Gold Together: 2022 Topps Walmart Gold Star Parallel Jack Lopez

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...

I've mentioned it before. The retail sets are a fun way to easily add some variety to my collection. These Gold Star versions are an great way to do it. With one in three factory sets coming with a parallel, there are enough of them to make them obtainable. But, rare enough to be something a little different. Which is great.

This is a pretty generic picture of Lopez here. The red socks really pop, and almost make it look like he's wearing shin guards or something. Otherwise, nothing to exciting to talk about. Just your basic "hitter hitting" base card.

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I'm sure you all remember Mina Smith from her interview with us. Through her social impact initiative "Love Your Neighbor" she is fundraising to brind awareness to childhood cancer through Dance Hope Cure. I highly recommend you support her efforts with a donation if you are able. You can find the link here.

Thank you for supporting her efforts to Love Your Neighbor!

2022 Topps Walmart Gold Star Parallel Kevin Plawecki

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...

I've mentioned it before. The retail sets are a fun way to easily add some variety to my collection. These Gold Star versions are an great way to do it. With one in three factory sets coming with a parallel, there are enough of them to make them obtainable. But, rare enough to bee something a little different. Which is great.

This is a great picture of Plawecki here. He's definitely celebrating an epic accomplishement. The red jersey really pops, and the picture is cropped perfectly. Fantastic execution.

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I'm sure you all remember Mina Smith from her interview with us. Through her social impact initiative "Love Your Neighbor" she is fundraising for the Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation. I highly recommend you support her efforts with a donation if you are able. You can find the link here.

Thank you for supporting her efforts to Love Your Neighbor!

2008 Topps Gold ALROY Dustin Pedroia

 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...

I like the way Topps incorporates the gold cards into their base sets. The cards aren't impossible to find, individually numbered to the card year. But, they make something a bit different to chase. The next level of parallel above the retail set one we looked at last time.

That concept is even better on the older cards with full white borders available to turn gold. Instead of a gold stripe on a full bleeg photo, this card really feels like a golden tickt. Even if it's a pretty blah picture of the reigning AL ROY and future MVP.

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I'm sure you all remember Mina Smith from her interview with us. Through her social impact initiative "Love Your Neighbor" she is fundraising for the Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation. I highly recommend you support her efforts with a donation if you are able. You can find the link here.

Thank you for supporting her efforts to Love Your Neighbor!

2022 Topps Walmart Gold Star Parallel Connor Seabold

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...

The retail sets are, in my opinion, a fun way to easily add some variety to my collection. These Gold Star versions are an easy way to do it. With one in three factory sets coming with a parallel, there are enough of them to make them obtainable. Which is great.

Love how this card took full advantage of the horizontal layout. You can really see the arm extension and feel the grimace on his face as he throws with maximum effort. Great card.

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I'm sure you all remember Mina Smith from her interview with us. Through her social impact initiative "Love Your Neighbor" she is fundraising for the Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation. I highly recommend you support her efforts with a donation if you are able. You can find the link here.

Thank you for supporting her efforts to Love Your Neighbor!

2015 Topps Gold Throwback Variation David Ortiz

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...

This is a pretty fantastic card. The "throwback" designation refers to the old timey logo in the corner. But, Ortiz is also wearing a throwback uniform in the picture, rocking the 70's pullover version of Sox uniform. The point back to the gudout is just the perfect finishing touch.

The design of the 2015 set is one of the busiest I can remember. There's a lot going on. It's like an intern wanted to show off their computer graphic skills or something. But, the gold version tends to mute that a bit somehow. Which is nice.

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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!

2018 Topps Big League Gold Pedro Martinez

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 last one.

Let's talk about this card of my all-time favorite player...

I'm generally not a fan of cards of players produced after their career ended. (Other than one the next year as a sort of recap.) It seems so unnecessary. It also changes the focus of card collecting from baseball fan to team or player fan. If I collect the 2018 Topps set to catalog the 2018 or 2017 season...this card has no place in it. Pedro wasn't on the Sox in 2018 and the stats on the back don't tell me anything about 2017. But, as a Pedro Martinez collector, I need to have this card. At least this one is pretty.

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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!

2014 Topps Gold Jon Lester

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...

Look at all that gold! This card is either a fond reminder or a bitter pill. Personally, the 2013 series is the one with the strongest pull to me. Probably because I was able to attend the clinching game six. I also do not hold a grudge with the Sox for Lester not signing long term. So all I do is look at this card and think, "wow, that was a great game on the way to a memorable series win". Isn't that all you can ask for from a card?

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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 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.

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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!

2013 Topps Gold Craig Breslow

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...

OK. Back to an honest to goodness gold card. Although, not a particularly interesting one. Breslow had a career year for the Sox in 2013, and was a big part of their World Championship that season. In this picture, he looks ready to stare down another hitter...even if the picture is from the previous year.

I have to say the weird color red on the sea turtle basepaths really clashes with the red sox logo. But, I doubt the Topps designers looked at leach color scheme for every card in that detail. Too bad.

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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!

2015 Topps Update Series Throwback Variation

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...

I guess I'll start off with a confession. This, apparently, isn't a "gold" card. While it does, to my eyes at least, have a gold border. It is apparently not gold. It's not numbered or anything. It's actually a gold-looking throwback variation of Xander's 2015 Topps update card, and is apparently a shortprint. When I did a quick search of the card because I was blanking on the year, I couldn't find it. I had no idea. Which is the problem, of course, with all the endless variations. I have at least three throwback variations from this set. How was I supposed to know they were rare?

Did you?

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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!

1992 Topps Gold Winner Roger Clemens

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 first one.

Let's talk about this card...

The 1992 Topps Gold Roger Clemens. If memory serves, the gold cards from Topps were the first ever parallel inserts. Thanks for the craziness that ensued, Topps. The regular gold cards were relatively rare. These guys, less so. When it became apparent that winning a scratch contest for regular gold cards became easy to scam, Topps decided to award these beauties as a compromise. Or, that was the plan all along and created a little bit of publicity for themselves.

Really enjoy the look of the card. Fresh off another Cy Young award winning season in 1991, this card perfectly captures Rocket. The tight crop brings to focus on Clemens. The green backdrop makes the white uniform rally stand out, and you can see the snarl on his face. That's probably not something batters enjoyed seeing.

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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!