Cubs Breakdown - 2011 Tristar Pursuit

2011 Tristar Pursuit
Tristar is back again this year with their unlicensed prospect offerings, leading off with Tristar Pursuit. The Pursuit issue has no real niche, hasn't featured a very attractive design either year of its existence, and has a goofy complete set based distribution method. I don't get the product at all.

Last year's set was okay from a Cubs perspective in that it had a few cards of guys who didn't really have any other cards at the time. This year's set doesn't have that, at least from a Cubs perspective. Brett Jackson, Steve Clevenger, and Blake Parker represent the Cubs. Jackson has plenty of cards, most of them a lot more desirable than these. And Clevenger and Parker were in last year's Pursuit product. There are also 5 player combo auto cards that do not picture any of the players, one of my least favorite things you can do on a card. So not much exciting to see here, but here's the rundown from a Cubs perspective.

Base Set – 10 Versions - Base, Orange (#/99), Green (#/25), Red (#/5), Purple (1/1), Autos (#/111), Autos Blue (#/50), Autos Green (#/25), Autos Red (#/5), Autos Purple (1/1)

#15 Brett Jackson
#80 Steve Clevenger SP
#86 Blake Parker SP
#94 Casey Coleman w/Jeanmar Gomez, Carlos Monasterios, Dan Runzler, and Drew Storen
#96 Starlin Castro w/Chris Davis, Ike Davis, Eduardo Nunez, and Andrew Romine
#98 Tyler Colvin w/John Bowker, Ben Revere, Travis Snider, and Jose Tabata
The five player cards are autographed by all and only available in Blue (#/50), Red (#/5), and Purple (1/1). No non-auto versions for the five player cards.


Obak Previews – 3 Versions - Variations, Auto Parallels for some
#4 Cap Anson - has a variation version with a square around the number on back

Cubs Breakdown - 2011 Topps Tribute

2011 Topps Tribute
The 2011 version of Topps Tribute arrived this past week, and it is about what you would expect from this particular brand. Shiny sliver cards? Check. Tons of Relics? Check. Anything new and exciting for Cubs fans? I don't think so.

As you might have guessed, this issue has gotten a little bit stale in my eyes. I think the things that are designed to be big drawing cards this year are the inclusion of Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax, as well as the first Tribute cards of some of the young stars like Buster Posey and Mike Stanton. But as a Cubs collector, those aren't that exciting. And what is in there isn't that exciting either in my opinion. Ryne Sandberg is once again the only Cub in the base set. Sandberg, Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, and Fergie Jenkins represent the Cubs in the Relic and Auto insert sets. What do those four all have in common? Well for one thing, they have all appeared on plenty of Topps Tribute Relic and Auto cards in the past.

Given that all of the major players representing the Cubs in this set have all been in Tribute before, the one thing that could have saved this issue was a cool new design and look to the cards. And while I give Topps credit for coming up with a somewhat fresh design for the silver foil card stock, I just don't love the design. So this issue is a bit of dud for me. I think Tribute might be a little better suited to being a once every 3 or 4 years type of thing. The silver foil card stock is cool. But it is hard to come up with a new design each year that goes well with the silver foil. And fresh player selection is almost a must, or it's just the same stuff as the year before. So doing it less often would allow for more player turnover, at least among the modern day players. The Cubs from this issue are listed below, the Fergie Jenkins Happy Birthday Auto at the very bottom is probably my favorite Cubs card of all of them!

Base Set - 6 Versions - Base, Blue (#/199), Green (#/75), Gold (#/50), Black (#/10), and Red (1/1), plus four colors of printing plates
#38 Ryne Sandberg


Dual Relics - 5 Versions - Base (#/99), Green (#/75), Gold (#/20), Black (#/5), and Red (1/1)
TDR-AD Andre Dawson
TDR-RS Ryne Sandberg


Triple Relics - 5 Versions - Base (#/99), Green (#/75), Gold (#/20), Black (#/5), and Red (1/1)
TTR-RS Ryne Sandberg


Quad Relics - 5 Versions - Base (#/99), Green (#/75), Gold (#/20), Black (#/5), and Red (1/1)
No Cubs Incuded

Single Relic Autos - 5 Versions - Base (#/99), Green (#/75), Gold (#/20), Black (#/5), and Red (1/1)
TAR-EB Ernie Banks
TAR-FJ Fergie Jenkins


