Triple Trouble.

       I miss breaking high end product.  Oh, I am well aware of my reasons for not doing it anymore (money, sanity, etc.) but that doesn't mean that every once in a while I don't crave the rush of dropping a few hundred dollars on a small shiny box of cards and the heart pounding anticipation of opening the thing.  For all its dangerous fun it is, in the end, merely dangerous.  The end game usually winds up being disappointment and despair and you can't keep chasing the card dragon without it stealing your soul.  But I digress.  My Bukowski-esque romanticizing aside, the one product I can't seem to leave behind is Topps Triple Threads.  I had great luck with the first two incarnations of this stuff and I guess it has never left me.  Even after some very lean pickings in the next couple attempts, it has its hooks in me and has not let go.

After an aborted attempt to join a case break of this year's Triple Threads, I decided to apply that money to some eBay purchases instead.  Not only did I succeed in getting the cards I wanted, I used my new found frugality to do it right (prepare for some humblebragging):

I bought a small lot of game used jerseys for the price of one Matt Harvey by waiting out a couple people on a late night auction.  Selling off the other two cards ended up paying for that Matt Harvey.  The ones numbered to 27 are the gold or sepia tone...it is hard to tell sometimes.  The nice big swatch and the fact that it is much shinier than my scan would indicate make that a tremendous card.  The real star and the card I really had to hold out to get was that Amazin' Triple.  The Triple relics can be real hit or miss as they have gotten very corny and odd in what the pieces spell out.  Here though, you see a classic that can't go wrong. The Mets have been "Amazin'" since 1962 and since this card features David Wright and the two great hopes for the future - Zack Wheeler and the aforementioned Matt Harvey - this was an absolute must have for me.  I really really wanted one that was numbered to /9 and very very shiny but the bidding got out of hand, so I had to settle for the slightly more muted version numbered to /36.

I truly don't care about the numbering as much as I care for the look of the card.  Case in point is that the parallel of the base I loved the most this year was also the highest numbered, the "amethyst" version, or as the laymen would call it, purple.  I am a sucker for purple, so I nailed down a nice lot that not only had three of my favorite players ever (see above) but also allowed me to make a page of current players:

All that blue and purple is jarringly contrasted with the orange of the Kung-Fu Panda in that first spot on the page (and to a lesser extent by Buster Posey in the middle).  Sometimes I just can't help myself. 

I also picked up a lot of base cards so I could make a page of retired players:

Yankees?  Braves??  Tom Glavine?!?!?  At times you are simply at the mercy of the lot you buy.  Aesthetically here, you get a nice George Brett powder blue uni breaking up a ton of old school flannel.  I think this page works well, even with Tom Glavine involved (never forgive, never forget).

Could I have blown a couple of C-notes and gotten my fix?  Sure.  But for a fraction of the cost, I got the cards I really wanted and some piece of mind that maybe as I grow older, I might even grow up.