Saturday, November 2, 2013

Random Topps Team Set of the Week: 2011 Topps Colorado Rockies

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Team Set of the Week:


The checklist consists of the following players:
The cards in order from the set (the checklist at the end was cut from the back of the package. What, you don't do that?):



Key differences between the team set and 2011 Topps eponymous set:
  • Jose De La Rosa's retail card features another shot of the Rockies' left-hander:

  • Ty Wigginton played for the Orioles the year before, so it's no surprise that Topps regular card featured him as an O. He does appear in the Update Series set as a member of the Rockies.:

  • Ryan Spilborghs base card features him on the basepaths:

  • On Jason Hammel's base card, he's discussing strategy with his catcher, or possibly making dinner plans for the team:


So of the 16 players included in this set, four have picture variations that can only be found on the retail sets. Surprisingly, none of the other 12 players' cards features a different cropping of the same picture, which is often the case found in some of these team sets.

UPDATE: Thanks to both the Shablotnik Report and Cards from the Quarry for indicating that Jason Hammel had not one, but TWO cards in Series 2 (#338 and #642). The retail set uses the same picture from #338, so the "variation" if you will is card #642. It was bad enough when Topps decided to make two cards for each of the members of the 2010 All-Star Rookie Team. But when you look at it, this is not the first time Topps has included two "base" cards of a single player within the same set. One of these days, we'll have to compile a list of these cards (I can think of a few in the 2007 Topps set...).

Next week's featured set will be the 2009 Detroit Tigers. Hope you'll be here when we compare the cards from the retail set to their counterparts found in Topps and Topps Updates and Highlights sets.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 2, 2013 at 6:58 PM

    Jason Hammel was one of those guys who, for no apparent reason, had a card in both Series 1 and Series 2. The card from the team set looks like Hammels' Series 2 card (#642).

    ...Kind of a shame, because I wouldn't mind having that Wiggie card, but I'm not sure it's worth getting the team set for one photo variation.

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  2. hiflewNovember 2, 2013 at 10:51 PM

    Actually Hammel had both of his cards in Series 2. His card numbers were #338 & #642. I figured that Topps was going to include Wigginton in that #338 slot, but didn't because he was already in Series 1 and included another Rockie instead. Then they probably forgot that they had used Hammel already. I would have preferred a Jeff Francis card instead.

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