Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

When buying cards, I really make an effort to stick to my collections.  And it shouldn't be too hard, after all.  Over the last few years, my collections have gone from "Pirates.  The End." to include two college teams, the rest of Pittsburgh's pro sports, a few dozen mini collections and childhood player collections, and the catch-all of "it just looks cool."  And as some of you are probably aware, COMC can be kryptonite to the undisciplined collector.  Thaaat's me.

 And I don't regret it one bit.

My latest COMC haul included a couple dozen cards that fit here, there, and everywhere into my collection.  I mean how can any true collector pass up an autograph of an all-time great for $5?  Cheesy food issue and lacking logos aside, it's Frank freaking Robinson.

 And of course I'm thrilled to slowly plug away at my remaining needs for the 1998 Donruss Signature set.

 Or scoring a new find for my Pirate autograph collection, even if Ruben Mateo is wearing the wrong colors.

I read a comment on a card forum recently where someone said "people only collect cards from the past two years."  It might be a little hyperbolic, and obviously there are quite a few older modern cards that still carry tremendous value.  But for semistar and common autos, I'm always amazed some of the names that used to appear on the back of all-star jerseys, and can now be found in the dollar autograph box at shows.

Sure, guys like Henry Rodriguez or Juan Encarnacion were never superstars, but they were very good major league players.  I'm happy to have a good excuse to add their autograph to my collection.  And if it can be on a set as gorgeous as 98 Signature, all the better.

Speaking of great looking sets, I finally landed my first autograph from the 2000 Fleer GOTG set.

In the summer of 2000, I had just come back into the hobby.  The idea of a set that would yield multiple hits per box was still nuts, let alone retired stars.  And the cards just looked...so nice.  There was a card shop I would visit with my mom in the local mall.  I mostly bought lower end products geared towards kids - some Edge football, Fleer Impact, flagship Topps, and maybe the occasional splurge on a $3 pack.  But my mom enjoyed gambling on a big hit every once in a while, or maybe just on seeing my face light up from a great pull.  I remember we bought 3 packs from a half dead box of GOTG.  At $5 per pack, it seemed like a big gamble to my 12 year old brain.  With that money, I could have a mountain of Topps cards!

The packs were all duds.  I got a pile of base cards (some of which would become TTM autographs a few years later), but missed out on the elusive autograph from a beautiful and groundbreaking set.  When I saw this one on COMC with a $4 price tag, I couldn't pass it up.  A Seattle Pilots uniform would have been nice, but this is definitely one of my new favorite cards.  And if I ever hit the lottery, it's a set I'll be chasing down.