The Value of a Dollar

There's no question about it.  I'm a bargain shopper.  And that applies in spades when it comes to vintage cards.  The great thing about large shows is that they tend to draw dealers from across the country, which will knock prices down to about their bottom basement price.  The Robert Morris show has done wonders for my vintage team sets over the past few years.  The sheer selection has allowed me to knock out just about every common, with only superstars like Clemente and Stargell remaining from their early sets and those pesky short printed high numbers.

I actually didn't do as well on vintage this year as in the past.  That certainly had a lot to do with the influx of modern dealers.  Last year, I spent a lot of time digging through vintage boxes simply because there...wasn't anything else to look through.  But with more modern this year, most of my box digging was centered around the more recent stuff.  And the vintage bins I did look through mostly just had the same common cards I already had priced at $1 or $2.

But I was going through one dealer's $.25 box.  A lot was more or less junk - late 80's star commons.  A few serial numbered cards.  Lots of 70's commons.  And...half a dozen Pirate cards I needed.  Wait, huh?

The four cards above are definitely of the well-loved variety.  But at just a quarter a piece, they are welcomed placeholders that cross a card off my needs list, and can always be upgraded if a better copy ever presents itself at a great price.  And that's just what I did with the Rice RC.  I had picked up a really, really, really beat up copy off COMC for $.65 as a set filler.  While this copy isn't close to mint, it's a major upgrade in eye appeal at less than half the price.  Just ignore the crop job at the bottom, which is just a result of my scanner being a jerk

I'm always a little amazed how many great looking cards can be found in discount bins.  I had no idea this card even existed, but was thrilled to find a Quasar card of former Steeler and Mountaineer Amos Zereoue.  The design was actually reused in UD's Fleer Retro product, and there is a Geno Smith version I still need to track down.  Now the big question becomes which binder this goes into.

And at a buck each, I was thrilled to find two cards that had been sitting in my COMC watchlist forever, but priced around $5.

This Lemieux/Bradshaw just became one of my favorite cards in my collection, featuring two of Pittsburgh's greatest set in front of a beautiful painted skyline.  How much better can it get?

There just aren't any avenues that provide the kind of bang for your buck that card shows do.  I love COMC.  I love still buy on ebay.  And sites like Sportlots and Justcommons are great.  But there is a degree of maximizing profits that can be avoided at a show.  Most of the dime and quarter boxes I dig through are the leftovers from large deals that were long ago into the black for the dealer.  Anything else they sell out of their inventory is just icing on the cake.  And that always seems to equal great finds for my collections, and is far less irritating than the COMC seller willing to sit for years and years on a card priced well above what anyone is willing to pay, hoping just to find that one person willing to overpay someday.

I don't care how overdone Bowman is, or how watered down the checklist is.  A gold refractor of a Pirate is just too nice looking not to own for $1, even if the player will probably never hit AA.

Or to find oddball sets, like these Cooperstown Orange parallels that were only available in retail.

Or these Pinnacle Artist Proof cards.  This is apparently the blue version, which I didn't even know existed.  And I think I paid 20 times more attention to the set than the rest of the hobby did.  Again, I'd guess it was a retail exclusive.  But I honestly have no clue, and didn't find any info online.  Anyone have the inside scoop?

There's nothing that beats finding a big stack of cards from a dealer, and when all the dollar and quarter cards are counted up discovering that you just nabbed a great stack of cardboard you'd be hardpressed to even find elsewhere for less than the cost of a fast food lunch.  Long live the card show!

I Need More Wall Space

After another month long disappearance, I'm back to blog land.  And this time finally with a renewed interest in collecting and (hopefully) cards.  Flea market season seems to have brought out the best in me.  But I do feel pretty crappy that I disappeared before I got to show off the best pickups from the big Robert Morris show, including my Pirate card additions and two awesome framed pieces.

In the time since I went away, I have found some really amazing pieces at flea markets.  As my card buying as tapered off, my appreciation for other Pirates memorabilia has picked up steam.  The down side?  Wall space.  Namely my lack of it.  Most of the wall space in our current apartment is already accounted for.  We're looking to move later this year, possibly into our first house.  The plus?  Wall space and finally a man cave of my own.  The down side?  Makes putting new stuff up on these walls kind of tiresome when you just hope to take stuff down in a few months.

But boy will I have an awesome basement one of these days...

This was a pickup from the RMU show, and is probably tied for being my second favorite addition from the show with this piece.

It looks like the print came from the Pirates 100th anniversary in 1987, and aside from the somewhat questionable inclusion of Tony Pena captures all the Pirates greats to that point.  I might take slight issue with the size of Clemente in comparison to Pena, Stargell, and Maz.  But otherwise the colors on this print really stand out, and the blue/red and black/gold color schemes create some interesting contrast.

