It's the Weekend!

Ah, the weekend.  This week has been a little nuts.  I finished up the old job Tuesday, spent Wednesday outlet shopping with Kate, and then started the new gig on Thursday.  It's a great work environment, and even though I have more on my plate than ever I came home with a lot more energy than usual the past two days.  So hopefully I can get back into the blogging spirit on a regular basis soon.

I've been on the prowl for a new addition to my collection to celebrate.  Nothing too crazy, but I'd love to add a Cal Ripken or Junior auto, two of my favorites growing up.  But I'm waiting for a card I absolutely love, since it will probably the only auto of theirs that ends up in my collection.  In the mean time, I won this bad boy on ebay about two weeks ago.  Kiner was a pretty consistent signer up until his death, but I think this is only the third autograph of his I own.  But pretty much any and every card that came out in 2001 holds a special place in my collecting nostalgia, and this is an excellent on card auto.

The Best of Friends

Just a quick reminder to enter my Opening Day contest if you haven't already.

Some of the most treasured parts of my collection are the cards I've received from other collectors.  Over the years, I've been lucky enough to meet some fantastic people through collecting, and have been the recipient of some extreme generosity.  No matter how big or small, the cards I've received as gifts mean a little extra to me.

After all, this hobby is a lot less enjoyable without someone to share it with.  And I don't think many people out there could appreciate the mind numbing monotony of the stack of dime cards or an autograph of a guy who played 3 games in the majors quite as well as the terrific online communities I'm a part of.

I received a box in the mail right as I was heading out the door Wednesday from one of my team collector buddies.  It was a heavy medium flat rate, and I figured it was worth running a couple minutes late to take a peek inside.

The box was stuffed with bags and bags of cards, and a beautiful Mitchell and Ness Clemente jersey.

As I started digging through the bags, I saw tons of cards I needed.  No small feat, as my want list seems to shrink with each weekend flea market trip.

But I must have opened the bags in the perfect order.  In the next to last bag, I came across the Freddy Sanchez Chrome press plate above, and this amazing Ralph Kiner bat card.  This is actually my first Kiner relic.  And better yet the photo features him in the awesome 1947 uniform, which I gush endlessly about.

 But the best was saved for last.  At the end of the final bag of cards I opened, there was a stack of about 25 autographs.  To most people, it just looks like a long list of nobodies.  But for a slightly obsessive team collector?  Pure gold.  Because of the sheer obscurity, a lot of the guys are tough autographs

 Better yet, there were quite a few signed and unsigned minor league team cards in the piles.  I love minor league sets, and have been trying to track down the teams sets for each level of Pirates affiliates whenever possible.  A lot of the late 90's and early 00's sets are tough to find.  The Pirates were lacking in big name prospects, so I'm guessing fewer sets sold than some of the clubs with top stars, and now even fewer surface today.

 But the big hitter is at the top of the post.  I had been hunting for Jose Bautista autographs for a while back around 2007 or 2008.  I was a big fan of Bautista's versatility on the diamond, and thought he deserved more of a shot on teams where playing time didn't always make a lot of sense.

 There was a time when the card could easily be had for $4 or $5.  But ever frugal Mark wanted to wait it out, and see if I could save a buck or two down the road.  I think you know how the Joey Bats story went from there.

 So until Wednesday, my lone Bautista auto was a blue refractor that is one of my favorite cards.  But I can't gush enough about how excited I am to have this card in my collection.

These cards will always have a special place in my collection for who they came from even more than what they are.  The relationships I've built in this hobby are what keep it fun for me.  Showing off scans of my latest (and lamest) purchases with people who can relate is a big part of why I have kept collecting for as long as I have.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and a happy Easter.  I'll be splitting the weekend between Kate's parents' on Saturday and mine on Sunday.  It spaces out the food coma, but also keeps me running around all weekend.  Hopefully I can get a couple posts scheduled before then.  The countdown to opening day begins!

