Slick Ginter

I’m a fan of the Allen & Ginter sets that have become a staple of Topps’ yearly release schedule. The only thing that I’m not a fan of is how difficult it is to complete the set.  You don’t even get enough cards in one box and then when you factor in all of the short prints, completing the set becomes more of a chore. Buying the complete set is no fun and so 2011 was the first year since I returned to collecting that I didn’t purchase a box of Ginter.

Topps did something different with 2011 Allen & Ginter that they hadn’t ever done before which was offer a factory set. This wasn’t just any factory set though, this was a limited edition, serial numbered to 999 factory set. The weird thing is, in this day and age, one of these sets ends up being worth more broken up than it is complete. There are a ton of team and player collectors out there.

I found someone on eBay who had broken up their set and had the singles listed at very reasonable prices. Pair that up with combined shipping and I’m a customer. The cool thing about getting all of these from the same person is that the serial numbers all match.

I picked up all of my favorite Sox along with Stan “The Man” Lee. Glossy Ginter cards are a first, but it brings me back to the days of the Topps Tiffany sets. Those cards weren’t serial numbered like these are, but they were pretty limited compared to the print runs of the regular cards.

A Little Out, A Little In

While I was listing all of the cards from my Topps Chrome case on eBay, I took some time to list some other cards that I had been meaning to sell for a while now. Four of those cards were sketch cards from various non-sports boxes that I had opened over the past couple of years. In their place, I picked up a couple of cards on eBay:

I opened a box of CBLDF Liberty myself, but instead of the two autographs per box that were coming out of every other box, I only got one autograph and it was of Jimmy Palmiotti. That would have been huge back when Marvel Knights first launched and he was working with Kevin Smith on Daredevil, but I couldn’t tell you what comic he’s working on these days.

So, I took it upon myself to pick up a couple of the cards that I really wanted from this set. The fact that I was able to get them both form the same seller was even better. Combined shipping is always a good thing.

The Neil Gaiman is arguably one of the top cards to be pulled and I was surprised at how low it was selling. Then again, Gaiman’s autograph is not a tough one to obtain. He does a good number of appearances and you can buy autographed books online. I went to a reading Gaiman did when he was promoting Anansi Boys and was able to get a couple of things autographed afterwards. I still thought it would be cool to add an autographed trading card to my collection.

Erik Larsen has a smaller, but extremely dedicated following. Larsen first garnered attention when he followed Todd McFarlane on the adjectiveless Spider-Man comic. He would leave Marvel to become one of the founders of Image Comics and has been both writing and drawing Savage Dragon ever since. I’ve met Mr. Larsen is person as well. 6 years ago, my wife and I made a trip to the Baltimore ComicCon where I got a book autographed by Erik and was able to get a Savage Dragon sketch as well. Back when Image first started, I got an autograph from the Savage Dragon creator through the mail so I’ve got all kinds of Larsen items in my collection.

For those of you who enjoy non-sports releases, this set is a great deal even with just one auto per box. Many other non-sports boxes go for $60 and just have a single sketch card. These boxes have an autographed card and a sketch card and many boxes are producing two autographed cards. There’s some cool artwork on the cards, which tell the history of the CBLDF, and buying these cards helps to support a good cause.

A Card So Nice, I Acquired it Twice

Those of you who watched the video of my first replacement package that I received from Upper Deck might recognize this card. Well, it’s not this exact card, but it’s pretty darn close. I ended up taking a liking to the Jeff Green card that I was sent, but it wasn’t anywhere near close to what I should have been sent for the Michael Johnson. In retrospect, I should have asked Upper Deck if I could have held onto the Green and just sent back the other card in exchange for the Pierce.

That being said, I ended up with this card cheaply on eBay ($7) and I think I like it even better than the card that Upper Deck sent me. That card had green foil which kind of got lost in all of the other green on the card. This card has gold foil which I like with these colors a lot. The only other difference is the numbering. The card that I was sent was numbered to 49 and this card is numbered to 199. Really not a huge difference. Everything else about the card is the same. I’m just glad they didn’t pull an SPx with this card and have one of the windows empty on a lower numbered version of the card. This is an event used jersey so they could wrap the whole card in material and still have plenty.

I know this is a higher numbered version of the card, but I think that the acquisition cost of this card helps back up my feelings that Upper Deck didn’t send me enough for the Michael Johnson redemption card.

 

Technorati Tags: basketball cards,Jeff Green,Upper Deck

A Bunch of Babies

I’m going to stick with the parallel theme for one more post. I’m all for picking up parallels cheaply, but I won’t break the bank for them. I definitely enjoy picking them up in batches because it makes the whole process a whole lot easier.

Here’s a trio of 2007-08 Topps Luxury Box Glen “Big Baby” Davis rookies. First up is what I think is the base card which is numbered to 699. The base card has some nice team color stuff going on in the design. I’m guessing that the other two parallels are the bronze (/249) and silver (/75) which leads me to believe that there is also a gold version out there as well.

