Who Wants FREE Baseball Cards?!?

Before I get flooded with requests for bat barrel autographs, two-color patches, and tri-fold relic cards, let me clarify the title of this post:

Some of you may know that my wife and I bought our first house and moved this past summer. While it was overall a decent experience (I will not bore you with details of the negotiations from hell), the most dreaded portion of the entire process (other than acquiring a splendid 30-year mortgage) was packing and moving all of our stuff. Granted, we were only a few months over a year removed from college, so we did not have mountains of things and were still in the mindset of packing as efficiently as possible. However, it was still a pain.

One of the biggest surprises for me in the moving process was just how much my card collection had exploded in the year we were in our apartment. I went from having a single computer monitor box somewhat full of cards, boxes, binders, etc. to having the same monitor box completely stuffed, along with 3 other medium sized boxes stuffed with cards. Realizing that I only planned to continue collecting cards, I knew I needed a solution. Part one involved my fear of becoming a hoarder and the consequential decision to throw away all of my empty boxes and wrappers (except maybe one from each set I have hand collated). I have not done this yet as I am still trying to reorganize and catalog my entire collection, but I have made the definitive decision to some day soon throw it all out.

Step two involves my old baseball cards. As any other American boy, I collected baseball cards when I was a kid. As a result, I have a slew of cards from the “junk wax” era simply occupying space in my home office. I have tried to come up with alternative uses for my cards, but quite frankly, there are just too many. As I now know my interest in baseball cards is dead, it is time to rid myself of my entire baseball card collection. But how should I do this? I figure I have a few options:

1) Break the entire collection into teams, regardless the count of each team. Hold a giveaway on this blog that simply asks readers to tell me which is their favorite baseball team to collect. The first person to respond for each team would get every card I own for that team. Obviously this would be geared towards helping out team builders and would be the simplest method of handing out the entire stash. It does, however, fall directly into a first-come first-served basis, so perhaps a die-hard Yankees fan is snuffed simply because he responded after a casual Yankees fan hoping for some priceless Don Mattingly or Babe Ruth reprint cards.

2) Create sample “grab bags” containing 50-100 random cards. Hold some sort of contest allowing all readers an equal chance to win. The winners would be awarded a hierachy of prizes where the 1st person might get 10 “packs,” the 2nd person gets 7 “packs,” the 3rd 5, and so on and so forth. I could also hold several contests to help add an interaction element to the blog, get several groupings of readers involved, and I wouldn’t have as many large packages to ship. This would be geared more towards “priceless” cardboard fans.

3) Break entire collection into team sets, but this time further break teams into groups of 50. Either hold contests that are a mix of options 1 and 2 above, or try to sell them on eBay for a few dollars. I could also try selling the random “grab bags” from option 2. This would open up to the much wider audience of eBay, as well as help me to cover shipping and supply expenses.

4) Throw the whole darn thing away at the same time the empty boxes and packs go. They aren’t worth anything more than simple kindling and I sorta doubt any one wants me to mail them my garbage (sorry, Joe, I did say “garbage”).

The only problem with all of this is that when I take a few fleeting glimpses inside the boxes, I am reminded of the hours upon hours I spent on the living room floor or my bed organizing, sorting, reorganizing, and studying each of those cards. I can remember the sheer excitement I had they day I thought I had a pristine T206 Honus Wagner card (which I quickly learned was actually a very cheap reproduction of the legendary card). I vividly remember giggling every time I flipped over a Mookie Wilson card, because his name was so close to Cookie and started with a “Moo”, like a cow, which produces milk, which is great with Cookies. I recall being so proud of my late 80s Donruss cards of Darren Daulton and Lenny Dykstra, my two favorite players of my youth. But in the end, they do not mean anything to me at this point in my life and really are a waste of space.

Wow. Writing that, I just a great idea. As I sort through the whole mess of cardboard into team or random groups, I should scan all the cards that remind me of specific things. It will make for great rainy day posts and will serve as a reminder of those simpler times, even AFTER I give them all away (or burn them to make Rob happy).

Anywho, now that this post is absurdly long, please answer the following poll and leave any comments you feel necessary.

