Cubs Lot #2, Part 3: The Serial Numbereds

Last week's first Cubs lot was a pretty manageable 217 cards. So much so, I was able to fit the scans and breakdown into one post. My second lot was nearly six times that size at about 1300 cards. But don't worry I'm only going to split it into four posts. Relics. Autographs. Serial Numbered. Everything else and the breakdown.

So you’ve seen the Relics. And you’ve seen the Autographs. Now on to the serial numbered cards.

I’ve got twenty-something cards today although that’s only about half of the serial numbered cards that came in the package. The other half are the now almost standard gold bordered Topps flagship parallels numbered to two thousand and whatever year it was. In their heyday, like the relics and autographs, serial numbered cards were given to up and coming to prospects and stars at the time. Nowadays, even middle relievers or backups get serial numbered cards if they make it into Topps flagship. Since most of these cards were late 1990’s – early 2000’s, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see how many of these guys we remember.

I did say the other half were gold parallels, but I did try to stick with just one per player (unless I couldn’t pick a favorite) so a few others may have been left out. The seller must have been a prospector because the numbered cards seemed to favor the rookies instead of the stars, although there were a few big names.

In no particular order, and again with minimal comments, here the scans.

The seller must have been one of those prospector collectors because the numbered cards tended to lean more towards the rookies than the stars, although several big names were included. There were three copies of this 2003 Fleer Avant Hee-Seop Choi, all limited to 699.

The only other duplicates in the lot were these Juan Cruz cards numbered out of 800.

You don't see too many numbered cards over 1000 anymore aside from the gold parallels but these prospects below fit the bill.

I've said it before, usually around the time a new flagship set comes out and we see how many different parallels there are, I'll sort of semi-seriously go after unnumbered parallels or any where there are more than 100 copies. Anything fewer than that and prices start going crazy, even for a team as bad as the Cubs. I'll take them in trade, but I won't necessarily seek them out. These next cards should have been picked up somewhere along the way and weren't. Until now.

And now a pair of low numbers that wouldn't have shown up in my collection if it weren't for this lot (or I stumbled across them in a dime box somewhere.

Finally, for today, I was out of the hobby when Moments & Milestones was released. This is my first Derrek Lee although I do have some of the Greg Maddux cards. But somebody thought this set was a good idea? Does anybody who was in the hobby then know if this went over well?

While I never have gone gaga over serial numbered cards, I'm pretty happy with these pickups. They weren't even mentioned in the auction listing for the lot that I recall. The focus was more on the overall quantity of cards and the autographs and relics. 

Tomorrow, I'll have the best of the rest (base and unnumbered inserts).