The best part of this acquisition is the story. This package was mailed from the Philippines back in January. It got lost somewhere along the way and then had another postmark from April 29th when it got back on track and then it arrived to me in May. I had long given up on these cards so it was a total surprise when they showed up. I’m usually not a fan of buying cards from the Philippines for this very reason, but I took a shot when the three cards sold for a dollar plus three dollars shipping.

 

Technorati Tags: Basketball cards,Glen Davis,Big Baby,Topps Luxury Box

1999 Topps Stars: Piazza Constellation

One great thing about people busting up cases or collections is that you can sometimes grab a group of cards together that would sometimes be a pain to gather individually. This was a good example of that.

I’m not sure if this person busted a lot of Topps Stars or decided that they weren’t going to collect Piazza any longer, but I was happy to add this small stack of cards to my collection. The Super Novas card is an insert and the other five cards are all different variations of the base card. At the top left is the base version of the base card. Below that is the one star version. Continuing counterclockwise, you see the two star, three star, and four star versions. The picture gets closer and closer in each and the background changes a little. There are also different colored foils used on the cards from bronze to silver, gold, silver holofoil and gold holofoil. It’s cool to see the cards all together. If only these parallels were serial numbered then this constellation might rival a Masterpieces rainbow.

 

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,baseball cards,1999 Topps Stars Baseball

Sportscasters

I’m one of those people for whom nostalgia has a huge part of why I’m in the hobby. I’ve been collecting since I was a kid and just love ripping open wax packs. When card companies give a nod to the history of the hobby, I almost always get sucked in. Sometimes more dramatically than others. This is one of those extreme situations.

2005 Leaf Sportscasters! I definitely remember the cards that these are based on and while I never owned any, I love the fact that Donruss revisited this set for a modern day insert set. Since it’s a Donruss release, that means that it is loaded with all kinds of parallels. There are different colors and icons that are numbered to different amounts. I’ve picked up some singles at card shows, on COMC and this lot came from eBay.

I found these cards because the seller listed the Piazza on eBay and advertised combined shipping so I looked at their other auctions and that’s where I found the other three cards. Those three went for a buck each and the Piazza went for two. The shipping for everything was $3. Not too bad. The Piazza is 10/45, Murphy is 15/35, Killebrew is 20/35 and Palmer is 10/25.

I already know of people’s love for Ginter, Turkey Red and other retro sets that were the main set released in packs, but what about insert sets like this one. What’s your favorite lesser known retro inspired set?

 

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,2005 Leaf Baseball,Donruss,Sportscasters

Buy Something Cool!

2001 eTopps Albert Pujols RC in-hand

5 Bids

$52.00

Time left: 5h 52m

This is one of Pujols cooler looking and rarer rookie cards. It’s time to get back some of the money that I’ve thrown away on eTopps.

08 Sweet Spot Ken Griffey Jr auto bat 243/243 last one

Buy It Now or Best Offer

$150.00

Time left: 6h 28m

I won’t be too disappointed if this card doesn’t sell. I was just testing the waters to see if I’d get a crazy offer due to the serial number. I’m perfectly fine keeping this card with offers of $45.

2003 eTopps Albert Pujols error in-hand 1/1?

1 Bid

$9.99

Time left: 5h 58m

I started this card off at $9.99 willing to hold onto it if it didn’t sell. I know it’s a production error, but if this is the only one like this it has to add some kind of value to the card.

2001 Bowman Albert Pujols RC #264

16 Bids

$45.00

Time left: 6h 3m

I picked this card up fairly cheaply back in 2001. It’s time has come to move on. My collecting interests and focus have changed since then.

2009 UD Ken Griffey Jr 2002 SP Variation #855o

2 Bids

$1.04

Time left: 6h 5m

I thought I had two of these SP cards, but one of them was the non-SP 2009 version. These normally sell for $20 - $30 so I’m hoping for some last minute action.

2001 Donruss The Rookies Albert Pujols #R97

8 Bids

$20.56

Time left: 6h 6m

I did very well with these sets. Bought a bunch of the redemption cards back in 2001 and ordered the sets. Sold a couple of the sets for $80 a few years ago and now it’s time to let go of the singles from the one set that I opened.

2000 Pacific Antonio Alfonseca numbered 1/199 first one

0 Bids

$0.99

Time left: 6h 9m

Are there really no Antonio Alfonseca fans out there? This will just go into the trade pile. It would have already been there if not for the “eBay 1/1” serial numbering.

2001 Donruss The Rookies Mark Teixeira RC

2 Bids

$1.08

Time left: 6h 12m

Purging the Yankees out of my collection.

05 UD SP Authentic Honors Albert Pujols jersey 129/130

0 Bids

$9.99

Time left: 6h 12m

This is another card that I started with a higher price and will be perfectly happy if it doesn’t sell. It’s a beautiful card with a fairly low print run. Upper Deck sent this to me when they couldn’t replace one of the base cards from the Timelines set that I sent to them years ago.

