A True Feel-Good Collecting Story

A few years ago, I decided that I needed to have one complete set from every year that I have ever actively collected cards. Since my collections have always had a football-first focus, I was looking for football card sets from 1988-1999 and from 2012 carrying up to the present. It was just a few months ago that I acquired the last cards I needed for a complete 1998 Fleer Tradition set and completed that run.

If anybody is interested, here are the sets I chose to retroactively finish for each year of my youthful collecting days:

• 1988 Topps
• 1989 Topps (and Traded)
• 1990 Action Packed (and Rookie Update)
  
• 1991 Pro Set Platinum
• 1992 Fleer
• 1992 Ultra
• 1993 Fleer
• 1993 Skybox Impact
• 1994 Collector's Choice
• 1995 Collector's Choice
• 1995 Upper Deck
• 1996 Donruss
• 1996 Select
• 1997 SPx
• 1997 Upper Deck
  
• 1997 Zenith
• 1998 Fleer Tradition
• 1999 Pacific Paramount
• 1999 Upper Deck HologGrFX

I wasn't a huge baseball collector back in those days, except for 1991, when the convenience store (the only one in my town) stocked Topps and Fleer cards. I would pick up a few baseball packs here and there as a kid, but my money typically went toward football. But after completing my youth years run of football, I thought it would be fun to do the same for baseball.

Which brings me to my story.  Last month, I visited Platinum Sports and Music in Provo, Utah. I don't typically use the names of card shops in my blog, but this one deserves a shout-out. The owner, Steve, is a pretty good guy. He knows who I am and we talk when I come in. When I have my kids, he gives them quarters for the gumball machine.

Anyway, I stopped by in June and noticed a stack of 1993 Topps factory sets on the shelf. He told me they had found a case of them in a storage unit and I asked how much he was asking for them. He had me look up the prices on recently sold sets on eBay, and we found a range. He offered up a price that was about $5 lower than the low end of the range. I had sort of decided that I wanted to complete Upper Deck for my 1993 set, but this was a good price and it kept me from having to chase down a Jeter rookie for that year. I took it.

I noticed the box he gave me wasn't factory sealed, but I didn't think too much of it. I took it home and put it on a shelf, waiting to crack it open as a Father's Day activity. There were 10 Gold cards and 3 Black Gold cards included, so there was a little bit of surprise involved. Of the three years that Topps made a gold foil parallel in the early 90s, 1993 was always my favorite, so I did want to see if any fit into my collection.

I was disappointed when I opened my box. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't. But when I opened the box, it was obvious that it was not in its original factory state. There were about 50 cards that were not in the brick of cards going through the box. Instead, they were perpendicular to the other cards and shoved into the gap between the ends of the other cards and the box. I pulled them out; all of the Gold and Black Gold cards were there. Some commons and some prospects were there. Derek Jeter was there. And ALL of them had severely dinged corners.

My best guess is that somebody discovered this unsealed and searched through it to make sure it contained the Jeter rookie and the special cards before they sold it. But then they carelessly put the cards back in the gap and they jostled around and got damaged. 

So now I had a problem. I bought the set, but I opened it. It had been close to a month because I had saved the box before opening it. I was considering taking it back, but I knew that many people would say, "You've had it for three weeks and you've opened it and you want to return it now? With the most valuable card in the entire set badly damaged? Get lost." Knowing that they had an entire case of factory sets in the store, I thought it was worth trying my luck to get this one replaced. I took it back in, but Steve wasn't there. I explained the situation to one of his employees, who got him on the phone. Steve told him to replace it. So he grabbed another set off the shelf and handed it to me.

Happy ever after, right? Well, the story doesn't end here.

The new box was factory sealed. It had a different seal on it, too. It had a stamp saying it was "Exclusive to the Colorado Rockies Baseball Club." I didn't think much of it until I opened the set.

There I found, in perfect condition, the Jeter Rookie Card.

And I noticed the gold stamp. These were part of a special, parallel set. I looked it up on eBay. The factory set of this version was selling anywhere between $250 and $800. I had paid $40. I didn't feel right about this, so I went back in the next day. Steve, the owner, was there and saw me enter with the box. He said, "Now, I know that one was factory sealed." I explained that, yes, I was the one who brought back the other set the day before. Now we had a completely different problem. If he had been the one to pull the set off the shelf and hand it to me, I would have been okay with it. But it was his employee, who I could tell knew nothing about cards (not unusual because the larger portion of the store is a music store) who gave it to me. I showed him my discovery and said I appreciated his trying to make the damaged set right, but I didn't feel good about such a discrepancy in value in my favor.

He said, "Oh, you know those usually sell for a lot more?" Well, yeah, that's why I was there. He replied, "I'm sorry about the damaged cards. I appreciate you coming in, but I can't think of anyone better for that set to go to."

So instead of the 1993 Topps Flagship set, I ended up with the 1993 Topps Colorado Rockies Inaugural Edition set. And this card--the real Jeter rookie in the set (not Shawn)--which has had recent eBay listings sell for $120 to $300, is somehow in my collection.