Dual Relic Autos - 5 Versions - Base (#/99), Green (#/75), Gold (#/20), Black (#/5), and Red (1/1)
TADR-EB Ernie Banks
TADR-RS Ryne Sandberg


Pastime Patches Dual Patches - 2 Versions - Base (#/24) and Red (1/1)
PP-RS Ryne Sandberg


Tribute to the Stars Dual Autos - 3 Versions - Base (#/74), Gold (#/25), and Red (1/1)
- Andre Dawson & Jim Rice
- Andre Dawson & Ryne Sandberg (Only available via redemption)


Tribute to the Stars Triple Autos - 2 Versions - Base (#/24) and Red (1/1)
- Starlin Castro, Ozzie Smith, and Hanley Ramirez
- Fergie Jenkins, Andre Dawson, and Ryne Sandberg


Rookie Book Card 10 Relic Autos - 2 Versions - Base (#/9) and Red (1/1)
Starlin Castro w/Carlos Santana, Stephen Strasburg, Mike Stanton, Buster Posey, Kyle Drabek, Neftali Felix, Austin Jackson, Jason Heyward, Aroldis Chapman (Only available via redemption)

Roll Call Two Panel Booklets - 2 Versions - Base (#/9) and Red (1/1)
No Cubs Included

Tribute Cut Autos - All 1/1s
No Cubs Included

Albert Pujols Buybacks - 10 copies each of his 2001 Bowman Chrome, 2001 Finest, and 2001 Topps Reserve Autos

Addition to the Master Checklist - 1996 Collector's Choice Vending Machine Cards

This is a new issue to me that was brought to my attention by a post by nosterbor over at Freedom Card Board. He is a well known Juan Gonzalez collector, and another user on that site (Jack Straw) brought the seller of some of these cards to his attention because he had the Juan Gonzalez card for sale. Apparently, Upper Deck produced a 48 card set in 1996 that was to be distributed in vending machines.

The design elements of the set are similar to the regular 1996 Collector's Choice cards, with a few differences, and the cards share the same photos as the cards from the regular 1996 Collector's Choice set. The biggest difference is on the card backs, which are clearly renumbered as a 48 card set. The other differences are subtle differences on the front of the card. The first six cards in the set feature a prism-foil treatment, kind of dufex like. For the players that were on a borderless all star card in the regular set, the cards in this set are very similar but are missing the all star notation on the top corner on the front. And for the players who had a regular card with a white border in the normal set, their cards in this set have the same picture, but are borderless.

The set appears to be pretty rare based on the early feedback over on Freedom Card Board, and I've been a pretty active collector during the past 15 years and hadn't heard of it until now. Sammy Sosa is the only Cub in the set, but I've listed a full checklist below for reference.
 

#1 Ken Griffey Jr. (Prism)
#2 Frank Thomas (Prism)
#3 Ken Caminiti (Prism)
#4 Barry Bonds (Prism)
#5 Mike Piazza (Prism)
#6 Chipper Jones (Prism)
#7 Tim Salmon
#8 Greg Maddux
#9 Brady Anderson
#10 Mo Vaughn
#11 Sammy Sosa
#12 Albert Belle
#13 Barry Larkin
#14 Kenny Lofton
#15 Andres Galarraga
#16 Travis Fryman
#17 Gary Sheffield
#18 Jeff Bagwell
#19 Johnny Damon
#20 Hideo Nomo
#21 John Jaha
#22 Paul Molitor
#23 Rondell White
#24 Todd Hundley
#25 Derek Jeter
#26 Mark McGwire
#27 Gregg Jefferies
#28 Jason Kendall
#29 Ron Gant
#30 Tony Gwynn
#31 Glenallen Hill
#32 Alex Rodriguez
#33 Juan Gonzalez
#34 Joe Carter
#35 Jim Edmonds
#36 Cal Ripken Jr.
#37 John Valentin
#38 Reggie Sanders
#39 Manny Ramirez
#40 Dante Bichette
#41 Bobby Bonilla
#42 Craig Biggio
#43 Marty Cordova
#44 Rey Ordonez
#45 Bernie Williams
#46 Pat Hentgen
#47 Ivan Rodriguez
#48 Brian Jordan