30 Year Top 50: 1999 SP Signature Edition

#35-This release represented Upper Deck's first venture into the world of a huge autograph focused set.  By the time 1999 rolled around, the hobby had already seen the release of the 1996 Leaf Signature Series and the 1997 and 1998 releases of the Donruss Signature Series.  Since Donruss was bankrupt by the end of 1998 I am guessing that Upper Deck was trying to fill the void.

The packs for the 1999 SP Signature Edition were $20 and only available at Hobby Shops.  Each contained three cards.  Two base cards and one autographed card.  Now, there were some really nice cards in this set that are really cool and worth owning.  However, in a mega-autograph set there are also plenty of cards that are painful to see inside a pack of $20 cards.

One of my big pluses in owning cards from this set is the design.  The autographs are all on card and the card themselves feature a white background which showed the blue ink autographs very well.  As far as the autographs go I break them into three categories.  Lets take a look at a few cards from the set using a few Orioles.  Just picked a team.

1999 SP Signature Edition Ivan Coffie

1. Common Cards- Every mega-autograph set has tons of filler cards like this Ivan Coffie.  It stinks to buy a per pack autograph, spend good money, and pull a card that sells on Ebay for $2 on a really good day.  I often look at the common cards in mega-autograph sets from this perspective:  Collect your favorite team and fill in your autograph collection.  For example, one of my favorite Cardinals teams was the 1996 National League Central Champions.  It was LaRussa's first year, Ray Lankford and several other personal favorites were on the team, and they came within a game of the World Series.  It was also the same year the Leaf Signature set was released and I was able to get a lot of the team in the set with a certified autograph.  They won't all fit in the picture, but here's a sampling.  

1996 Leaf Signature Cardinals Autographs: John Mabry, Tom Pagnozzi, Mike Gallego, and Gary Gaetti

Love the Gary Gaetti card the most out of this lot.  

1999 SP Signature Edition Albert Belle Autograph

2.  Current Stars- In 1999 Albert Belle was fading at the end of his career.  His cards were still pretty desirable and held their value pretty well at the time.  Even to this day his cards have a bit of following and are never super cheap.  If you scour the internet and local card shops you will find that Albert Belle has a few autographs floating around out there.  Especially recent autographs.  At the time of this product release however there were very few floating around.  If you wanted an Albert Belle autograph, this was your best bet.  Most mega-autograph sets have a few cards like this.  Ron Gant is another big one from this set with a similar story.  

1999 SP Signature Edition Frank Robinson Autograph

3.  Hall of Famers-My third category is what most people want to find in their one per autograph packs, but the odds are always difficult on these cards.  Looking at my Frank Robinson, it is probably one of the cheaper Hall of Fame autographs in this set.  In fact, some people would argue that a card like Frank barely covers the cost of the pack on a good day on Ebay.  I disagree.  While it is probably just in the $20 range, covering the pack cost, the cards in the 1999 SP Signature Edition are on card.  For my collection I would much rather own a slightly less expensive on card autograph then a limited print number, high end, sticker autograph.   

Like the 1999 SP Signature Edition?  Not in my 30 Year Top 50 is the By The Letter insert in SP Authentic sets.  If you have been following my countdown you'll notice that the Not in the Top 50 and the in the Top 50 set are often tied together somehow.  Today, I am straying a little bit.  Upper Deck has released some other uber-autograph sets, but this thread is supposed to be about the highlights.  

I could have easily focused this section on one of the Ultimate Signature sets, but the By The Letter Autographs deserve a little bit of love.  I miss them so very much and while Topps has duplicated them into their own creation:

2010 Topps Finest Buster Posey Letter Patch Autograph

They aren't quite the same as the original Upper Deck product.  The By The Letter Autograph concept started in the 2006 SP Authentic set.  The cards were an instant smash hit.  The concept of course was to collect all the letter patches of a player to spell out their name.  Here's how they started out:

2006 SP Authentic Matt Holliday By The Letter Autograph

Over the next several years the cards changed very little in concept and design, but still offered collectors a cool product to chase every year.  Whether you were collecting players from your favorite team:

2009 SP Authentic By The Letter David Freese Autograph

Or you just ran into a cool inexpensive card of an average player.  

2008 SP Authentic By The Letter Edwin Encarnacion Autograph 

The By The Letter Autographs are a set that I strongly considered bundling together and putting on my countdown. 

The Circle of Cards Pt. 2

So, when I last left you I had traded a great looking Mike Stanton Triple Threads autograph away for a Matt Kemp autograph and a Lance Lynn autograph.  You can read about the earlier details of this trade here.  So, in the process of working out my earlier trade I had connected with a trader in California interested in Matt Kemp autographs and had taken on a Lance Lynn autograph to fill out the Stanton trade.  I knew at the time of the trade that I was going to flip the Lance Lynn autograph around for some other cards with a collector back in St. Louis.  So how does this all turn out?

First, the Lynn card.  I packaged the Lance Lynn card together with a Gypsy Queen Jon Jay jersey and an Allen Craig autograph and ended up with two cards back in return.  The first was a 1996 Leaf Signature Matt Stairs autograph.  Pretty sweet card of a player with a big cult following.  The short Canadian has played for almost every team in the league and is renowned for his ability to provide power off the bench.

