A long post before a long break

Over the past two months I've added loads of new cards to my collection and thought of several blog post ideas. I've just lacked the time to write about any of them. And so I wanted to start the new year off with a relatively long post about my card collection, blog, and goals for 2026. 

Like a lot of long-time collectors, I definitely feel like I've been priced out of the hobby. 2025 was a horrible year personally but it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape my collection. If hobby box prices were reasonable (no monopolies, no breakers, etc.) I could see myself sauntering into my LCS and leaving with 5 or 6 boxes, single cards, supplies.. you name it. Instead, I bought one hobby box. I hadn't bought a hobby box in years - and I'll probably never do it again. 

 

Retail has been my go-to for about a decade, though it's frustrating to have your options limited by whatever basic products you can find at Target. $20 blasters were always a cheap way to get your rip fix; if the box is a dud, at least it didn't damage your wallet. But those $20 blasters are now $35 for the same amount of hits. If card shows were a thing around here -- and dealers brought quarter and dollar boxes -- I'd only go to Target for home essentials and whatnot. 

In fact I go to Target even less because Barnes & Noble has a better selection of blasters, they're closer, and I have more incentive to shop there because my daughters read books and I get rewards coupons. They even have hockey cards!

As any savvy collector will tell you, ripping boxes is a waste of money. It's better to just buy the singles you want. I did a mix of that in Q4 2025: some from the 'smart' side of the ledger and some from the 'foolish' side. Spending over $200 on Series One of Upper Deck hockey? Dumb! I could have bought the base set and the top rookies for roughly that amount. I still need about 40 of the 250 base cards and I didn't pull the Ivan Demidov RC out of hobby or retail (also - hobby doesn't have relics or autos anymore? what's the chase - low numbered parallels? ) 

Also on the 'foolish' ledger - I spent nearly $300 on a Jim Palmer second-year card that I could have bought for $30 raw. It's hard to explain this to a traditional collector/slab skeptic, especially with reports of grading malfeasance from PSA (which is now a monopoly!) popping up more frequently than ever. In general, it's a terrible time to invest in any type of graded cards - PSA, SGC, or especially BGS. 

But that train left the station a looong time ago, and I've never had the extra room in my budget to shape my seemingly disparate slabs into an actual theme. With each passing year, my interest in new cards and current players dims, allowing me to focus on players I grew up watching and 'golden era' legends whose legacies are etched in stone. 

It's exhausting trying to speculate on current players - which ones will succeed immediately? Which ones will fail spectacularly? Which ones will improve at a expected rate for their sport, but the hobby hypes them up soo much that by the time they reach the potential everyone knew they had, investors had already given up because they weren't immediately amazing?

I seriously considered picking up a Connor Bedard Young Guns RC last summer for about $200. Would have been a smart investment, but collecting current players just isn't a priority for me anymore. I buy new product for fun. I invest in vintage because I've made way too many mistakes selling too soon on recent stars. The Alex Ovechkin SP Authentic sale was amazing, but I still left money on the table. 

And I'm okay with that. I've learned to let go of the mistakes and forgive myself for selling cards I shouldn't have. This. Is. A. Hobby. Collect what makes you happy, not what makes you money. 

For me, that means one of three things: set building, team PCs, and vintage. There are some players(most of them retired) that still ping my antennae, but that's less of a priority at the moment.
 

Team PCs are the cheapest, and it's where I've spent the most time over the past year and a half. I'm running out of room for more Red Sox, Packers, Devils, and Whalers.. yet that doesn't stop me from hitting Sportlots or Beckett for new stuff. My final purchase of 2025 was from Rich N' Deals. I was lured in by a 30% off coupon, filled my cart with everything I wanted, and had about $70 worth of singles ready to order. But the coupon was only good for $100+ purchases. I needed to find a "free" card. 

Dennis will be happy with my choice here: 

I've got a couple low-end rookie cards of the holy pitching trinity of the 21st century: Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander*. None of them were Topps until now. I also picked up a Joe Flacco relic to get me just over the $100 minimum. I wasn't foolish enough to spend $30 on a $10 card alone - even if it was technically free. 

For a brief moment many months ago, I considered picking up a slabbed Bowman Chrome auto of Verlander - until I searched prices on eBay. Oof. This is why I can’t collect current players.

