Seriously Topps WTF?

So I go to Wally World today to pick up a few things.  One of which is a jumbo pack of Updates and Highlights.  Out of 36 cards this is half of what I pulled.

9 sets of doubles.  Am I the only one who pulls packs like this?  I’ve had similar issues with Allen & Ginter and even pulled doubles out of a couple of packs of Chrome.  If anybody from Topps is reading this, could you next time make the doubles a bunch of short prints or autos or something?  If anybody needs these for any reason let me know, because I got doubles!

I also pulled this beauty, I know a couple of you out there are collecting this guy so the first one to call dibs gets it.

I also shipped out the cards for the guess the grade contest the other day.  I’m hoping to have them back in a week or two.  You can enter the contest right up until I get the cards in hand.  So far the entries have been few and far between so hurry up and take a chance.

My Three Favorite Autos In No Particular Order

2004 Fleer Greats Ron Santo

I was lucky enough to get this in person at a private meet and greet with the greatest third baseman who’s not in the Hall Of Fame.

1992 Turk Wendell RC

I picked this up at a card show for dirt cheap.  In my opinion it is still one of the oddest, greatest cards of all time.  The fact that it is autographed makes it that much cooler.

1959 Topps Duke Snider

This one was obtained through the mail.  Quite possibly one of the coolest cards I will ever own.  I’m sure it will only get better with time.

Guess The Grade (It’s A Contest)

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!

 

Card Show Sunday

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.