These 28 cards were sent by Oren of Forest Hills, New York. The obvious attention grabber of this grouping of cards are the two up top in the fancy "Topps Archives" cases. Here the are again, for a better look at them:
Before I dive into anything on these two cards, let me first and foremost say Thank You! to Oren. I see these, or at least other Wallach's in these cases with the red Archives sticker, pop up on eBay with some regularity and I know they aren't cheap and they tend to sell. So I fully appreciate how generous it was of Oren to send them, and I am very happy to add them to my collection. I do however have some thoughts on this Topps creation that I feel like sharing.
I've never paid for one of these, or in the alternative, I've paid for over a 1,000 copies of the 1984 card on the left. My belief is that these are copies of a 1984 Topps and a 1986 Topps All-Star. I know the online databases catalog them as 2019 Topps Archives Signature Series, I just don't agree with that. Topps printed these cards in 1984 and 1986. They were issued, and presumably, pulled from packs back then. Any after market alterations to them don't make them "new" cards, they're just altered. That doesn't mean they're not cool, or fun to collect, it's just not something I necessarily buy into. If it was a company other than Topps doing it, they'd probably be ignored completely by collectors. On the other hand, if it was Matt Groening, Todd McFarlan, or Banksy adding personalized doodles to the front of the card, they'd be even more collectable. They just wouldn't be a "new" baseball card.
But again, I'm happy to add them, and I'm going to leave them in these cases because I do find them to be pretty cool. It's just not a line that I feel the need to collect in order to have every unique Wallach card, because as far as I'm concerned these aren't "new" or "unique."
For now, I'm not including these in updated totals below. My gut is to just count them as '84 and '86 Topps and keep it simple. But my OCD feels the need to keep in step with the Baseball Card Database which list them as 2019 products. I'm going to have to think about it.
Thanks again Oren!
Updated Totals:
If they were mine, I'd record them as 2019 Archive Signature Series cards because they are stamped and verified as such. Now, if they were signed in person, then while I'd still set them aside from the standard un-signed versions, I would add them to the standard count.
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