*Side note/mini-rant: why are the HOF vote totals for borderline pitchers exploding this year? We don't need to put Andy Pettitte or Felix Hernandez in the Hall to fill a quota - just wait for these guys (and Greinke). 

I don't want to spend too much time discussing my vintage graded card collection here; you'll see many of the cards in my upcoming Top Ten By Position series anyhow. It has been a lot of fun selling certain slabs and streamlining the collection. My graded card carrying case fits exactly 144 slabs, so I've named my PSA project "The 144". 4 Sharp Coners consignment has helped me essentially trade in unneeded vintage for 'bucket list' rookie cards and high-grade copies of legends that were missing from my collection. The Position series will serve as a checklist for who I'm still missing. Should be fun!

On that note, I'm going to take a break from blogging for the majority of January. I'm currently undertaking a major cataloging project that will prepare me for the blog series (set to debut in February or March) and allow me to trade on TCDB so I can fill some sets. Box and binder space in my collection is very limited but I do have room for one more row of boxes on my shelf. 

Looks like I'll be adding more Topps baseball and Upper Deck hockey sets to my collection this year.  

Of course the real set building focus remains my 1956 Topps set. I plan to complete this in 2026, for several reasons: 

-my mom got me started on this and I want to finish it while she is still alive (her health is declining faster than she wants to admit) 

-my kids are going to start planning for college soon, and I will either need to sell the set to fund their higher education or, at the very least, stop spending money on myself

-it's the 70th anniversary of this fantastic set, the 75th anniversary of Topps baseball cards in general, and my 40th year of collecting!

🎵Memmm-ries 🎵

As the year progresses, I will plan some festivities for these occasions. For now, my focus will be on the Top Ten By Position series - and possibly a post on collecting(or not collecting) bad guys before that. 

Thanks for reading!



~

Arena Club - review

I never get sucked into sponsored ads. No amount of Draft Kings or Fanduel signage will push me to put 500 bucks on a three-legged parlay or bet the kids' college fund on which Cleveland Guardians pitcher will intentionally throw a pitch in the dirt. I am now more convinced than ever that Emannuel Clase threw BP against the Yanks in a playoff game to appease a bookie. I'm getting off topic here. 

But then.. some of my favorite sports talkers on YouTube started promoting something that I might actually use and enjoy...

What's this? A mystery pack of graded cards? Arena Club is a site/app that allows you to purchase a virtual pack of cards from $25 and up - which will contain one slabbed single. At every price point there's a chase card that could 10x your money, but it's a long shot (like a box/case hit) 

Arena Club offers packs in each of the four major North American pro sports - baseball, football, basketball, and... Pokemon. There appears to be something similar available for hockey - probably Canada only though. 

I always fight the impulse to boycott things that dont include NHL but then I grow up and buy from those places anyway. And boy, did I spend too much money at this site. Arena Club is dangerous!! 

The promo code from ThatsGoodSports gave me 20% off my first purchase, so I rolled the dice and bought a $100 pack. Then I paid for Slab Safe Premium protection to not get completely skunked. 

Okay, not bad. Arena Club gives you the option to sell the card back to them at a manageable loss. I think I was offered $82 for this Herbie. I passed. 

For a couple days I tried flipping it for $100. No takers. Then I woke up one morning at 7:30 am and saw that I had an offer. What I didn't have was my morning coffee/energy drink. The first thing I saw on the offer screen was $85. So I quickly accepted. Can't play around on the site if I don't have any cash, right?

My balance didn't change. I had $0. Where did my money go? Well, turns out that $85 was the estimated value -- and I didn't scroll down to see what I was actually being offered. Oh no. 

What did I get...?!?

Well, shit. That user must have been laughing hysterically at this newbie move. A Kyler Murray Mosaic numbered to 80 and a Cornerstones Jaylen Brown numbered to 25. I don't want either of these. The Kyler is a cool card but Mosaic has way too many parallels and he's probably done as a starter - at least in Arizona. Jaylen is clearly off-center and outside of the app, no one is going to take an Arena Club slab seriously. 

I had to divest these undesirable slabs, and I wanted to experience all that Arena Club had to offer. So I tried trading the Murray and listed the Brown in an auction. That netted me $20 ($22 - $2 fee).

The cool thing about the marketplace is that you can offer cards, cash, or a mix of both for anything you see on the site. Problem was, I had a lemon and I was having trouble turning it into lemonade. 

It became clear that I would need more tradebait. Which meant busting more Slab Packs. 

