Thursday, September 26, 2019

2019 Topps Archives "Montreal Expos 50th" #MTL-TW


Card Review: 6.5  The last thing I'm going to do is complain when Topps issues a new Wallach card in a current set.  I'm a firm believer in not looking a gift horse in the mouth.  That said, I'm still going to nit-pick a little, with the understanding it's coming from a good place.  And this is by no means a "bad" looking card, either, which is more than I can say for a few of the other Expos I've seen in this subset.  

The "Subset" nature of this card is a bit annoying.  The reason being, is about half the people who collect cards think they can charge a premium for an "insert," while I fall in the other half, the half who gets annoyed as they toss the two crap cards in a pack that don't help complete the set into a junk pile.  So these Wallach's are showing up online with prices well in excess of the 18¢ or so (probably less) that they warrant, and as a result, despite an abundance of them being available, I'm not inclined to buy them until I've exhausted the supply of say, I don't know, the 200,000+ 1987 Topps Wallach cards that can be bought for pennies.

Additionally, I'm just not a huge fan of the '69 design.  It's not horrible by any means, it's just sort of forgettable.  I'm about half-way done putting together the original '69 set, and have decided my favorite part of the design is the pink card backs.  These Expos tributes do a pretty poor job of matching the original color.  And while I'm on the backs, I would have liked some more numbers.  The write-up isn't terrible, but the fact that Wallach also had more hits, RBI's and a half dozen other records in addition to games played for the franchise maybe could have been mentioned.  And beyond that, how about some sort of career stat line as an Expo on all of these cards?  

The front is actually a pretty good photo, and stands out from the ones Topps used during Wallach's playing career.  This one features a "Silver" foil Expos stamp.  This is, presumably, the "normal" one.  To appease the scratch-off lottery ticket element of the card collecting world, this card of course comes in a dozen or so unnecessary variations, that for reasons that will forever elude me, some people are willing to pay obscene amounts of money for a couple of tiny foil stamped "1's" on a card.

The Silver foil stamping, also available in Green, Blue, Red, Gold, and Black
I did briefly consider trying to complete this subset, but ultimately decided against it.  The checklist just isn't that exciting.  Topps was clearly more concerned about who they could round up to sign autographs (another unnecessary variation of this card) than they were with the actual history of the Montreal Expos (Seriously, no Gary Carter?)  So, I'll just be rounding up the Wallach's.

Number of this card in my collection: 3




Reminder, I have a new address:

J. Corey Stackhouse
100 W Apache ST
Farmington, NM 87401





2 comments:

  1. I actually prefer the '69 design to the '68 burlap design and I think I'm probably one of the few. I really like the looks of that card.

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  2. Wow, leaving Gary Carter out of an Expos tribute set is inexcusable. He's in other 2019 Topps products, so he's clearly under license.

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