Sharing some of my current pick ups and thoughts….
I figure occasionally I should share cards that I actually buy, I’d rather be someone who is actively buying things that I like, instead of just critiquing and bashing. I am getting in a decent bit in the upcoming week from the recent draft products and figured I would critique them as I get in, and do a small write up on them.
Remembering a Friend
February 28th was a day for me that I would never forget, it was my grandfathers birthday. He passed away in 2003, and I’ll never forget him. Unfortunately another event happened on the same day last year that the card world, not the sports card world, but the collectible card game world lost a giant figure that I considered one of my best friends.
Red Sox “New Stars for Young Stars” Recap.
I got to meet a lot of Red Sox future stars and wrote a little recap! Read more
Blog Bat Around – My Centerpiece
The centerpiece of my collection? It’s an easy one for me to answer. Last year my then girlfriend and I would discuss the possibility of getting married. Sometimes I just spout off and say things jokingly not expecting her to take me serious or anything, this was one of those times.
“I have to go out spend like a grand or something on a ring, but you don’t have to get me a thing?? I should get like one of the cards I want the most or something.” She looked at me, laughed, and then something crazy happened, she agreed to it. This moment began a few month effort to find the right card. The cards bantered about, and then bid on, then lost were some of the following, Tom Brady SP Authentic Rookie, and Tom Brady 2000 Fleer Masterpiece 1 of 1. Those were the two big ones we went after, but there was one other card I had in mind as it was the number one card of my favorite baseball player with out any question. The Brady rookies were great, but there were other Brady cards that could be debated as his best rookie and since I already owned his 2000 Contenders autographed rookie they didn’t completely stand out from the rest.
So we waited for a bit, I had the money for a ring, she had the money for the card. Then in the summer we found the right card. Now we just had to win it. It was a PSA 10 Graded David Ortiz Donruss Signature Rookies Century Marks. David Ortiz is my all time favorite Baseball player. Growing up it was always Roger Clemens, but rift between him and the Red Sox, him going to the Yankees, plus the fact that David Ortiz hit the ball twice in 2004 on occasions that account for two of my top 10 happiest moments in life put Clemens down a few pegs.
The day the card was ending was when my fiancée was actually away visiting friends in upstate New York. I didn’t know about Snipe programs at the time, so we sat there on the phone as I put in my bid on the card at the last possible minute, and watched hoping that no one came in at the last second and blew me away. But on this occasion I didn’t lose, we had our card. It came in a few days later, and she would proceed to taunt me with it for quite some time.
Then one day she went away again for a few days, and left the card and the envelope it came in on my bed with a little note. We knew we would be getting engaged sometime soon, but I did not expect at all for her to do this. So I tore it open as fast as I could. I reveled in the sight of the card that truly was the top card that I could get. I couldn’t believe she would just leave it for me to have at that time. So I instantly called her to talk about it.
Well turns out she didn’t mean for me to have the card yet, and said she had taped it shut so I didn’t open. I didn’t notice any tape….. But I had my card, and on September 30th of last year she had her ring.
The card turns out to be her favorite I have as well, soon after I got that card I took her to her first Red Sox game. During that game David Ortiz hit a grand slam off the Angels, and became her favorite player as well. We have bought a good number of Ortiz cards since then, but to this day the Century Marks still is, and always will remain my favorite card.
Also as a side note to end this, at the time of our purchase of this card the PSA Population Report on it was one. There has been one other graded a 10 but it came out of Mooresville, North Carolina so I still feel good about mine being the only legit PSA 10.
Card Spotlight – Matt Laporta 2005 USA Red BGS 9.5
I wanted to write a little post about a card that I picked up a little less than a year ago from a BMB member. Last time I did a Spotlight it was on a card from 24 years ago, I decided to bring it a little closer time wise this time with the 2005 USA Red Autograph jersey card of Matt Laporta.
I’m personally a big fan of the Upper Deck USA cards, and anyone who has them knows that they are extremely condition sensitive. The card pictured above was in someone’s signature on BMB until they blew the boards up on there. I had checked it out, and then saw it at one point come up for auction on EBay. The population report of this card is that out of the 100 produced six have been graded. Five of the six have recieved an 8.5 grade for the card. This one is the only one to recieve a 9.5 of Matt Laporta and only one David Price has recieved a 9.5 from the red autographs besides this card.
