Mmm, Shiny

I don't consider myself an impulsive person.  If anything, I'm probably too calculating when it comes to parting with money.  But shiny cardboard is my weakness.  And as I start to run out of Pirate cards I really, truly want that aren't higher priced vintage or rare cards, I've become susceptible to the temptation of the shiny.

For collectors of a certain age, refractors can't help but hold a special place of mystique.  They were the elusive rare cousin of the already super premium Chrome cards.

Chrome with magical rainbow powers?  Enter the shiny.

And as with all things in this hobby, what was once rare and expensive can now be had on the cheap.

So here and there I have been picking up select refractors.  Nothing crazy, but just some lower end cards that look...well, they look cool.

 Shiny, reprint, and wood grain?  Yes please.

 It's certainly a buyer's market.  I don't think any card in this post cost more than $.70.  And while there aren't exactly any cards that are going to set the world on fire, I think at one point or another all of these would have been relatively desirable.

 Then again, maybe that's the point.  The number of collectors has tailed off by leaps and bounds since 1990's levels.  And even cards that were once fairly rare are available in quantities that outpace the number of collectors who are actively searching for them today.

 Not that I mind.

 There are plenty of great looking cards out there, and I'm certainly happy to give them a good home.

 And I'll be the first to say that I didn't mind the days when refractors weren't one per pack.  For the better part of a decade, Topps put together some fantastic designs that look great on the refractor stock.

 So while I'm trying to cut back on impulse purchases this year, the draw of shiny cards is more than my willpower can handle.  And for minimal cost, I don't mind diverting a few bucks of my hobby dollars to add more like this to my collection.

Congrats, Junior

The whole "getting older" thing is starting to become a reality for me.  And I don't know that there are many markers that will make that more clear for me than The Kid heading into the Hall, a kid no more.

For me, Ken Griffey, Jr. was the player that made buying a pack of baseball cards worthwhile if you pulled his card.  Or enticing to buy in general just by having him on the packaging.

He was the epitome of cool, backwards baseball cap and effortless gallop.


While I fully admit the aura of childhood and ESPN catchphrases added to the hype of Griffey in my mind, I don't know that there is a player who I have watched play a game so effortlessly as he did.  And say what you will, but there is no player out there who I would rather see as the player to receive the highest percentage of Hall votes.  And it's a damn shame anyone out there thought him unworthy, for whatever their twisted personal cause.

He brought a degree of fun, excitement, and anticipation to a game where 90% of the action is inaction.  Everything about my own baseball playing was built to mimic my favorite player.  From my Junior model glove and bat to my left handed, upright stance.  But no matter how many hours I spent swinging, I could never find a swing as sweet as his.  I don't know that anyone ever will.  It's simply the way baseball was designed to be played.

It's strange to see two players I grew up watching not only reach the twilight of their careers but now take their place amongst the immortals, their playing days a memory just the way Clemente is to my father or Mays to my grandfather.  Players who played so effortlessly that it's almost impossible for the next generation to envision.  And maybe I'm lucky in that regard.  At least I'll have some youtube clips to back up my argument when my future kids claim that the next great player is the best thing to ever touch a field.  But of course I'll always be right.  And Junior will always be the answer.

Ending the Year in Style

I'll be settled in watching some college football all day today.  I've never been a big New Year's guy, but there probably aren't many who are happier to see 2015 turn into 2016 than this guy.  And while this year has been a roller coaster for my blogging, including a disappearing act for most of the year, let's send 2015 out in style.

In my COMC package from their Black Friday sales, I nabbed a couple big additions to my collection.  I was able to spear a couple cards that at one point topped my want list.  And there's no sweeter feeling than that.  But first up, I may have a addition to my favorite cards.

Vlad Guerrero has long been one of my favorite players.  I still vividly remember a game against the Expos where a friend and I were sitting in the seats directly behind home plate and being amazed by how big and athletic Vlad was up close.  At his prime, I don't know that there was any player more interesting to watch in my lifetime.  He could do it all.