2002 Fleer Royal Rumble Stacy Keibler event worn shirt

8 Bids

$4.26

Time left: 6h 15m

I used to love the Fleer WWF wrestling sets. I somehow ended up with two copies of this card and decided to get rid of one. Keibler is as popular now, if not more, then when she was in the WWF.

2009 TNA Knockouts Traci Brooks parallel 1/10 first one

2 Bids

$1.35

Time left: 6h 18m

Traci Brooks recently appeared back on TNA so I figured it was a good time to list this card.

2009 TNA Impact Mick Foley parallel 12/20

0 Bids

$0.99

Time left: 6h 22m

Sometimes, selling on eBay can be no fun. I had someone from Australia contact me about this card, but I had to remove international shipping from my auctions. It costs way too much to send items internationally with delivery confirmation. If you don’t do that, you put yourself at 100% risk due to lost mail or dishonest buyers. I also didn’t want to risk low ratings from people having to pay the higher shipping fees.

2001 Donruss The Rookies Ichiro Rookie Diamond Kings

4 Bids

$3.59

Time left: 6h 22m

Here’s another card from my The Rookies set. I was hoping for Pujols of course, but the Ichiro wasn’t bad. Selling an Ichiro card without international shipping might bite me in the ass when all is said and done.

2009 TNA Impact Christopher Daniels parallel 6/20

0 Bids

$0.99

Time left: 6h 25m

The Fallen Angel seems to have fallen out of favor now that he left TNA for Ring of Honor. I miss him and all of the personas.

04-05 Fleer Ultra Chris Kaman Platinum Medallion 1/100

0 Bids

$0.99

Time left: 6h 30m

No Chris Kaman fans out there? What the heck am I going to do with his autographed card once the replacement arrives from Panini?

2008 UD Masterpieces Albert Pujols black 031/100

2 Bids

$2.25

Time left: 6h 44m

With the other Pujols cards that I’m selling, I thought someone might want to pick this up as well with combined shipping.

2010 Upper Deck R2 Jeter Posada Mariano Pettitte SP

2 Bids

$22.19

Time left: 6h 48m

I think this card is pretty rare. It’s one of the 2010 SP cards that were only available in Target loose retail packs and were pretty tough to pull. More Yankees purging.

2010 Upper Deck World of Sports Tiger Woods Jersey

4 Bids

$8.00

Time left: 6h 54m

Does anyone want a Tiger Woods jersey swatch that isn’t his trademark red? I guess I’ll find out.

07 Just Minors Jordan Zimmerman black edition auto 4/10

2 Bids

$10.50

Time left: 6h 57m

I busted a box of 2007 Just Minors a while back that I never posted on the blog. This was by far the best card in the box. With Zimmerman due to return this season, I figured that people would be looking for his card.

07 Just Minors Jordan Zimmerman auto Nationals

0 Bids

$0.99

Time left: 7h 5m

No one wants the regular version though. No big deal, it will go into the trade stack.

2009 UD 20th Anniversary Alfonso Soriano mag plate 1/1

2 Bids

$2.25

Time left: 7h 9m

I’m surprised that this one isn’t higher. Come on Yankees fans!

2010 Topps Unrivaled Bernard Berrian patch auto 067/149

4 Bids

$6.61

Time left: 7h 12m

This came out of the box of Unrivaled that I won from The Cardboard Connection. Having one autographed patch card per box seems to take some of the specialness away form these types of cards. Maybe it’s just me. A couple of years ago, there’d never be a patch card numbered to 149 and it would never sell for this low.

2001 Bowman Football Michael Vick RC Eagles Falcons

1 Bid

$0.99

Time left: 7h 15m

I completely forgot that I had this card or I would have sold it during the season when everyone was going nuts over Vick. Now that I know that I have it, it must leave the collection.

There you go. These cards will fund a little shopping spree at next weekend’s big card show and some eBay purchases as well. If something doesn’t sell and you want to work out a trade for it, let me know.

 

Technorati Tags: Albert Pujols,eBay,baseball cards,football cards,Topps,Upper Deck

Thank You Topps

Every once in a while, the mishaps of Topps can work out in your favor. Way back in this post, I detailed an amazing box of 2009-10 Topps Basketball Jumbos. I thought that selling the Blake Griffin auto for what I did back then was a big deal, but it is going for over $700 these days. Oh well. I’m not writing this post to dwell on the past though.

Also in that post you will see that I got a damaged Dwyane Wade gold refractor out of the box that I sent back to Topps for replacement. A similar card just recently sold on eBay for $18.11. I don’t know if the big smudge on the front kept the price down at all. My card had a very similar smudge and I’m glad that I sent it in.

What Topps sent me in return was this card. Well, that’s not my card. That’s just an auction that I followed to see where it would end. I already had a feeling that now would be the time to sell this card, but when I saw that the ending price for this other auction was $87.51 I couldn’t list the card quickly enough. If I can locate a couple of other cards like this one, maybe I can get a second case break fund going for sets where I’ll be looking to keep most of the contents of the case for myself. I think that I’ve culled the majority of these cards from my collection though and I’m not selling any Pujols rookies at this point.