1996 Leaf Signature Matt Stairs Autograph

While the Stairs card is really sweet and I am happy to add to my collection there was a better card that I added to my collection.  So, I ask you this question?  If you were reluctant to give up a card what would sway you to trade it?  How about getting the card back?  Different version, but I traded a print run of 75 Mike Stanton Triple Threads card for a Matt Stairs autograph, another Mike Stanton autographed Triple Threads card out of 99, and I still had the Matt Kemp autograph too.  

2012 Topps Triple Threads Mike Stanton Autograph

The idea of getting back another Stanton autograph while only giving up duplicate Cardinals cards made me ecstatic.  However, I also continued to work with the collector on the Matt Kemp autograph.  He posted several nice Cardinals autographs which caught my attention.  I ended up flipping around the Kemp and a few Dodgers jersey cards for this gem:

2002 Topps Team Legends Stan Musial Autograph

This is my second copy of this particular Musial card, but I was happy to add it to my collection since it is an on-card autograph and it was issued before 2004.  Collectors interested in adding a Musial autograph should take note that his signature really started to fall off after 2005.  In fact, recent Musial autograph have had shorter prints, higher prices, and low quality.  No fault of Stan's.  He tries really hard.  

So, to summarize my trade I parted with a 2011 Triple Threads Mike Stanton autograph, a 2012 Gypsy Queen Jon Jay autograph, a 2012 Gypsy Queen Allen Craig autograph, a 2009 Triple Threads Matt Kemp autograph, and a set of four Dodgers jersey cards and got back a Mike Stanton autograph, a Stan Musial autograph, and a Matt Stairs autograph.  Not a bad week's worth of work.  

30 Year Top 50: 2001 Pacific Private Stock

#36- I have already made a few posts about this set if you want to take a few minutes to read another post or four.  The set was arguable its my one of my favorites and if my countdown were based solely on my dislikes and likes, this set would probably be in the top 10.  The Private Stock release was the swan song for Pacific in the world of baseball cards.  They bent a few rules in the cards that appeared in the set, but the release was an overwhelming success.

The draw of the Private Stock release was the fact that the every pack had one relic card.  While most people recognized it was the easiest way for Pacific to dump it's entire holding of baseball memorabilia, collectors risked drawing a Pokey Reese bat card versus picking up a patch card of Greg Maddux, Tony Gwynn, or other star.  There were also some cards that broke licensing rules that were highly sought after.  The two biggest were the Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.  I own two copies of the McGwire, but the Sosa has an extremely limited print run (I have heard anywhere from 1 to 5).  No, I don't have one.  See the McGwire here.

Private Stock had two basic types of relics cards.  There were jersey cards:

2001 Pacific Private Stock Barry Larkin Jersey Card

and there were also bat cards:

2001 Pacific Private Stock Craig Biggio Bat Card

Some of the players in the set had only a bat card, some had a jersey card, some had a home and a road jersey, while others featured both a bat and a jersey.

2001 Pacific Private Stock Barry Bonds Jersey Card

2001 Pacific Barry Bonds Bat Card

Cooler yet were the patch cards inserted in the set.  The patch cards skipped around throughout the set. Some of the patch cards are really cool and feature really cool players.  Others are not so great.  For example, as a Cardinals fan I was always a little disappointed that Pacific used Garrett Stephenson as the Cardinals player with a patch.  Not really my favorite player, or even a likable player.  Other teams faired better:  

 2001 Pacific Private Stock Todd Helton Patch Card 

As a collector, if you are looking for a collecting challenge this set is a great amount of fun.  The cards are rather plentiful still and can be easily found on Ebay or COMC.  Since the supply of cards is plentiful, collectors will often trade or sell these cards often and for a small price.  I am still missing some of the patch cards, but was able to buy or trade for almost all the other cards in the set for under $5.  The lone exception was the McGwire card.

Like the 2001 Pacific Private Stock set?  Not in my Top 50 countdown is the 2003 Playoff Piece of the Game set.  There were multiple issues of this set, but I have always liked this issue the best.  Similar to the 2001 Pacific Private Stock, the 2003 Playoff Piece of the Game set (POTG) was a relic per pack product.  However, there were some slight difference in the product.  First, the major difference was the inclusion of autographs in the POTG.  Some of the autographs were duds.   I believe I have a Runelyvs Hernandez running around my card collection somewhere, but there were also some great autographs available too.  This is my favorite one that I own:

2003 Playoff Piece of the Game Frank Thomas Jersey/Autograph

The major drawback of the autographs of course was the sticker.  I still love this card.  There jersey/bat/patch cards had the same cards had the same design as the autographs.  The one really cool aspect of the cards was the jersey picture on the back of the cards.  

2003 Playoff Piece of the Game Adrian Beltre Jersey

I always thought it was pretty cool that Playoff put the picture of the actual memorabilia used for the card on the back.  I guess there are varying degrees of game used and given the recent jersey gate scandal.  Not as cool as the Private Stock set in my opinion, but there are definitely cards worth owning in this set.   

