Grading for the long run

A few folks in the card blogosphere are quick the point out the downfalls of grading cards. Anytime there's money involved the public should be wary of conflicts of interest, so it's a good thing to have watchdogs looking out for us and pointing out wrong doing. Grading, however, isn't always about making a quick buck.

Over the past few months I've been picking up graded Darren Daultons for my collection. For me, the rationale is simple. If I obtain a PSA 9 or PSA 10 of a Daulton, I know that I'll have it forever in that same condition and I'll never need to worry about buying it again. Sure, the person who submitted the card might make a modest profit off me, but when you're dealing with a relatively unknown (and relatively crazy) catcher from southeast Kansas you have a lot less to be wary of than, say, a dazzling starting pitcher in our nation's capital.

Remember kids, there's more to the hobby than buying a card to immediately turn around and sell it again. Now that I've found my collecting niche, these PSA cards will be the cornerstone of my collection for years to come.

From Darren Daulton PSA

From Darren Daulton PSA

From Darren Daulton PSA

Peel Slowly and See

The 1990s were a competitive time for baseball cards. Multiple manufacturers and brands fought hard for each collector’s dollar. This led to an era of innovation that had never been seen before or since. These innovations fell into three main categories:

1. Hobby changing ideas - on-card autographs, parallels
2. Ideas that faded away due to cost or other factors - die-cuts
3. What the heck were they thinking – Cards in a can, protective film

Cards were shinier than ever in the mid 90s with layer upon layer of gloss used to make them more appealing to the casual collector. The perfect solution for protecting these high-end cards seemed to be to slap a layer of plastic on the top of the card. After all, no one wants to get a greasy fingerprint on a shiny refractor, right? Needless to say, the idea didn’t really catch on. The fad passed quickly and by 1997 card manufactures had moved on to their next big idea.

Here are three examples of protective coating from my Darren Daulton Collection.

1996 Finest #B136


Finest was relatively subtle with this particular design. Notice how the coating directions fade into the busy background and run parallel to Darren’s swing. If you’re going to put a bunch of black block lettering on the front of a card you could certainly do worse.

1996 Leaf Preferred Steel #36


This is gimmick on top of gimmick. I’m not sure what these “steel” cards were made of, heavy duty tin foil would be my first guess, but the ample “REMOVE PROTECTIVE FILM” advisories strips away any potential majesty from this card.

1995 Donruss Dominators #2


I’ve saved the worst offender for last. What if I told you that there would be one card in your player collection that matched your player up with two Hall of Famers at his position? You’d be excited, right? Well, seeing Dutch on a card with Piazza and Pudge would certainly be neat… if only I could see Daulton. Instead I'm forced to take Donruss at their word and believe that's actually the correct player behind the sticker. Sure, I could peel it off, but I find it more entertaining to wonder if that's actually John Kruk behind the sticker.

Collectors have witnessed a bevy of gimmick attempts since the mid-90s, some have worked and some haven’t, but protective film remains one of the worst ideas of the past 20 years.

My 2010 Heritage Blaster Team... The Lake Effect Blizzard

The thought of a fantasy baseball league where I wouldn't have to do any actual work was too much to pass up. Thanks to dayf over at Cardboard Junkie I finally had a reason to go over to Meijer and pick up a blaster. Imagine my surprise when I entered the card aisle and everything was 20% off. If you factor in $8.50 worth of bottles I cashed in, the packs cost less than a buck a piece. Good times. Anyway, here's what I got:

Pack 1:
202 - Torii Hunter
238 - B.J. Upton
34 - Fausto Carmona
70 - Lastings Milledge
NAP5 - Hanley Ramirez New Age Performer
351 - Bobby Crosby
102 - Nolan Reimold
159 - Baltimore Orioles

Pack 2:
458 - Kenshin Kawakami SP
345 - Nick Swisher
137 - Bobby Cox
204 - Brandon Phillips
376 - Marco Scutaro
35 - Gordon Beckham
205 - Edwin Jackson
279 - Erick Aybar

Pack 3:
400 - Brian McCann
416 - Gerardo Parra
NF3 - Ham the Chimp News Flashback (He's going to be my DH)
240 - Elvis Andrus
421 - Dustin Pedroia
377 - Troy Tulowitzki
404 - Rogers Hornsby
334 - Wandy Rodriguez