They may not be able to get a website up and running properly, but sometimes their mistakes can end up benefiting you.

 

Technorati Tags: Dwyane Wade,Derrick Rose,Topps,Blake Griffin

More eBay Acquisitions

Since I’ve had some money in the PayPal account as of late, I’ve had a steady flow of packages coming in from eBay.  There aren’t many here, but there are some really cool ones that I wanted to share right away.

First up is a Brian Westbrook 2009 Upper Deck SPx Shadow Box insert. I just wanted one of these in my collection ever since I first saw pictures of them.  Now that I own one, it is just as cool as I thought it would be.  One strange thing is that the sides of the card aren’t straight up and down, but they’re at an angle instead.  The bottom layer is a little smaller than the top layer of the card is.

Upper Deck put college versions of these cards in their 2010 SPx set and they continue to be popular inserts to pull especially since they fall just one per case.  The autographed versions go for big bucks.

The Bryce Brentz collection continues to grow with the addition of this blue refractor numbered to 199.  I got to see both Brentz and Vitek play at the annual Futures at Fenway event and hopefully will get to see them play this summer if they’re with one of the local minor league teams.  I’ve yet to make it up to Portland, but want to do so this year and need to get back to Pawtucket, Lowell and Brockton.

It’ll be interesting to see what I think of these cards in a few years.  Will Brentz be starring for the Red Sox, will he be a bust or will he get traded away to another team like top prospect Casey Kelly did this offseason.

I’m still beaming over the eBay win.  The two Reggie Lewis jersey cards that Panini has produced have been red hot since their release; regularly selling around the $20 mark. This auction ended at $21.01 at 11 PM EST/8 PM PST on December 28th. This auction ended at $22.19 at 10 AM EST/1 PM PST.  The auction I won ended at $5.50 at 1 AM EST/10 PM PST.  All of the Reggie Lewis fans were asleep on the East Coast and I got one heck of a steal.  This is a beautiful card numbered to just 100 copies and you can’t beat the price that I got it for.

 

Technorati Tags: Reggie Lewis,Bryce Brentz,Topps,Panini,Upper Deck,Baseball cards,Basketball cards,football cards

Recent Ebay Acquisitions

Anyone who has been following this blog (or its previous incarnation) for any length of time knows that I collect some strange stuff and love all kinds of oddball items.  It helps that a lot of these oddball items don’t sell for much money.

Jeremy Piven’s role as Ari Gold on Entourage has gotten him noticed by everyone, but I’ve been a big fan of his for years.  I love his delivery and the type of sarcastic humor that seems to be his specialty.  I own a copy of PCU on VHS and think that his two minutes in Cameron Crowe’s Singles rank as one of the all-time best cameos in a movie.  Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell also have great cameos (for their unintentional hilarity) in the movie.

I’m not a huge fan of Razor’s products.  The head of the company seems to be a shyster and there’s always been a shady aura around the company.  That being said, I couldn’t pass up this card for .99¢ plus shipping.  Who knows if it is from a shirt that Piven ever really wore or not.  I’ve seen a lot of his clothing show up in charity auctions so it is entirely possible.  The card itself is pretty ugly.  There’s no picture and the design is just bland.  The big white swatch is just begging for an autograph.  If I ever found a reliable TTM address for Mr. Piven, I’d send this right off to him.

Jeremy is a big Bears fan so I figured that arranging the letters in this way was appropriate. I have no clue where I stand on this catch phrase, but the letters keep popping up for a buck and I keep buying them.  It’s too bad that I didn’t hold off on collecting this because someone recently posted the whole set at a really good price.  I was tempted to buy it in spite of the ones that I already had.

When I won this card, I wasn’t sure yet if I already owned it or not, but for $6.19 delivered I figured that I wouldn’t mind owning a second copy of this rookie refractor numbered to 199 if it was already in my collection.

As I type this, Big Baby is at the free throw line against the Pistons after collecting a big defensive rebound late in the game.  Davis had a little bit of a rough time when he was starting in place of Garnett especially when Shaq was healthy.  With the second unit, Davis fills the role of the guy waiting just outside of the lane for a pass from a penetrator who draws his defender.  Shaq is that guy in the starting lineup.  Davis doesn’t yet have the outside range that Garnett has and when he got those shots in the flow of the offense, he wasn’t hitting them as often as Garnett does.  He’s back to being a beast now that he’s coming off the bench again and has renewed his quest for a 6th Man Award.

One eBay seller had both of these Big Baby on sale for $3 a piece with free shipping so I couldn’t refuse.  Normally you are paying $3 just for a shipping fee, so this looked like a great deal to me.  Once I got the cards, I wasn’t disappointed.  These are beautiful, thick cards with a foil board sheen to them.

