The only way to get them was from DAV themselves before they destroyed all of their leftovers. The guy that worked between teams and the DAV offered up sets to our group and I took one just as a lark. Turned out to be a cool thing when I opened it a decade later lol

[Mahomie]

Not sure if anyone else on here collects KBO cards, but even then, this one is somewhat hard to find on US auction sites (image variation card of Ha-Seong Kim):




These 2008 Appalachian League cards of Salvador Perez are somewhat rare. Even more rare to find one that's been signed by him:

[bblair_2002]

I'll throw my hat in the ring. Just picked this up yesterday,followed by a snippet from Beckett regarding the card:

Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr
Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr

[Triple B]

Originally Posted by bblair_2002

I'll throw my hat in the ring. Just picked this up yesterday,followed by a snippet from Beckett regarding the card:

Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr
Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr

I bought a lot of 200 Pat Hengen Autographs from this set. Best $100 I ever spent.

[ScooterD]

Originally Posted by bblair_2002

I'll throw my hat in the ring. Just picked this up yesterday,followed by a snippet from Beckett regarding the card:

Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr
Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr

I happened onto a rare Otis Nixon card from this set in a bulk purchase about 5 years ago. Never knew about the Raines anomaly - thanks for sharing!

[Archangel1775]

Another one I have is the 2016 Topps Update US167 SSP Corey Seager

I've only seen a one for sale since 2016 and that was on an eBay auction. Over 8 years went by before any were grade by PSA. Below is a stock photo

[OhioLawyerF5]

One of my favorite pickups from the National was a very rare card for my Barry Larkin PC.

The card is a 1998 Topps SportzCubz. This entire set is a mystery as it never made it past the prototype phase.

The description on baseballcardpedia.com says, "1998 Topps SportsCubz were plastic 3" square "cubes" were apparently issued by Topps as a test issue. The fronts have a player photo set against their team's logo with the words "Topps SportzCubz" on the bottom left and the player's name located on the bottom right. The backs have biographical information as well as season and team stats. Any further information about these cards is appreciated."

It is rare that even baseballcardpedia doesn't have much information on a set.

According to an article on sportscardinfo.com, there are rumored to be 5 total sets produced. The article states, "Very little is known about 1998 Topps SportzCubz. The main reason for this is because it never made it past the test phase. About five prototype cards are rumored to have been made for each player. Then the idea was canned. What the end product would have looked like is a mystery. Judging by the prototype, it looks as if it would have been wrapped around something. I guess we’ll never know."

A user on collectors forum and freedom cardboard named frankhardy seems to have the most information on the set.

In response to a statement in a thread on collectors forums in 2017 that said "I have two of the five Mark Grace's. I say five because that's the rumored total pop. I know two sets sold in 2014, and three more sold in 2016-- by a son of a former Topps employee. I assume the three from 2016 were independent of the other two... if so that would account for the five," frankhardy had this to say:

"I don't think that the sets in 2014 were independent of the other 3. I am certain that those sets that were sold in 2014 were sold by the same son of the Topps employee. He sold one of those sets in 2014 to a guy in Texas. I know, because I bought the near set from the guy in Texas (he kept 3 of the cards....Griffey, Bonds, and Alomar). I bought the near set from the guy in Texas AFTER I dealt directly with the son of the Topps employee.

"Here is how it all went down....

"In May of 2016, I bought my first set from the son of the Topps employee for the sole purpose of keeping the McGwire for my Cardinals collection. I sold off the rest individually. He contacted me again in October of 2016 wanting to sell another complete set and another near set (22/25). I purchased them, along with some other nice Topps items like wax pack wrapper proofs, uncut sheets, etc.

"Ironically, the very next week in October, I saw where a guy was selling 3 Sportzcubz on Ebay. I thought, "That's just great"...after I thought I had pretty much cornered the market so to speak, here are 3 more cards. So, I contacted him in Texas to see what he had. He had a complete set, but he wanted to keep a few. He agreed to pull the 3 he listed on Ebay and he sold me all but the Griffey, Bonds, and Alomar. He confirmed to me that he bought them from the son of the Topps employee (who had passed away a few years ago).

"So, to sum it all up, of the 5 sets or partial sets known to exist, I have owned 2 complete sets and 2 more near sets. I still own the complete set in BGS slabs and I still own 2 partial sets. As I stated earlier, I broke the first set and sold individually (keeping the McGwire). As for the 5th set......I don't have any information on it....or whether there are any more out there."

As you can see, other than information that these sets came from a former Topps employee, not much else is known. If you have any information on the set, please share.

Here is a photo of the front and back of the card. They appear to be some sort of 3D puzzle, when joined with other cards they made a 3" x 3" cube. The backs of the cards say "Product Prototype" on the bottom right. They are made of plastic rather than card stock.

[bblair_2002]

Originally Posted by Triple B

I bought a lot of 200 Pat Hengen Autographs from this set. Best $100 I ever spent.

Here's another snippet from the same Beckett article. I'm assuming you were said dealer who sold 50 copies to this Ryan guy back in 2000:

Untitled by Brett Blair, on Flickr

Bet they were fetching a pretty penny back then.

Originally Posted by ScooterD

I happened onto a rare Otis Nixon card from this set in a bulk purchase about 5 years ago. Never knew about the Raines anomaly - thanks for sharing!

It's crazy how much true rarities just get set aside and forgotten over time. That Nixon was a great find yet who knows how many people even know about it?

[MC99LBC]

Pop 1 no others graded I’ve never seen another copy of this card surface. Came out of 2023 series 1



[IMG][/IMG]

[MotorboatJones]

2020 Topps Heritage Willie Mays 20 Gigantic Seasons Buyback

[Shankweather]

Originally Posted by JMStang

[Shankweather]

[NYBBFAN]

Shankweather comin in hot with the match!

[WizardofOz1982]

Originally Posted by Boredlawyer

Patch from a set that few care about of a player that no one collects?

Feel free to prove me wrong with others from the set... And then sell it to me.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I have 4 or 5 Jeff Fryes from the set but none of them have patches.

[tribefan26]

Originally Posted by ScooterD

Wow- that’s not numbered?!??

None of them were - I hsve a Springer/Altuve. Haven’t many of the duals.

[ThoseBackPages]

[tkraft24]

This is a replacement version of the redemption #'d /24 that I haven't been able to track down in over 15 years of looking. My guess is a good amount were not redeemed in time. It has some creases by the swatches and it was actually missing the bat piece when I acquired it. I took a bat swatch off the non-auto version and it stuck right in place without even having to add glue or anything. Happy to have this copy to hold me over until I locate the real deal.


2000 SPx Winning Materials Bat-Jsy Autograph, Manny Ramirez

[89Giants]

2006 Ginter auto

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[Mister2Bits]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

I need one of these!

[clsports]

Rare SP insert in the 30 card 2001 Arizona Fall League prospects sets. Very few graded. Took me 20 years to locate a raw copy. There was a Jimmy Rollins #31 SP card as well.




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[clsports]

Super Rare SP redemption card randomly inserted into SGA team sets in 2002 at Jupiter stadium.

You needed to take redemption card to team store to redeem for the card. There were 2 SP's available (SP-1 & SP-2)

Very few ever surface. Even fewer graded.

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