Anyways... in the spirit of the holiday, today's post features some green foil. Last month, I purchased a complete set of 1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs off of eBay for a little under $75 ($65 + $3.49 shipping + $6.01 tax = $74.50). There are six cards in the set. According to BaseballCardPedia, Fleer inserted redemption cards at a rate of one per twenty boxes. If you were fortunate enough to pull one of these cards, you would receive an autograph of the player depicted on the redemption card.
The autographed cards are almost identical to the regular base card with a few minor differences...
1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs #NNO Alex Ochoa
#1 The autographed cards obviously feature an autograph on the front of the card.
1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs #NNO Todd Walker
#2 The autographed cards feature green foil along the nameplate and the Metal logo.
1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs #NNO Todd Hollandsworth
#3 And the card number on the back is replaced by the words "Certified Emerald Autographed Card".
There are a variety of reasons I love this set. They're part of a redemption program where the cards were hard signed and were reasonably tough to acquire. Plus the idea of trying to build this set back in 1997 when eBay was still in its infancy is pretty cool.
But there is one huge flaw in this card's design. Can you spot it?
1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs #NNO Darin Erstad
Maybe I should rephrase the question. Can you spot the signature?
If you couldn't, I don't blame you. I had to tilt the Erstad at an angle to see his signature. It totally blends in with the metallic background. The other signatures are a little better, but they're still bad.
In regards to the checklist, all of these guys were either top prospects, high draft picks, or both. And with the exception of Alex Ochoa, each of these guys played at least twelve seasons in The Bigs. Ochoa played eight seasons with six MLB teams... and actually had decent career numbers.
The two biggest names on the checklist are Scott Rolen and Alex Rodriguez:
1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs #NNO Scott Rolen
I actually discovered this set while looking for a cheap Rolen signature.
1997 Fleer Metal Emerald Autographs #NNO Alex Rodriguez
Both of these guys are candidates for Cooperstown, but we'll have to wait and see when or if they ever receive the call.
Well that's about it for today. If everything is going according to plan, my corned beef should be ready in the next hour or so at the time this post is published. It's the recipe my mother gave me years ago, but honestly... it'll never taste the same as hers.
What about you?
Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Any annual traditions?
Happy St. Patrick's Day and sayonara!
12 comments:
Super nice cards! Strange group of players, maybe? Were any other those guys other than Rolen and Rodriguez known? The signatures are really hard to spot. I think my only tradition is to drink a Guinness.
For my Uncle he (had) a Jewish friend for most of life whose Temple sold Kosher corned beef sandwiches as a fund raiser every year on this day, and I always picked them up for him. But alas they cancelled yesterday in respect of the current environment.
I have to say thats probably the worst idea for autographed cards I've ever seen.
Oh and yes, we had corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and green/yellow jello. Family tradition.
I have the Hollandsworth autograph and I thought it was an in-person auto all this time because it looks so shoddy. I'm going to have to take a look at it.
The only time I've celebrated St. Patrick's Day is when I was in college dating an Irish girl. ... I don't like Irish food at all.
Whoa, I didn't know Metal had autographs!
I'm drinking a beer right now. But I'm half Irish and don't care for Irish food. But I do love Shamrock Shakes!
I never much cared about St. Patrick's Day. I do like corned beef, though...and I, too, miss my mother's cooking.
The corned beef that mom made once a year was great, but the cabbage made the house smell awful for days.
I never did anything for St. Patty’s day. But some boiled cabbage really sounds good right now.
My wife made shamrock shakes. Kids loved them. Not any Irish in my blood, so any sort of celebration is just more fun than anything else. Cannot do corned beef and cabbage.
I love corned beef but other than that I don't pay much attention to St. Patrick's Day. Also, can't say I knew there were autograph inserts in Metal Universe sets before now.
peter k steinberg - back in 1997, i feel like all of them were known. ochoa is the only guy who i don't remember, but maybe there's a mets fan out there with a little more info. as for guinness... my friend's recipe for corned beef uses a pint. my mom's doesn't though
johnnys trading spot - yeah, i'm sure a lot of st. patrick's day celebrations were cancelled. but those corned beef sandwiches sound delicious. if i could find bread around here, i'd make some with my leftovers.
the angels in order - yeah. but i don't fault fleer. it was in the early stages of certified autographed cards and it doesn't look like they repeated that mistake. in fact some of the best late 90's autographs came from their products. oh man... i should have made jello. that sounds so delicious during this shelter in place. cabbage is the one thing i leave out of my mom's recipe.
night owl - how about baileys irish cream? i'm not exactly sure if i like irish food or not. but i love corned beef. corned beef sandwiches and corned beef hash are amazing.
the lost collector - lol. i think fleer realized sharpie doesn't stand out to well on metallic backgrounds. but maybe if they had used a silver sharpie or paint pens instead. i honestly don't know what qualifies as irish food... but i like baileys with coffee... and corned beef.
brett alan - i think the next time i'm with my students (hopefully this school year), i'll have a discussion of things we appreciate... and i'll make sure to talk about my mom's cooking. i told her how much i appreciated her cooking 100's of times as an adult... but i'm not sure i told her it enough as a kid.
runforekelloggs - i know. i'm not a fan of cabbage, so i leave it out of her recipe.
sumomenkoman - you never wore green to school? lol. the girls must have loved pinching you. i made my corned beef today... but unfortunately i didn't add cabbage. just potatoes, carrots, and onions.
the snorting bull - shamrock shakes sounds amazing. maybe i'll sneak out tomorrow and hit up a mcdonald's drive thru and see if they're still serving them.
nick - i think fleer figured out that the signatures don't stand out very well on the foil backgrounds. but i'm thinking that they just needed to experiment with different pens.
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