The two cards do look similar, but I’m fine with that for a couple of reasons.  First off, there are different pictures used for the two cards.  Second, there aren’t other versions of these cards out there with big blank spaces where the jerseys are on these cards.

Compare the Davis SPx cards to these Pierce cards from Panini.  First off, there would usually be an ugly version of these cards with a blank space or team logo in place of the jersey swatch.  I think that Panini spared collectors from those travesties in National Treasures.

You can still see the trademark Panini laziness in the fact that these are essentially the same card with a different hole cut in the front.  Boring.  How difficult would it be to produce a second card with a different picture?  Does it really save that much money on product costs to print up the same front for both?  *Yawn*

Clay Buchholz doesn’t have too many rookie cards. I think there’s just this one and Bowman Sterling.  This one costs too much locally so I finally picked one up for a good price on eBay.

This officially completes my Trifecta of Buchholz.  I’ve got an Allen & Ginter auto and a Bowman jersey card.  I’ve got to get my butt in gear and start posting more of those.  Off of the top of my head, I think I have Dwight Evans, Mike Piazza, Clay Buchholz, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey, Paul Pierce, Glen Davis, Al Jefferson and Delonte West.  I might also have some random ones where the whole Trifecta exists in one card.

I also added a new Buchholz memorabilia card to my collection.  I’ve had my eye on this card for a little while and finally won it for the right price (a dollar plus shipping).  You can pull some beautiful cards out of Sweet Spot, but it’s such a huge crapshoot and there are always some terrible clunker autos.  The singles are great if you can pick them up at the right price though.

This is a lot of cards that I didn’t think I had a shot of winning at the price I did.  For just over $12, I picked up a Bryce Brentz refractor auto /500 as well as two refractor versions of the base card.  I’ve seen auctions for the non-refractor version of the auto close higher than this one did.  I still haven’t picked up any Vitek autos, but I’m putting together a nice little Brentz collection.

This is another card that I’ve had my eye on for a while now.  A couple of copies of this card went for $20 and more because they just weren’t showing up on eBay and everyone trying to collect the name needed them.  I waited and got the card for $5.50 plus shipping.

Hrbek still has a decent fan following and his better cards see some action when they show up on eBay.  It’s always easier collecting a player who isn’t a member of one of the local teams because you can usually find their cards for good price.

Here’s a great looking Hrbek auto out of 2009 Sweet Spot.  This one cost me a little over $20, but I had a little bit of money in the PayPal account and really wanted this.  The black numbers on the front looked weird to me since I’m used to gold numbered, but that’s what they used that year.  I think that I have a Sweet Spot auto of the majority of player that I collect because the cards are just so beautiful looking.

I forget now which blog I first saw these cards on, but once I saw them I knew that I had to add one to my collection.  It just so happens that there’s a Piazza in the set so not only do I get to add one of these cards to my collection, but I also get to add something to one of my player collections.

This is a great acetate card that pictures one of my favorite players in front of the Green Monster from the best park in the league.  These cards look even better in person with the etched foil and large player picture.  Great stuff.

This last card is one that I had to pick up since I already had the black version.  I’m not anti-manufactured cards as long as they look nice.  All cards are manufactured.  It doesn’t matter that much to me if the card is just a flat piece of cardboard, a think piece of cardboard or something with a letter or bat embedded in it.  If Topps goes back to the well once to often then I may tire of these cards, but right now I’m enjoying them.

So, there you go.  A little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Hope you enjoyed!

 

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,Glen Davis,Kent Hrbek,Bryce Brentz,Jeremy Piven,Clay Buchholz,baseball cards,basketball cards,autographs,Topps Upper Deck,Fleer

2009/10 Draft Case Update

Dave and Adam’s Card World posted my Jordan auto pulled in their blog today.  I’m not sure if I ever posted where I purchased this case from, but it was from them.  They’re often overlooked in favor of Blowout, but their prices have been getting more and more competitive and the free packs that they throw in are fun to open.  I’ve pulled some decent hits out of them including a sketch card and a Jason Bay jersey auto.

I’ve got a webcam coming for future breaks so that you can actually see the cards and don’t have to stare at my mug for 15 minutes.  I figure that it could very possibly pay for itself since a few of the retailers out there offer a discount on prices if you’re going to post a video break and mention their site.  It also helps that I got a pretty hefty discount on the cam through work.  It’ll most likely get here long before I’m able to order the next case so I’ll have some time to play around with it and get ready for a big break.

I posted the first items up on eBay and have the first sales to report:

• I did some research on where to list the autographs and put the Ricky Rubio up at $25.00 where it consistently sells which it did within a day.
• The Curry/Rubio/Harden parallel had some bidding action in the final minute and finished up at $8.51.
• The same can be said of the Gerald Henderson autographed card that was numbered to his jersey number.  That card finished at $9.00 even.
• A James Jones auto numbered to 99 went for a whopping .99¢ which means that it is probably not worth listing the base version on eBay.
• A Darren Collison autographed card numbered to 499 went for $1.78.
• Singles from the set don’t look like they’re going to sell on eBay at all. I may try COMC and SportLots for those.  I did sell a lot of five Ricky Rubios for .99¢, but I don’t think I’ll do that again.

