Here’s the Prize

1962 Topps NL Wins Leaders #58

1959 Topps Dick Williams #292

1961 Fleer Dazzy Vance #81

I know I’ve said it here and many other places that grading services are nothing more than a scam to create a false scarcity in the collecting world.  The issues I have with grading are too many to mention.  There is no hobby standard as to what makes a card grade for what it grades for.  A PSA 8.5 is not a BGS 8.5 is not a BCCG 8.5.  Grading enthusiasts will argue until they’re blue in the face why there are differences, but in reality it simply creates confusion.  I’ve seen cards, in my opinion, in better condition receive lower grades than ones I thought were in worse condition.  I’ve witnessed cards receive unusually high grades only to learn later that there may have been favors traded for the high-grade.  For these reasons and many others I have sworn to never send a card in for grading.  Well, I’ve changed my mind.  What you say?  Yes, I have just packaged up four cards to send to the #1 Authority.  In exchange for damn near $50, they will tell me what I think I can see with my own two eyes for free.  The main reason for this is that I have a 1955 Topps Double Header card for which I can find no type of protection for other than a flimsy Card Saver III protector.  I recently saw one of these graded and it looked nice in the thick block of plastic.  It may have not looked nice, but it did look a lot more protected than mine.  Here’s what mine looks like.

I’m not real concerned with what this comes back with for a grade.  I’d just like to see it well protected.  It is over 50 yrs old and has a weakening perforation in the middle.  I’d like to see it stay in one piece for another 50 years.  I checked out the Beckett website for information on their grading services and after 3 error messages and 1 freeze up I was able to learn they are offering half price grading in the month of November, although it ends on November 15.  Go figure.  I also learned they hit you with a $13 shipping fee to return your cards no matter how many cards you send.  To make it worth my while, or at least close to worth it, I decided to send three of my nicer conditioned cards along with this one.  I’ll probably end up breaking the cases or try flipping them on eBay after I have them returned so to make sense of sending these cards for no real reason I’m going to make this a contest.  Below I will show you scans of the cards, front and back, and close-ups of all four corners.  What I want is for you to guess what the grade will be.  To win the prize, you need to guess all three overall grades on the money.  In case of a tie, I will use the ‘55 Double Header as the clincher.  If no one gets all three grades correct I will offer up some sort of parting gift pack to the closest guesser.

Card #1)  1962 Topps Ron Santo

Card #2)  1959 Topps Dutch Dotterer

Card #3)  1961 Fleer Eddie Joost

There they are, in their raw beauty.  These will be sent off hopefully early next week.  They will be submitted for the 10 day service for $7 a piece.  I’ll keep everyone updated on how the process is going.  To win the cards at the top of the post, all you have to do is guess the overall grade of each card, including the Double Header.  You must get all three cards 100% correct to win the prize.  Two out of three won’t cut it.  I’ll use the grade of the Double Header as a tie breaker and if it is still tied after that I will award the prize to the earliest answer in the comments.  If more people get it correct I will try to award some sort of parting gifts for those people.  Only one guess per person.

Good Luck!

Once again it was the first Sunday of the month.  It’s hard to believe it’s already November and before we know it the holidays will be here.  I made a few purchases today and the one I’m pretty excited about is my first Micky Mantle card from his playing days.  It’s a poor man’s Mantle, but a Mantle none the less.

It’s a little roughed up and the back was used to see if a pen still had ink in it.  Unfortunately for me and fortunate for them it did.  The rest of the cards I picked up from this dealer made up for the condition this one was in.  I picked this up with around 100 different cards from the ‘58 and ‘59 set.  They were mostly commons but a few gems snuck their way in there.

Some of these cards are in great shape.  They have me thinking about sending a few of them in to be graded and see what they would fetch on eBay.  It stands for everything I’m against but I’d almost be a fool not to.  I know there’s a couple of 8’s and maybe a 9 or two in the pile.  All in all this little chunk set me back a total of $50.

I moved on and picked up a couple Cub’s of the vintage sort.

I scooped these up with a 1980 Topps starter set for $15.  It’s just shy of 500 cards so if anyone has any extra ’80s Topps sitting around I’ll have my want list up soon.  Along with the 1980 set I picked up these from 1980.

This is something Topps should consider bringing back.  They are basically 3 card packs that were given away with purchases of Squirt and some promotion with Kmart.  I picked up about 30 packs for $.20 each.  I didn’t pull anything special, but it was fun busting 30 yr old free wax that only had 3 cards in them.  If you want the kids buying cards again, it would help if you forced them into their hands first.  If they did something like this again, how many of us would start drinking Squirt?  Yeah, me too!  Shopping at Kmart on the other hand, is a tougher sell.