Hmm.. intriguing, but Chronicles waters down RCs. Also Burrow is injured - again :/

Ugh, no. Not even MJ fans would want a common card in this grade. 

Ooohh vintage. Now we're talking! But it's sooo off-center :/

Here's where I got foolish. Instead of trying to trade these, I sold them all back to the "bank" so I could buy more packs:

Jordan - $31

Carew - $42

Burrow - $26

Along with the $20 from the Jaylen Brown, I now had $119 to spend  -- but it cost me $190. 

The site offers special theme packs from time to time, and these popped up at a reasonable price:

Who would you expect to pull from a Yahoo Fantasy Football themed pack in the year of our lord 2025? 

Okay, I quit. This site officially sucks. Who's behind this scam, anyway? 

 No kidding. The guy who gave Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees, then left the Marlins to .. do this?

Ha! Now you know how it feels to open a Slab Pack from Arena Club. 

This is a neat concept but in my experience - and the breaks I saw online - about 90% of the time you're going to lose money. If you're one of the 10% you might pull something that you can trade, or flip for a small profit. I had a tough time trading the Kyler Murray, even when I lowered my standards to Cold List favorites like Kris Bryant and Damian Lillard. But, trade it I did, and... well, you be the judge:

This was the best I could do after a dozen tries. I know Ja Morant is a head case who is one strike away from completely detonating his career but these Test of Time die-cuts are cool as hell, very hard to gem up, and numbered to 75. Also, Morant has slightly more upside as a franchise star than Murray. I think. 

So, I'm over a hundred in the hole and I've got one cool card. Let's buy more packs!!! 

That's more like it. Please tell me this guy isn't a 27 year old whiff machine. 

Well.. he was a first round pick two years ago. He's got power. He's the right age. But man, that contact rate is no bueno. He's way down the list of prospects for a franchise in desperate need of offense. Meh. 

But this pull was just good enough for me to start feeling lucky. One more pack. That's it. Let's gooo..

Oh, you mock me. Not the first time I've pulled a gold refractor auto numbered to 50 of a Yankee thanks for reminding me of that. So much to ooooh and aaaaah about with this card - except the player. Oswald Peraza played about a season's worth of games in his three years with the Yanks and batted .189 with a .282 slugging. The Cash-man shipped his ass to Anaheim and he got even worse outside the meek dimensions of Yankee Stadium. Peraza's cumulative OPS+ this past season? 33!! 67 points below average. Peraza is a minor leaguer. This card is cursed. 

I'm absolutely done with this site. Except.. now I have to offload this sparkling turd. Maybe I can hunt some vintage if it's not a huge name. I'm more familiar with the value of vintage cards, and they're not contingent on current performance. 

Success! This Ken Boyer sold for $87 in August. Except this Ken Boyer is off-center on the back. 

I've now got a Ja Morant, Brock Wilken, and Ken Boyer to show for my hundreds of dollars spent. But before I leave the site for good and send away for these killer cards I need to pad the shipment a bit. 

The Arena Club marketplace is... actually good. If you're a graded card collector you can find some reasonably priced singles such as:

I've got an ungraded CMC silver that I can sell for the price I paid here - about $25. 

Plain Prizm RCs of PC guys who are not exactly lighting up wantlists right now. Dame is back with the Blazers, rehabbing his Achillies' injury while Middleton is in Wizards witness protection because the Bucks swapped him for Kyle Kuzma. 😒

I had about $45 left to spend and I needed to set aside half of that for shipping. There was one card that interested me, and I was one dollar short - a Mike Singletary 1983 Topps RC, PSA 8. I made an offer but it sold for full price. Not surprising but a bit disappointing. 

Even more disappointing? I could have - and should have - just bought it. Because you can't use store credit to pay for shipping!

So, I had to buy more cards on the marketplace. With the Singletary gone, I squeezed these into the budget:

Silver Prizm parallels are about as high as I go. Ladd McConkey was just $14. Not a steal but actually cheaper than his base single was on the site. Bijan Robinson Prizm base RCs were $30 and up so I got this Absolute single for half the price. My football RC collection needed some color anyway. 

That left me with a little bit of cash to rummage through the bargain bin. It was not easy finding something unique for under $15 but I managed to pluck one more sharp looking slabbed single:

Took a shot on this Chet Holmgren parallel cause it's numbered to 125. Kinda color matches, too. 