Reading Material

About a week ago, I published a guest column by Joe, an avid baseball card collector who really wanted to like football cards…and just couldn’t. As an avid football card collector, I wondered if I could ever get back into collecting baseball cards, something I haven’t had any interest in since I was about seven (even though my grandma kept buying them for me because to her, all cards were baseball cards, even though I bluntly stated several times that I liked football and basketball cards).

As I am working through a complete over-haul of my card collection, or more accurately, actually organizing all of them for the first time since I now have too many to remember exactly where everything is, I have been avoiding my baseball cards. They are mostly contained in two 5,000 count cardboard boxes and consist almost entirely of mid-to-late 80s and early 90s crap. There, I said it. They’re crap. Maybe that’s being a bit harsh because if I took the time to look through them, I’m sure there are many cards that would instantly remind me of my childhood. Like the card of some Angels player who posed in front of a sign with a Tiger on it. Or all the 1989 cards that I used to organize by font color because I was too young to read the team names. Or even the Lenny Dystrka and Darren Daulton cards I was once so proud of. But today they aren’t worth anything to me and they aren’t worth anything to anyone else, either (I can’t pass along those few memories and due to overproduction, no one is desperately seeking a 1991 Donruss Diamond Kings Matt Williams (which I always thought looked like my cousin’s cousin Marky). So what I am going to do with all of these cards?

Jump to a completely different thought (they’ll tie together, trust me). For a while now, my wife has been trying to get me to read more. Her argument is that not only will it make me smarter and increase my vocabularly (which I admit is fairly desolate — and yes, I typed that word and then looked it up on dictionary.com to make sure I had the right one), but it will also get me into a good habit that I can pass along to our future children. She claims that if she has to eat her vegetables because it will set a good example, then I have to read more to set another good example. Fine. Whatever. When’s dinner going to be ready?

So to be a good husband, and hopefully a good father someday, I decided I would try to read more. Not having any clue where I stored the 83 bookmarks I had as a kid, and not wanting to dog-ear page corners, I needed something to mark my place as I progressed through big, thick adult chapter books (which is harder than remembering which page of Calvin and Hobbes you last read). So I did what any self respecting man would do and grabbed the item nearest at hand at the moment. I was sitting in the living room, so I grabbed a Penn State coaster and shoved it in the book. I continued using Penn State coasters for a few months until my wife complained that they were too thick and always fell out when she wanted to move my books. She asked, “Why don’t you just use one of your dumb cards for something useful?”

[lightbulb being lit]

Alright, I will use one of my old worthless baseball cards. Honey, go into the man cave, open up one of the long cardboard boxes that looks like a baseball dugout, and pull some random card for me to use instead of this Penn State coaster. She came back with this bit of priceless goodness:

So thank you, Mr. 1986 Topps Tim Lollar. I may not remember ever watching you play, but because of you, I will never again lose my place in the Chronicles of Narnia or Silence of the Lambs. In the future, I can even see you helping me to stay focused through more great Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Chuck Palahniuk novels. And my wife thanks you as well, simply for not falling out when she picks up whatever book you happen to be in at the moment. She also thanks you because to her, you have become a token of my efforts to be more mature.

Now, what am I going to do with the other 8,438 baseball cards of my youth…..?

The Ultimate Rookie Card

When it comes to rookie cards, most people go nuts trying to track down the biggest names and most iconic stars while others spend half a lifetime trying to win Lady Luck’s good graces in the prospects market. Nearly all collectors seek financial wealth or ego bragging rights with respects to the rookies in their possession. Isn’t card collecting suppose to be more (or, in a way, less) than that? What ever happened to collecting cards that make you smile when you look at them and flood you with memories of childhood?

In all of my thousands of cards, I naturally have a plethora of rookie cards. Some are of top stars, others are of promising young studs, while others are of has-beens that were supposed to be the next big things (not to mention the vast number of never-weres). But out of all of those, one of my favorites will always be the gem you see below:

Click image for a full sized scan

Why is this card so special to me? Just look at it! Still baffled? All right, we’ll walk through it together.