I've been looking for a Vlad auto for a while, but haven't pulled the trigger.  But as I was browsing through a seller's sales, I saw this card for $8.  It was an impulse buy, but one I'm glad I made.  The sticker auto doesn't look so bad on the awesome foil stock, and I'm glad I was able to get a card that pictured Vlad in his Expos road uniform.

 But the real gem?  This guy.  This Sean Casey auto is his only picturing him as a Pirate, and is insanely hard to find.  Before my Pirate collection went full scale, I was working on just getting an auto of every player who had a Pirates certified auto.  And aside from a couple high priced Heritage Real One autos, I had them all.  Except this one.

And after years and years of looking, I had only seen one copy that was already in another Pirates collector's hands.  I nearly lost my mind when I saw a copy had been recently added to COMC during one of my routine mid-week searches.  Better yet, it was listed for a whopping $1.25.

I couldn't click buy fast enough.  It may not be a huge value card, but man does it feel good to spear a card that has been near the top of my want list for a full decade now.

 While the back story isn't nearly as compelling, I added a couple of these Japan Fractors.  They just look awesome.  End of story.

 And my first Santonio Holmes auto.  Now I just need another one to turn into an awesome custom idea I have.

 And for the third year in a row, Starling Marte autos continue to be very affordable on COMC.  I was able to snag this one for about $3.  On card and Prizm?  Yes, please.

 And despite the top side damage, this is just an awesome pickup for my collection.  My first tobacco card, and an awesome WVU card to add to my collection.  Amazingly I was able to add a card that is over 100 years old for a whopping $2.  The scan doesn't do the card justice - the gold on the card really pops in person, and has a slight fleck like quality to it.

 There is no such thing as a bad PMG.

 And more Marte!  This is, to date, my only card from the 2015 Tek release.  But I can only hope there will be many more to follow.

And last but not least, another former Most Wanted card.  At one point in 2008-9, this Pedro was at the top of my want list.  He was, after all, the future of the franchise and his Razor cards were his only autograph releases.  I think they actually still are.

These cards have seen some major swings (and misses) along Pedro's career.  I think this officially counts as buying low, though.  The card cost me about $3.  At various points, they were selling for well above that.  But so the hobby pendulum swings.

So here's to 2015.  It was a year I can't say I'll miss, but I did add some great new cards to my collection.  Hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year, and happy collecting in 2016!

Cards with Friends: Baltimore Team Collector Convention

There are few things in collecting that I find as rewarding as the chance to share my collection with other folks who share the same interests.  After all, that's why I write this blog.  That and because if I try to show Kate a custom card for the 100th time, or ask her what color font looks better, I may find myself sleeping on the couch one of these days.

I've been fortunate to meet some great people through card collecting.  The hobby tends to attract some of the less reputable (and sometimes stable) people I've met in my life, so I consider it a real accomplishment to have met so many great people through little pieces of cardboard with pictures of grown men.

I've mentioned a few times on the blog the group of Team Collectors I belong to.  It's a great group of team collectors who swap cards, do box and case breaks, and just chat about cards, sports, and life.  The group has been around for over a decade, and I've been fortunate enough to be a part of the group for a little over half that time.  

Each year, we try to have a Team Collector Convention, usually in a city where one of us lives and there is some baseball nearby.  This year, we decided on Baltimore.  It's a small, close knit group with about 20 active participants, and it's nice to just get together in person for a weekend, bust some boxes, and hang out.   

Kate and I drove Saturday, met up with the gang, and then we all headed off to a great BBQ place.  There really isn't any outstanding barbecue food in Pittsburgh, which is a damn shame since it's one of my favorites.  But boy was this place good.  After eating our fill, we headed back to the hotel to break some boxes.  We had a mix of 2015 products and older boxes, 18 boxes in total.

Each box would get passed around and we would each grab a couple packs to open.  The first box, 2009 Topps 206, couldn't have started any better.  In the second pack I opened, I noticed a hit in the middle of the pack.  The first thing that stood out to me was how terrible the picture at the top looked.  Then I noticed the name, and all I could say was "holy shit, Ruth."  I felt like the kids in The Sandlot.  It's by far the most exciting pull I've ever had come out of a pack.  It's headed for our Yankees collector, who couldn't attend the convention.  But still it was absolutely thrilling to pull such an amazing card.  The box was absolutely killer - in addition to the Ruth, the box also had a Ryan Braun auto, which would have been a fantastic hit a few years ago.