I'm a history junkie, and I think there's something that really attracts me to pieces that acknowledge a lengthy span of history.  One of the things I love about the Bucs is that their history largely parallels the rise of the city of Pittsburgh.  To fit all those eras and players into one space is just really interesting to me.

Now I just need to find somewhere to hang it...

The Big Show Pickups, Part II

The Pirates 1925 World Series poster I posted earlier today was a huge pickup, and the only piece of pre-war memorabilia in my collection.  But it's a little lacking in the color department.  Fortunately for my future wall space, the remainder of my pickups make up for that.

I'll let the picture speak for itself.  This was one of three items I picked up that weren't professionally framed.  Details on the piece have been hard to come by.  Todd had no idea where he found his copy, and online searches have been fruitless.  But I assume the lithograph is some kind of all-time team.  The players featured span all 8 field positions, a manager, and 3 pitchers - lefty and righty starter and fireman Roy Face.

From left to right starting in the back row: Danny Murtaugh, Harvey Haddix, Roy Face, Vern Law, Honus Waner, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente  Front row: Ralph Kiner, Manny Sanguillen, Paul Waner?, Pie Traynor?, Bill Mazeroski

The colors immediately caught my eye, and I love the span of history covered on the piece.  The most recent player is Pops, who retired in 1982, so I imagine the piece is from the mid-late 80's.  I assume anything more recent would have replaced Sanguillen with Jason Kendall, or included Barry Bonds. 

The lithograph reminds me of a mural located under a bridge in downtown Pittsburgh.  The mural was right along my route that I walked almost daily during my first year of college when I would spend my down time reading and writing at the Point where the three rivers converge, so it brings back some nice memories for me.

At first glance I thought the background on the lithograph was some kind of desert scene.  But upon a closer look I realized it's actually the stands and backdrop of Forbes Field with Pitt's Cathedral of Learning towering near the center.

Better yet the litho cost about as much as a blaster.  I'd love to get it into a frame immediately, but I'll probably hold off until I can get it professionally framed and matted.  But I can guarantee this will be a centerpiece of my Pirates display for a long time to come.

I'll Never Rip You, But I Love You Anyway

I don't think I'm alone in saying that the products that I ripped most often are ones that continue to have a special place in my collecting heart.  The short list includes 2000 Topps, 2001 Donruss, 1995 Topps, and 2002 Fleer.  Any chance I get to add some of the tougher to find Pirate cards - or really any rarer cards - from those sets, I pounce.

During my wax ripping days, I opened many a pack hoping to hit a Pirate Stat Line card, or Clemente/Guerrero insert out of 2000 Topps.  But luck never shined in my favor.  So to snag those cards later at less than the price of a pack?  Sign me up.

And that's the thing.  The price of a pack.

See, my wax ripping days pretty much died out around 2005.  By 2007, I was wax free.  I'm not one of those self-righteous waxaholics anonymous.  I don't look down upon the wax rippers - after all, that's how I get my team collector fix.  But my collecting life is a lot more enjoyable with wax out of the picture.

Right about the time that I quit wax cold turkey, pack prices started to hit crazy places.  In our hit driven hobby landscape, the pack is a notion of days gone by for many products.  Now you get a box - with some hits.  Base cards?  Nah.  Foil wrapper?  Who needs it.  After all, guys buy by the case anyway. 

And that is where being a team collector is tricky.  See, I still want the cards coming out of these ultra high end products.  I need 'em.  But where to find them?  Ebay is great for the hits.  But what about the products that still have those outdated base card things?

That becomes a more difficult question.  High end pack busting types aren't usually the guys writing blogs or sending out trade packages full of much needed 1983 Donruss cards.  And I'm not about to shell out $3 for some numbered base card.  So I sit back.  And hope.

I can assuredly say that I will never rip a pack of Triple Threads.  Or Five Star.  Or anything else that is loaded with crazy hit cards, and $2 duds. I'm just not a gambler.  Never was, never will be.  Even when I was a wax ripper, I liked to play it safe...and cheap.  So those products with their base cards out of 1360 will never hold the special place in my heart that $2 packs of 2000 Topps do.  Or the pack within a pack of 2001 Donruss.  Or the incessant annoyance of 2002 Fleer, unable to complete a set of regular backs or gold backs no matter how many boxes I opened.  I'll never get a rush from tracking down a relatively common card from those sets simply because at some point in my collecting life it seemed like the coolest card on the planet.  So no, I'll never rip packs of you.  But I promise you a place in my collection just the same.

