Facebook Trade

I completed a trade with an awesome trader on Facebook last week and scored some sweet cards in the process.  Ryan Marcus King Dee is definitely worth an add if you are looking for a good trade.  This was actually a purchase/trade, but Ryan is always awesome to deal with and he also runs a mean box break.

So, let's start off with the big card in this deal.  I added a really sweet piece to my Triple Threads collections with this 2008 Joe Diamggio 6 piece relic.

2008 Topps Triple Threads Joe Dimaggio 6 Piece Relic

The card features four pieces of jersey with pinstripes and two pieces of bat in the middle.  I haven't really dabbled too much with the Hall of Famers in this set, but this is always a good place to start.  I picked up a few other smaller pieces from Ryan too to help out with my Prince Fielder/Miguel Cabrera cards.  I actually traded a nicer Prince relic and broke it into a few relics that I didn't have in my collection.  I love the Lineage cream colored jersey.

2012 Topps Heritage Prince Fielder Jersey

2011 Topps Lineage Prince Fielder Jersey

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Prince Fielder Jersey 

Picked up one final card in this trade from the 2002 Topps Chrome set.  This card is a dual jersey of Mike Hampton and Ben Petrick.  It's technically a 2000s card, but I have always kind of liked these cards and have a few others from this set.

The Lamest Excuse To Trade A Card Is....

I used to get really annoyed when Tony LaRussa would throw players under the bus and then relagate them to the trade block.  Completely trashes the players value and any leverage that the Cardinals might have with the opposing team.  Colby Rasmus comes to mind, but the Cardinals won the World Series last year with Edwin Jackson starting playoff games.  

In dealing with card collectors I often wonder why certain collectors throw their own cards on the bus in a similar fashion.  I hate the Cubs, but I really enjoy having a Ryne Sandberg autograph as part of my collection.  You would like to trade for it?  Great, I want some good cards back.  

The past several months I have worked a few deals with an old card show acquaintance from St. Louis.  The guy is originally from San Jose, loves his Giants, and cannot stand the Dodgers.  He'll email out a list of cards he's looking to move every few weeks and I am never amazed to see the amount of Dodgers cards on the list.  

Good cards with good values dumped out on the market because they are Dodgers, or connected to the Dodgers.  Anyway, here's the damage this week.  

2011 Topps Triple Threads Matt Kemp BISON

2011 Topps Triple Threads Matt Kemp STATS

Two Allen & Ginter Autographs

I picked up a couple of older Allen & Ginter autographs last week.  The Allen & Ginter set has been a staple of Topps the past few years and the autographs are always on card making these a good target for autograph collectors.  I believe that the 2006 Allen & Ginter autographs are considered the benchmark, but there is always a few worth collecting every year.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Andre Ethier Autograph 

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Evan Longoria Autograph

The Ethier was my original target in this trade since it was the only baseball autograph I was missing from the 2008 set.  The best baseball autograph in that set is Matt Kemp, but also includes Prince Fielder, Matt Holliday, and Manny Ramirez.  The rest of the cards are relatively easy to find whether you are buying or trading.  While picking up the Ethier I was offered a shot at the Longoria and went ahead and traded for it too.  Longoria usually has a few on card autographs every year and I did not own this card before the trade.  

2011 Topps Finest Mike Trout Orange Autograph

I rarely buy into the value of high end rookie cards.  I collected Albert Pujols cards for more than 10 years and I have yet to add a 2001 Topps Finest or SPX auto to my collection.  Why?  Both cards used to easily sell north of a thousand dollars.  Currently they actively trade around 300-500 depending on the condition of the signature.  The 2001 Finest autos have aged poorly.  However, I have always maintained that if I backed into one cheaply I would trade for it or buy it.

I have also seen much more value in making sure that my high end additions to my collections are established players whose value has clearly had time to settle in the hobby.  For example, my two biggest additions to this point this year have been a Koufax and Mays autograph.  Value has clearly been established in both cases.

