Tom Seaver 2012 Topps Archives

Before I get to the juicy part of this post I will show you the 2012 Topps Baseball Archives card #18 of Hall of Famer Tom Seaver. This beauty of a card uses the 1954 Topps design. The 200 base cards of current and retired players have older designs as follows: Cards 1 - 50 use 1954 design, Cards 51 - 100 use 1971 design, Cards 101  - 150 use 1980 design and Cards 151 - 200 use 1984 design.

As a kid Tom Seaver was one of those players who I had a few cards of and would try to collect more of. I wasn't a big Mets fan but he was one of the All-Stars of the time so he was on my list of players to collect. Here is his 2012 Topps Baseball Archives Card it shows a youthful Tom (Much younger than I remember from my 1970s cards from back in the day):

 2012 Topps Baseball Archives 18 Tom Seaver Mets

1954 Design (Front and Back)

Now here is the fun part of this post. In a group box break on one of the forums I frequent, the 2012 Topps Archives was one box we broke, and it is a favorite product of this particular group. In this group break I had the Nationals and the Mets as my teams. Well we pulled a real One-Of-One not an Ebay 1/1 but a true 1-of-1. This beaut of a PRINTING PLATE.

2012 Topps Baseball Archives 18 Tom Seaver Mets

1954 Design - Magenta Printing Plate 1/1 (Front and Back)

Before I got this I had never had a printing plate, never seen one in person. I hated the idea since Hey it's a "manufactured 1/1" made only to promote the whole "one of one" thing. Plus why wasn't it a mirror image? Well I learned that the current printing process used for cards uses regular image plates, not mirror imaged ones. So yeah OK they are legit. Well after seeing it in person I kind of started liking it. Then I liked it even more and now am not a printing plate hater like I was. I am still a game used hater, manufactured patches hater and a Rip Card hater, but those are rants for a different post. I am now PPP (Pro Printing Plates).

Oh and that black dot on the right side to the left of Tom's head in the mini action pic unfortunately is something on the plate. At first I thought it was a speck of dust on  my scanner that got scanned, but I checked the plate and it is on it. Not sure if it is a particle of dust or another foreign object or a dent/surface scratch of some kind. There are a couple of tiny surface scratches that the scan didn't show.

I noticed via a Google search that the Cyan Printing Plate sold on Ebay in September for $25 bucks.  So two of the four plates have surfaced. I think it would be cool for someone to eventually have the full set of plates, but in the meantime I'm holding on to this one.