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!


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The rarest RC of 1991-1992?

Here's a short price list of early 1990s rookie cards:

$0.77 on SportLots

"Super Premium" rookie card of a Hall of Famer. This is the nicest of Jeff Bagwell's four main set(not update/traded) RCs. There's a million of these circulating. 

$1.50 on SportLots

Upper Deck managed to sneak in a "Final Edition" in 1991, and had the foresight to add this future legend. It's the only MLB card depicting Pedro Martinez in his pre-rookie season. There aren't as many of these Final Edition singles as the main set, but they're not hard to find. 

$0.20 on SportLots

Here's the only RC of a Hall of Famer in Upper Deck's inaugural basketball issue, and it's available for the price of a common. 

$2.42 on SportLots

12 year-old me would be crushed to learn that this Shaq rookie card can be acquired so easily. My friends and I ripped open as many $3+ packs as we could get our hands on to try and pull one of these. 

$2.02 - $2.52 (SportLots or COMC)

                                                                               

Score was the only company to include Martin Brodeur in their 1990-91 sets. His two RCs (English and French) are slightly more expensive than Dominik Hasek's RCs but waaaaaayyyyyyy cheaper than Patrick Roy's 1986-87 Topps card. That's because there are millions of 1990-91 Score singles floating around. My mother in law has at least a dozen Brodeur RCs. She could buy a dozen more and still spend less than the cost of a Roy RC.  

$2.73 on COMC

One more Hall of Famer here. Paul Kariya's first appearance in a mainstream set is this basic-looking 1991-92 Upper Deck single. However, this was not a basic card or set. This was a World Junior-only issue released in Czech. And it's still cheaper and more abundant than the inspiration for this post...

I'm pert'near finished with the first ten years of New Jersey Devils cards. There's only a dozen or so singles from 1982-83 to 1991-92 that I don't have, and this Bill Guerin XRC is unfortunately one of them. It's Guerin's only RC, and he did accumulate over 400 NHL goals over a stellar 18 year-career. But he's not a Hall of Famer, and he was never considered a superstar. 

I really didn't like him much during his playing days. He bounced around a lot and often complained about his contract, which is ironic because he's now the General Manager of the Minnesota Wild. He also assembled the US roster that lost to Canada in February's Four Nations tournament. I liked him even less after his pathetic display of groveling to Dear Leader, but I digress. 

Personal opinions aside, this is a Devils card and therefore should be in my collection. It is not, and here's why.

Parkhurst were reeeealll sneaky bastards, even more so than Upper Deck. This 25-card extension was available as a mail-in purchase on series II packs. Per TCDB, it is estimated that less than 15,000 of these sets exist.

Luckily, Guerin is the only Devil among them. 

This is what you can get for about $40+ shipping. Some extra Roy, Ray Bourque, Mario Lemieux, and Brett Hull cards, a playoff recap of the 1991-92 season -- indicating this should count as a 1992-93 release -- and three rookie cards. 

Trent Klatt's card would cost 10 cents in any other format. This one is $2.02 on Sportlots. 

Ray Whitney's RC is an interesting one. The highly underrated forward played parts of 22 seasons in the NHL, accumulating 1,085 career points (more than Guerin) and 385 career goals(more than Eric Lindros). His card should be ten times more than Klatt's but due to the scarcity of the set, they're equal. One - and only one - SL seller has both cards available for two dollars and two pennies apiece. 

He does not have the Bill Guerin. Beckett Marketplace does not have the Bill Guerin. No eBay seller is currently selling an ungraded Guerin (and I'd slide it into a 9-pocket page, so slabbed singles need not apply.)

The only place I could find that has a copy of this card in its intended free-range form... is COMC:

For that price you could buy the Bagwell, Pedro, Mutombo, Shaq, both Brodeurs, and the Czech Kariya. It appears that the Bill Guerin Parkhurst XRC is the scarcest rookie card in any set produced in 1991 or 1992. 

Topps added a High Series to their 1992 flagship and Stadium Club football card sets. Among the half-decent to very good players with RCs in this extension are Cowboys DB Darren Woodson and Packers WR Robert Brooks. 

The Brett Favre single in this set is more expensive than his 1991 Stadium Club RC - both of which would cost more than Bill Guerin's Parkhurst card. But they're not rare. I have both of them, as well as the Brooks RC.

