Things I Am Sorting Part 10

Yes, I am still working on putting some sets together.  That Pedro Martinez Skybox Molten Metal card is proving difficult and might be spilling over into my other set projects.  I haven't completed any of the sets that I have listed on the Projects In Progess tab at the top of the page, but I have a stack of cards sitting on my desk that need scanning and posting.  

Tonight is going to be an update on my 1999 Topps Gallery Heritage set.  A little bit of logistics first.  When I originally posted the set I had not sorted through my collection yet to see what cards were already here.  I had McGwire and Griffey off the checklist since I had posted them here in other posts.  Here is the checklist minus the Griffey and Big Mac.  

TH1- Hank Aaron 

TH2- Ben Grieve 

TH3- Nomar Garciaparra 

TH4- Roger Clemens 

TH5- Travis Lee

TH6- Tony Gwynn

TH7- Alex Rodriguez 

TH9- Derek Jeter 

TH10- Sammy Sosa

TH11- Scott Rolen 

TH12- Chipper Jones

TH13- Cal Ripken Jr. 

TH14- Kerry Wood 

TH15-Barry Bonds

TH16- Juan Gonzalez 

TH17- Mike Piazza

TH18- Greg Maddux 

TH19- Frank Thomas  

The highlighted cards on the checklist I was able to find amongst my boxes of cards.  So, out of the 20 card set I am looking for a total of 9 cards, or just under 50% of the set.  The better news is that I have found a few of the cards I am missing from the set over the past two months.  

Here is a look at the new cards........

Of the three new cards I picked up for this project this is my favorite card.  There have been plenty of art sets over the years, but Topps did a really good job with this set.  I like that Topps put Maddux in glasses on his card.  Gives him that accountant sort of look that I remember him having while he was playing.  It's hard to believe sometimes that a short guy who barely threw 90 was one of the best pitchers of the steroid era.  This is a really cool card.  

I like the Aaron card too.  Always nice to see the greats from yesteryear in the modern baseball card sets.  I like the Boston Braves markings on the cards, but the Topps Gum ad over his shoulder seems a little bit forced.  

Last card.   

I know there is all the steroid stuff with Juan Gone, but I don't really care.  The guy could hit.  Something about this card feels a little bit unfinished.  The helmet has the Rangers T logo, but the jersey just seems like it isn't finished.  It's a common thing in the art world actually. 

This Titian painting is in the St. Louis Art Museum.  He was commissioned to make the painting, but died before he finished it.  

Same sort of idea between the Titian painting and the Juan Gone card.  The main figure on each is completed, but the edges and details are a little bit vague.  Not really completed.  

Overall, happy to have the three new cards which brings the set completion down to just six cards.  

TH3- Nomar Garciaparra 

TH4- Roger Clemens 

TH6- Tony Gwynn

TH9- Derek Jeter 

TH12- Chipper Jones

TH15-Barry Bonds

Six Pack of Stadium Club Part 4

Six more really cool Stadium Club base cards from the 2015 product.  Not really a theme last night, but six really cool cards.  Here they are:

#13 Ernie Banks - Cubs

I like some of the off the field cards that Topps included in this product.  This Ernie Banks card was really cool.  I remember a few years before he passed away the Cardinals made a big push to get Stan Musial a Presidential Medal of Honor.  I did not realize that Ernie Banks had also received this honor as well.  Really cool card and awesome honor for Mr. Cub.  

#259 Greg Maddux - Braves 

If we are going to go off the field then how can you not include this great photo of Braves great Greg Maddux playing golf.  That's a great 1990s outfit in the picture too.  Are those denim shorts?  I am not sure if Maddux is in the same league as Smoltz on the gold course, but he still looks like he knows what he is doing.  Curious as to where this picture came from.....

#279 Joe DiMaggio - Yankees

This was a card that I noticed the second time I flipped through the set.  I like baseball numbers.  You say Joe DiMaggio and the number that pops in my mind is 56.  As in 56 game hitting streak.  However, the 45 is a significant number in that record.  Before DiMaggio set the mark for the longest hitting streak at 56 games, he bested the former mark of 45 which belonged to Baltimore Orioles star "Wee" Willie Keeler.  Cool card that has really grown on me.  

#282 Fred McGriff - Braves 

The Crime Dog had a really cool swing with a great follow thru.  It's not quite Ken Griffey Jr., but I would recognize this swing anywhere.  I always felt like Fred McGriff would have been a little bit more important if he had not played in the steroid era.  He was never a guy who hit 40 or 50 home runs, but he did hit 30 to 35 every year.  A bunch of those 35 home runs seasons came years before players like Canseco really escalated the home run totals.  

#290 Dwight Gooden - Mets 

Just a really cool picture.  

