I'll be honest, I find it difficult to keep up with the various baseball card releases lately. It seems that Topps/Fanatics has made it a point to make knowing what sets are coming out as difficult and obtuse as possible. Some sets are retail only, others are hobby only, and now, plenty are only available on Topps' website (and almost always only for a very limited window of time).
One such recent release that I haven't seen anyone on the blogs talk about yet is the 2025 Topps Shoebox Treasures by Andy Friedman set. This 100-card base set features all original paintings by Andy Friedman (here's his Instagram). Each painting mimics a famous Topps baseball card (and because it's a modern Topps set, there are also a million different parallels to track down for each card).
The set ended up on my radar simply because Barry Larkin is part of the 100-card checklist. I ended up perusing eBay to see what his card looked like (no surprise it's based on the 1987 Topps design). While on eBay, I found this "Showbox Stamp" parallel #/99 for a decent price, so I bit the bullet and bought yet another version of Barry's iconic '87 Topps card.
I do like the back of the card, especially the three different Reds' logos near the bottom.
Now, I will fully admit that Friedman's style isn't for everyone. Heck, I don't even know if it's for me...But I do think I might try to find a few of the other Barry Larkin parallels from the set. The boxes are going for stupidly high prices, but singles seem to be (mostly) cheap. On the bright side, I was able to snag a full box of 2025 Topps Showbox Treasures, which I plan to use for a future Patreon group break!
Comments
Post a Comment