Items that didn’t sell:

• The Kevin Durant blue parallel got no action with a starting bid of .99¢ which surprised me. That one will definitely be headed to COMC unless someone wants to make a trade for it.  (Just checked, COMC isn’t worth it. There’s plenty of each base card and they’re all listed for .18¢.)
• Other cards that didn’t get any bids with a starting price of .99¢ were an Austin Daye auto /499, Sam Young auto /999 and a lot consisting of one card each of Curry, Flynn and Rubio along with the draft insert card featuring those three.

Items that are still listed:

• Base set for $10. I just dropped it to $8, but until I get something cheaper to ship the set in, I can’t go any lower.  Once you factor in the eBay fee, PayPal fee and the fact that the plastic cases I have them in cost me a buck each there’s not much wiggle room.  Future case purchases will have to be accompanied by cases of supplies as well.
• Stephen Curry base card for .99¢.  The shipping for this kills it even though it’s only $2.22.
• Jonny Flynn auto /149 for $25.  Did some more research and that price was too high.  The card is now listed for $15.
• Stephen Curry auto /249 for $30.  This is slightly higher than where one sold for the other day, but I’m in no rush to drop the price on this card.  There are four people watching it at the moment.  The only frustrating this is that no one has made an offer on it.

So, that’s just under $50 and I’ve only sold one of the four big autographs from the case.  I’d like to be able to clear $5 a set on the case set after fees and expenses, but I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.  I might have to wait for something along the lines of a yard sale to sell a couple of those. Anyone out there want to trade for a set?  It’s not a bad set, but it does suffer from the lack of three of the top four rookies from that year.

 

Technorati Tags: 2009-10 Basketball Draft Edition,Upper Deck,case break update

Dewey on eBay

One of the things that I like about collecting a player such as Dwight Evans is the lack of interest across the country.  People love him in Boston, but not as many people even know who he is as you travel further away from New England.  That being said, there are enough collectors out there that when really nice Dewey cards pop up on eBay, there can be some bidding battles on them.

Check out this auction for a 2001 Fleer card from the Red Sox 100th Anniversary set.  Many of the hits from this set go for a premium since they are tough to come by.  This simple, unnumbered, on-card autograph from Fleer recently sold for $58.95.  You don’t find them very often though.  There’s also a Dwight Evans autographed hat from this set that could be found randomly in the box sets that were also produced.

Seeing a card such as this one is kind of refreshing.  These days when jersey cards are commons and most autographs sell for a dollar on eBay, it’s nice to look back to when autographs were tough to pull out of packs and actually held some value.

This next card is a good example of modern cards that are worth something due mostly to manufactured scarcity.  This auction is for a Sweet Spot 1 of 1 that is signed with green ink on black leather.  This card sold for $247.55 which is way out of my price range.  It’ll make one Dwight Evans collector very happy though.

I am a fan of the various 2007 Dwight Evans Sweet Spot autos that are out there.  It’s just a shame that this card is from 2007 when Upper Deck used the wrong substance for the “baseball” cards and all of the signatures have faded.  All of the bat and leather cards look great though.

Speaking of cards that look great, I’m completely happy with this card that I added to my collection for $6.76 with shipping.  It’s one of the more beautiful relic cards that I’ve seen and it helps me understand why so many people miss Topps Archives.

 

Technorati Tags: Dwight Evans,eBay

Mailday and Panini Laziness

I was rooting for Panini to put out some great products when they took over the NBA trading card license from Topps and Upper Deck, but so far I've been mostly disappointed. The only boxes that I've purchased are one box of the flagship set and one box of the Hall of Fame set. I really wanted to like Studio, but the fact that the base cards are designed for autograph and relics ruins them. The fact that Panini mostly guarantees "hits" and not autographs means that a lot of their boxes don't even come close to being worth what you have to pay for them. Hopefully things improve in 2011. I'm very excited about the upcoming Donruss set. They are by far the best base cards that Panini has "designed" for the NBA to date. I put designed in quotes because they're reusing an old design.

That being said, there are some nice Panini cards out there. The Skylines cards in Studio were one example. Check out these four Celtics cards that I mentioned recently in a previous post.

Most of the cards in the Hall of Fame set are great looking. The Famed Fabrics cards are very nice looking. That's where the good design ends unfortunately. The Old School card suffers from bad design with that huge empty area where the Celtics logo is just waiting to contain an autograph sticker or jersey swatch. The two Big Baby cards are a good example of Panini's laziness. First off, Davis is a Prestigious Pro? I'm a big fan and I don't even think that I would say this. It's just another reason to throw more cards out there and then they make it worse with a floating jersey swatch in the card. Want to see another example of this? Check out the picture below.