Back on the baseball side, 1992 Fleer Update was a fairly limited release. Mike Piazza's RC is included. Jeff Kent and Tim Wakefield, too:

There's a John Valentin RC in this set that I don't have in my Red Sox collection. It's not available on SportLots or COMC. Could it be as scarce as that Bill Guerin card?  Nope!

Every team collector knows it's practically impossible to track down every single. And now I know that it can be an arduous task trying to track down a basic rookie card of a not-great player from the peak of the overproduction era.

Thanks for reading!  

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Great Player / Bad Rookie Card

In a recent weekly mailbag at my favorite sports-related website, someone asked the writer which great band had the worst name. (my personal fave would be Silversun Pickups) Let's see if I can apply that to sports cards. 

Over the years I've made a few wishlists of legendary players and / or personal faves. In most cases I'd target a player's rookie card, particularly if they played after 1981. If money were no object I could hoard PSA 10 copies of Hall of Fame stars to my heart's content. But there are some legends with RCs that just aren't appealing at any price. 

Here's a handful of HOFers with affordable (under $200) first cards that I'll probably never own, and why:

1996-97 NBA rookies

The 1996 NBA draft class is one of the greatest in my lifetime, rivaled only by 1984 and 2003. No basketball card collection would be complete without a Kobe Bryant RC and I used to have a PSA-graded copy of his SP single. Unfortunately rookies in that set are plain compared to other '96-97 issues. 

Kobe's top rookie cards are well over $200 - Topps Chrome and Finest (Gold). What's worse, they're prone to "greening", an unavoidable plague that discolors certain Finest and Chrome sets regardless of how well-protected they are. 

That alone is a reason why I avoid shopping for any player in this draft class - even PC stars like Steve Nash and Ray Allen. Allen Iverson is in these sets as well. (this copy screams "I'm melting!!")

It's a shame, the first Chrome basketball set would be a classic without that awful color bleed.
 

Tim Duncan 1997-98 Topps Chrome

Most Tim Duncan rookie cards are super affordable - $5 each or so. The one that isn't, Topps Chrome, is just as prone to greening as the previous year's set. Years ago, I picked up a Chauncey Billups RC from this set and tried to hide it behind another card in a top loader to keep it from greening. Didn't work. 

I wish I could fill that ten-year gap in my hoops legends collection between Shaq and LeBron, but Topps' tekchrome goo makes that a nearly impossible task.
 

Barry Sanders 1989 Score

1989 Score has a dozen rookie cards of Hall of Fame players, but only those who played during the 1988 season got action shots. That year's draft picks got this high school yearbook-looking shit. Which is a shame for fans of Troy Aikman, Deion Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and Barry Sanders. I have a Deion and a Derrick in my collection, but those were under $10 apiece. On aesthetics alone, I'd be reluctant to pay much more than $10 for Barry, even though he was my favorite running back of the '90s and the second-best rusher of the Super Bowl era.
 

If the Sanders Score RC looked like this, I'd have picked up a PSA-graded copy years ago.

Earl Campbell has a plain looking rookie card, too. But Topps didn't have licensing rights for NFL team logos until 1982, so anyone who wasn't a Brown or a Ram would have a similar-looking card. And Joe Montana's rookie card hides the lack of logos just well enough that it's a nicer looking RC than Sanders', which is why I tried to narrow this list to cards released after '81.
 

Hockey rookie cards

I've got to give Upper Deck credit. There aren't many modern hockey greats with lousy looking rookie cards. One that immediately comes to mind is the Brett Hull Topps/OPC rookie card, which predates UD's entry into the NHL market. I can't count this card as one I'll never own since I needed it to complete my set, but a legendary goal scorer like the "Golden Brett" deserved a decent looking RC.
 

That's better

So which hockey Hall of Famer has a (fairly attainable) rookie card that will likely never enter my PC? Here are some contenders:

A rare miss for Upper Deck here as Penguins defenseman Kris Letang gets the Barry Sanders treatment. He's still active and not quite a Hall of Fame lock, but he'll probably get in. Also, this isn't his best RC;  his SP Authentic Future Watch auto is well over $100 and not at all a necessity for my hockey card collection. 

Patrick Marleau should be a Hall of Famer, but so far the HHOF committee has greeted him thusly:

I'd rather have his junior hockey card anyhow. Squint at it and you can almost picture Patty in a Hartford Whalers jersey.
 