First, it’s a 1996 Gonnabe PRO. You may not have heard of this card company, but with a name like “Gonnabe PRO,” you know they only pick the best young prospects to be in their sets. Otherwise, it would be false advertising, and no one wants to deal with that headache. Next, it has a glorious red, white, and blue gradiant background, complete with a shadowbox of the photo. Printed in 1996, it may have been behind the times a bit in design as it has more of a 1992 flavor, but it is a design that has aged well. Who doesn’t love a blatant patriotic appeal? We are going to ignore the HORRIBLE off centering, but seriously, I think they must have had the blind night shift crew cut these things apart. Next, you have the luxurious gold name plate, complete with basic Times New Roman font and left alignment. Even for a player who goes by all three given names (like John David Booty and a host of presidential assassians — I’m sure he was thrilled to be lumped into that group by his OCD-form-filling-out Mother), the name plate is just too long. I guess they were cautious after having an issue with Chris Fuamatu-Ma’afala of the Pittsburgh Steelers the year before. The photo is also classic. Not only could the photographer not properly frame the subject (a case of the rule of thirds gone horribly wrong), he also must have put his camera on a long pole to get that nice I’m-looking-down-on-you point of view. And can I just saw how much I love the over-sized trucker cap with the obnoxious E embroidered on the front? Too bad every team in the league wore the same cap. Lastly for the front, although you can’t see it in the scan, the card has a great, super-high gloss finish that is beginning to peel at the edges. Either that, or it is a protective coating just like the Finest and Flair brands of the same era. Talk about high quality!

Now onto the back. The card is not numbered, so perhaps it was from a preview set. There are also no logos, so I suppose this was an unlicensed product. Eat your heart out, 2010 Upper Deck baseball! I guess the Ephrata Rec Center Baseball Association was just as exclusive as MLB. We do have a sweet flying baseball clip art though, so that makes all the difference. The kid doesn’t have a uniform number. It’s almost as if the ERCBA had a stock pile of different colored t-shirt “jerseys” and just handed out the necessary sizes each year. Next we have some “vital statistics”. Age 10 — wow, prospectors really do take things to an obscene level. Standing at 4′4″ and 80lbs, this kid would probably be better off as race horse jockey than a baseball player. Either that, or he will suddenly add a lot of weight without much more height to go with it and then become a business major years later. Just sayin’. Also, we see he is a second baseman. Sounds a little exclusive. Maybe Second Base/Short Stop/Occassional Third Base/Center Field/Left Field would have been more accurate. Gotta love the versatility of Little League utility men who have a knack for turning bunts into triples (or a single with two fielding errors, whatever). It also says he throws and bats right-handed. Not bad for a kid who writes and kicks with the left side of his body. And lastly, we see the favorite pro player of this “gonnabe pro” kid is Michael Schmidt. Michael Schmidt? Wow. This kid’s mom must have taken forms WAY TOO SERIOUSLY if she couldn’t just write “Mike Schmidt” like everyone else in the world. I bet he is still annoyed about that one. We also see that to make ends meet, this card company was forced to sell the bottom portion of their cards for advertising space. Or that is a plug for the parent company. Either way, an old-timey cartoon like old school baseball cards would have been much better. The greatest thing about this card is that although we do not see an official serial number, I have it on good authority that this card was limited to a print run of just 9 copies. MOJO!!!

Okay, so now that I think about it, this card kinda sucks. But I will say that it will always find its home in a penny sleeve and gold lettered “ROOKIE CARD” top loader. Besides, how many collectors can boast they have their OWN rookie card?

Too bad this prospect retired from baseball two seasons later and went on to become that aforementioned business major…

My Personal Holy Grail

The Holy Grail. If you are a card collector, you know what I’m talking about. For some people, it’s a T206 Wagner. Some may agrue it’s a 1986 Conseco Rated Rookie. Basketball collectors could petition for the 1986/87 Fleer Jordan while football fans might vote for the 1935 National Chicle Nagurski. Whatever you collect, you know what your own personal holy grail is, be it a highly prized rookie card, an elusive parallel, or some seemingly random card that remains just out of your fiscal grasp.

