August is catch up month

I know it's uncouth to post about what you're going to be posting about in the near future, but when you have 58 posts in your draft folder you kinda have to do something to start clearing out the backlog. See, by announcing that I will be using the upcoming month to focus on flushing out those half written posts and finishing up some long neglected projects I set myself up for ridicule and mockery if I get distracted and decide to dedicate a couple of weeks to a card by card review of 1996 Collector's Choice. Hey, that might actually be some kick ass posts right there... NO! Must. Stay. Focused.

So expect to see some old favorites finished up in the next few weeks. Don't worry, I'll still post random crap, I'll just be posting all the random crap I never finished because I twitted off to some other random crap. I know metaposts suck and you just want to see the cards, but it's just something I gotta do to get myself motivated to get this blog back on the rails. Like the Actual Trading Card History posts, remember them? Where I'd take a card from Topps' Trading card History insert set like this one of Chin Lung Hu,

and post some interesting tidbits about the card set it is based off of? Like this card is based on the 1959 Topps set, which at 572 cards in the set was the the largest set to date from Topps. The cards looked like this:

and the backs were printed in red and green for the low numbered cards and red and black for the scarce high series numbered 507-572. The key rookiecard in the set is of Bob Gibson while the most expensive card as usual is the Mickey Mantle. The set was the first to include a Rookie Stars subset, although the biggest names to be included were minor stars like Bob Allison and Ron Fairly. There is also an All-Star subset in the high series, Several "Baseball Thrills" and multi-player combo cards peppered throughout the set and the famous card of Roy Campanella in his wheelchair.

The set is well known to recent collectors as the basis for the 2008 Topps Heritage design, which can be seen here:

Smaller than the original '59 set at 500 cards, Topps' annual Retro set copies the original it's based on very closely. It keeps the Rookie Stars, Baseball Thrills, combos and All Star subsets while adding modern innovations like short prints, inserts, autographed cards, relic cards, Heritage Chrome, and super short printed cards of Johan Santana and Jon Smoltz designed to suck a true collector's very soul right out of their body and chew it up into tiny little shattered pieces, leaving the loyal fan broken and weeping in despair. It's one of the best sets of the year!

See? It was easy and fun and I knocked the draft folder down to 57 posts. 56 actually, since this post was in draft while I was writing it. Here's looking to a good month.