Pack 4:
355 - Ben Zobrist
300 - Hanley Ramirez
348 - Julio Borbon
402 - George Sisler
260 - Man Ram
185 - John Danks
280 - Tobi Stoner (heh heh... stoner)
160 - Andy Pettitte

Pack 5:
239 - Derek Lowe
157 - Mark Buehrle
NNO - Albert Pujols Dice Game (pretty much pays for my blaster... woot)
98 - Checklist
335 - Carlos Gonzalez
266 - Carlos Beltran
79 - AJ Pierzynski
367 - Yuniesky Betncourt

Pack 6:
100 - Zach Duke
33 - Jason Bay
411 - Core Four (Pettitte, Posada, Jeter, Rivera)
337 - Ozzie's Aces (Buehrle, Peavy)
184 - Kendry Morales
140 - Jarrod Saltalamacchia
390 - Matt LaPorta
220 - Bruce Bochy

Pack 7:
441 - Doug Fister SP
32 - Chris Carpenter
297 - Oakland Athletics
173 - Boston Speed Party (Pedroia, Ellsbury) (wow what a terrible pun)
12 - Geovany Soto
89 - Martin Prado
139 - Tony LaRussa
58 - Ryan Dempster

Pack 8:
68 - Josh Thole
135 - Dusty Baker (LaRussa and Baker in back to back packs? What did I do to deserve this?)
BF3 - Whitey Ford
320 - Pittsburgh Pirates
94 - Zack Greinke
169 - Ted Lilly
274 - Stephen Drew
257 - Carlos Quentin

First impressions... not sure how my hitters look, but I think I have a tremendous pitching staff. I hope that Pujols dice card counts as my insert... *looks at rules page*... yay, it counts! Plus I get four bonus points! Woohoo!

Here's my team:

2 Catchers:
Geovany Soto
Brian McCann

1 First Baseman
Albert Pujols

1 Second Baseman
Brandon Phillips

1 Shortstop (holy crap, I have 8 SS to choose from)
Hanley Ramirez

1 Third Baseman (8 SS... one 3rd basemen... wow)
Gordon Beckham

3 Outfielders
Carlos Beltran
Torii Hunter
Nick Swisher

1 Corner Infielder
Kendry Morales (my only other 1Ber... thank goodness I didn't have to take 1/34 of Adam LaRoche!)

1 Middle Infielder
Dustin Pedroia

1 Outfielder
Matt LaPorta

1 Utility
Troy Tulowitzki

7 Pitchers (this might be the most fearsome pitching staff ever constructed... who needs saves, anyway?!)
Zach Greinke
Edwin Jackson
Chris Carpenter
Ryan Dempster
Mark Buehrle
Derek Lowe
Andy Pettitte

Team:
Oakland Athletics

Manager:
Tony LaRussa

Overall, I feel pretty good about my team. Pujols and Greinke will be probably get injured in a tragic farming accident and completely screw me over.

2010 Topps Million Card Giveaway Auction

I've bought a handful of packs of 2010 Topps in the past couple of weeks. It's been more out of boredom than anything... I'm not going to put the set together I just like the thrill of opening up packs. I've pledged the base cards from these packs to Thorzul's amazing 2010 Topps experiment. He isn't interested in the inserts, however, so that leaves me with a handful of cards that I don't really need.

There's one insert that I find particularly intriguing, the Topps Million Card Giveaway. I've pulled 5 of those cards so far and I'm excitedly waiting on February 15 to enter the codes and see what I've won. I'm sure it'll be a bunch of junk, but there's a very very small chance that I'll snag something cool like a Ron Santo or an Ernie Banks.

So here's what I'm proposing: we're going to have an auction. Only instead of bidding with money, you're bidding with Topps Million Card Giveaway codes.

I've pulled 21 insert cards from my packs of 2010 Topps. I also have 27 inserts from 2009 Goudey and 33 inserts from 2009 Topps. That comes out to roughly 80 insert cards. Lots of Turkey Red cards, quite a few Goudey minis, and a game used card from a New York Met. That's all I'll tell you about the inserts. You don't get to find out who the cards are until you receive them, just the same as I won't know what the redemption codes will be until I redeem them. If you're the winning bidder, you'll email me your redemption codes before February 15 and I'll mail your insert cards to you.

