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Stadium Club's photography fuels its unique feel in hobby
The annual photography showcase that is Stadium Club arrived from Topps this week with a new crop of highlight-reel cards among a meaty set that are gems simply because of the image that appears on them.
It's not about the design, it's not about the player, it's not about the team -- it's about the photography in 2018 Topps Stadium Club.
The Dansby Swanson gem you see above? It was captured by photographer Patrick Duffy for Getty Images on June 9 last season when Swanson scored the winning run against the Mets. He scored off a single by Rio Ruiz and the Braves won 3-2 in the ninth -- and now that moment has a run on cardboard. (Ironically, that was the game where The Freeze dominated this guy and introduced us all to his antics.)
It's not alone when it comes to gems in the 300-card set that includes even more high-quality non-traditional images among some short-prints.
NFL's dress code apparently applies on football cards, too
Ever have one of those times where you open a pack of cards, notice something weird and it bugs the crap out of you enough that you just have to drop everything you're doing and research your enigmatic find?
This is one of those times -- and you can blame T.J. Yeldon and his 2018 Score football card.
That exact card you can see above. Keep reading to see if you, too, can spot what I noticed.
When is an ironclad game-used NFL ball even cooler? When you can photo-match it to a big play ...
I've collected for decades -- both cardboard and beyond with plenty of autographs and game-used memorabilia in my stash -- but my biggest Black Friday find this year was one that I couldn't have topped if I had tried.
(Well, at least on my budget.)
It's my first full game-used NFL item and it comes with a pretty strong story but without my having to pay a premium price to go with it. How? It all came down to doing some research.
For a few months now I had been obsessing about finding a game-used NFL football for the heck of it -- a whim, really -- simply finding any ball on the cheap yet with some semblance of ironclad authentication. Better than that would be a ball with those attributes and also with some type of tie to what I collect, which really isn't any one particular NFL team or player but instead my school and many of its recent stars, the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Thanks to Fanatics' business deal with its hometown Jacksonville Jaguars, the ball you see above is a reality in my collection and it came on the cheap for what it really is. That's thanks in part to the Getty Images app that anyone can download on their phone -- it's a free tool that any game-used memorabilia collector must have.
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