Order complete, let's get outta here:

Ugh... $28 shipping for $250 worth of cards that cost me $400. 

Overall, I would say that while Arena Club can be fun  -- the pack rip animation is a treat, and the marketplace is better than COMC -- if anyone reading this is interested in giving Derek Jeter your money please proceed with extreme caution. Luckily I don't think anyone reading this is as interested in collecting cards in plastic prisons as I am :)

Have you heard of Arena Club before? Have you tried it? If so, share your experience in comments. 

Thanks for reading!


~

Slab-tober

This is going to be one of those posts most card bloggers loathe: a showoff post (gasp!) that involves selling a significant card (gasp!!) to buy graded cards (GASP!!)

I wasn't even sure I wanted to share this with the group, but this was years in the making. As you may recall I sold my Alex Ovechkin SP Authentic RC, shown here:

total received: $6,008.75

I also consigned two other cards which sold for a combined $820. In total I raked in just shy of 7k. Setting aside 3k for home improvement projects and Christmas gifts left me with just under $4,000 to build my graded card PC.

Behold ! My Summer of slabs September of slabs Slab-tober spoils!

total spent: $1,224.00

I'd never considered acquiring RCs of Mario Lemieux or Patrick Roy, they were condition sensitive and out of my price range. Mario is super undervalued compared to Gretzky's RC but his OPC is hard to find centered (did the best I could but it's still 80/20) Roy's RCs often have a speck of blue ink in the name bar. Took me a long time to find a centered copy with no ink speck. 

total spent: $447.83

This was somewhat of an impulse buy. I had planned to purchase a 1987-88 Fleer Michael Jordan in Near Mint condition, but I wasn't satisfied with the centering - and it's a $600+ card. Considering I don't like Mike (and never have) it seemed like too much money to spend on a pure investment. Instead I spied this Mint condition card of the guy who went #1 ahead of MJ in the 1984 draft. I was always an Olajuwon fan, and the only reason I never owned this card was because Star made everything confusing for me. 

Honestly I'd rather have this Akeem card, but it isn't his first Star card. His first Star card is waaay out of my price range, and both/all of them have card backs that look like unlicensed knockoffs. 

Total spent: $346.50

Here's a couple of LT rookies. I always liked Tomlinson, and his RC was $60 more than Taylor's. The OG LT strikes a thoughtful pose on his '82 Topps single, which is appropriate since I've thought long and hard about how a player's off-field character factors into my collecting choices. Short answer: it's complicated. Perhaps I'll dig deeper into this topic one day. 

Total spent: $647.20

Add A-Rod to that discussion. Ergh..I got those plastic display stands so I wouldn't have to scan slabbed cards, but the lighting in my card room is horrible. Ebay's authenticity wrappers are distracting and  unnecessary. I haven't broken the seal on any of them, but it's tempting. 

Total spent: $597.03

No character issues with these legendary aces. These '60s singles were roughly the same price, yet Koufax didn't have to pass through eBay's authenticity program. Perhaps because it was purchased from a Canadian seller? Palmer was one of the few 1960s-70s greats that wasn't represented in my PSA box. I actually prefer this second-year single to his '66 Topps rookie card. 

Total spent: $452.53

Joe Montana's rookie card is an infamous part of my collecting life. In my early teen years it was a 'grail' card, one that I could only afford because the owner of my LCS was friendly with my mom and allowed me to make payments. It took me all summer, but I paid off the shop owner and had my Montana card. Shortly after, when Mom argued with me about my sports card "obsession" and accused me of caring more about my cards than my family... I ripped it up right in front of her.

Mom stared at me slack-jawed, and after a second or two she said "well, that was dumb."

For a long time I thought about replacing the Montana RC, but whenever I saw one it brought back that unpleasant memory. It was time to patch that hole in my collection. 

And that brings the total to $3,715.09. There was also a Jack Eichel rookie card and a Terry Sawchuk that I'll scan up and discuss some other time. The pictures from my phone are just too blurry :/

Obviously this all happened at the worst possible time. It seemed frivolous to spend so much on trading cards, but that's how long it took to re-slab the Ovechkin, get it back from Beckett, consign it with 4 Sharp Corners, and receive my payout. Acquiring these cards in particular has helped me focus on which cards I would prioritize in order to consider my collection 'complete' and after this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, that list is much shorter. 