Besides Brett Hull, the one actual Hall of Famer with a subpar rookie card is Dale Hawerchuk. 

1982-83 O-Pee-Chee has a nice, clean design. Unfortunately early '80s OPC issues have centering issues galore, and many of them are rough cut. The two other Hall of Famers with RCs in this set - Joe Mullen and Ron Francis - got nice action shots while Winnipeg's rookie centers Hawerchuk and Thomas Steen got cruddy closeups. 

Steen isn't a Hall of Famer, but I could make a One Page PC out of his other '80s issues.  

I had to research that a little bit, and if I did any digging on baseball greats with bland rookie cards I could probably come up with a few. But one star slugger immediately came to mind without looking:

David Arias (Ortiz)

I have over 300 different David Ortiz cards. (I used to keep track on TCDB but that site is a shitshow.) Not one of them is a rookie card. Why don't I own a copy of one of my all-time favorite player's first cards? Well, let's take a look at my options:

I loathe 1997 Fleer. In my opinion, it's as bad as the 1991 edition - and worse than 1995. The cardstock is needlessly flimsy and every base card looks like it was printed from a cheap Compaq or something. The Tiffany/Crystal parallels are pretty sharp, but that just infuriates me even more because that should have been the base design. It was 1997 ffs, not 1987!) 

'97 Fleer Ultra is... fine. I'd probably have a copy of Big Papi's RC if it were $10. Maybe $20. But it's still an average looking card in a very run-of-the-mill, not at all rare or high-end set. It shouldn't cost more than a Jackson. And yet this nondescript single sells for up to $80! 

Instead of those, I picked up a minor league issue for under $15 and called it good. It's not an official RC but I got to rep my home state and save some cash, with an equal or better quality card. 

Can you think of any great players with not-so-great looking rookie cards?

Thanks for reading!



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A HOFer without a RC?!?

 Let's say you collect rookie cards of baseball hall of famers. 

You were expecting Adrian Beltre to be a first-ballot inductee so you planned ahead and picked up his 1997 Bowman (or Chrome) rookie card. 

Todd Helton was nearly elected in 2023, so you prepared by picking up his 1993 Topps Traded RC. 

Perhaps Joe Mauer's first-ballot election caught you by surprise. Not to worry; his Bowman, Bowman Heritage, and Topps rookie cards should only set you back a few bucks. There's also Topps Chrome and Pristine if you're shopping for luxury.

You look ahead to the 2025 baseball hall of fame ballot. There's Ichiro, and his dozens of rookie cards.

Carsten Charles has four from 1999 Topps products: Bowman, Bowman Chrome, Bowman's Best, and Finest. Two more late-season sets added Sabathia: Topps Traded and Topps Chrome Traded.  

Billy Wagner should get in, and he's got a handful of affordable RCs in 1994 sets.

Andruw Jones is a long shot, but you pick up his 1995 Bowman and/or Bowman's Best RCs just in case. 

And then there's Carlos Beltran. He was a few votes behind Jones on the 2024 ballot, but perhaps the BBWAA voters are through punishing him for banging those trash cans in Houston. If he doesn't get in this year, he'll likely headline the very thin class of 2026. You'll probably want to pick up his rookie card soon.

Not it.

This is a rare example of a Bowman first card not being a player's first card. Go back two years. 

Not it.

Technically this is Beltran's first card - but since it's a minor league prospect set it's not an official RC.

Topps whiffed on adding him to the 1995 Bowman set but they didn't forget him entirely. He's got one rookie card in the Traded set, and it's ... wait a sec...

Not it.

That's... not Carlos Beltran. It says Carlos Beltran right along the bottom there, but that ain't him.

Topps messed up. Big time. 

If you insist on purchasing a rookie card with Beltran pictured, you'll have to buy a LeBron:

It's practically unheard of in the modern era for a star player -- a surefire Hall of Fame player -- to have just one single rookie card. Carlos Beltran doesn't even have that; this is a Juan LeBron card.

If you're hoarding Hall of Famer RCs, which one do you buy? Both? Neither? 

There is... one more option. Beltran was somehow left out of 1995 Bowman but he technically appears in 1995 Bowman's Best. 

......

Not this Juan, either.

Thanks for reading!



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