2020 Topps Gold Ryan Weber

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. As a nod to the Gold Together activities going on this month to help raise awareness of the leading cause of death by disease in children, I thought I'd contribute several "gold" themed posts sprinkled throughout the month. Here's the next one.

Let's talk about this card...

It's nice that Topps decided to include just enough border on this card to allow for the colored parallel. As much as I like a design that focuses on the picture, it's nice to have something anchoring it visually. This card does a nice job of that. It also does a great job of cropping in close enough to get Weber's intensity without going in so close that you lose the rest of the picture. Overall I'd say a nice job.

---

If you are able this month, or any month, to support the Gold Together efforts, I highly recommend you consider a donation. You can follow the the link to the American Cancer Society here.

Support their efforts to be Gold Together!

2020 Topps Series 1 Blaster!

It took me forever to find these on the shelves! And, then, it took me a couple days to finally post about it. I hope you think it was worth the wait as I look at my first blaster break of 2020!

And hoping you still care.

There's the outside of the box, so you know what you're looking for on the shelves.

Seven packs, and the extra special rookie card retrospective card pack! Let's start with that one...shall we?

Ok. I usually don't understand the point of these manufacture patch/relic/medallion things Topps does. But, I absolutely LOVE these. Or, at least I love this one. The thick card with the cut-out for the rookie card logo adds a great depth to the piece. And, it doesn't scream cheap and gaudy like a big coin or made up patch. Simple, elegant, and wonderful. 

The first Red Sox card of 2020! And he's still on the team! A Red Sox card in the first pack has to be a good sign, right? As for the card itself? I like the design. It's not as cluttered as I'd feared, or as others have said. The design is actually pretty simple, and tucked off to the side. It leaves a lot of room for the picture, which I always appreciate. Well done.

Two packs, two Red Sox cards! Another guy who is still on the team. I like how JD's arm fits perfectly into the little notch in the card's design

No Red Sox cards in the third pack, so I guess I'll use this one to show off the horizontal design. I like the horizontal even better since it tucks the design away even more. 

Back on the Red Sox bandwagon! This is showing off the Future Stars subset. It also shows how Topps keeps flipping the side of the card the border shows up on. It wasn't much of a big deal for this blaster. But, I could imagine it being annoying if I'm flipping through a big stack looking for a specific player that I want. 

No Red Sox cards, so let's check out the Turkey Red inserts. This design works well as a small insert set. The cards look too similar if you've got hundreds of them in a binder. But, a few sprinkled here and there can add some variety.

No Sox again, so here's a combo card of two Blue Jays future stars. These guys have a special place in my heart since I was able to see them play in AA (along with Vlad Jr) a couple times. Fun to see them advance as a group like that. I also enjoy these combo cards. Sure, they can be corny. But, cards are supposed to be fun...aren't they?

Speaking of Mr. Biggio, here's the foil version of his solo card. I could really take or leave the foil parallels. I'm split between not needing ANOTHER parallel to chase and liking the idea of having another different Xander Bogaerts card to try and collect.

So, that's what I got out my blaster. I was pretty pleased.

What did you get in yours?