But my luck wasn't done for the day.

A few boxes later we were cracking through a box of Moments & Milestones.  You know, the set where everything is serial numbered and kinda worthless?  In my first pack, I could see some red in the middle of the pack, and knew it was a 1/1.  As I slowly pulled back the cards to reveal the player, I saw it was Hanley Ramirez.  Now 1/1's are pretty common in the product, I think falling one every other box.  But this one was a little extra special.  See, we don't have a Marlins collector, and haven't in ages.  A couple months ago, I decided to start up a small Marlins secondary team collection.  Nowhere near my Pirates collection.

But I started playing t-ball in 1993, when the Marlins first came to exist.  Something about the over the top teal logo and cap stuck for me.  I wore a Marlins hat all the time, and they were always my second favorite NL team.  When the team switched to the art deco disaster we all know and ignore today, it felt like the end of a franchise.  And it's sort of unique to me that a team, for all intents and purposes, was created, won two championships, and ended within the first 25 years of my lifetime.

So before the break I had been given a couple big boxes of Marlins cards from some of the guys who drove in and wanted to clear out closet space.  When I saw the hit, I offered to add it to the pot of unclaimed team cards to be sold off to help fund our next break, but everybody insisted I keep the card.  So my first Marlins 1/1!

Breaking that many boxes is a ton of fun, and a lot easier when you can do it as a group.  We had some nice hits, including this Stadium Club case hit.  The card was the only one in the pack, and is insanely thick.  It sort of reminds me of those marbles that had an image encased.

Here's a recap of all the bigger hits from the break.  There were plenty of nice cards, including the Ruth, a Bonds bat card out of 2000 MVP, and I think just about everybody in attendance ended up with a hit or two.  And of course a hefty stack of base cards to add to the collection.

After the break, we took a quick photo and the rest of the gang headed to Camden Yard for an O's game.  I didn't want to torture Kate too much, so we took the opportunity to have a date night going through some of the historic neighborhoods in Baltimore and then having a seafood dinner along the water.  We ended up getting back right as the gang returned from the game, and we all went across the street to a sportsbar for a late night snack.  We had collectors fly in from as far as Minnesota and Texas, and at about 3 hours our drive was one of the shorter ones.

Of course our intentions weren't purely social.  What better opportunity to dump a ton of cards on each other than when we're all together in one place!  I went with the back seat loaded up with boxes for everyone, hoping to clear out some space in my boxes and get some cards to a good home.

But even the best laid plans fail.  We ended up driving back with even more cards than I left with, thanks in large part to my now expansive Marlins collection.  The group was kind enough to load me with some really cards, including a few Miggy relics and some great 90's cards from my friend Tim who knows I appreciate the stuff.

 We had a nice long breakfast with everyone at the hotel, and then Kate and I headed off to a really fantastic outdoor market.  There was a ton of fresh produce (again, a good farmers market is tough to find around Pittsburgh), local vendors.  I was hoping to score some fresh seafood.  That was a little harder than I had hoped, but I did end up coming home with two lobster tails that we grilled up yesterday.

 I couldn't be more thankful to call this group my friends.  It was a great weekend, and I look forward to doing it again next year.

If anyone is interested in joining the group, there are some teams that don't currently have a collector.  It's a very laid back and generous bunch, and I can guarantee your team collection will balloon in no time.  If anyone is interested in joining or learning more about how the group works, leave a comment or shoot me an email.  

Flea Markets Finds: Picking Up Steam

Flea markets are always hit or miss for me.  Around here, there are always numerous vendors set up with sports stuff.  But more often than not, the guys act like they're a mall sports store (note: it costs like $10 to set up at the flea market...that isn't the same as having the rent for an actual store!).  Insanely high prices, acting like that common autograph is the holy grail of collecting, and hoping that everybody that stops by has absolutely zero knowledge of the card market.  More often than not, I end up walking by after a couple seconds.  The faded boxes of their bobbleheads are usually a dead giveaway, a victim of sitting out in direct sunlight for weekend after weekend after weekend at prices nobody will ever pay.  No, you aren't going to get $15 for your Ryan Doumit bobblehead.  Yes, there are 6 copies at the nearest Goodwill.

