Football '13 Week 3: Shiny!

       I have my snacks and adult beverages.  I have the Saints and Giants (and Mets) all on at 1pm.  I am still in my pajamas and there is a beautiful first-day-of-autumn breeze blowing through my living room.  Life is pretty good right now.  This is easily one of my favorite kinds of days, so let's look at my favorite kind of cards...shiny!!!

2012 Bowman Platinum:

These are the rare cards that actually scan better than they look in real life.  Pay no attention to the man in the lower right hand corner (gotta get a replacement for that one).

2001 Topps Archive Reserves:

This set was done in the early aughts faux-vintage retro reprint phase of card companies.  They did two years of baseball, they only did one year of football.  You don't see the name Elroy a lot anymore - I think the Jetsons killed it - and he also had one of the best nicknames ever, Crazy Legs. 

2005 Topps Chrome Gold inserts:

I have no idea if they did refractor versions of these cards, but it would hardly matter.  They are very dynamic all on their own.  Vegas baby, Vegas!  This is the rare page with a mix of current and retro players.

2000 Bowman Reserve:

This is an all refractor type set that is the exact opposite of the Bowman Platinum above; no scan I have ever seen does these justice.  It's like they put extra rainbow shininess in the mixture before they went to press.

1998 Topps Gold Label:

There are a million variations to these; I am pretty sure that was their only reason to exist.  It's like they all sat around in Topps HQ and said "hey, how infuriating can we make a set to collect?" and came up with these beauties.   Of course, they then outdid themselves and came up with these, though they never did that design in football.  I have no idea if that is a good thing or not.

1994 Topps Football Special Effects:

I always found these parallels fascinating.  It features a shiny bit that I had never seen before or since.  The player name is done in silver glowing letters and there is a plastic sheen of little checkerboard lens flares over the whole thing.  They never did this to any other set and I wonder why (update: I just looked it up and they also did it to Premiere Hockey that year).  Maybe it wasn't received well?  Maybe it was too expensive to do?  It is a shame, because it looks damn cool. I once considered building the whole set of these, but decided a single page would more than suffice.

1993 Stadium Club:

Look! Little tiny squares of shiny.  Remember when little tiny squares of shiny were reason to get excited?  Now little squares of fabric don't even get people excited.

1998 SPx:

Die Cut! Shiny! Holograms! So 1990's, it hurts.

1996 SP:

This is a great example of a set that is deceptively shiny.  There is no extra foil or refraction or anything else going on, but the texture of the borders and the darkened backgrounds make everything stand out a little extra.

1994 Upper Deck Electric parallels:

It's electric, boogie woogie woogie!!!

1991 Upper Deck Game Breakers:

This is the entire nine card set -- I love it when that happens.  These are nothing but shiny.  Did Upper Deck fall in love with holograms in the early 90's or what?  My scanner does a pretty good job with these.

1998 eX football:

Talk about a 90's card maker's wet dream...half shiny, half clear plastic.

1998 Fleer Brilliants Blue parallel:

With a name like "Brilliant" you think it would be a lot shinier.  The blue parallel at least adds a little interest to the background, the regular issue was just flat silver.  I'm not sure why I included this page.

1998 Flair Showcase:

Unlike those lame Brilliants above, these are so well done.  The background is in one solid shiny muted color and it makes the foreground picture pop.  Throw in the simple design elements and font and you have well hell of a good looking card.

2004 Press Pass Big Numbers inserts:

This is one of the first football pages I ever put together and it is exactly the way I made it nine years ago.  Larry Fitzgerald turned out to be a pretty good player, as did Will Smith (this one, not this one). The rest?  Very hit or miss, though it is a shame that Jarrett Payton (Walter's son) never got much of a chance.  I was really rooting for him.

2007 Score Atomic parallel:

On these, the shiny is done in a series vertical streaks.  They seem to have been influenced by the credits in the movie The Matrix.  With three games going with high interest now and none the rest of the day, maybe I should watch that, I mean, come on, anything is better than watching the Jets.