Simply enter your bid (5 codes, 8 codes, whatever) in the comment section below. I'll announce a winner on Friday, February 12.

Good luck!

A bit of house cleaning

Found some time today to be productive. Managed to put up some items on Ebay earlier this afternoon and have caught up with my wantlists this evening. You'll see that I've updated my 1994 Collector's Choice list and posted my 1987 Topps list. I've managed to put together about 70% of the set by opening packs, but I'll probably stop now as the doubles were starting to pile up.

Football and Baseball have taken up most of my time as of late. My Kansas State Wildcats are unexpectedly in 1st place in the Big 12 North. If we win our last three conference games, we'll earn the right to head down to Dallas and get our tails kicked by Texas. So we've got that going for us... which is nice.

Here's hoping the Phillies get to CC tonight. He looks a little shakier than normal, but even when he's 75%, he's still better than most of the pitchers the Phils faced all year.

One last thing, I've started to pick up a few Darren Daulton PSA cards here and there. Yeah, I know, PSA is evil, blah blah blah... but I think that collecting his cards along with putting together no more than 1 or 2 sets at a time (like I'm doing now) will be how I move forward for at least the rest of the year. I've opened a few random packs lately, such as Topps U&H and Ticket to Stardom but haven't really pulled anything of note. It's probably best for my wallet and my sanity to keep things small.

And yes, this does mean that I'm going to stop collecting Alex Gordon cards. I was optimistic this past spring that he was going to get his career on track, but I just don't see it happening now. With any luck he'll be traded in the off-season to a team that isn't Kansas City. I'll probably hold onto the cards I have for now and see what happens. Watch, now that I've given up on him, he'll probably hit .320 next season. That's how these things work.

Is it socially acceptable to brag about junk wax?

Went to the card store today in search of some bargains and walked out with more loot than I could have imagined. Here's the breakdown:

1981 Donruss - 4 packs, 18 cards per
1986 Topps - 4 rack packs, 48 cards per
1987 Topps - 4 rack packs, 48 cards per
1987 Topps - 3 cello packs, 31 cards per
1990 Topps - 4 JUMBO packs, 106 cards per
1996 Collector's Choice - 6 packs, 14 cards per

1986 Topps and 1990 Topps hold a special place in my heart. '86 Topps was the first set I collected (was given a giant shoebox full of them in the summer of 1989 by some distant relation of mine) and 1990 Topps was the first set that I actually used my own allowance to buy packs of. Both sets were trashed due to constant handing (I organized and re-organized them a lot) so it'll be nice to put together the sets one last time.

Grand total: $14.52 after tax or $.58 a pack.

Plus my box of 1994 Collector's Choice Series 2 came in the mail today. So that makes a total of 61 packs of cards sitting on my living room floor just begging to be opened. It's going to be a good night.

Oh, and I still owe you a box break recap of the box we opened last weekend, 2000 Fleer Tradition. I'll get to it sooner or later, I promise.

One last thing, thanks to Duane over at Democratic Roakdkill for sending a giant box of 09 A&G my way. I'll be updating that wantlist and adding several more wantists soon.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, folks.

This will be good for a laugh

Not much going on card-related for me right now. I picked up a couple of retail packs of Goodwin this evening just to see for myself what they looked like. I wasn't very impressed... I feel good about investing $4 instead of $20 in order to figure out I didn't like them. The highlight of the two packs was a base Tiger Woods card... and no matter how popular Tiger is, I just can't get excited about a golf card.

In other card news, there's a box of 2000 Fleer Tradition coming in the mail. Hopefully it'll arrive in time for me to break it on Sunday. There likely won't be any big hits, but I want to put the set together and $20.21 (after shipping) for a hobby box of anything from the 2000s seemed like a pretty good deal.

Anyway, I was browsing Ebay this evening and came across this auction.

Lot of 400+ MLB Baseball Cards from 1984-1992

Several gems in here including the "I've been told..." gag and the passing reference to water damage. But hey, at least he's offering free shipping.

Enjoy your evening, folks.