#298 Larry Doby - Indians 

Really cool card with Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson.  Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, but Doby was not far behind.  Really cool picture of the two of them together.  

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #21 Greg Maddux

My Top 50 On Cardboard
#21
Greg Maddux 

1997 Donruss Greg Maddux

One of the best pitchers of his generation, Maddux is a great baseball player to collect.  He has a large amount of cards that were produced during his career with a little something for everyone.  Low end, high end, base cards, inserts, relics, autographs.  Plenty of everything to collect with Maddux.  Personally, I always got annoyed with Maddux.  He was a really good player and, as a control pitcher, would nibble on the edges of the strike zone.  Maddux's rookie cards are all from the 1987 card calendar year and feature Maddux in his Cubbies uniform.  Pretty cool mustache on the 1987 Donruss.

Hobby Impact-
Maddux had a great run of cards from the his rookie card until his last year's as a Cub, Padre, and Dodger.  Most Maddux collectors seem to focus on his early Cub years and the prime of his career with the Braves.  Maddux appeared in all of the base sets, but would get based over at times on inserts and the whatnot.  While he was a Hall of Fame player on a great run of Braves teams, Maddux was always a notch below Chipper Jones in the eyes of card collectors.  Pick a cool insert set from the late 90s and if there's a Brave, chances are you are looking at Chipper.  Still does not diminish the fact that fans of the game loved to collect Maddux and Braves fans.

Maddux being the second most popular Brave helped his cards in many ways during the 90s and early 2000s in my opinion.  The fact that Maddux was skipped over for inserts limited the amount of cards out on the market for the pitcher.  The result is that Maddux cards are some of the best investments collectors can find on the secondary market from his era.  Cards with limited print runs from the early 2000s can often sell for a few dollars on Ebay, but track down a Maddux and you are going to see competitive bidding and a price that settles above average.

While Maddux relic cards are pretty easy to find and while not run you very much money, his autographs can be a completely different story.  Maddux signed for a lot of the big autograph sets during his era, but his cards were often short printed and hard to come across.  Devoted Maddux collectors have long-ago scooped up the majority of Maddux autographs.  A few float free every once in awhile, but the cards have retained their value very well and will often run collectors close to $100 for an autograph.  I picked up a copy of a 2000 Fleer Showcase last year and can say that the short printed autographs, low runs, high end autographs will run higher than $100 and can, at times, drift near $200.

2000 Fleer Showcase Greg Maddux Autograph 

Maddux has had a few autographs put out since his retirement including a few Leaf cards which can be found for around $50.  If you want to get a Maddux autograph for the sake of getting a Maddux autograph the Leaf autograph might be a good avenue to check out.  While Maddux does not have the prettiest autograph, he has been very consistent over the years, and there is no denying that he is one of the most important players of his generation.

On The Field Impact-
I reviewed the Hall of Fame credentials of Maddux a few days back and will summarize briefly for you again here today.  Simply put: Maddux is the best one or two pitchers of his generation.  Some people will put Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson ahead of Maddux, but at worst he is the third best pitcher out of a really good group.  JAWS rates him as the tenth best starting pitcher of all-time behind both Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson.

Tenth best includes 355 wins and 3,300 strikeouts.  Maddux also helped the Braves to the National League East title for a decade straight.  While Maddux had a losing postseason record he still managed to keep his ERA just north of 3.00 and kept it just above two in five World Series starts.  Anyway you slice it Maddux was a great pitcher on the field.  Hopefully he should be in the Hall of Fame sometime in early January.

Favorite Card-
One of the cool things about Maddux is the fact that he played on a great team with other great and good players.  While finding individual Maddux cards is cool, he's one of the few players I will find on cards with other players.  Smoltz and Maddux.  Glavine and Maddux.  Avery and Maddux.  Chipper Jones and Maddux.  All cool combinations.  So, really I could post a bunch of different cards in this space and they would all be cool.  Narrowing it down I would go with the 2002 Upper Deck Vintage relic cards.  I own one with the two Joneses and Maddux, but there is also a quad version with Glavine.  If I owned the quad version it would be here.  Since I don't here's the other one:

2002 Upper Deck Vintage Andruw Jones/Chipper Jones/Greg Maddux Timeless Teams Jersey

Die Cut Kick

The Topps Chrome posts from last weekend have put me in a bit of a die cut kick during the past week.  I went back through some of my old card boxes and found a couple of cool die cut cards from yesteryear, thinking of making a post, and also scoped out the die cut market on a few trade pages, Ebay, and COMC.  There were plenty of newer die-cuts from some of the newer Topps sets, but nothing really seemed to be calling my name until I saw an old cheepy Pacfic on Ebay. 

