After Black Friday Box #3: 2012 Panini Cooperstown

Unlike the two previous boxes of Golden Age, I had never even opened a single pack of this product before. In fact, prior to this box, I only had a couple of singles that came courtesy of Nick, plus a couple of parallels that I have been able to find in dime boxes --- Oh, and one of the colorized short prints (also found in a dime box), which at the time was purchased by me, not even knowing that it was a short print. A case of ignorant bliss I suppose.

I haven't had the time to see how close I came to completing the base set yet (minus the SP's), but I'm guessing with the overabundance of inserts (see below), that I'm still in need of quite a few.

As per usual, a few of my favorites:

My two short prints:

I think the colorization done on these SP's looks really good, much better than the 2013 edition (next post). On a side note, I seem to be acquiring a lot of different Eddie Plank cards lately, not that I'm complaining, I'm just sayin'.

Now for the inserts, which as I mentioned above, might be a little too plentiful...and this is from someone who likes inserts. But when you're talking about a five card pack, and about 1/3 of the packs had two inserts in them, that's when it gets to be a bit much.

Also, a few of the insert sets seem to be a unnecessary or puzzling. Case in point are the Village inserts (not shown) which consist of contemporary shots in and around the town of Cooperstown itself. For a set that focuses entirely on the past, and more often than not...the distant past, I just don't understand why there is a set focusing on current images of the town. In keeping with the overall theme, they should have done a series of cards focusing on imagery from around the time the Hall of Fame museum opened, or even better yet, pre museum shots of the town.

That being said, there were plenty of the inserts that I did enjoy:

You can really tell the difference in the personalities of these two guys, just by looking at the side-by-side photo comparison.

These "Induction Year" cards come one per box and have some kind of wood veneer on the surface. Certainly no complaints in getting Ted Williams.

The "Voices of Summer" cards were such a great idea for an insert set, I just wish they would have done more.

These are by far my favorite inserts from this set. I think even non baseball fans would be able to appreciate these cards. They certainly could have made more of these as well.

I think I might try and complete this Bronze History set, counting the two I already had, that's 5 down and only 95 to go.

Moving on to the parallels:

If I had my way, you would get a few more than three of these crystal collection parallels per box, as it certainly wouldn't be hard to swap out a few of the inserts for a few more of these. In the picture I took it almost looks like three different types of parallels du to the lighting (or lack thereof). I even decided to scan these three to see if they would come out any better:

Honestly I don't really know if that looks any better or not. I guess it's up to you as the reader/viewer to decide.

And finally, my autograph:

Red Schoendienst might not be the biggest name on the checklist of signers, but I have absolutely no complaints about getting the signature of a fellow who has five rings and ten all-star game appearances to his name. And as an added plus, I didn't already own an autograph of his yet.

That's it on yet another box, tune in next time for the fourth and final installment, which will be a box of 2013 Panini Cooperstown.


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