2017 Collective Awards

Welcome to the second annual Collective Awards! It's the end of the year awards show where the categories are all made up by me on the fly, and the winners are who or what I choose, which is probably in the minority of popular opinion. At some point, maybe I'll come up with an actual statue design. In the tradition of the Oscars, we'll call them the Borgs for now. I'll bring back a few categories from last year, and make up a few different ones too.

Our first award goes for the Best Base Design, just like last year.  And the trophy goes to... Topps BUNT!

     I didn't mind base Topps, I've always kinda liked the concept of TV type graphics in a card design, but it wasn't my favorite.  Last year's winner Allen & Ginter wasn't bad, but it reminded me of oval-framed portraits of Victorian queens or something.  I still can't tell what year a given Bowman or Donruss card is for the last several years because they all look the same.  GQ was interesting, but hard to read.  BUNT was a nice colorful graphical design that even worked as monochrome parallels. 

Good job, Topps.  Now here's another one for you that you won't like as much.  You win (on TWO counts) for Biggest Disaster In The Basic Execution Of An Insert Set.

     Both First Pitch and MLB Network insert sets were issued with numbering out of order, missing, or just plain botched.  Previously described here.  Come on, guys, this is basic stuff.  This cannot become a regular thing.  Not to mention forgetting a hyphen on a third insert set.

One more along that line.  The Topps Trifecta is complete with their victory in the Oversaturation Of A Classic Design.

     I get that the 1987 Topps design is sorta iconic, especially among somewhat younger collectors.  An insert set of about 50 total cards would have been sufficient.  We got a 200 card set, which could have been a standalone product, two color parallels, autographs, a three wood rookie variation set, an oversize version, plus a shiny prismic version (100 more) which also came in SIX color parallels, and the real things in buyback form. 

Next up, The Coolest Product I Didn't Actually Buy.  And the winner is... Donruss Diamond Kings.

     Another nice graphical set, which bordered on artsy.  I always like sets with retired players, but just couldn't quite pull the trigger on this one.  Panini has made some decent sets even though they're handicapped by the inability to show team logos or colors.  Thought about just putting together a base set from dealers, but didn't do that either.  Maybe next year....

I could actually fill out the rest of the show with products that I didn't buy.  Looking back at the product list for 2017 on TCDB, I don't even recognize about a third of the products listed. But I'll just put this one out there.  This one could have been a winner for several years.  For High End Product I Wish I Could Afford, it's Topps Dynasty.

     I don't ever buy high end products, but if I did, I'd get Dynasty.  I would love nothing better than to pull a Bryce Harper autographed patch, or a Hank Aaron auto or someone like that.  My luck, I'd get Michael Fulmer or Yasmany Tomas.  (No offense to those guys or their fans).  I always picture Dynasty cards as being the size of the early 80's Donruss Action All-Stars (3½" x 5") or so and am thrown off when I see them in real life, which is rare.

But back to some actual accomplishments in 2017.  Barry Melrose presents the award for Token Hockey Coverage to 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee Hockey.

     I finally did purchase some hockey this year.  Except for some Tim Horton's I got in the secondary market, and a set of MVP that my friend Stuart sent me from 2014-15, I haven't touched hockey since 2011.  I liked (didn't love) the OPC design this year well enough to take a shot at it.  There are actually black parallels that would have been even better as the base set design.  The Retro parallels are the big selling point of OPC, but they're probably tough to finish.  Just posted my wants on my list page.  We'll see if I can muster some trades from somewhere, since there aren't many hockey traders in my circles.

And that's our show for 2017.  Kinda short, I know, but since I really only bought Topps flagship, BUNT, and some hockey, I really don't have much else to say about the cards that came out this year.  We still have sport-exclusive contracts, so there are still logoless and hatless players shown on what would otherwise be decent designs.  And almost every other set is about shiny short-printed rookies, so I'm just not interested.  See you next year!