Something new on something old

If the Walt Disney Co. ever designed baseball cards, I suspect they would look an awful lot like Topps Archives. There is no other set on the market that plays (preys?) off collectors' nostalgia quite like Archives. Yes, there are other retro sets like Heritage, but they stick to a single design and the nostalgic effect only really works on people who remember the original version. 

Archives, by contrast, squeezes several generations into a single set. The 2014 edition had base cards modeled after Topps flagships from 1973, 1980, 1986 and 1989, plus insert designs from 1968, 1969, 1971, 1981, 1987 and 1997. With Archives, Topps is trying to tug at everyone's childhood memories. It's the Magic Kingdom of baseball card sets. 

And dammit if it doesn't work. 

This is the most expensive card I bought from COMC during the Thanksgiving week sale. Mike Trout is amazing and all that, but he's not someone I try to collect. And yet, I had to have this card. The concept of putting today's baseball stars on the arguably the most iconic hockey card design of all time was irresistible. Layer on top of that that fact that these are achievably rare inserts -- the 1971 hockey design cards fell at one in every 24 hockey packs -- and I couldn't help myself. Into the cart it went. 

If this had been a full set, I may be been able to restrain myself to just one or two examples. But, no, there are only 20 cards in this particular insert set. So how could I not try for all of them? At around $5, I believe this card of the 2015 National League MVP was the second-most expensive card from the entire 100-plus lot that shipped from COMC. 

The completely arbitrary -- and totally self-rationalizing -- rule I've set for myself with these cards is that I will spend no more than $3 per on average across the full set. This card of Masahiro Tanaka, which I believe is a rookie card, or at least a rookie year card, was the only other one north of that line. I generally detest the Yankees, but I really do kinda like Tanaka. Wish the Jays had signed him.

Like any good nostalgia-dependent set, this insert collection mixes a few retired greats in with active players. 

Goggles! Seriously, Chris Sabo has to be the most random inclusion in this set. How on earth is he one of the 20 players Topps chose for this treatment? (What's that? He was rookie of the year in 1988 and a hot collectible in the late '80s, when collectors who are now 40-ish adults with disposable income were young kids collecting some of their very first baseball cards? I see what you did there, Topps.) 

Probably the most bizarre thing about this insert set is how it is dominated by Cincinnati Reds. Along with Sabo and Phillips, there are also cards of Joey Votto and Eric Davis. That's 20 percent of the set, represented by one mid-market team. I would love to know the method behind this particular bit of madness. 

Every time I come across a Wil Myers card, I get a little jolt of excitement. For some reason, my brain insists on remembering only that he was once a top 10 prospect who won AL Rookie of the Year and not that he has since cratered and is now toiling away in San Diego. 

 

And one last modern-day star to round these out. I've since added two more of these (Jose Abreu via eBay auction and Miguel Cabrera, whose currently sitting alone in a newly begun COMC order). That puts me at 13 of the 20. I have little doubt I will complete this at some point. Nostalgia will see to that.