Summer of Slabs 01 - Color matching

Welp, now that everyone has noticed I've returned to blogging... I will have to go on another hiatus. 

Two weeks from today Mrs. Collector will go under the knife for a 6-hour procedure involving three different surgeons to (hopefully) remove her liver and colon tumors. If all goes well, her recovery will take about a month. But that's strict rest; she will still have to take it easy for a few months after that. 

So.. no East Coast National, no birthday visit to Connecticut, and no card show at the mall the following weekend. I'm still consigning cards with 4 Sharp Corners(might need the money more than I care to imagine), and I'm going ahead with my planned series of Summer of Slabs posts. Some of these might have to be scheduled, but we're not there yet. 

In this series I'll scan up a couple of BGS or PSA-graded cards in my collection. Some of these just arrived from Beckett, some are on their way to 4SC, and some have permanent residence in my hallowed Graded Card Chest -- which the Mrs bought me at least 15 years ago. 

The manufacturer went out of business a decade ago

There's room for 144 PSA-graded cards in this bad boy, and my initial purpose for these posts (before the surgery was moved up a month) was to determine which cards to keep, which to sell, and which cards to acquire. 

We'll get back to this soon enough. Today I want to kick off this series by showing off some color matching parallels fresh from BGS:

This Matt Chapman green refractor is numbered to 75. Someone on eBay offered me $20 for it after he'd just been traded to the Giants. I decided to hold on to it for a while, but decided to submit it for grading while he's still a top-tier third baseman. It's going in the shipment to 4 Sharp Corners. 

I picked up this Tony Parker Bowman '48 tribute for $5.25 on COMC way back in 2015(have I really been back into basketball card collecting that long?!?) The black parallels are numbered to 48 and I wanted to grade it specifically so 4SC would consign it. There is a white corner (back bottom left) that I was aware of before submitting it to BGS, but I took the gamble anyway. No idea what to expect for this one; Carmelo Anthony and Vince Carter cards sold for about $20 raw, while a PSA-authenticated (not graded) Kobe Bryant sold for $330. 

I love this Steve Nash orange refractor. The only reason I considered selling it was because these sell for a lot more than I realized; a PSA 9 Nash just sold for about $130. The centering was an obvious issue on my copy, but BGS saw more of an issue with the edges. Either way, a Mint 9 was best-case scenario for this card. A sale price ceiling of over $100 is tempting, but I'm gonna hold on to this for another year or so.

Sorry about the iffy pictures, btw. My scanner won't work with thick BGS holders so I had to use my phone. 

Finally tonight, here's the one card that I knew I wanted to get a Gem Mint grade on, the one that would look the coolest in my color match collection, even if it's not as valuable as the others... 

Wooo this is the best grade yet! Filip Forsberg isn't Connor McDavid or anything, but he's one of the top rookies in the 2013-14 Panini Prizm set. This was the only stand alone Panini Prizm puck product and since a Red Sasha Barkov is out of my budget, this was the best color match I could acquire. There's one on eBay (with a better pic) listed at $129. I don't think it would sell for half that in auction. 

This weekend I'll discuss some more from the 'consign' pile, and maybe another keeper or two.

Thanks for reading!



~

I Got New Cards

I'm working on a long blog post update about a non-sports topic I used to discuss here years ago, so I don't have the creativity to come up with a clever title for this post or any kind of theme tying these things together.

So... here are some cards I acquired recently, starting with a purchase from 4 Sharp Corners:

 

The only vintage Frank Robinson issue I have is from 1964 Topps Giants, so I thought the mainstream release would pair nicely with its same-year counterpart. Paid a lot more for this one than I did the "oddball" but I'm happy with it.

 

 
The eye appeal is as good as any '6' I've ever seen. Centering on the front could be a little better but the back is very clean.

 

 

 
Also picked up a 'bucket list' card with this Brooks Robinson here. In my mind, a '71 Topps without white specks or chipping should get at least a +1 grade bump, but the centering on the back isn't great.


Total for these two was about $75. And they brought back a memory from my childhood. No, I wasn't alive in 1971. The Orioles were awful when I was a kid, and I think I must have been asking my older brother (who was old enough to have seen the 1970 World Series) if they were ever any good. Because he told me that they were one of the league's best teams when they had Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson.

"Were they brothers?" I asked my brother. I had this weird assumption that everyone with the same last name was related.

"No!" He scoffed, informing me that Frank was black and Brooks was white. Not long after this, I began pulling Frank Robinson manager cards out of Topps packs and devouring books about baseball history.

I know how most of you feel about graded cards, and I'm a little perturbed that these beauties were merely EX-MT, while some lesser-looking examples surely graded higher. I can't help myself, I just love graded vintage singles. But I probably won't be buying any more for a long time now that my 'treasure chest' is full.

