Idea...
What if all us card bloggers developed a new list of 100 best Topps cards, and then set up a place for people to vote on them? We could even allow write-in's in case we somehow overlooked a card.
Perhaps each year-specific blogger could nominate 5-10 cards from the set they feature, and bloggers like yourself who cover everything can nominate several from any year, and then after a couple weeks, collect all the nominations and set up a place for people to vote on which are the best?
What do you think?
I don't have the time to organize something like this, but maybe you do?
Devon
I was actually thinking about the possibility of doing my own Topps 100 cards. But with 43,133 in Topps catalog of regular and "traded" cards (not including variations, errors, etc), while there is a lot to choose from, how would I go about doing it? What should MY criteria be?
- Should I go by design aspects?
- Particular player?
- Popularity of the card/player?
- Book value?
- Picture?
- Notoriety (gimmicks)?
- Should subsets (like All-Star cards, Record Breakers cards, Season Highlights cards) be included?
- Should variations (like the legends variations of the last two years) be included?
- Combination of one or more of the above?
- How many cards per year can we have in a ballot? 5? 10? 20?
But I have an idea.
How about this, dear readers? By Sunday night, around 7:00 p.m. CST, I will pick 5 cards from all 60 years (1951-2010)...a Topps 300. They can be rookie cards (which seemed to dominate Topps 100), they could have awesome action shots, they could just be whatever strikes my fancy as a card worth including. After this is done, I will allow a two-week period to allow you the readers to make adjustments to my picks by e-mailing me at bdj610@hotmail.com. You can say, things like, "take this card out and put this one in because..." or, "this card is definitely better than this one (or two) that you picked," or "you're picks are awful. Here's who I'd have picked," or whatever, and if it makes sense, then before all is said and done, I'll have a final ballot (possibly create a third blog, just with ballots akin to the Gummie Awards) for people to vote on their favorites from each year.
By the time all is said and done, we will have the Hobby Blogging Community's very own "Topps 60". And this humble little blog will announce the 60 best cards once a day, just like the Topps will be doing (albeit we won't be able to add cards to the 2011 Topps set ourselves).
But this can only work if (and it's a big IF) this gets a lot of responses from the Hobby Community. It definitely won't work if only seven people comment on changes, or if less than 10 people vote per year (or worse...total). We need active involvement from both the Hobby bloggers and blog readers. We could certainly get input from those who participate in Hobby forums. (We could certainly use readers...Ego!!! Stop it.) We could even wind up with a better Topps 60 than the Topps Company themselves!!!
What do you think? Should we do it?
Sincerely,
JayBee Anama
I think there should be 1 card from each year, including '51. Gimmicks/subsets/inserts are fair game. In addition to your 5 per year suggestions, add to them (but do not replace with) readers' suggestions for the polls.
ReplyDeleteIf it is truly 60 years being celebrated, then we should celebrate ALL 60.
I think 1 per year is to few, but 5 might be a bit much. I could probably think of a few cards that have to be in the top 100 easy: 52 Mantle, 54 Aaron, and 53 Robinson come to mind quickly. Add in the "iconic" rookie cards of Seaver, Ryan, Yount, George Brett (don't want to confuse him with his brother), Winfield, and Griffey Jr you start to get closer to 100 easy. I think 5 per year could be to cumbersome.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem with the Topps list is there are to many Mantles among the cards to vote for.
Black smoke!
ReplyDeleteI think Topps did a pretty good job overall. There was some that I would have put on and taken some out such as the '60 McCovey, '85 Gooden RB, '90 Sosa and replaced them with the '62 Maris, '83 Sandberg and '90 Frank Thomas NNO. Maybe just do a list of who you would take out and who you would put on?
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as the Mantles, I know some people don't like the fact that he's in everything, but let's face it, he is an iconic figure and when you look at the value of his regular cards they are far more valuable than his contemporaries.
I like the idea how you have it. 5 is not too many - because 300 is just your starting point to get it whittled down to 60. Putting in only 100 to whittle it down to 60 is too few.
ReplyDeleteAlso - I like the idea of there being no absolute set criteria. While I think iconic rookie cards would need to be in there, some other cards are important. I'd put certain record breaker cards in there - the card for Aaron breaking Ruth's record, or Ryan/Carlton/Perry passing the Big Train aren't the same as Mick's 52 Topps card, but they are in my list of best cards.
The only thing - I guess you'll have a little trouble figuring out how to show all those 300 cards on your blog.
If you wanted, you could do something to break it up - have 5 guaranteed slots from each decade, then 30 wild card slots. That would ensure there isn't too much bias toward one error.
JayBee, at your request, this is what my cryptic post was all about:
ReplyDeletehttp://punkrockpaint.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-retro-baseball-card-set_24.html