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.

RIP, Ralph

I was a bit surprised to hear that Ralph Kiner had passed away while driving home from work yesterday.  I was going to post something, but decided to hold off until I was able to put something a little more in depth together.

Kiner's legacy with the Pirates is undoubtedly a complicated one.  For much of the 40's and 50's Ralph Kiner was the sole reason to purchase a ticket to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The saying goes that Forbes Field emptied out after Kiner's last at bat.  And a quick scroll through the Pirates records during those seasons shows why.

At no point in Pirate history has one player been so disproportionately important to a team.  But as Branch Rickey reminded the world, if you can finish in last with him, you can finish in last without him.

Injuries cut short his career, and terrible teams cut short his time in Pittsburgh.  But the 70 or so years after Kiner left Pittsburgh may be more interesting than the 7 he was here.

I've been told that Pittsburghers spoke of Kiner the way they do today of Clemente.  That player able to solely take over the game on the field and in the minds of fans, so far above his peers that his talent is undeniable.  And while he wasn't the well rounded superstar of Honus, or Bonds, or McCutchen he did something few men in Pittsburgh have done.  Hit baseballs really, really far.

But upon his death Kiner may be more well known by baseball fans as a broadcaster than as a player.  And certainly as a player for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The franchise did little to recognize Kiner during his lifetime.  While the likes of Kip Wells and Mike Gonzalez have made their way into bobblehead immortality, Kiner has not.  While Pirate greats encircle PNC Park in statue form, Kiner is relegated to a casting of his hands holding a bat...placed beneath the left field rotunda in a shadowed and out of the way spot that you would have to look twice to notice.

And while the Pirates did indeed retire Kiner's number 4 in 1987, the New York Mets, a team and city in which Kiner never played a single home game, elected him to the team's Hall of Fame in 1984.

Perhaps the Pirates will kick off the home opener with a touching video tribute to Ralph Kiner.  Perhaps his death will spark a campaign for his own statue.  Perhaps the franchise will finally acknowledge that the losing years can be just as important as the winning ones.

But whatever they do, it will be far too little and far, far too late in my eyes.  Ninety-one years should have been more than enough to recognize a player who meant so much to his team.

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.

Those Sets You Just...Forget About

One of the big changes that the Topps exclusive license was supposed to bring was a so called simplified market.  The argument, or so it went at the time, was that the multiple manufacturer system was simply cranking out too many products for collectors to keep up with.  I won't revisit the whole Topps' monopoly thing (though you can read my thoughts on it here and here).  But I can say with absolute certainty that that very thing which eliminating manufacturers was supposed to stop now happens on a more frequent basis, despite what I would consider a more active hobby involvement than where I was in 2005 or 2006.

Take for example Gypsy Queen.  The set apparently released recently, and I've seen a smattering of blog posts to that effect over the last few days.

The only problem with that?  I barely have any of the cards from last year's Gypsy Queen.

My spreadsheet shows 20 card for last year's Gypsy Qyeen set.  I have no idea how many cards are available, but between the numerous parallels, short prints, and inserts/relics, I'd imagine it's a number much larger than the 20 I have.  And over half of that total have been added over the past two months at card shows.  In fact, I believe all but the base set and a Neil Walker auto are recent additions.

And the strange thing is that doesn't really bother me.  The 2011 Diamond Anniversary parallel set I still haven't finished off?  Topps Gold team sets?  Count me as downright agitated.  Last year's Gold foil parallels?  I shaln't rest until the team set is complete.  But for someone who is at times too concerned with his total card count (9333 unique cards as of this writing) and has a serious addiction to otherwise unexciting colored bordered parallels, the Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen released just don't even appear on my radar.