Okay, maybe just one more.

Sometime around Easter I bought a couple Upper Deck fat packs at Target.

 

Most of the cards had corner dings and nicked edges, which was a real bummer since I pulled not one but two Young Guns. One of them was a RC of 2021 #1 overall pick Owen Power, so I decided to roll the dice on a replacement. (Not that it was UD's fault, probably some rowdy Target shoppers or employees dinged 'em.)

I sent the two YGs and about 25-30 base cards back to Quality Control.

You can see the top corner dings on the cards I sent back. The new examples are much cleaner. Not perfect, but I'm not grading them so they're more than adequate. Think I'll leave them in these nice sealed top loaders, too.

Instead of exact replacements for the loose cards, UD sent me three hobby packs - all of which were slid into thick (and clean) top loaders. I crossed my fingers for a third Young Gun but I wasn't that lucky.

Each pack did contain an insert, however. These currently sell for about 28 cents each on COMC, lol.


Was it worth spending the $5 to ship the damaged cards to UD? Yeah, I'd say so. I'm happy with the replacements, got some inserts I didn't have before, and three nice top loaders that aren't cheap.


Also, this came in the mail just before the playoffs started. Kinda looked like a junk mail flyer, except...

 

It's a free Jack Hughes jumbo card! If you collected 1993-94 Score, that right side panel will look very familiar to you. I might hang this up in my cubicle wall at work - which I would be encouraged to do since we manufacture and sell clothing for all major sports teams. Gonna try and take a picture for y'all on Friday when most of the staff is working from home.

 
Anyway, I'm off to work on that news/journal/update thing. I think you'll like it - though if you've only been following this blog for a year or less, you'll probably have no idea who I'm talking about.



Thanks for reading and Let's Go Devils!!!!

~

 

For My Next Trick...

I placed an order with 4 Sharp Corners for the first time in two years. 4SC was once my go-to site for graded sports card singles, but a combination of higher prices (due to the pandemic-fueled hobby frenzy), weaker inventory (they have far less vintage and far too many autographed rookie cards of modern players) and/or the owners listing their inventory on eBay instead of their site scared me off.

But after Christmas I gave them another shot, and found three cards that fit my collection.

This card has been on my wantlist for a while, even though I detest Barry Bonds and disregard his records. True career home run king? Hank Aaron. True single-season home run king? Hank Greenberg.

Cheater or not, he is the home run king. And $34 for a Mint 9 RC of the home run king is a good deal, IMO. If this were the 1987 Topps card, or if Bonds had somehow been included in the 1986 flagship set, I'd understand why this card is still so affordable. But Topps Traded cards weren't mass produced at the same rate as flagship singles. The card stock is brighter and clearer; the PIRATES name at the top really pops.

This card also gave me an idea for another research project. I recently dug up an old list I'd made of the top 40 or so MLB players who are/were not in the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds obviously tops that list.

Some players such as Larry Walker, Alan Trammell, and Fred McGriff, have since been elected, and Scott Rolen could be next. After the BBWAA announcement is made on January 24th, I will update my list. In fact I plan to expand the list to the top 100 players not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

This is a topic that has undoubtedly been covered on other sites (Fangraphs, probably) and in books. But I enjoy doing my own research, and I haven't been able to scrounge up any new cards to discuss anyhow. (Tried visiting my old LCS - Target - and it looked like the shelves were stuck in Covid time.)

Since you can probably guess who the top 2-3 players (and most of the top ten) will be, I'm going to do this in countdown form. Players #100-81, then #61-80, and so on. Five posts should be sufficient.

Since each post will include 20 players (and I've already mentioned most of them in my All-Time teams series) I'll probably keep it fairly brief, one or two paragraphs per player, with some stats mixed in and a one-sentence question about their Cooperstown credentials.

If I don't post much over the next 2 weeks, it's because I will be researching some long-ago stars like George Van Haltren, Harry Stovey, and Sherry Magee along with personal favorites like Jim McCormick, Bill Dahlen, and Nap Rucker.

In case you were interested, the other two cards I ordered were: a 1988-89 Fleer Dominique Wilkins PSA 9 single am I a 'Nique collector now? and this '68 superstar:

Will the "Capitol Punisher" make my list of the 100 Greatest Players Not in the Hall of Fame? We shall see...

Thanks for reading!




~

An All-Time Great closes out 2019

I didn't get any sports cards this Christmas. Not a repack box or a blaster or a fat pack. Nothin'. I can't recall any other year when that has happened. However I did get an Aaron Rodgers jersey (which was a complete surprise) and a significant amount of cash. I put 70% of it in the bank for important adult stuff, and spent the other 30% at 4 Sharp Corners.

