Sellers' Regret

I used to love Pacific autographs.

I had tons of them.  

One of my favorite Pacific autograph sets were the Die-cut autographs in the 2000 Omega set. They were great looking cards. 

Here is my copy of the Gary Sheffield autograph as an example.  

I did not have the whole set or anything. Putting together whole autograph sets is not really my scene. Always seems like a lot of time and money to accomplish that sort of thing, but I know there are plenty of collectors whose opinions differ from mine. 

So, roughly ten years ago I ran into such a collector in a Facebook collecting group. We had actually made a few trades when he posted that he trying to finish up a project to complete the Pacific Omega autograph set. He was missing two autographs, both Cardinals. Cal Eldred is a White Sox on his card, but I owned the card because he was on the Cardinals for three years.  

I sold him the two cards.  

Do I miss Cal Eldred?  

No. 

Do I miss the other card? 

All the time.  

I have not been the best about searching out Ebay and COMC for the card, but I also no that it does not come up often and can cost more than I am willing to spend when it does appear. Well, this weekend I saw a copy on a Facebook group for a reasonable price and ended up buying it.  

The card.  

One of the worst cases of sellers' regret that I have ever experienced.  

I have plenty of other Jim Edmonds autographs hanging out in my card room, but this was always one of my favorites. In retrospect, it is kind of crazy that I sold it, because I rarely sell off my cards. I give them away and I trade, not a seller though. I was being too nice.  

Here is the back of the card.....

Love that Pacific gives you a write-up about the player rather than one of those "Congratulations" messages that are typically stamped on the back of certified autographs.  

Love that Pacific used a picture of Jim Edmonds with frosted tips in his hair. It's the type of fashion statement that is the perfect intersection between bad late 1990s/early 2000s style and the persona of Jim Edmonds, or "Jimmy Ballgame".

Needless to say, the card is staying in my collection this time around.  

The Coolness of Pacific Autographs

Over the past few years of blogging I have heaped plenty of love on Pacific Trading Cards.  If you collected baseball cards in the 90s it was hard not to love the flashy and innovative card producer.  Over the last three years I have written pieces about die their die cuts cards:

I have done pieces about how cool their checklists were:

and those other cool cards that were just special to Pacific like the dugout net card:

However, I amazed to find that I had never done a write up on any Pacific autographs.  I was shocked.  Back in the day I really loved Pacific autographs and had dozens of them in my collection.  They are still there, but they are just 15-16 years old now.  The Pacific autographs have aged great and look better than many of the autographs that companies like Topps and Panini are cranking out now.  What made them great?  Let me show off an old card from the autograph box:

This card is just awesome.  On card signature, die cut, cool design, and a great player.  This was the world of Pacific autographs back in the day.  There are numerous sets that Pacific cracked out in the late 90s and early 2000s that gave us cool cards like this Sheffield autograph out of the 2000 Pacific Omega set and again, this card is cool than 3/4 of the new autographs that are floating around on the market from new releases.

I also really like the Crowne Royale autographs which were also a 2000 calendar year release:

Again, this card has all of the same appealing characteristics of the Sheffield card above: on card signature, die cut, cool design, and really cool player.  Not to say that all Pacific autographs are All-Star caliber or die cuts, but there is a lot of love here in the making of this card.

The best part of collecting Pacific autographs is the fact that there are still tons of them floating around on Ebay and COMC and they are all pretty affordable.  Ebay currently has more than 200 Pacific autographs up on their site and COMC has almost 50.  There are some great looking cards in the lot ranging from an on-card Chipper Jones autograph for just over $30 to autographs of late 90s prospect legend Travis "Gookie" Dawkins for around $2.

I recently landed a brand new Pacific autograph as a throw in for a trade I completed on Facebook.  I love throw-ins, but found this card really cool......

Not a die cut, but this was a really cool and innovative set for the time from the Pacific Revolution set.  The card actually features a piece of game used ball (slightly blah), but they are signed by a Major League player.  It's not quite the Upper Deck Sweet Spot set, but it came out about a year and a half before the popular Upper Deck product first hit the shelves during the summer of 2001.  Loads of great names in this set too from Greg Maddux, Barry Bonds, and ARod to players like Shane Reynolds.  While this autograph was a throw-in, and might be one of the worst autographs in the set, the card features a guy who won 35 games in the two years leading up to the release of this product.

I probably should sit down and do a bigger post on Pacific autographs, but this should give you a good idea about the basics.  If you're an autograph collector and looking for a good, fun, collecting challenge, putting together one of these Pacific sets would be a lot of fun.