Here's where things get even worse. I've seen the same card come in jersey and patch versions, but this is a new one on me. You can find this card with a square window over the jersey swatch as well as die cut windows of Pierce's number 34. This is the kind of crap that really has to stop if Panini wants people to take them seriously.

Why do I have these cards if they're so terrible you might ask. Well, they were all available very cheaply which made it worthwhile to add to my collection. Buying singles is a lot different than slapping down a wad of cash to purchase packs or a wax box. While I have no problem picking up Panini singles, especially with how cheaply many of them sell for, I have yet to be motivated to purchase many of Panini's wax offerings.

A Winner Is Me

Sorry for all of the eBay posts recently, but I've been having a pretty good streak of luck there lately.  I'm pretty sure that this card continues the streak.  Honestly, I'm completely shocked that I won this card given the low bid that I placed on it, but it held up and the card is now mine.

The nice thing about this time of year is that there's plenty of overtime opportunities at work and it's nice to reward yourself after a little extra work with something nice for the collection.  Want to see what it is?  Check this out.  There's part of me that thinks it has to be fake or creased down the middle for it to sell for what it did.  It's not exactly on-card like I wanted, but it is close enough.

Wow, this is a huge addition to my collection and something that I've been hunting for for a while now.  I was actually 2 feet away from Piazza and an in-person autograph at one of the Pepsi Softball Challenges, but I couldn't bring it upon myself to shove little kids out of the way for an auto.  I couldn't be that guy.  When I saw many of those kids selling their autographs to adults or getting money in return for getting the signature for them, I wish I could have been that guy, but it still wouldn't have been worth it.

This, this makes all of it worth it.  All of the waiting and passing up other cards and opportunities.  While I've only ever purchased one pack (and pulled a Ken Griffey signed bat card), I've grown to love Sweet Spot and have tracked down a bunch of the Dwight Evans cards (and need to hit the lottery before this auction ends.)  This card is going to make an excellent addition to the collection.

Dewey

This lot just might be my all-time favorite eBay auction win.  99 different Dewey cards for $6.75 shipped?  Yes, please.  It doesn't come close to the $54 book value stated in the auction title due to the condition of the cards, but there is some nice stuff in here.  The '75 is very nice and the '79 O-Pee-Chee is by far the oldest Canadian baseball card I have.  One day I'll track down an O-Pee-Chee Dewey rookie, but they always go for an arm and a leg when I see them.

Speaking of an arm and a leg, that Dwight Evans Sweet Spot 1/1 is already up to $215 with 7 days left in the auction.  Looks like that one won't be coming to my collection.

It's the oddball stuff that makes this lot fun for me.  There are a couple of Kellog's 3-D cards and a few Classic cards from the board games.  It's all topped off with some newer cards that I don't have yet.

Hope to have two new box breaks posted on Monday.  I also still have a backlog of breaks from my big shopping spree to get posted.

Celtics Lots

Finding stuff like this is one of the reasons why I haven't abandoned eBay completely when searching for lower priced cards.  While it's not worth it many times to have a single, cheap card shipped to you, sometimes you can make it worthwhile by finding multiple cards from one seller or by stumbling across a great lot.  My latest win came yesterday and it was actually a lot that I forgot to bid on the first time.  Luckily, it was listed once again and I was the only bidder.

I probably would have paid the four dollars that this whole lot will cost me with shipping on just the Dennis Johnson jersey card.  This lot comes with three other cards though and two of them will go right into one of my player collections.  There's a Big Baby Prestigious Pros card that is numbered to 499 as well as the same exact card with a jersey swatch stuck in it also numbered to 499.  There's also a Cedric Maxwell Old School card to round things out.  Not bad at all for $4 shipped.

Next up is a good win on behalf of a poorly written listing.

This auction is listed as a Big Baby Bowman Sterling Refractor.  They leave out the fact that it's an autograph which I think would have gotten it a little more attention.  This card is only numbered to 99 and it's one that I didn't yet have in my collection.  There's free shipping so that bumps up my potential high bid.  I end up winning the card for $6.05 which isn't bad at all for just this single card.  This single card?  What do you mean by that?  Well, further down in the listing you see that this lot also includes a Sweet Shot autographed card.  I already had this card, but this one ended up having a better autograph on it so I was happy with that.  So, I ended up with two Big Baby autographed cards; one is numbered to 99 and the other to 699 and they cost me three dollars a piece.  Can't beat that. 

Mail Day: Digging out

I forgot to include this card when I posted about my Jorge Garcia through the mail autograph success.  I also included a card to be signed which came out nicely as well.

Now that I’ve seen them, I’m wishing that I had one of the Rittenhouse cards signed and I may still try to get one signed, but I don’t want to be greedy.  Also, things are ramping up with the filming of the Lost finale supposedly and Mr. Garcia may be busy with other things after that and not have time to spend answering fan mail.

Here’s a Big Baby rookie green refractor.  If you’re going to get any Celtics refractors from this set, why wouldn’t you go with the green parallels?  They’re a perfect match for the Celtics uniforms and are numbered to 149 which is rare, but not too rare.

