These Sets Are Cool: These Cards Are Actually Worth Money!

Back when Vlad Jr. was in diapers, I was getting reacquainted with relic cards. One thing I've wanted to do, and will do eventually, is to have a relic card for every type of thing ever used. That's a post for another day.

One relic set I came across while thumbing through my new 2004 Beckett Almanac (um, back in 2004) was the Currency Collection coin relics set from 2003 Topps Gallery. Each of the 25 cards has a coin from the player's home country, including Panama, Curacao, Venezuela, and Japan.

That was the first set I actually noticed having coin relics, and I quickly found a few more in the guide.

The 2003 Topps Gallery HOF set included another Currency Connection relic set, this time using vintage coins from 12 players' careers. For example, Babe Ruth has a 1916 dime, and Willie Mays has a 1958 penny. The design is similar to the 2003 Gallery set.

Before that, however, the 2000 Topps Subway Series set had a FanFare Tokens set of 36 cards, including a New York City Subway token. These were found one per complete set, and are probably the most common coin relic cards.

In 2003, Topps Tribute World Series had a Subway Fan Fare Tokens set as well, with twelve players featured with a subway token. All the players are from New York, and use New York City Subway tokens, just like the 2000 set.

That would be the end of money in cards until 2011, oddly.

2012 Topps Allen & Ginter had a non-sport insert set featuring international currency, and the 30-card relic set features cold hard cash from thirty different countries.

In 2013, Topps Gypsy Queen had a Hometown Currency relic parallel set for all 350 cards in the base set. This set was numbered to only 5 copies each, and featured state quarters or foreign currency, as applicable. Coco Crisp's card may be the best framing job I've ever seen.

In 2015, Topps' flagship set included coins from players' birth years, along with a stamp. These were also found in the Update set.

Some 2016 Topps retail factory sets included 5-yen Japanese coins in cards featuring Ichiro.

The 2016 Topps Series 2 set included a World Champion coin and stamp relic set.

Topps has also included coins in their Heritage line since 2011, when they included coins from 1962 paired with historic events and players. By 2013, they dropped the events and stuck with just the players.

Finally rounding out this post, Topps Heritage Minor League also started including coin relics in 2016.

Naturally, I am ignoring manufactured coin/medallion relics. What do you think of coin relics?

When I first came across the Topps Gallery coin relics, I added them to my want list, and for a decade they sat there without me making much progress on the set. So I finally took them off. However, they are cards that I'll gladly welcome in my type collection.

All images in the post came from COMC because I don't have access to my own cards. And I don't own a lot of cards from the sets I wanted to feature in this post.

Until next time!