30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Thursday, August 8, 2019

Resisting Temptation

The past few weeks have been sort of a personal test.  I've been reading post after post after post about 2019 Stadium Club and each and every time I was tempted to hunt down some blasters.  Luckily I haven't seen any at my local Targets which is probably a sign from the Cardboard Gods.

However I've seen them on eBay for under $18 shipped and Fanatics had them for $15.99 (free shipping if you bought two or more).  Ultimately... I resisted temptation and purchased a complete set off of eBay for $40 shipped.

Even though I had seen plenty of singles on everyone's blogs... I was still blown away by the beauty of these cards.  The number of fantastic photographs made this become my all-time favorite Stadium Club set.

The original plan was to show off my ten favorite cards in this post.  I ended up scanning thirty-four different cards and there were easily another twenty I could have gone with.  Most of you know my animosity towards scanning, but the seventy-six minutes it took me to select and scan these cards were worth every minute.

Here's a gallery of my favorite 2019 Stadium Club cards:


Photographs featuring the backs of players seem to be gaining in popularity.  I'm not complaining.  Here are two more:


Los Angeles Dodgers fans hit the jackpot with this product.  It seemed like every Dodger card I stumbled across was pure awesomeness:



And who could forget this moment in World Series history:


I was also impressed with the number of well-cropped action shots like these:


Then there are the zoomed out action shots:


Plus a quartet of defensive gems:




Don't forget the legends:




And a few gorgeous rookie cards:



Plus my favorite rookie of them all:



Speaking of favorites, it was impossible for me to choose a favorite.  But I will say that I've narrowed it down to these three cards:




I probably could write a post on each of these cards, but I've invested way too much time on one post already, so I'll just wrap things up with the last five cards that caught my eye:




There you go.  Thirty-four fantastic cards from this year's Stadium Club set.  This set is definitely the front runner for my favorite set of the year.  And even if it isn't... I guarantee you won't see another post on this blog with thirty-four scans in 2019, so soak up the beauty and enjoy.  I know I did.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

16 comments:

SumoMenkoMan said...

Those are some wicked looking cards for sure!! Glad you picked up the entire set!

Sean said...

Those are amazing, when I see great photography like that on full bleed cards I wonder why anybody else even bothers making other sets of cards because they will never be as good as these ones.

Angus said...

Great purchase!

I think that I need to pick up the Jeff McNeil card, to join the awesome Brandon Nimmo card (that you didn't show) in my Mets Opening Day Starters binder. (The Nimmo card will be on my blog sometime soon.)

Nick Vossbrink said...

Oh damn $40 is a steal too (I got mine for $60). Going the complete set route is totally the right way to go with Stadium Club since it's not like you can limit yourself to just a couple blasters.

Billy Kingsley said...

I really like that coca cola bottle image. Way cool.

I personally find that buying a set takes most of the fun out of that set...and every time I do I usually end up missing something anyway.

The Snorting Bull said...

I felt like the photography was strong in this year's Stadium Club set. I like the Ozzie and Kaline cards a lot.

Matt said...

The only complete sets I have ever bought are late 90's ones

Fuji said...

sumomenkoman - i'm glad to. can't wait to eventually throw this set into a binder for easy viewing

sean - i actually like borders on my cards... but stadium club is the exception ;)

angus - the nimmo was on the cutting room floor

nick vossbrink - that's how i feel too. blasters contain 40 cards. even if they didn't have inserts and you had perfect collation, it'd take 7.5 blasters to build this set.

billy - it does take the fun out of it... but it's easier on the wallet

the snorting bull - in regards to photography alone, i think it's the best stadium club baseball set so far. i haven't sat down and compared it to the other ones i own, but i haven't been tempted to scan this many cards in a very long time

sport card collectors - i think i've bought sets from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, and 2010's. maybe if i'm fortunate enough... i'll buy a 50's set as well.

Matt said...

I just don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at these!

The Lost Collector said...

Great pick up, and ultimately probably smarter going this route than the blasters...although not as fun to open!

Henry Blanchette said...

Buying a complete Stadium Club set for $40 is 100% the best way to do it. Whether it's retail or hobby, the pack don't bring much bang for your buck.

arpsmith said...

I bought a complete set as well (and last year's Stadium Club too), I just couldn't see buying 2-3 hobby boxes and some blasters to get close. I took time to go through every card like you did but didn't go the scan and post route. I have gotten out of the posting routine for quite some time. One of these days I will start the old blog back up and showing off a set like this might be what inspires me to do so.

Collecting Cutch said...

Stadium Club always has the best photography, but for some reason they never use a great image of Cutch. It's kind of disappointing actually.

Hackenbush said...

Beautiful cards. You made the right choice.

Paul M said...

That Mookie Betts might be my favorite photo on a card ever.

Fuji said...

matt - me either ;)

the lost collector - definitely not as fun.

henry blanchette - totally agree with you.

arpsmith - it's a pretty sweet set, right? hope you come back to the keyboard soon... but at the same time if you're enjoying your cards more than blogging, that's not too bad either

collecting cutch - i think it's time to rank all of the sc photos of cutch ;)

hackenbush - thank you. i keep telling myself that over and over

paul m - i wonder if it was staged. regardless it's a classic for sure.