Big Baby seems to be the only guy on the Celtics who grabs any offensive rebounds at times.  The one thing that does seem to hold him back is his maturity level.  He earned a spot in Doc Rivers’ doghouse a few games ago after committing a stupid flagrant foul.  Hopefully he can overcome these maturity issues by the time Boston is looking for him to step into a starting role or it may never happen.

The black parallel is sharp as well and is numbered to just 75 copies.  The white outline around the player gives this card a little bit of a different look.

I think that I’ve been having the most fun with my Glen Davis collection because I’m able to pick up some cool cards at great prices.  That’s not the case with Paul Pierce, Mike Piazza or David Ortiz.  Piazza cards especially climb way out of my price range quickly.  I don’t have any Piazza autos while I have multiple autos of Davis and Pierce and now one autograph of Ortiz.

In typical eBay ridiculousness, I ended up paying less for the black refractor than I did the green and this one is rarer.

I’ve got a couple of Dee Brown cards that I got signed in person as well as an NBA Jam strategy guide that he was promoting.  So, why would I pick up a sticker autograph card?  Well, winning it for a dollar may have had something to do with it.  I also don’t really have many pack inserted autographs for the former Slam Dunk Champ so I figured that I would pick this up.

Brown is now coaching the NBA D-League team in Springfield.  I don’t know if the team was on the road, but it would have been cool for Panini to get this Celtics fan favorite to be a part of their Adrenalyn promotion in Springfield.


There’s no way that I could pass up this lot for a dollar.  I’ve been coveting the Larry Bird from this set ever since I bought one for my wife at a card show last year and this lot contains the refractor.  I would have paid a dollar just for that card, but I also got the regular Pierce and Parish cards from that set, a Pierce Finest rookie, a Garnett Finest card and three other Pierce cards.

The first thing that I did after trading away my Babe Ruth Yankees hat logo card was to start searching eBay for Red Sox players that I could add to my collection.  I got this Ortiz for a great price.  My auction closed at $5.50 when most others were ending in the $10 - $15 price range.

I know many collectors hate manufactured patches on principle.  These are great looking cards though.  I don’t mind at all that the B in this card wasn’t ever touched by David Ortiz.  Somewhere down the line, nice looking cards started taking a backseat to ugly cards with bits of crap in them or a random serial number printed on them.  These are great looking cards.  ‘Nuff said.

I picked up one Clay Buchholz autographed card for my collection prior to this just to have one.  I was at the no-hitter and have a mini collection of Buchholz cards.  Buchholz has a terrible autograph and I never saw myself picking up another one of his scribbles.  Seeing this card changed my mind.  First off, this is signed on-card while my other autograph was on a sticker.  Second, Allen & Ginter autograph cards are beautiful.  Third, Buchholz’s autograph doesn’t look quite as bad on the little mini card.  Next up, for the Buchholz collection: one or two of his 2005 rookies.  From there, I’d love to get something nice framed with the ticket stub and a signed photo.  Maybe not something this elaborate, but I would love that as a gift some day.

I’ve picked up these cards before, but I haven’t had the best of luck getting these cards in good condition.  I win the auctions cheaply and always seem to find people that think shipping cards wrapped in paper towels actually does something to protect them.  These cards aren’t necessarily damaged, but they don’t look at that great either.  One day I’ll just buy one of each of the stamped factory sets from my Rockies and Marlins inaugural year collections.

I love the Lumberjacks inserts and was holding on to the one that I pulled from a box back when these first came out even thought it wasn’t of a player that I collected.  Now that I have this Piazza in my collection, I can trade away that other card.

The Lumberjacks card is numbered to 5000 and the Great American Heroes card is numbered to 2500.  Big deal back when they were released, high print run by today’s standards.

The good thing about that is that I can now pick up insert cards that sold for $20 back when they were first released for a fraction of the cost.  There were a lot of cool Donruss/Leaf and Fleer Ultra inserts that I couldn’t pick up then that I can now add to my collection.

I never would have known about the Topps Tek set if it weren’t for card blogs.  Now it is safe to say that I’m officially hooked on this set.  I’ve picked up a few Piazza lots here and there and am slowly growing my collection.  Some of the designs are ugly, but the majority of them look nice.  The backgrounds with the various team logos in them especially look good.

Last, but not least, another Jeremy Piven letter.  I only grab these when they’re listed cheaply so I may never finish off this phrase.  Many people don’t want to list these cheaply after getting one of these as a hit in their Icons box, but they don’t really sell for more than $3 or $4.

On the letter front, just the second H from Kent Hrbek that I’ve ever seen showed up on eBay and went for a ton of money just like the first.  That’s another word that I may never complete.

That’s all for now.  Time to get the room together and things put away before I starting bringing in a bunch of new singles.

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,Glen Davis,Paul Pierce,Jeremy Piven,Clay Buchholz,Dee Brown,Larry Bird,Jorge Garcia