2000 Pacific Greg Maddux

The Gold Cut Crowns were seeded at a 1:25 rate with a box being 24 packs.  Not the toughest find, considering some of the odds on the Pacific die cuts could range into the 1:700 or higher range, but still these were some really cool looking cards.  It's hard to tell on the scan, but the card has some pretty cool hologram action in the background with numbers and fireworks.  I am always surprised at how cheap these cards on different secondary sites.  This card cost me a whole dollar minus one cent.  Shocked, but I am going to keep looking for these. 

30 Year Top 50: 1987 Donruss

#31- I will have the 1987 calendar year of major baseball card releases covered after this post.  The year was great for rookie cards which I always think ultimately drive a set's significance over time.  Other factors such as innovation, style, and design can also factor in, but the 1987 Donruss set lacks all of those factors.  The 1987 Donruss set offers many of the usual suspects of rookie cards from that year including Barry Larkin, Palmeiro, Will Clark, Wally Joyner, and Barry Bonds.

1987 Donruss Barry Bonds

Many of those other same players also appear in the Fleer and Topps releases, but I think that this set has two major advantages over the other releases.  First, this set was the of the last dark bordered sets produced by a major card company before the arrival of Upper Deck in 1989.  Upper Deck forced the other card companies to elevate the quality by changing their card stock and cutting methods.  The cards looked great, but it also eliminated some of the imperfections collectors would run into with older sets.  Especially older sets with darker borders.  The second reason:

1987 Donruss Greg Maddux

The inclusion of a Greg Maddux rookie.  Maddux also appeared in the 1987 Topps Update release, but this card is frequently considered the Gold Standard for his rookie cards.  Maddux is a sure fire first ballot Hall of Famer, but he can fly under the radar at times with his baseball cards.  This card isn't a hard find and raw copies of the card will only cost collectors a few dollars, but finding one with a high PSA grade will cost you over $50.  

Like the 1987 Donruss Set?  Not in my Top 50 countdown is the 1985 Donruss set.  Similar to the 1987 set, the 85 release is filled with important rookies and also features a dark border that can be condition sensitive.  Finding raw copies of the set and singles is not difficult and generally is inexpensive.  

1985 Donruss Eric Davis

The Eric Davis cars above is one of his three rookie cards released in 1985, however the stars of the 1985 Donruss set are Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett.  The Clemens card is the better of the two cards, but has been set back in recent years due to the linkage of his career to the use of steroids.  

1985 Donruss Roger Clemens

The other important rookie card is the Kirby Puckett rookie.  Puckett had his career cut short due to injuries and glaucoma, but was still elected to the Hall of Fame.  This is my least favorite of his rookies, but still proudly own a few copies.  

1985 Donruss Kirby Puckett 

Prior and Maddux Prime Patches

I picked up a pair of 2005 Prime Patches cards last week.  I really enjoy these cards and was excited to get both of these cards even though they are both Cubs.  The first card is a Greg Maddux dual jersey card.  This card features a piece of his jersey from both the Braves and Cubs.

2005 Prime Patches Greg Maddux Dual Jersey

The second Prime Patches card I picked up is pretty sweet too.  The card features four pieces from Mark Prior.  The pieces include a bat, hat, shoe, and fielding glove.  The hat is the highlight for me since the piece shows the New Era logo from the inside of his hat.  

2005 Prime Patches Mark Prior Quad Relic Bat/Hat/Shoe/Glove

2000 Fleer Showcase Sweet Sigs Greg Maddux Autograph

Rant of the Day:

I am feeling a little bit restless this week with my cards.  I've been trying to put together the rest of my Tier One cards and am getting a little bit aggravated about the lack of variety in players Topps gets to sign for some of its sets.  The Cardinals autograph line-up for every Topps set this year has basically been Allen Craig, Jon Jay, Jason Motte, and Stan Musial.  I should be excited about Stan, but his autograph has really gone down hill.  A lot of the other autographs in the set are the same too.  I saw something with a Wally Joyner today.  Hmmm....

On to the Maddux.  One of my all time favorite cards from yesteryears.  I bought cheap at a card store outside of St. Louis and have really enjoyed owning this card.  Maddux was one of the most unique and talented pitchers of the 90's.  He won multiple Cy Young awards and put up great numbers during the steroid era all while he was clearly not on steroids.

2000 Fleer Showcase Sweet Sigs Greg Maddux

Cardwise, Maddux is a great autograph to add to your collection.  He has a variety of different certified autographs on the market, but I would guess that the print run is short on almost all of them.  Maddux was a big sticker autograph guy in the mid 2000's, but there are several late 90s and early 2000s autographs that are on card and can be had for around $100.  

Remember to check out my July Baseball Card Contest!