Which leads me to my card today.  I recently had a friend who owns a shop call me desperate to find a card.  He offered to buy it, which I didn't feel like selling.  So, I asked if he had anything good.  This was my answer:

2011 Topps Finest Mike Trout Orange Autograph

There really wasn't much else to choose from and I didn't want to puzzle together 10 cards to equal one high end card.  So, here I am drinking the Mike Trout Kool-Aid.  I saw him earlier this year at a Tigers game and was really impressed, so hopefully I won't kick myself in a few years.

2012 Topps Finest Matt Moore Autograph/Jersey

I've been working on putting the finishing touches on my Topps Finest set for the year.  The cards this year remind me a lot of some of the 90s Finest products.  Anyway, I have assembled all of the base cards and started look for a good autograph to add to my set.  The checklist isn't really very full in the way of Cardinals and Rays.  The Cardinals autograph is Matt Adams and I already expressed my feelings last week about the price of Adams cards.

Which leads me to the Rays.  The Rays have one autograph in the set which is Matt Moore.  I do believe that this is the 80th Topps set that Matt Moore has signed for this year.  (Sigh) I picked up the Matt Moore card anyway and will add it to the giant stack of Matt Moore autographs I have picked up this year.

2012 Topps Finest Matt Moore Autograph/Jersey

Something to ponder.  After the 2009 season I was very happy to see Major League Baseball reduce the number of card producers down to one team.  The number of products released at the height of the Fleer/Donruss/Topps/Upper Deck haydays was ridiculous.  However, I feel that Topps is getting really lazy with some of the diversity within their sets.  Meaning this.  Take a few minutes to visit Ebay or Check Out My Cards, or your local card shop.  Pick a team.  Any team.  Who has signed for that team for Topps this year?  Guaranteed it is the same three or four players in almost every set.  Every once in awhile it's cool to get an autograph of a player who hasn't signed much in the past.  Just a thought.  

2010 Topps Triple Threads Miguel Cabrera Triple Jersey MLB

One of my trips to the ballpark this summer was to Comerica Park in Detroit.  I was excited about the chance to give Albert Pujols a piece of my mind, see Mike Trout hit and play the field, and check out Prince Fielder in the English D.  However, I one of the best parts of the game was getting to watch Miguel Cabrera hit.  Cabrera often flies a little bit under the radar as one of the games best hitters.  He's almost always in the conversation, but people are quick to pick someone else.  Cabrera always hits 30 home runs, drives in 100 runs, and hits .300.  Plus, he always does it in a pitcher's park.

I have been dabbling in Cabrera cards during this baseball season and picked up another cool Cabrera Triple Threads cards last week.  This card is from the 2010 Triple Threads set and is numbered out of 18.  The three relic pieces are all white jersey.  While the MLB cards are some of the easiest to find in the Triple Threads set, I still like the overall look of the cards and will enjoy owning this card.

Three New Cardinals

 I picked up three new Cardinals cards last week and haven't had a chance to post them yet, so lets get down to business.

2012 Bowman Platinum Matt Adams

I've tried not to go too hard after Matt Adams cards this year.  First, I think they are overvalued.  His first certified autograph card issued in the Bowman set sold for weeks after the products debut or around $20.  Meanwhile, pitching prospect Carlos Martinez sold for roughly the same amount for an on-card autograph in the same set.  Martinez is much more highly regarded in terms of being a prospect on the field.  Adams's cards have still stayed pretty high even though he is blocked at first base by Allen Craig and is probably better suited playing DH in the American League.  The Bowman Platinum autograph of Adams is probably his nicest one of the year.  

I also picked up this Ozzie Smith dual jersey card.  I have a couple other jersey pieces from this set which has lots of good Hall of Famers.  This Ozzie card is numbered to just 126 and features two gray pieces.  I would be cool if the jersey pieces were powder blue, but it's still an Ozzie.  I will give kudos to Upper Deck for having a 90s picture of Ozzie on the card to match the 90s jersey pieces.  

Last card for tonight.  I picked up my third cool Ray Lankford card of the week.  This card is a multiple for me, but at $1 I cannot pass.  This is a Players Private Issue card from 1996 Topps Gallery.  This is a parallel set that ran in every Gallery set issued by Topps.  The 1996 version was the easiest to come across at 1000 print runs of each card.  Love the 90s.  By the late 90s, Topps had trimmed that number down to 150.