I've got a post or two planned to track my vintage base and modern-ish rookie card collection and where these news slabs slot into those lists, plus that project on overlooking(or not) great players with bad reputations. 

Thanks for reading!


~

Summer of Slabs 06 - Sets, etc.

The "final boss" of my card collecting career is the 1956 Topps set. My original plan was to get every single card in PSA 5 grade or better. Here's the latest acquisition, a Rip Repulski 6: 

Down to 48 cards, which means most of what remains is either a hall of Famer (Mays, Reese, Doby, etc.) or a tough common that rarely appears in mid-grade. A fully slabbed set probably wasn't feasible before 2020, and it makes even less sense now. I've filled in some spots with ungraded cards whenever I can find an affordable option. In some cases, the ungraded copies are even pricier than slabbed singles.

Here's a Walter Alston I'm watching. The Dodger tax is real with this one. 

When this ends, it will likely be over $75 total. For those who think graded cards are a waste of money, here's a copy of the Alston card that would have fit my needs:

That's about as much as I would want to pay for a Manager card, even if it is a "RC" of a Hall of a Famer. 

I'm hoping to pick up at least a few '56s from Greg Morris this weekend, but the bidding is always competitive. That's why I prefer to use Buy It Now.

Picked up this Joker RC for under $200. It's a lot for a Donruss card, but I got one really cheap on COMC a few years ago and flipped it for a nice profit. I'm building a bit of of a current/recent greats RC collection, and usually buy Chrome or Prizm because anything higher is out of my budget. However I went with the Donruss RC for Nikola Jokic because I preferred the price and the action shot over his posed Prizm photo. 

Also because I have the complete 2015-16 Donruss basketball set. 

I love graded cards. and I love building sets. A lot of collectors avoid slabbed singles because they're old school set builders and want to have every card in its pack pulled, natural state. I totally get that.

A lot of people buy graded singles as an investment. The authentication gives the owner some peace of mind. They're easier to resell if you suddenly have financial issues because of a natural disaster, or family illness, or because you have two kids who are approaching college age and you're no longer a two-income household. I totally get that, too.

My slabs and my sets are mostly separate. Except when they're not.

Here are three (more) graded singles in my collection that I can't sell because they are part of a complete set:

2018 was the last year I collected more than one baseball set, and it's a good thing I did. I have complete sets of Topps, Topps Opening Day, Big League, and Stadium Club along with Topps Chrome. Much of the appeal of those sets is tied to the Shohei Ohtani RC, and it's unlikely that someone looking for this Chrome RC would be interested in the whole set when they can just buy this one card.

This Michael Jordan All-Star card is one of a handful of slabbed 1988-89 Fleer singles in my collection. I do not currently have the complete set of this; I sold my base MJ (PSA 7) to raise funds for an upgrade. One of the other cards in that consignment was a Dominique Wilkins PSA 9, which I didn't really need in PSA grade. I'll pick up a 'raw' copy for a couple bucks, eventually.

The 1988-89 Fleer set looks a bit off in my basketball binder, because I've got empty pockets for those half-dozen singles in the PSA box. My 2000 Finest baseball set has a space for the Johan Santana RC, and I've considered selling the BGS copy to pick up an ungraded card for the binder. Maybe one day.

Which leads me to 1993 SP, one of my all time favorite sets. I've got the baseball and football sets completed in one binder. Except for the Derek Jeter RC, which was also sold with the intent to upgrade.

I can't possibly afford a PSA 9 copy of this iconic card, and I'll probably pay more than I want to for an 8. But there's another card I'm tempted to upgrade. Not nearly as iconic, but a staple of my teen years - and in my opinion, a nicer looking foil SP RC:

I grew up in New England during the Drew Bledsoe era. I remember when Bill Parcells joined the Patriots, when Robert Kraft bought the team, when they updated their uniforms, and when they drafted Drew. The franchise was a laughingstock through the late '80s and early '90s, and there was a ton of excitement over the new-look Patriots. 

A couple years later, when Bledsoe started resembling Dan Marino, this card blew up. I had a dealer come to my house and personally deliver a copy to my door. I think I paid $65, a "friend" price (they were selling for $75!)

It's tempting to pick up a PSA 9 copy for this card for my PC. The foil edges are just as condition sensitive as they are on the Jeter - and it's a fraction of the price!

Can't justify it though. I already have this card. And I need to set aside cash for the Walter Alston :/

Thanks for reading!




~

Summer of Slabs 03 - Am I collecting catchers?

