With all of the pre-thanksgiving travel commotion as of late, I completely forgot that one of my favorite yearly Topps fails is hitting shelves today. For those of you who read this site, you know I have two loves in hobby life. The first is a great game of “spot the card art masterpieces,” and the second is a rousing session of “find out what the hell Topps is trying to spell out in their lame ass die cuts.” As we saw with the release of Topps Triple threads for both Baseball and Football, there is no shortage of laughable moments that come out of high end sets from this legendary company. On the other hand, Topps Sterling takes all of that shit to a whole other level, mainly because its basically Moments and Milestones type stats spelled out in a 300 dollar box.
I have highlighted some of the ridiculous things that Topps puts on these cards in the past, whether it’s the one that celebrated the 3 games that Don Mattingly played at 3rd base, or something similar, Sterling never lets me down. This year, much like its horrid predecessors, doesn’t look to disappoint. Here are some of my favorites from this year that have popped up on eBay so far:
Babe Ruth Quad Relic /25 – Two things jump out at me on this card. First, someone at Topps must love that wingdings font for these cutouts. Secondly, im curious to see if they hired someone to design this card that had no idea of baseball’s storied history. Sultan of Slug? Somewhere, the great Hambino is thinking “YOU’RE KILLING ME SMALLS!” Honestly, this comes from the exclusive provider of MLB baseball cards. The Sultan of SWAT does not approve.
Thurman Munson Quad Relic /25 – Fall baller? Ugh, this is so bad that I cant even put it into words. Glad Microsoft is making all sorts of money with the use of their wingdings font though.
Wade Boggs Auto Bat /10 – Trio of 20’s? I don’t even know what that refers to without wikipedia. Homers, RBIs and SBs? Number of mustache hairs that were grown during Movember? Ugh.
Barry Larkin Auto Bat /10 – One of the most celebrated shortstops of all time, and that’s all they have? Aging Gracefully? That’s like putting “Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich” on Elvis’ card.
Whitey Ford Auto Jersey /25 – More stats that mean nothing. 10 wins? Not even sure why that would be cause for celebration unless we had more info. Hmm, maybe this is celebrating his epic victories over Yogi Berra in clubhouse arm wrestling. That is the stuff dreams are made of.
Seriously, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Each of the cards I clicked on was worse than the one before it. I don’t even know what to say, and yet, people are still lining up to pay the astronomical price for 2 crap hits and a SHOT at a big card. Im going out on a limb and saying that Sterling offers the least chance of any current product making back even a small percentage of box cost. This stuff looks worse than ever.
Topps Sterling looks amazing, I am starting to just believe you are just an upper deck fanboy that doesnt like anything that isn’t UD.
Thanks for contributing. Glad you have it all figured out.
LOL! Shimey… did you actually LOOK at any of the cards? gross 🙁
Shimey, this is taken verbatim from Adam’s post on this year’s National Treasures: “I also love the look of the colossal swatch cards this year, as the design features the oft underused and underrated patches jersey motif as the theme. Although the shield parallels will be one of five million, it looks like these cards will transfer well between the parallels.”
Clearly, Adam (like all of us) likes what he likes, regardless of manufacturer. Hope you weren’t planning on going to law school, because unlike on anything you’ll see on a SUPERMOJOBOOKLETTTT ONE-OF-ONE-JO triple threads or sterling piece of shit, you’ll actually have to be able to understand and interpret the things you read when you get there.
Shimey, there you go praising every card you see as a good card. When will you learn? These sterling cards are ugly, have non-understandable die cut messages and will 99.99 percent of the time not get you your box cost back.
Let me play devil’s advocate for one moment (and believe me it is tough because Sterling really does look like trash) regarding the Babe Ruth “Sultan of Slug”. That is completely embarrassing, UNLESS, the CMG (?) Properties that allow for Topps to use Ruth’s likeness do not own the trademark on “Sultan of Swat”. That is the only acceptable explanation for that ridiculousness. Otherwise, the perpetrator of that injustice should be in the unemployment line post haste!
Cut cards look even worse, and the names good lord, Jo Jo White, wasn’t he a basketball player.
Probably wouldn’t have been buying anyway, but I definitely have no use for relics behind icons of flying monks (flags and moons?), Virginia Cavalier logos, or tennis balls, all on the front of boots. And the Whitey Ford seller needs to learn how to crop scans…
First of all they shouldn’t make cut outs and try to spell stuff they should just use plain squares or circles for the jersey or bat. Second the player picture is way to small look at the Wade Boggs auto his picture is so small you can’t recognize him. Lastly the autos take up way to much space and leave the cards layout broken and not blending. Topps should do a way better job.
You are right on the money – those names are ridiculous. “Sultan of Slug?” Better than “of slugs” I guess. “Aging Gracefully?” Borderline insulting.
Who comes up with this stuff?
Cant afford it.. Never Could .. Never Will.. So it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other what they look like. Same with Triple Threads.
Looks like they used a swatch of Cher’s panties to encircle the Ruth relics card. Makes you dizzy looking at it, much like Cher’s face.
Wow some of this is pure crap:
http://cgi.ebay.com/2010-TOPPS-STERLING-FRENCHY-BORDAGARAY-SP-CUT-AUTO-1-1-/150523781424?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item230beaa130#ht_3268wt_669
I mean most of the first name is missing. Why make a card of this, can’t they just make a redemption or something?