When Kate and I hit the flea market last weekend, it didn't look promising.  After the first couple rows, I had spotted a few things I was interested in.  But the prices were either insanely high, or there weren't any prices.  Maybe I'm weird, but just like at a card show, I like to see some actual prices on your stuff.  I hate playing the "how much do you want for _____" game.

 After going down two or three rows without any hopes of making a purchase, I was starting to worry I could leave empty handed.  And there was no way I was going to let that happen.

 I came across a vendor with a few boxes out.  He's a regular, and I've looked through his stuff in the past, but always walked away due to inflated prices.  But I was desperate.

He had some boxes out front labeled as dime boxes, but he said anything in the boxes was a nickel.  Deal.  I started digging through the rows, which were broken down by year.  At some point, most of these cards have to belonged to an Indians collector, because each row had a short run of all the Indians star cards of the year.  And while there were only a couple Pirates cards, I did snag some nice finds for my collection.

In the late 90's, some of the rookies would have netted a pretty penny.  I also grabbed Bowman Chrome rookies of Travis Lee and Sean Casey, both of which sold for a nice chunk of change at one point.  For $.05, why the hell not.

Having accumulated a whopping $2 in cards, I needed to keep buying.  I needed to, dammit!  Or at least I needed to kill some time while Kate did her own shopping.  So over to the dealer's toploadered boxes I went.  Most of the cards were, as expected, overpriced.  He told the cards were 1/5th of what they were priced.  And while I appreciate priced cards, doing math is not as exciting to me.

 It looked like most were priced at full book or above.  A McCutchen Topps Chrome refractor priced at $20.  And while $4 is a better price, so is the $.50 copy on Sportlots.

 But I came across some autographs in the box.  The pricing seemed inconsistent.  $4 (post-discount) for a Zane Smith auto?  Nah.  But the significantly tougher Lee Lacy for $2?  Sure, why not.

 I ended up paying $2 each for all three of these cards.  The Freese is a high number, and while I may have been able to get a cheaper copy at a bigger show, it probably wouldn't be by much and this one is in nice shape.  Stennett is an auto I didn't have and have been after for a while, while the Lacy is an upgrade over a lightly signed ballpoint pen signature I have of his.

And I figured that even if that was it for my finds for the day, I did pretty well.  And then, like all my flea market finds, I stumbled on some stuff that would empty my wallet.  I guess I never learn...

I'll have the real goodies up in my next post.

No Number, No Cry

Unissued cards aren't exactly anything new.  For as long as companies have been producing cards, I'd bet that things have been slipping out the back door or getting sold off when the company folds.  But over the last few years, there have been quite a few cards popping up on ebay that are virtually identical to the pack issued counterparts, but missing the serial number.  Test sheets, replacements, and whenever else comes off of the printer.

I know some have mixed feelings on these cards.  After all, if they weren't pack issued, I can see why some people would consider them unofficial.  But to me, if the card came out as part of the original print run, it's all the same to me.

 And also a great way to save a pretty penny for my collection.

 One of my new projects has been picking up 1998 Donruss Signature autographs whenever I can.  Most of the base red autos are pretty cheap.  The green autos are limited to 1000 copies, and lesser players can be had for a buck or two.  But the rarest are the blue autographs, at just 100 copies.

 Iconic set.  Rare 90's insert.  Autographed.  Yeah.  Doesn't exactly jive with my collecting budget.

But I've found some sellers who have unnumbered versions of some of the autographs in the set available.  Sure, they aren't pack issued.  But if I can pay a couple dollars, versus $10 or $20 for the numbered version....sign me up.  After all, these blue autos just look amazing in my eyes.  And to be able to add a few players from the checklist, even if they aren't quite big name stars, makes me a happy collector.

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.