COMC Pickups: Odds and Ends

Shopping on COMC can be frustrating at times, since it seems clear some sellers have little to no interest in selling their cards at market prices, instead holding out for that one desperate buyer willing to overpay.  After attempting to negotiate with those sellers once or twice, they're unlikely to see my business again, even if they do eventually list something at a price I'm willing to pay.  But it's also a great place to grab up some nice (more common) inserts at great prices if you shop around.  The majority of these cards were around $.50, with the others costing only a hair more.

 I'm a sucker for early 00's parallels and inserts.  Maybe they can't hold a candle to the 90's in terms of design or collectibility, but they bring back some great collecting memories.  The Pennant Aggression is one of my favorite modern die cuts.  I pulled a Thurmon Munson from my solitary pack of 03 Fall Classic, but I'm much happier to have a Pirate from the set.

 Barnes was the Pirates 1st rounder last year in the supplementary round, and has looked impressive thus far in his short pro career.  The auto is on card, which was a nice surprise.

 This Pedro RC cost me a whopping $.75!  When he was first drafted, I paid $2 just for the base card.  Granted, Pedro's production has been less than impressive at times.  But it's still a great addition

 I love combo cards like this, though it would have been nice if Pops were in a matching jersey to Parker.

 Speaking of Pops, I swear I pulled a dozen of these cards from a box of Donruss Classics back in the day, but didn't add the Stargell until now.

 Talk about a clean design highlighting the player.  In this case, I love the vintage vest.

 This is an interesting card I only found out about semi-recently.  Jose Hernandez's time in Pittsburgh was far from memorable.  And for that reason, I had to have this card.  No idea where the jersey swatch came from though - perhaps a Brewers warmup jersey?

I love the look of these Prestigious Pros inserts, though the endless color combinations get a bit frustrating.  I believe this is the third of fourth version I have of the card, though they're all the higher numbered varieties.

Old Players, New Cards

I think many (most?) card collectors also appreciate the history of the game.  And while there have been some great sets dedicated to that history, but I've always found them lacking...something.  Topps Archives and Fleer Greats of the Game were beautiful sets, but their checklists were largely built around who could be included as autographs.  The early 90's Upper Deck All-Time Heroes sets lacked the extra hits of modern sets.  The various SP Cuts sets lacked exciting parallels.  The point here?  Something was always missing for my collecting tastes.

And then it happened.

Panini Cooperstown.


Admittedly, I still have a lot of ground to cover on the set.  But it seems to have just about everything: an amazing base checklist covering everyone but the Topps' exclusive players, great parallels, hits that make the big money collectors go wild. 

The parallels from this set seem to be pretty tough to track down - the Traynor is from COMC and the Kiner from ebay, both under a buck - but hopefully I'll be able to find a few more.  The b&w photos really seem to pop with the vibrantly colored parallel borders, making these some of my favorite cards in recent memory.

Unpacking the Sand

Perception can be a powerful thing.  It's shaky at best, and only becomes further skewed by time filtering and reshaping it like a series of panes of glass.

When someone talks about sandlot baseball, your mind probably goes to one of two places, depending on age and point of reference:  either the iconic baseball movie The Sandlot, capturing a romanticized pickup game among friends, or perhaps to your own experiences playing baseball during your childhood.

Either way, the story is probably pretty similar:  long lost friends, even more long lost baseballs, and a intensely informal game of baseball.

There's only one problem:  sandlot baseball was so much more complex than that simplified, romanticized notion that comes to mind.

If you're interested in the topic, check out baseball historian Rob Ruck's Sandlot Seasons (warning: it's an academic history book, so it can be a bit dense for the casual reader).  In short, the sandlot world was a complex semi-pro system which wasn't all that far removed from the major leagues. 

On a given evening, you could find a crowd of thousands gathered to watch two of the top mill league teams playing.  The sights and sounds, food for sale, and passion of the fans could equal or exceed what you might find at Forbes Field or Shibe Park.  And perhaps most surprising, the players might be one in the same. 

Baseball immortal Honus Wagner spent another half a dozen years playing for sandlot teams after retiring from Major League play.  Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers could be found playing sandlot games under not so well disguised pseudonyms to make a few extra dollars during an off day.  And countless former pro players and minor leaguers, black and white, would continue their careers on the sandlots years after their playing days ended.  Players for top teams could make a few hundred dollars a month (not adjusted for inflation), in addition to their daytime job.

As Ruck writes, "the game of baseball as played by the pros was much closer to nonprofessional ball, and players and spectators went back and forth between the two" (42).

It can be easy to get caught up in the numbers -hits, RBI, home run totals - and to think that tells the entire story of the game's history.  In a later post I'll get into the deceptiveness of so called hard data. 

But anyone who considers themselves a student of the game and a fan of its history could and should see a game that has changed significantly from the commercial behemoth we see today.  The game's evolution in and of itself is a fascinating topic.  But it's important not to lose sight of the people and realities behind those numbers, HoF plaques, and epic tales.