So I picked the card up, and started following Matt online. He had a great journal last year on MILB.com, and for anyone who hadn’t followed him before he was the main player traded to the Indians last year for C.C. Sabathia. He also was on the Olympics roster for the USA and got beaned violently in the Olympics.
He came out as one of the most hyped players on message boards. But between family tragedy last year, the Olympic injury, and the pressure of being in such a profile trade, he had a rough second half of the year last year. Many people predict him to break out like Evan Longoria did last year in 2009.
I have collected a lot of his other cards, and hope nothing but the best for Matt in all his future endeavors.
Bringing Back The Hobby
I asked Eric aka ThoseBackPages to write up a piece for the site. The basic premise I asked him to write about was ideal ways that the card companies could change their products in order to bring people back to collecting. “An Open Letter to the Card Manufactures and MLB” was how I phrased it for him. What I got back was a great look in to the thoughts of someone who is passionate about collecting and the hobby that we involve ourselves in. It’s someone who has been around for quite sometime collecting and evolved as time has gone on, and has some ideas of how the industry could go in the future.
I hope you enjoy this piece by Eric aka ThoseBackPages, for anyone who thought he was just a baseless basher of non-MLB rookies, maybe this will change your mind.
Remember when you bought a pack of cards for the gum? If you do, then odds are you’re over 30 years of age. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, I’m 37. I’ve been a serious baseball card collector on and off for the last 25 years, that’s a pretty long time. I’ve seen players come and go, pan out and just the opposite.
Collecting baseball cards back in the early to mid 80’s meant that you put together the Topps set and possible Donruss and Fleer, if you had the desire and/or funds.It was the thrill of opening pack after pack to track down that Manny Trillo that you needed to finish your set, and beat your friends to the punch, or the thrill of having opened enough wax packs that you knew the sequence that the cards ran just from seeing who started the pack.
Somewhere in the mid 90’s, that all changed. Maybe it was that we were all grown up, maybe it was that the card companies wanted to make more money, hell, maybe it was all that rolled into one. Sure in 1990, Upper Deck rolled out “FIND THE REGGIE”, where they actually inserted “only” 2,500 hand signed Reggie Jackson cards,but when the odds of pulling one were closer to 1:10,000 packs, we didn’t put too much stock into it.
By 2001, collecting rookie cards was all about the rookie card being “autographed”. Albert Pujols and Ichiro were the darlings of the baseball rookie card world in 2001. In 2002, Joe Mauer and David Wright were two more bright stars on the horizon and Bowman Chrome Auto “Fever” was growing rapidly, and has been “the card” to have, if the card you want is an autographed rookie card. Sure Bowman Chrome has faced some challenges, mainly in 2004 with SP and EEE, but those two releases lacked MLB Logos, and eye appeal. That doesn’t mean that they are not popular, just not popular with EVERYONE, especially those collectors that like to see their rookie card picture the team that drafted them.
2008 saw the birth of a new draft picks producer called “Razor”, although new to the baseball card world, they’ve made their mark in the Poker Collectible Card World, as well as some other Non-Sports issues. Although Razor has nothing but good intentions, they lack the ability to use MLB team names or logos, rendering them useless when it comes to satisfying the crowd that wants to see “their guy” on a MLB Rookie Card.
As we enter 2009, the “autographed rookie card” has really lost steam. I realize the financial ramifications of what I’m about to say, it’s time for the hobby world to turn back the clock, and have traditional, non-autographed rookie cards once again. I know that that is somewhat of a stretch to today’s teenage collector, but I cant help remember what it was like as a 15 year old to rip open a wax pack of 1985 topps and see a Dwight Gooden Rookie Card.
Group Case Breaks Guest Review
A growing new trend in Sports card collecting is the Team Case Break. A few months ago, people started buying cases of products like 2007 Bowman Draft, and selling off all of the cards from each team, with price depending on the content of each team’s checklist. They have been very successful apart from one very messy situation, but not every product is made for great breaks for many teams.
As 2008 came to a close, three major prospect-driven products released within weeks of each other, and the case breaks started to be offered. Andrew aka All In Cards was responsible for the majority of them. Running a case break seems like it would be the best of both world – you get the thrill of ripping all of the packs, with none of the financial worries about “What if I don’t get my money back?”. You already have the whole thing paid for in advance.
I had a case of Bowman Draft coming in, thanks to the live.com discount, but had no plans for busting Donruss Elite or Razor Signature Series. I decided to take part in case breaks of all three products to compare the random nature of the products and the case breaks.