As for the extras in the box, here are the Gold and Black Gold included. Barry Larkin was the best gold player, but my favorite gold card was the bottom left of the top photo, Bernardo Brito. I remember watching him play for the old Salt Lake Buzz when he was a prospect for the Twins. "Brrrrrito!" was by the AAA team's best slugger, but he never had much of a Major League career. After hitting .219 in 40 games over 3 seasons in Minnesota, he took his bat to Japan. I don't know how his career went after that. The Black Gold cards were a bit more interesting; I pulled a ROY collection fit in Eric Karros and the Redemption card for all four parts of the Black Gold set. (Most of the redemption cards were for parts A, B, C, or D. This was the ABCD redemption card.) I wish I could still redeem this thing. The stated odds on the box for an ABCD redemption card were 1:25 boxed sets.

I appreciate Steve for being willing to let me exchange the damaged set in the first place, let alone for allowing me to keep the harder-to-come-by, more expensive set. He says, "It's all about Karma here." Whatever the reason, I feel like he went above and beyond in customer service and I became the beneficiary of an unexpected boon.

National Baseball Card Day Left Me With Some Decisions to Make

On Saturday, I took my oldest son to the card shop for some free cards.  We each got a pack of Topps National Baseball Card Day promos.  The two cellophane packs had Miguel Cabrera and Christian Yelich on top.  I offered them to my son and let him choose.  As I expected, he chose Miggy.  As a Cubs fan, I'm not a big Yelich guy, but I don't think I could have hand-selected a better pack than the one I got.

El Mago and King Fish are probably the two I cards I would have wanted most in the set.  Pete Alonso had a good chance of winning Rookie of the Year and becoming a PC player.  The reigning (and potential repeat) NL MVP and the Best Lefty Ever? are a strong supporting cast.

The LCS we visited was having a warehouse sale with a ton of (mostly) junk they were trying to get rid of.  There was even a bin of free stuff.  I thought about picking up some old Becketts for a buck apiece, but decided that I could find better ways to spend a very limited budget.  I did find some random oddballs in a bin marked "2/$5" that I thought would be worth the money.  They all left we with decisions to make about my collection, though.

First up is this Post Cereal set.  The envelope contains the entire oddball set.

They're postcard-sized cards.  One side is full-bleed action shot (no logos, of course).  The checklist is pretty great, as you might expect from a set that used only 16 of the top players of the year.  A sextet of Hall of Famers is shown here.

The other side looks more like a traditional card front and back.  There is a fold in the middle to make these cards into a little booklet.  So that leads me to the first decision: How should I store these?  I see three options.

1. I keep them in the envelope they came in.
2. I put them in a photo album to act as a binder.
3. I fold them in normal-sized cards and put them in my oddballs binder.

What are you thoughts?  What would you do?  I want to have them in my binder, but I'm hesitant to fold them.

The second item that I picked up was a trio of hologram cards in a hard display case.  These are all guys I collect, including David Robinson, though I don't actively collect basketball.  So I figured to get these three cards for $2.50 was probably a reasonable purchase.  These are 1991 Arena Holograms and each card has a print run of 250,000.  That's all I know.  Does anybody know anything else, like where they came from?  I have a decision to make about these cards.  They have all been removed from their encasement, but now I have to decide whether I want to complete the set.  With these 3 cards, I'm 60% there--only Joe Montana and Frank Thomas remain.  Should I finish it and keep it with my sets, or should I just let these join my player collections individually?

My last pickups were these two Score portfolio-type binders.  I glanced inside and saw that both contained 1998 Pinnacle Mint cards and coins.  I picked up both of them, thinking that I collected enough late-90s players to make the purchase worthwhile.

When I got the binders home and examined the contents more closely, I discovered a few things.  First, for each player included, there was a base card with the coin and a bronze parallel.  I also learned that this was nearly a complete set of cards, coins, and bronze parallels.  There are only 30 players in the entire set, and I have 22.  Now it's decision time.  Do I go ahead and complete the set(s), or do I keep what I want and use the rest as trade bait?  Normally, I would complete this set without hesitation, but the cost of the coins is a stumbling block for me.  I looked on COMC and found that each coin is $1-$8.  That's a steep price to complete a set that I just stumbled upon and never intended to chase.  And, of course, the missing cards are the big names: Bonds, Griffey, Jeter, Ripken, etc.  On the other hand, what a cool set and what an opportunity to have so much of this complete already!  What would you do?

So I didn't spend my money on Topps to get the extra Bryce Harper NBCD card, but I found some really interesting odds and ends.  But I'm left with some decisions to make about my new finds.

1. How should I store the Post postcards?  Fold them?  Keep them in the box?
2. Should I pick up the last two cards in the holograms set, or should I keep the 3 I have in my player collections?
3. Should I finish the Pinnacle Mint sets (coins, base, and bronze parallels) or break the partial set apart and use some for trade bait?

