One Man's Thoughts on Sports Card Collecting

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Diamond Sparkle SPs - Finally An Answer!

Ever since I first saw one of these "Diamond Sparkle" short prints I've been wondering if the sparkle is something shiny or just part of the image.  I could never get an answer at my local card shop, so when I saw my current favorite Brewer had one of these cards I decided to go out and get the answer for myself.  The latest addition to my Brewer binder:


It only took me all year, but now I know that the sparkle doesn't actually sparkle.  This means I might have easily missed one while busting packs.  Great, now I'm going to have to go through all my Topps base cards from this year...

Previous Trivia Question:
 
What franchise became the first team to lose 10,000 games in 2007?
 
A: The Philadelphia Phillies recorded their 10,000th loss with a 10-2 drubbing by the Cardinals.  To be fair, the franchise has been around since 1883, so it shouldn't be surprising that they have lost that many games.
 
Today's Trivia Question:
 
Who delivered the famous "The Giants win the pennant!" radio call for Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World"?

5 comments:

  1. So what is the answer? Is it a totally normal looking card except for a little sparkle dot? Is it thicker or numbered differently?

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  2. As you said, it's a sparkle added by Topps. Which really is annoying because, take a look at Domonic Brown's card. His picture has a natural sparkle on his helmet. So I thought at first I has an SP, but then I saw the same picture used on other Topps cards of his and they also had the sparkle. The sparkle SP was a fun idea, but Topps should have marked the backs differently somehow so it would have been easy to tell the card was special.

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  3. The backs are marked differently. The code number is different for sparkles and regular base cards. I don't remember the exact codes, but I do remember when looking through my blasters before looking at the actual cards I did a quick scan through the code numbers on the back so I didn't miss anything.

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  4. @Angels - Heh, sorry, I suppose I could have been more clear when I said "the sparkle doesn't sparkle." :) There is no "shine" to it, it isn't foil or anything like that. It's just something added to the image that was then printed on the card, no different than the image of Hart himself. So if you're looking through the cards quickly you could easily miss it because there is nothing for light to reflect off of and catch your eye.

    @hiflew - thanks, I didn't know that!

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  5. Good luck. I hope you find one or two that you missed!

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