For all three of the breaks, Andrew changed the format a little bit from earlier attempts; he charged a flat fee, and then randomly assigned the teams. Donruss Elite was the first product up – $35 was the buy-in. I was chosen to receive the San Francisco Giants. I was thrilled with this selection.
November 26, Thanksgiving eve was the Elite night. After not being able to get the break live on a video conference, he went to the backup plan of breaking each box and scanning the hits. Box two gave me a Gold Roger Kieschnick die-cut /25 (non-auto). Not too bad, but I didn’t want the Giants for Kieschnick. Box five and six each have a Porcello in them, so that’s looking nice for whoever got the Tigers. Earlier in the day, I had opened three boxes of Bowman Draft that were shorted autographs. I’d hit nothing besides the Gold parallel yet in this case, I was in need of sleep, and had an early day to start the holiday. I wussed out and went to bed.
I wake up, and while my wife is in the shower, I just check to see how bad the last 4 boxes were for me. Things improved greatly. Box eight gave me a Waldis Joaquin auto, a Roger Kieschnick auto patch, and a Buster Posey/Tony Thomas dual auto /20. Box nine gave me another Kieschnick auto patch, and a Buster Posey die-cut /150. The final box, Box ten gives me a Posey auto patch. Needless to say, I felt much better, and that my $35 was well spent.
Next up was the Bowman Draft case. $30 was the cost for this one. I actually didn’t get in until the third case, because the first two were so popular. This time, the drawing gives me Cleveland. That gives me Chisenhall on the auto checklist, LaPorta on the prospect checklist, and I don’t even know what else. This wasn’t the best team to hit, but I just went with it.
This one was able to be broadcast live on Ustream on Monday, December eighth. I had a road game with my basketball team, and after having to wait for all of the parents to pick up their kids, I didn’t get home until after 2 boxes had been opened. Box three gave me a Chisenhall base auto. The next 9 boxes were nothing for me, but if you had the Marlins, you were sitting pretty. The Mets, Brewers and Rays also had solid hauls.
Razor was right on the heels of Draft. Tuesday night was the team draw, even though Andrew was the only one that got to see it, while the rest of us on Ustream saw a blank grey screen. But when the teams were revealed, I had the Pittsburgh Pirates – complete with #2 pick Pedro Alvarez. Back to being stoked!
Wednesday night was the rip. Ten boxes, ten autos per box, so there were ample opportunities for everyone to come out with something. Myself, I had five guys on the checklist. Box one gave me Robbie Grossman. Box four gave me an unnumbered Pedro Alvarez. And that was it. It’s hard to say who the real winners were, as Razor neglected to print on the card which team drafted the player, and I haven’t taken the time to research them all. But the case had some great hits on the /199 cards, but there were zero of the /25 or /5 autos. The real winner of the night was Andrew and his sweet shirt. The only real negative on the night were the trolls on the chat board.
Also, as of my writing, I have received the contents of the Elite break. I’m pretty sure people don’t mail out fine china with this much care and protection. Everything Andrew has done is first-class. There are a lot of positives about these breaks if you have even the slightest gambler in you, then you should get in on one of these.
Editors notes:
I just wanted to throw something in to suggest people get in on Andrew’s breaks if they have a chance. We also would like to begin doing some breaks of this nature here on The Card Podcast. We can’t rely on companies sending free product to us to review, so feel this would be a great way to get a comprehensive review of the products at little cost to our site.
Would you like to write for Superfractor.com?
As this site grows, and the traffic is doubling almost weekly on here, I realize that the site needs more than just me to provide content to our readers. I set out to make this site the voice of the fans, and to give people an inside look at the card industry with some multimedia aspects that no one else was doing.
This being said for a site to truely be the voice of the collectors it can not just be written by one collector. We have a lot of guests on The Card Podcast and that part of it definitely is delivering the voice of the collectors, not just myself. So we are putting an invitation out to anyone who listens to The Card Podcast, posts on FreedomCardBoard.com, or just views this site to submit something you would like to write for this site.
I will personally review all submissions to TheCardPodcast@live.com to be put up here Once some are sent in, based on quality, post them to the site. So this is your opportunity to be heard. We will promote all articles and discuss them on The Card Podcast, and hope to get a lot of great submissions soon!
Thanks,
Rob Zeida
The Card Podcast @ Superfractor.com