I really want to hear what you would do.  Leave me some advice in the comments!

Card Collecting in Overtime

I don't live far from Salt Lake City.  I'm in the Valley in 10 minutes and downtown in less than a half-hour.  Even so, I'm far more likely to drive 30 minutes south into the heart of Provo than into Salt Lake.  I think it's mostly because I grew up in a small town, and I'm far more comfortable with Utah County's 600,000 people than I am with Salt Lake County's 1.5 million.  When I'm in Salt Lake, it's always to and from my destination with no messing around.  Last week, though, I had a conference in Downtown Salt Lake, so I made my way north.  Toward mid-afternoon, I found myself with a little extra time on my hands, so I tracked down the card shop that I knew was there in Midvale but had never visited.

Overtime Cards was a treat.  I found a dime box and made myself at home for a while, picking out cards I needed for my various collections.  Dime boxes are unheard of in these parts, even at card shows, I was ecstatic.  As I was digging, I came across an oddity that I had never seen before.

 

This is a 1998 Skybox Thurman Thomas.  But what is that marking under the Skybox logo in the top left?  I set it aside and when I had my stack ready to buy, I asked Heidi, the proprietor, about it.  She said she had never known what it was either and had finally concluded that it was some kind of mis-stamped card.  I decided that it was unique, at any rate, and put in with my pile.  It sparked a great conversation, and I learned that Heidi has been in the card shop business for somewhere around 30 years, which is about as long as I have been collecting.  We talked about the changes she had seen in the hobby and her perspective as a dealer.  It was a fascinating conversation for me.  When I mentioned that I had stopped collecting in the late 90s, only to pick it up again about 15 years later, she said that she heard that story quite often.  I told her about my blog and shared that it's also a common story amongst us bloggers--we all have a dark spot in our collection, and it usually coincides with the first decade of the 2000s.  That piqued her interest, so I shared a little about our blogging community.  The conversation alone was enough for me to go back.  I've never experienced that at other card shops.

Oh, and the Thurman Thomas card?  It turns out it's an oddball that could be obtained from Fleet Farm.  According to Wikipedia, Fleet Farm is a retail chain with 37 stores in the Midwest.  I'd never heard of it, but that stamp is the Fleet Farm logo.  I'm glad I grabbed it when I did.  There some other gems in the box, too.

Like vintage football!  Granted, these cards are in pretty rough shape.  All of the 1977s I picked out had the same "MK" marked in red pen.  You can see the scuffing on Ken Stabler and Franco Harris.  But still, vintage Hall of Famers in a dime box?  I didn't even question these well-loved cards.  The 1977 Lee Roy Selmon is a rookie, to boot.  I've almost picked that card up on COMC before, but I can handle this copy.

More from the same 1976 and 1977 sets, this time in Packer green and gold.

It wasn't all old and beat up, though.  Oh no, there was plenty of shiny, too.  These cards represent sets that were missing completely from my collection.  All except Troy Aikman fit into my All-Decade collection.

I should have scanned the Lee Roy Selmon rookie with these two.  That makes three Hall of Fame rookies I snagged from the box.  Yes, I'm counting Tony Gonzalez as a Hall of Famer in his first year of eligibility.  Book it.  1989 Score rookies are the premiere rookies of possibly the greatest draft class ever.  This card has some bent corners, but this copy is good enough for me.

More Packers, this time of the late 90s variety.  This marks my first Doug Pederson card.  He didn't play much for the Pack, but he did win a Super Bowl as a coach last year.  The Dorsey Levens card is a serial numbered insert (a mere 8700 copies!).

I picked up some inserts, too.  These three players all made the All-2000s team and eventually the Hall of Fame.  I'm not a TO fan, so I'm trying to fill my All-Decade project with higher quality cards of him.  If I've got to gather cards of him, I may as well make sure their quality.

If there are BYU players, I'll snag 'em.  The Head to Head card is interesting.  It gives a scenario on the back with no resolution.  "The ball is snapped.  Smith charges.  Young rolls out.  Does he get the pass off?"  Well, does he?!  I guess we'll never know.

Speaking of colleges, how about some Heisman winners?  I'm digging the Crown Royale (original incarnation) of Eddie George.

The box was mostly football with some basketball.  Baseball pickings were slim, but I did manage to find some needs from this year's Heritage. 

The dime box said 12 cards for $1, so I picked out 108 cards.  I figured that $9 of cards plus tax would be about right for the 10 spot I had in my wallet.  I sat and chatted with Heidi for a while and then went to pay.  She looked at my stack and said, "How about $5 for the stack?"  All right!  Just like that, the dime box turned into a nickel box.  All the cards above set me back about five cents apiece.  Overall, the experience was great.  The discovery of a dime box + a great card conversation + a generous shop owner = a happy customer.  Now I feel like I might have to make trips to the Salt Lake Valley more often--and leave myself some extra time to stop in for a true hobby experience at Overtime Cards.

And Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I'm truly grateful to be part of a community with whom I can share my hobby and that is made up of true collectors.