I fully understand the fact that there are a lot of set collectors who go ga-ga over those releases every year.  And honestly I don't see enough of the sets to say one way or another what constitutes a "good" year or bad year for the product.  I'm not concerned about the set's overall composition, or how much "value" is in each box.  All I care about is the dozen or so cards featuring guys in black and gold.  And from one year to the next, I notice little change both in the card's overall look, the checklist, or the drabness of the parallels.

It's a bit of a one trick pony to me: take a short checklist comprised almost entirely of superstars and semistars, add some photoshop effects, and print it on some nice cardstock.  Gotcha.

If I come across any 2013 Gypsy Queen Pirate cards at a show next weekend, I will undoubtedly buy them.  I'd be lying to say otherwise.  But it isn't a set I particularly take notice of, and it's not a set I actively seek out.  And when there are only a handful of released each year in the current hobby landscape, the fact that one can go by without even creating so much as a blip on the radar is kind of disappointing. 

How has the hobby changed since you started collecting?

Sometimes perspective can make all the difference.  For each of us, our relationship to the hobby informs and shapes the ways we collect.  Obviously factors such as budget, interests, favorite team, etc play a large role as well.  But while skimming over some cards on COMC today, I started came across "the card."

The Card.  Everybody who collected as a kid has one.  It was the white whale, long before the term was hijacked by mediocre, overpriced Topps products or thrown around haphazardly on message boards.  For some, it is the mystical card just beyond your grasp - an 89 Griffey or 52 Mantle that eluded you in packs as a kid - or that card that taunted you each week in the card shop showcase.

And perspective ultimately makes all the difference. Whether that elusive card is a high grade copy of a vintage Topps card or a modern insert, or somewhere in between, is likely dependent upon your age and what the hobby looked like at that time.  I've already discussed spearing my white whale.  Instead, the card that caught my eye years ago, but been long forgotten since.

Growing up in the late 90's/early 2000's, I would spend nights combing Beckett, gazing at the various inserts and parallels each set had to offer in their grainy, black and white photocopy on the page as I agonized over which packs I would buy on the next trip to the local card shop.  Though numbered inserts were plentiful in sets, my packs never seemed to yield anything drool-worthy, and the pricetags on the inserts in dealer showcases in the store and at card shows put these most desired cards beyond the reach of my pre-teen budget (and even my wily ability to whine my parents into submission)

But there on COMC, staring at me for a mere dollar was the zenith of my pre-teen cardboard bliss.



The epitome of cool, the 1999 Leaf R&S Ticket Masters insert featured the Steelers two biggest stars, including my favorite player Kordell Stewart.  I loved the ticket stub esque design, and in what was the epitome of awesome to my 11 year old brain, IT WAS SERIAL NUMBERED, stamped in majestic gold leaf /2500.

Breathe, Mark.  As I said...perspective.

Over the last few years, I've been able to add many of the cards that once seemed impossible.  The cards I could never afford, or never find, suddenly were right in front of me at bottom dollar prices as the collecting world tuned its attention towards the newest, shiniest, craze.

 As a kid, cards like this seemed a million miles away.  They were those cards at a show I could do little more than dream about.  As the hobby shifted towards autographs and memorabilia, the cards I fancied most still seemed impossible.  A dealer knew a friend who knows a guy who might have a copy.  Stop back next show and I'll see what I can do.  It was the impossible dream.
As the hobby shifted and I discovered the joys of ebay, my perspective was again altered.  I could find common autos for $3 or $4?  A Brian Giles auto for $10? 

But again, it's all about perspective.  Now I bristle at the idea of playing more than $1 or $2 for common autos, and I buy up the likes of Giles, Kendall, or Jason Bay for a mere fraction of what would once have constituted a good deal.  For what one tantalizing, taunting Kordell Stewart insert would have cost pre-teen me in 1999, I can now have an entire stack of them shipped to my door.  So I don't mind if others prefer to chase shiny prospects, gamble on the next big thing.  I'm reliving, or maybe more accurately living, my childhood collecting dreams, filling holes and bringing back memories.




And for my money, you can't beat that.