I've been selling some things on eBay for reasons I'll get into later, and I was browsing cards to buy during the 10% bucks promotion. One of the cards I considered was the 1992 Stadium Club high number Brett Favre. I have never owned a copy of this card, and I don't think I've ever seen it in person. It's much more rare and possibly more valuable than his Stadium Club RC from 1991.

I noticed that 4 Sharp Corners had a copy, and with their on-site sale of 20% off I decided that I'd gone far too long without owning a copy of this card. 

This is the 778th unique Favre card in my collection, and a great way to celebrate his inclusion on the NFL's 100th anniversary All-Time Team list!  

In my previous post I mentioned acquiring a second-year card of an iconic Hall of Famer, right? Well.. there's actually another one coming up. Here's the rest of my 4SC order:

This Bill Virdon was the only affordable 1956 Topps single on the site that I needed. I thought long and hard about continuing my PSA set builds before buying this card, because I doubt I'll ever finish them. Either way, $32.79 is a pretty good price for an NM-MT 8.

This Ralph Branca is already in my collection, ungraded. I scoured the 4SC site for early 1950s singles but there weren't any better options. Since I already have the '51 Bobby Thomson PSA-graded I figured the Branca would pair nicely with it.

This ungraded Branca is now available for trade but only for a similar vintage card or significant on-card auto.


There are lots of reasons to love the 1961 Golden Press set. It's an oddball issue, the photos are so sharp and colorful, the design is clean and simple, and best of all it's an affordable way to add pre-war HOFers to your collection.

This is my first Gabby Hartnett card. It's a bit of a milestone in my set build as I'm now at one-third completion (11 out of 33) and it only cost $12.79.


I'm not collecting the 1959 Topps set. It's far too big and I can't handle the high-numbers (especially the Bob Gibson RC). But it's a great source of affordable high-quality vintage singles.

This Curt Simmons was $15.99. It doesn't fit a set build or a team collection but it's a sharp looking 60 year-old card in high grade. Simmons pitched for 20 years, made three All-Star teams, and won a World Series with the 1964 Cardinals. He was also one of the "Whiz Kids" on the pennant-winning 1950 Phillies team. I wondered why he didn't get a start in the 1950 World Series and this article provided a very interesting answer.

Now I'm really glad I added this card to my order. Curt Simmons is still with us at age 90, and still signed cards for Topps as recently as 2016:

The five cards I picked totaled $149.80, and 4 Sharp Corners offers free shipping on all orders of $150 or more. That gave me a mission: find a decent card priced at $5 or less. It took a lot longer than I expected. Most of their cheap stuff is either lower-grade, modern, or both. 

Eventually I settled on this 1979-80 Topps league leader as my "free" card:

A high-grade card with Ken Dryden for $4? Sold! This one will be classified as a 1970s Canadiens card in my collection, though the presence of Chico Resch sandwiched between two Hall of Famers appealed to me as well. 


So I filled a significant hole in my collection with the 1992 Stadium Club Favre and picked up some nice vintage including a set filler. But this order was fairly impulsive (and has not arrived yet) The big piece was carefully planned and researched. It arrived Saturday morning, which means my best new sports card addition of 2019 will almost certainly go in the books as my very last card addition of 2019.

When the Devils traded Taylor Hall I decided to post my 2010-11 Upper Deck Young Guns set for sale on eBay. I've now sold all of my Young Guns sets except 2015-16 to fund my 1956 Topps set build. Once that sold I began targeting the most significant card on my 'need' list.

The only copies I could afford were graded VG-EX 4. I really did not want to drop below EX 5, but part of my contemplation of this - and other set builds - factored in the excess cash I was spending. Many card bloggers have shown me that lower-graded cards can be beautiful, and I put in an offer for a 4 that was about 90% of the asking price. 

The seller declined my offer, and closed the listing.

Undeterred, I kept searching for this card in my price range. I stumbled on a listing with one significant search term missing:

The photo was blurry, and the asking price was just out of my range. I made my offer on Christmas Eve, hoping that it would be accepted in time for me to collect my 10% cash back. 

I woke up Christmas morning before my daughters did. Checked my email and found that my offer had been accepted!

Here it is, a mid-grade second-year card of the great Roberto Clemente. I still can't believe this is in my possession. 

Here's a look at the back. Off-center but otherwise clean. Who was the genius in the Dodgers front office that let Clemente get away?

This is a great way to close out 2019, don't you agree? I'll have a New Year's Goals post up by the end of the week, and then I'll resume the All-Time Teams series. Meanwhile, check out Billy's Blog Bat Around on Cardboard History and if you're not following Gregory's blog Nine Pockets then stop on over and add him to your feed!


Thanks for reading, and have a Happy New Year!!



~