Chaos and Kanji is the blog where I write about my adventures through Japan!

Want Lists are located here. NPB Baseball Want List is located here.

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Winning An Unfair Fight: 2008 Stadium Club

I present to you: Clayton Kershaw. This card is arguably the key card in the 2008 Stadium Club set. Max Scherzer is giving him a run for his money, though.

And it's mine, now. With that purchase, I now have a full set of 2008 Stadium Club! To be honest, my set is a bit of a Frankenset.

2008 Stadium Club is a 184 card set, but cards 101-150 have photo variations, making a full set 234 cards. But Joe DiMaggio was removed, so a full set is 233 cards. #151-184 are rookie autographs, like Kershaw above. Every third card #1-150 (3, 6, 9, 12, etc) is numbered to 999 copies, as are the photo variations. Rookie autographs were only found in hobby packs. Confused, yet?

There are several parallels. For non-autographed cards, First Day Issue Hobby are numbered to 599 copies, while Retail versions aren't serial-numbered and found one per pack. There are also blue, gold, and platinum Photographer's Proof parallels for all cards #1-184, numbered to 99 or less. 

Finding all of the variations and stars in regular base form was actually much more difficult than picking up parallels here and there. I especially relied heavily on retail First Day Issue cards for the /999 base cards and photo variations. There are even a couple Photographer's Proofs in there!

I'm definitely glad to knock this set off the list! I still need to finish a few Topps throwback sets. Perhaps those are my next focus. What set has been nearly impossible for you to finish?

Until next time...

12 comments:

  1. Great card!

    Yeah, I've completed this set, although the harder-to-come-by cards I settled mostly for first-day issues. This set took way too much thinking and that's never a good thing for a recreational hobby.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This set wasn't really made for set collectors from the get-go, but I think that companies should keep us in mind, at the very least. I've had to settle for parallels for a few sets. Odd that the "special" parallels are easier to get than the "regular" base cards.

      Delete
  2. Congrats! I'm working on this set too, down to just some SN (Kershaw variation the key one) and AU cards. Thankfully I got the Kershaw and Scherzer AU's before the prices skyrocketed. But this one is definitely in the near impossible category....so I started the football set too. Glutton for punishment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the Kershaw variation was the last card I got for the non-autographed set. I ended up finding one on eBay at a decent price. I wish I had really focused on this set about 10 years ago, when prices were much more reasonable. Good luck!

      Delete
  3. Yeah, toughie. I am working on this set too. I have to go through all my autos to see which ones I have (one day). I also want all of the variants.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had a lot of luck with COMC, but COMC is becoming less and less of a good source (ignoring their shipping issues as well).

      Delete
  4. This set sounds like a nightmare to build (I remember N.O. encountering these issues) regardless, that Kershaw auto is sweet! Congrats on completing the set.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! Yeah I saw his posts too. This set is a perfect example of how poorly Topps can know its market.

      Delete
  5. Awesome card. Congratulations on completing your set. When I was chasing a Scherzer rookie card I came across two non-autographed versions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm curious, now, if I bought any of this back in 2008. I didn't start collecting this set until 2011, but that was when I was already separated from most of my cards.

      Delete
  6. Congrats on completing the set!

    ReplyDelete