Here’s the rest of the goods I picked up today.

I also picked up a jumbo box of ‘92 Upper Deck just to see if I can get lucky and pull a Ted Williams Auto.  If I do I’m sure you’ll hear about it, I’m pretty sure I won’t though.

]]> http://project1962.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/card-show-sunday/feed/ 1 gritz76 The Mick The Mick's Back '58 '59 Vintage Cubs KmartSquirt Other stuff http://project1962.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/i-was-starting-to-think-these-didnt-exist/ http://project1962.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/i-was-starting-to-think-these-didnt-exist/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:30:41 +0000 gritz76 http://project1962.wordpress.com/?p=1419 ]]>

A dirty game used card.

Every game used card I have looks like it was washed with an Ultrabrite and DiDi Seven combo wash.  Until now.  It was a no brainer when I saw this on eBay for a BIN of $3.50 or best offer. I offered $1.50 and they accepted.  This card kicks ass.  First off, I rarely if ever see a swatch with any kind of anything on it, and if you do it’s usually a pinstripe.  I still can’t figure out why a jersey with a pinstripe can fetch more than a plain white swatch.  They’re the same thing, just one has a line on it, whoo hoo!  This is way cooler than a line, this has dirt and maybe a little bit of blood on it.  It makes me want to go find tape of the 2002 National team and figure out just when and where this happened.  Was it a diving catch or a bang bang play at the plate at the end of the game?  I may never know.  The other cool factor of this card is that it is Sam Fuld.  He’s one of those guys that wake up in the morning and can’t wait to get to the park and get dirty.  I didn’t even mind that I had to go to the post office and pay an additional $.34 to cover some of the postage.  Well actually, I kind of minded.  It was as cold as hell and it was raining and I had to go out in it because some schmuck couldn’t slap another stamp on the damn thing.  Oh well, I got a pretty damn cool card out of the deal.

I’ve been a strong critic of the once high and mighty Beckett.  I’ve called them out on several topics from shady business practices to having unrealistic values in their price guide.   Today they have proved to me that their numbers are completely based on fantasy, or at least on eBay.  Tracy Hackler has a write-up on a high school football card of the Denver Bronco’s head coach Josh McDaniels.  You can check it out here.  Give them a few minutes if the page does not load, they’re still in their beta stage of the site.  The article claims his card from the 1995 Ohio High School Big 33 set had a value of just $.75 in January.  Later it rose to $3 and then $5.  Just recently one sold for $26 on eBay.  So what value does Beckett slap this card with?  $10, maybe $15, that would be an honest average of what the card has been worth and what it has sold for right?  Nope, they decided it is now worth a whopping $30.

I know they make the argument of scarcity and how surprising of a storyline the Broncos have been this year but that should not inflate the value of this card by that much.  They even state that it is a 3,500% jump in value in 9 months.

Whenever I bring up the argument of book value vs. real world value, I always hear form the Beckett defenders that if a card sells for an unusually large amount on eBay, it shouldn’t affect the book value.  People always state that one out of the ordinary sale should not spike up or drop the book value.  Well in this instance one sells for $26 and they value it at $30.  Why the extra $4?  My theory is they added in the shipping charge into the value.  This contradicts another popular argument about eBay vs. book value.  That eBay shouldn’t have an effect on value because of the variables such as shipping charges, time of day, and the day of the week an auction ends on. These all affect the final purchase price of a card but it should not have an effect on the value.  If they want to value this card at $30 that’s fine by me.  All I’m really trying to say is if this card is worth $30, a ‘89 Donruss Griffey RC should be worth $.25 and not $8.  Right?  The next time I hear someone mention that eBay shoud not be the be all, end all price, I’ll be quick to point to this card to end the argument.