As an Emmitt Smith player collector, I didn’t feel like I had that one cliché chase card. Emmitt only has five rookie cards, the most valuable being 1990 Score Supplemental. Coming from the near height of “junk wax” and overproduction, it is almost pointless for me to state that I purchased it soon after I discovered the massive online card market for a very reasonable price. Emmitt also played well into the new overproduction age, that of numerous swatches and colored parallels, so there is no jaw-dropping “hit” to track down. While looking through my collection, I had to ask myself, what do I feel is missing? I did not have any autographs and only 5 relics, but that didn’t seem to bother me. No, what I wanted to chase was a card that I would have nearly killed for when I was a kid, consumed with my card collection for the first time. That’s when it hit me — I needed this card:

Click image for a full sized scan

This was not the first autograph set inserted into packs nor was it the first Emmitt Smith autographed card, but it was the first that really grabbed my attention. It was already a base set I loved, so when I found out there was a hard signed autograph insert, I knew I wanted it. I had done some research to find out more about it. The pictures looked amazing. The design might be a tad dated by now, but it is timeless to me. I love the basic elements, the sketchy background, and the vibrant colors on the thick card stock with a matte finish. It was nearly perfect. Except for one thing. The Beckett price tag was far too high and I was trying to save money for a car and a college education.

Flash forward to 2008. I was getting back into card collecting and discovered that I could buy nearly any card I wanted from hobby shops and fellow collectors online via Beckett Marketplace, eBay, Check Out My Cards, etc. Naturally I looked up this card. Only one seller had it available for a steep $235. I saved my money and bought a slew of other great Emmitt cards. Occassionally I would go through the various sites and look, and sure enough, only Burbank Sportscards had it for the same obnoxious price. Rats.

Just last week, I decided I was going to do a write up on the card and my quest. I thought, before I make myself look dumb, I should take one last gander to see if anyone has posted it for less. Sure enough, I found it on eBay. Not only was the pricetag FAR below Burbank’s, the seller included 30 insert cards to boot. On top of that, I had purchased a few smaller Curtis Conway and Emmitt Smith lots (one big advantage during this economic downturn is much cheaper cards for us collectors who are not being forced to liquidate our “inventory”) and apparently Paypal wanted to say thank you with an 8% discount coupon. JACKPOT! So needless to say, I tried to haggle the price down some more, and when I got no where with only four hours left before my coupon expired, I pulled the trigger.

The card you see above is not some stock image. That exact card is currently sitting on my desk at home waiting to be properly organized into my Emmitt Smith collection. The card I have wanted for so long and thought was unattainable without being forced to pay top dollar for is now mine. IT’S MINE! And to make things better, the 30 additional cards were not exactly 1992 base cards and I believe I only had 1 of them previously. Needless to say, I am VERY happy with this purchase!

Of course now I need to come up with a new phantom chase card…

When Collecting and Hoarding Collide

Some time ago, Gellman over at SCU wrote an article entitled “How Does Collecting Cards Relate to Clutter“. Although I never posted a comment, partially because my internet browser was being a PITA and not allowing me to comment on blogger sites, his article really got me thinking about a subject I had secretly been worrying about for a few months. As I am in the midst of trying to finally organize my entire collection and catalog all of my cards into Microsoft Access, as well as a form of self-prescribed therapy, I am finally writing my thoughts on this subject.

Ever since I was a kid, I have dealt with obsessive hoarding face-to-face. My mom, although she will never admit it, is one of your prototype hoarders. She keeps everything. There are stacks of newspapers every where in my parents’ house. Almost every room has a mere “goat path” or two to get around. There is a kitchen table I’ve never seen in 23 years of life because it has been consumed by a mountain of junk. Why does she keep all of this stuff, other than an obvious chemical imbalance that has caused what doctors are only now discovering is a not-so-rare form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? She might need it some day. Coupons that are far beyond expired. Newspapers that are almost as old as me. Little sheets of paper with check numbers and amounts scribbled down that were supposed to go into her checkbook 15 years ago. Receipts for clothes that were thrown away or donated years before. Stuff I’m sure none of us even remember existed. All because she might need it or it might be worth something some day (like the Elvis plates and collectibles that price guides already show are worth far less than she paid).

The house is a complete disaster area. As a child, I was never allowed to have friends over to play. Family members haven’t been to the house in years. Even my wife has only been inside about four times, two of which my mom does not know about. There is so much guilt and shame in the way she lives and maintains her home. A house that I remember as being a cluttered but happy place as a child is now shut off from the outside world. Windows and shades are almost always shut tight and the screen doors haven’t been installed for years. My dad is miserable in his own home because of all the clutter. And why? Because she can’t bring herself to throw anything out.

