2014 TOPPS RED HOT FOIL DANIEL MURPHY
This week for your consideration we have a 2014 Topps Daniel Murphy red-wedding edition.
OK, call off your lawyers, George R.R. Martin– the official name of this card is actually red hot foil, and it is one of a whopping 13 parallel versions of the 2014 Topps base set.
These cards come in blue, red, purple, green, yellow, red hot foil, gold, camouflage, black, pink, clear, and platinum, along with unique cyan, magenta, yellow, and black printing plates for each card in the set.
Part of the game plan for Topps in producing all of these parallel versions is to drive sales at specific retailers– for example, the blue cards are available only at Wal-Mart, while the basic reds are exclusive to Target.
(And here’s your tip of the week: The purple cards can be found solely in Toys ‘R Us packs, which are relatively hard to track down. If you pull a purple Puig or Jeter, you can probably turn around and sell it for $30-$50. But act fast, because the market for these parallels tends to soften exponentially with time.)
It’s kind of ironic that there are so many different colors of the same Murphy card in the set, because the real Murphy is nothing but a solid black-and-white ballplayer: hits for decent average, and drives in a fair amount of runs; somehow stole 23 bases in 26 attempts last year; fields routine grounders with the grace of a fish riding a bicycle…
I can’t speak for Target but the displays for baseball cards at Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us always leave a lot to be desired. It’s like they can’t figure out who they are marketing/displaying for – so they put them at kid height but do absolutely nothing to entice a kid to actually want to pick up a pack. I’ve seen adults poking around these sections but never a kid.
The card displays at Target and Wal-Mart are maintained by third-party companies– I assume there’s some sort of profit sharing going on between them and the retailers. The Target display here in VA is Wonka-esque– a huge variety of ever-changing stock. Wal-Mart sucks, to paraphrase Rain Man…
Many of those “poking” adults are unfortunately pack searchers, a nefarious breed of mouth-breathing ass cracks who squeeze all of the individual packs looking for thicker game-used cards.
This post is highly insulting! I have seen a fish ride a bicycle, sir, and I can tell you this, the grace with which that small mouth bass strode down the lane brought tears to my eyes. Keep that in mind the next time you want to insult the chicken of the sea. Good day!!
Your’s Truly,
Lord Sterling Mets
This very same Al Green/Talking Heads loving bass, no doubt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m80jt6bm6ZA
The less adults poking around the baseball packs, the better. More for us educated minority.
[…] So here’s the pitch: identify this Met with the sad and soulful spring-training eyes, and you’ll win a 2014 Topps Matt Harvey yellow variation. […]