I’ve decided to try my hand at being a serious player collector during the off season.  I already collect a few of the Cub’s legends but I realize I will never be able to track down or afford every card they have out there.  I’ve wanted to start a player collection for some time now but I haven’t been able to choose one.  The players I’ve considered collecting have either fizzled out after an amazing rookie season, I’m looking at you Soto, or had their cards sky rocket in price for no real reason at all, yep that means you Kosuke.  Others have played a few too many years to try to catch up on like DeRosa and Reed Johnson.  I’m a big fan of Ryan Theriot, but so is every teenage female Cub’s fan and I don’t consider myself groupie material.  My options seemed limited until this season when I saw Sam Fuld go full blast into the bricks and ivy for an otherwise meaningless out.  This is the kind of player I could feel proud to collect.  He showed more guts and hustle  in his 65 games this season than Bradley and Soriano has shown in their careers combined.  He finished the season batting .299 with an OBP of .409.  If he gets the chance to be a position player I think he’ll be in the running for a gold glove.  He is also a diabetic.  Being a diabetic myself, I know some of the challenges he has to face to get out on the field on a daily basis.  According to Beckett he has a total of 155 cards with 77 autographed cards.  I’ve been able to track most of them down and they seem to be at reasonable prices.  So far I have two autos and a game used pants card.  I need to go through my Cub’s box later and see how many of his cards I have hiding in there.  It’s a 3600 ct. box so it may take a little while.  Hopefully I’ll get a checklist up soon of the cards I have and need.  In the meantime if any of you have a Fuld card you don’t want or need let me know.  Also if anyone comes across any of the more rare cards out there of him let me know where you seen it.  I will offer up some sort of finders fee if I am able to get one of these cards.  Hopefully the Cubs won’t trade him off before I can get this collection started.

I’ll start this post of with a couple of card show goodies I picked up on Sunday.  I had to skip out on the show for the last two months so I was long over due for some card show goodness.  Unfortunately I had a $140 speeding ticket due Monday so I couldn’t really justify going ape shit on baseball cards.  I was able to piss away $30 and this is what I have to show for it.

My main supplier of ’62’s was there and was taking a beating so he offered up $100 worth of book for $25.  I managed to grab$108 for $20.  They’re a little beat up, but not a bad list of names.  I’ve been hunting down the Torre rookie for some time now so I’m happy to get that one off my list.   This brings me 6 cards closer to finishing the set.  I’m not sure how close I am because I have a stack I need to organize, but I think I’m closing in on the halfway point.

Here’s where the other $10 went……..

I managed to grab an auto of one of my new favorite players, Sam Fuld.  I’m almost sure the Cub’s will trade him now just to spite me.  He is one of the players they should of called up instead of signing Mr. Bradley.  He is also a major league record holder.  He owns the record of the most at bats, 101, without a RBI.  He finally notched his first career RBI on the last day of the season hitting his first major league home run.  Watch out for him next year, he’s just getting started.  I also scooped up a second year Jim Rice for a buck, a nice BowChrome Randy Wells, and a sweet jersey card of the mighty Dave Winfield.

Now onto the interesting stuff.  A few posts ago I showed a 1938 Jack Dempsey card I picked up off theBay.  It was PSA graded and trapped in plastic.  I remember reading an article or a post a few months ago about counterfeit Mantles being sold in PSA graded cases.  I wondered how easy it was to break open the case and replace the card within.  My answer, EASY!

All it took was a couple of thin wedges in a few strategic places and poof, my 1938 Jack Dempsey turned into a ‘08 Hideki Matsui.  It’s completely sealed back up with no evidence of tampering.  This just furthers my anti-grading stance.  All the crooks need to do is counterfeit the cards and the PSA label and get a hold of a bunch of PSA graded cards, replace the guts and sell them on theBay.  It took me a whole two minutes to do this from start to finish.  Like the late great ODB once said, “Ooooh baby, I like it rawwww.”

Why is it when the baseball season is over MLB turns the broadcasts over to a network that has little to no experience broadcasting baseball?   I’m watching the Phillies take on the Rockies right now and I can barely watch the game because my eyes are focused on that stupid Pitchtrax graphic.  How stupid is this fucking graphic!  I enjoy seeing it after a close call just to see where the ball fell, but having it visible for the whole damn game is useless!  What good does it do to see where the pitch was a second after you just seen where the pitch was?  Do we really need the broadcast to look like a video game?   If you are looking at this TBS, turn that shit off!  And while your at it fire every one of your broadcasters and make Craig Sager buy a normal fucking suit.

When I tune into a post season game I just want to watch a ball game, not some cluttered screen full of less than useless graphics, not some guy in a sparkly suit coat interrupt a victory lap to ask some stupid ass questions, and the last thing I don’t want to see when I tune in is a god damn Bon Jovi concert.  TBS you suck!

After finally accepting that the Cub’s season is an official wash, I’ve focused my attention on the world of boxing.  Over the last two weeks there were two big fights.  The first featured recently unretired Floyd Mayweather Jr. completely dominating the number two pound for pound fighter in the world, Juan Manuel Marquez.  I thought Marquez might have had an outside shot at this fight only because on HBO’s 24/7, he was featured drinking his own piss while training for the fight.  I figured if he was that hardcore, he might stand a chance.  I was wrong.

