Today’s item of the day is a 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights Jose Reyes sketch card. Sketch cards have been a popular insert in many of Topps’ recent non-sports offerings, so they’re bringing the idea to their baseball line with the Updates & Highlights and Stadium Club sets.
From the cards that are showing up on eBay, I’m not sure whether this is really such a great idea. Take this Jose Reyes card. Yes, it’s a piece of original artwork. Yes, there’s a certain sense of style to it. Yes, it’s even in color. But is it a sketch of Jose Reyes? I don’t really think so. Would I spend $24.99 to add it to my colletion? No, definitely not.
Now I’m not trying to pick on artist Paul Lempa. I would much rather own this Reyes card than this one of a mystery pitcher. Lempa, at least, put some effort into the design of his cards.
The sketch cards that have gone up for sale so far have not all been bad. This Johan Santana one by Dan Day is colorful, and the super-deformed representation of the Mets’ ace is recognizable. I’d actually like to own this Mr. Met sketch card that was apparently intended for the Stadium Club release, though I certainly don’t think it’s worth a three-figure pricetag.
If Topps wants to keep excitement over the sketch cards, I think they may want to spend a little more time reviewing the artists’ submissions before they put them into their product… or at least require the artists to include both names and drawings on the cards. 😀
PaulHadsall.com 
I found a cool one of Fisk that I was bidding on the other day. It ended up going for over $50, and I was the top bidder with under 5 minutes to go at ten. It was supposedly a 1/1, but I saw another one exactly like it at the same time. I still don’t know what to make of these cards.
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I think that some of the artists repeated the same pose on their sketch cards. I’ve seen multiple listings for similar Johan Santana cards.
I guess that they really are technically 1/1s, since they are each hand-drawn and therefore open to slight variation… but when I saw the sketch card announcement, I had thought there would be 1 sketch card of each person on the checklist… and that’s clearly not so.
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Hey, it is Paul Lempa here. Glad to see my artwork somewhere other than ebay. I appreciate your thoughts.
To give you some insight into the process, I was approached by Topps to do over 100 sketch cards for 2 baseball products. It was a daunting task, and after about 35 pencil portraits, I was inspired to do something different, to add some color and flair. Many times I had seen UD put out patch products that do not have the player’s likeness on the cards, but rather names and team logos. That was what I was drawing from for these designs. I did about twenty in all. One of my Rollins cards went for $43, which is not too shabby a price. My Ted WIlliams pencil sketch sold for $180. It is hard to appreciate all that went into working on these products when all you have to look at is one card. So I can understand your sentiments.
One other thing to consider is that Topps provided approved photos that artists were to draw from, this became a little tedious, and as you can see, there are a lot of repeat poses. If you have the time you can see most of my cards at the link below, and maybe appreciate the project more as a whole. Either way thanks for the pub!
http://client.wilsonrms.com/ad_serve/paul/
Thanks
Paul Lempa
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Paul,
Thank you for taking the time to share your other works and some insights into the process of creating the sketch cards.
I was expecting the Topps sketch cards to all feature traditional sketches, so that’s where my feelings were coming for on the Reyes card. Looking at the whole series of 20 or so that you did, I am impressed by the variety that you brought to the theme.
My favorites, however, were the more traditional ones you did of Endy Chavez making the catch in the 2006 NLCS and the Shea Stadium one.
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i just don’t see spending hundreds of dollars on some of these cards. I was a hardcore collector of baseball and football cards when I was a teen and I guess maybe it was the time period…but it was very rare to see cards from just a couple of years prior go for so much. Sure they are nice to have, but I think they are currently overvalued.
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