While looking through my box of PSA-graded singles to select a few for consignment, I noticed something: 

I have a lot of catcher cards in my collection. Baseball cards take up abut 60% of my PSA box (not counting the 1956 Topps singles, which have their own shelf) and out of those seventy-something singles, nearly a dozen are cards of catchers.

Out of curiosity, I tallied each card by position. Pitchers were well ahead with 23, as you'd expect. Outfielders were next at 19 (would have been 20, but I currently do not have a 1960 Topps Mantle)

Catchers lead the infield, in a bit of an upset over first basemen:

C -- 11
1B - 7
2B - 4
SS - 4
3B - 6

This was the count before I sent my consignment order. I'd actually had 12 catchers at one time, but I sold a Jason Varitek Topps Traded RC in a previous consignment since I had an ungraded copy. This time, I sent away the Sullivan and Lollar. It wasn't an easy decision, but this focus on The 144 spots in my box has helped me determine which cards are true long-term keepers. 

Del Crandall and Craig Biggio make the cut this time. Crandall was a cheap COMC pickup from one of my first orders. I'd found so many quality vintage cards around 2014-16 that I renewed my long-dormant PSA subscription and sent in a bunch. Crandall was one of three NM-MT 8s, and one of the reasons I kept trying to tap the COMC well for more vintage to grade. It ran dry around five years ago :/

Biggio stays because it's a rookie card of a HOFer. I almost sort-of had an "all 1990s team" going, but got stuck at a couple positions. I might revisit that one day, and if I do, I'll need this one.

The Astros legend would not be an all-1990s catcher, of course. That honor would belong to Mike Piazza: 

It's odd to me that Piazza's Fleer Update RC is more valuable (scarcity, I guess?) or at least counted as the "top" Piazza RC. I've always preferred this Bowman single. Campy was a COMC acquisition; I prefer this to his 1955 Bowman single though that one has more personal significance. A story for another day.

One reason I never assembled that all-1990s team is because some RCs are worth purchasing in high grade and some aren't. Ivan Rodriguez would be the AL's catcher, and I do have his Ultra Update ungraded. A half-slabbed, half-raw collection didn't look right. But I do have the original Pudge in a plastic prison:

These might not stay in my collection for too long. The '75 would be a keeper if the centering was better (those borders are tricky), while the '79 is nice to have but not necessarily in a slab. It's one of the two 1979 Topps cards remaining from a batch I'd bought on COMC. There were so many HOFers in 8 or 9 grade that I should have held on to - Nolan Ryan, Catfish Hunter, Eddie Murray, Fergie Jenkins, and others - but I kept the Fisk 8 and the Jim Rice 9.

Of course, no catcher card collection would be complete without the greatest catcher in MLB history:

This is the best Bench card in my opinion. At least it's the best Bench in my budget. 

There's your team of the 1970s catchers, with all due respect to Thurman Munson. Although maybe Fisk would start for the AL in the '80s? Gary Carter would be the NL's catcher for sure. I've tried finding his 1977 O-Pee-Chee single but they're tough. Might have to settle for Topps on that one.

1960s catchers are a mixed bag. There aren't any true Hall of Famers; Yogi Berra's career was winding down while Johnny Bench was just getting started. Bill Freehan would be the bridge there. I had a high-grade copy of his 1968 Topps single, but gave it to my father in law when he expressed interest in starting a '68 Tigers team set. That was a lot of fun to help him with. I hope I get to see that again one day.

Yogi cards are a bit out of my price range. I've kicked the tires on a '62 Topps and might have to pick one up if I'm really committed to collecting catchers. 

One more to show you. It's my highest-grade pre-war card, and another COMC pickup from back in the day:

Luke Sewell caught over 1,600 games in the majors over a 20-year career, and compiled a total WAR of... 4.6. Not great. But it's a 1933 Goudey, you take what you can get. And the reason I was able to get this one was the pen mark on the back.

It's more of a pen indent. There's another '33 Goudey catcher card that I've had my eye on for quite a while:

If I could squeeze one more 1933 Goudey card into my box (and budget), this is the one I would target. Unfortunately even a common card like Muddy here are much more expensive than they were a few years ago. 

Ruel was Walter Johnson's catcher in Washington, and helped the Senators win their only World Series in 1924. I've got more Sens to show and tell in my next Summer of Slabs post...

Thanks for reading!



~