The fight from last week was also one sided.  Vitali Klitschko used his size to dominate a tough competitor in Chris Arreola.  Honestly, with a last name like that you would probably have to grow up tough.  In the end Arreola just couldn’t get past the size difference and was forced to give up in the late rounds.

I have also been watching a ton of old fights on ESPN Classics.  I work second shift and they air their classic fights at just the right time for me to lay in bed and watch some unbelievable bouts.  The one that caught my attention the  other night was the 1919 heavyweight championship bout between boxing legend Jack Dempsey and Jess Willard.  Jess Willard was the biggest heavyweight to hold the title at the time but that did not stop Dempsey from knocking him to the canvas 7 times in the first round.  The round ended with Willard being knocked out cold in the corner of the ring, but he was saved by the bell.  His corner brought him to between rounds and he continued to get knocked around for the next two rounds until he couldn’t continue anymore.  Here is a video of the first round…….

If this were fought out today, this fight would have never gone past the second knock down.  In 1919 boxers were not required to go to a neutral corner after a knock down which allowed Dempsy to tee off on Willard’s head.  If you liked the first round the whole fight can be viewed here.  Willard ended the fight with several teeth knocked out, broken ribs, and a severely broken face.  After the fight I felt compelled to find a nice Jack Dempsey card for my collection.  After a little shopping I was able to add this 1938 Churchman’s card for under $20.  I haven’t decided if I will break it out of it’s plastic when it arrives or not.

I managed to pick up 3 retail packs of the Goodwin Champs cards today.  I’ve seen a few posts on these but haven’t really read them, I have just been looking at the scans.  My initial thought on these were they were a cheap knock off of the A&G set.  I thought that about the Obak set too, but I found out that Obak had a little more to offer than I had first expected.  Unfortunately with this set, I was dead on.  I maybe even gave them too much credit when comparing it to A&G.  With out further ado………..

Pack 1

Right off the bat I pulled the one and only card I’ve seen that I wanted, Ichiro.  The Thome is nice too.  I like the use of the sunset behind him. It almost symbolizes were he is at in his great career, except he’s a Dodger now and that might be a sunrise.  The first impression of these cards I have is not overwhelming.  It feels like I’ve seen this set done a couple times already and done better.

Pack 2

This pack just completely pissed me off!  I mean, whoo hoo I got a black bordered mini of Kinsler, that’s cool, but c’mon, what the hell is the rest of this pack?  The first card, if you can even call it a card, has to be the worst card of the worst set ever produced.  I hope whoever came up with this idea for a set has since been fired and never allowed to work in the trading card industry ever again.  I don’t know who the guy is on this card, I am too lazy to try and figure it out, and I don’t care, but apparently he is responsible for our 401k’s getting flushed down the crapper.  Do we really need a card telling us we had a financial crisis in 2008?  Apparently Upper Deck should start collecting their own cards so they would get this little nugget of informative history.  Maybe if there is a crisis, you shouldn’t charge $2.00 for a pack of  four cards and include this shit as one of them.  The next card I love too.  If it weren’t for the (Thoroughbred Race Horse) next to Smarty Jones, I would of never have guessed what this was.  Really, it’s a horse!  Thanks for spelling that one out for me Upper Deck.  I thought it was a caribou ’till I read that.  If I was trying to put this set together I would have been even more pissed.  The only full sized card I pulled was of a horse.  Who wants to go back and buy another pack after that hoof to the nuts?

Pack 3

This pack is better than pack 2, but nothing to really get excited over.  I got a Jr. of a Jr. card.  I like the Ford card too, but it looks a little out-of-place when sitting next to the rest of the cards.  They should have decided to go with all paintings or all photo’s.  My vote would have been for paintings.  Can Johan really pitch from the tree tops like that?  He really is amazing!

My overall verdict is this set sucks.  It may have gotten a higher rating if it had not been for pack 2.  It also doesn’t help that there are two other sets that feel real similar to this that have been out for a while now.  It’s stuff like this that doesn’t bother me that UD won’t be around much longer in the game of baseball.  I don’t understand how they can put out such a top quality flagship series year after year and just flat out fail when trying to do these retro type sets.  Hopefully next year we start seeing some new sets and less rehashes of 100-year-old sets over and over again.

Click on the picture for the full show!

She would be getting one hell of a show!