In studies, scientists are determining that hoarding is a hereditary problem, meaning that I am already predisposed to suffering from the same mental condition. My home is currently clean and organized, other than what remains to be unpacked from my recent move. My dorm room in college was almost anally organized. I should be fine, right? But wait. My mom wasn’t always like this. Her house didn’t accumulate all of that stuff in the matter of a year or two. It was something that slowly progressed and slowly worsened until the state it is today. And after all, I already collect things.

When I was first really getting into collecting cards, I thought it was awesome that I was buying whole boxes of cards. Granted, they were retail blasters, but I thought they were great. I guess in a way, I wanted to hold onto that feeling, and I kept every cellophane pack and every box I have purchased since then. I have countless card boxes full of nothing but empty pack wrappers. I have large cardboard boxes full of hobby boxes that are empty or are filled with stacks of cards that have no other home. This is a big part of why I am trying to finally bring organization to my collection for the first time in ten years. I have a feeling though that I will always feel like there is too much to tackle if I don’t rid myself of these extra things. But, ironic as it may be, I can’t bring myself to throw them out. Much like my mother.

So I turn to you, faithful card blogosphere, for help. What should I do? The simple answer would be to throw anything that’s not a card away. But I keep telling myself it will be cool one day to look back on how pack and box designs have evolved over time along with the cards they packaged. Another option would be to keep the one pack and one box of each product I’ve purchased that is in the best shape. I like this idea, but then I’m still left with a lot of empty boxes laying around that are taking up space because I’ve never purchased more than 3 boxes of the same set. Do I collapse the boxes to make them flat? Do I cut off the box top? What about box tops that were meant to be display boxes and have since had their perforated edges separated?

This is a very difficult topic for me. I do not want to turn into my mom and live a life of guilt and shame, not to mention dealing with a house full of worthless junk, just because I can’t throw meaningless things away. But at the same time, I am already coping with a mental state that talks me into keeping things like empty packs and boxes.

I hope the fact that I am willing to discuss this and realize it is an issue for me is a sign that it’s not too late for me to reverse my hereditary tendencies. I hope I can learn to discern what is worth keeping for nostalgia’s sake and what is basic garbage. I hope…

UPDATE: I just found a similar article Rob from VOTC wrote more than a year ago. I like his make-a-collections-list-and-get-rid-of-everything-else mentality. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one struggling with this.

Chasing a Rainbow

As a player collector, I both love and hate parallels. I hate parallels, because not only do I need to chase base and insert cards from every set that featured Emmitt Smith (which is a LOT), I also need to worry about tracking down several copies of certain cards that have minor differences and serial numbers. It is just a lot of extra work and a lot of times there is at least one parallel that is numbered really low that I figure I have >0.001% of obtaining. Plus, the usually subtle differences lull me to sleep for a moment as I look through my collection and see the same photo and design on a string of consecutive cards. However, I also love parallels because it does add that extra collectibility factor. If I am able to track down all of the parallels and complete the “rainbow,” it feels awesome and I can definitively say I have completed one portion of my quest. Sorta like finally beating one level in Super Mario. Sure, there are lots of other levels and quite a few worlds to get through, but I still have that one level completed.

What you see below is my best attempt so far at completing an Emmitt Smith rainbow that is more than two or three cards:

 

Each tiny thumbnail leads to a full sized scan

Coming from 2002 Gridiron Kings, I have the base card, along with the 1894 (#/1000), DK Originals (#/1000), Bronze, Silver (#/400), and Gold (#/100) parallels. According to Beckett (you all know how I feel about their price guides and general business practices, but I have not been able to find a website that has a better comprehensive checklist database), there are 10 total Emmitt Smith cards from 2002 Gridiron Kings. Two of those are sample cards, so I am not really counting them as part of the rainbow. The remaining two that I have yet to see online, let alone purchase, are a Cut Collection memorabilia card #/400 and a Chicago Collection #/5. I figure there is no chance of ever seeing that Chicago Collection card as only 5 copies were ever printed, and 3 of those probably found their way into employee pockets or cherry-picked boxes for Beckett to review. The jersey card may be easier to come by, certainly since there 4x as many copies as the gold parallel, but I have yet to see any on eBay. If you know where I can snag one for a reasonable price, let me know.

What about you? Do you have any elusive pieces of a rainbow that are driving you nuts? Or perhaps you do have a complete rainbow of which you are super proud? At the very least, please tell me I’m not the only one concerned about this portion of being a player collector and that I should continue to fight the good fight.