The Circle of Cards Pt. 1

I have been on a bit of a Twitter kick the past few weeks.  It's not a bad place to trade cards some days. In the waining hours of my vacation a few weeks back I ran across a cool collector that was looking for some Marlins cards.  How rare is that?  I've been collecting, buying, selling, and trading for a long time and can think of lots of different collectors I can turn to for all kinds of players and teams.  However, the Marlins have always been a little trick for me.

At the same time I run into my Marlins friend on Twitter, I run into another person on Twitter from the West Coast somewhere looking for Matt Kemps.  I have a few and listened a little more when I heard there were some Cardinals autographs in the mix.  So, I am managing two conversations at once of which I am not a huge fan.  Marlins guy throws up a Kemp card.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Matt Kemp Autograph

Very nice card indeed.   So, I dug through my Marlins cards and interested him in a nice Mike (Giancarlo) Stanton autograph out of last years Triple Threads.  Pictured below.  Now, the Stanton is a great card and I think that Stanton is going to be a nice player.  Honestly, I was a little bit hesitant to trade the card.  

2011 Topps Triple Threads Autograph

So, while I am listening to the offers for the Stanton card I am also listening to my Dodgers fan talk about Matt Kemp cards.  The conversation gets to the point where he basically tells me he is hunting down Kemp autographs one at a time and he needs on-card autographs.  Have I seen any? Hmm...  

2009 Bowman Chrome Lance Lynn Autograph

In the meantime, I am still working with my Marlins guy who try to find an additional card to throw into the trade for Stanton besides the Kemp card.  He has a bunch of Cardinals autographs, but they are all cards that are already in my collection.  He had put up a Lance Lynn autograph at one point and I knew someone back in St. Louis looking around for Lynn cards.  After a few hours I worked out a side deal to trade the Lance Lynn card away.  My hesitation to trade my Stanton were greatly relieved to say the least....

30 Year Top 50: 2000 Topps Traded

#37-The 2000 Topps Traded set comes in at this spot, but this is a set that I could see becoming more important over time.  The evolution of this set has been pretty interesting to say the least.  At the time of it's release the 135 card set was issued as a factory set with an autograph per set.  The autographs were a skip set featuring some of the rookies that are in the base set.  Most of the important rookies signed cards except for Adam Wainwright.

2000 Topps Traded Ben Sheets

Much of the early hype surrounding the 2000 Topps Traded set followed two cards:  Ben Sheets and Francisco Rodriguez.  The Sheets card spiked after his appearance in the 2000 Olympics where he pitched the US Baseball team to a gold medal upsetting the Cuban team which fielded pro players.  The Francisco Rodriguez card spiked after the 2002 World Series run by the Angels.  Both cards slowly slid backwards as Sheets ran into injury problems a few years into his career as a Brewer and Rodriguez signed with the Mets and floundered.

2000 Topps Traded Adrain Gonzalez 

The Adrian Gonzalez rookie was also fairly popular at the time of the sets initial release.  Gonzalez was the number one overall pick in the 2000 amateur draft.  The card eventually trended downward after Gonzalez bounced around his first few years in the league.  A trade to the Red Sox saw a jump in his cards popularity and price, but he has cooled a bit since his trade to the Dodgers.  A few good years in Los Angeles could pick this card back up again.

2000 Topps Traded Miguel Cabrera

Overtime, the Miguel Cabrera rookie has emerged from this set as the most important card.  Whether you believe he is the equal of Pujols or ARod, or not, he is an important player and probably a Hall of Famer.  After this year's Triple Crown effort his cards have climbed in popularity and price.  While the base version of his 2000 Topps Traded card is readily available and easy to find he did sign cards for this set too.  

2000 Topps Traded Miguel Cabrera Autograph

I don't think Topps has ever put a production number on the Topps Traded autographs, but I would guess there are probably at least 1000 of each card.  Some of the autographs haven't held up too well, so condition is going to eventually play a part in the availability and affordability of this card.  There are always a few floating around Ebay and COMC, but you are going to have to pay a lot for it.  By the way, check out the Cabrera autograph on this card and a current card.  Good job with keeping the autograph consistent.  

2000 Topps Traded Adam Wainwright

2000 Topps Traded Brandon Phillips

A few other good rookie cards are floating around this set that have also emerged in more recent years.  There were popular periods of time for Carlos Zambrano, Barry Zito, and Juan Pierre.   The two pictured above, Adam Wainwright and Brandon Phillips, are probably the two biggest movers.  Wainwright has never won a Cy Young Award, but has been close a few times.  He came back from Tommy John surgery this past year and pitched fairly well, so it will be interesting to watch if he can recapture his old form. 

Brandon Phillips is another good player who has started to get a little bit of love from card collectors.  In my opinion his cards have always been a little bit lower than what they should be.  He's a great signer and has a nice looking autograph to go with everything the guy does on the field.  His rookie card from this set is pretty easy to find, plus a signed cards from the set.  

The Phillips autographs aren't hard to find and won't cost you a second mortgage on your house like the Cabrera.  However, the Phillips autographs have also been some of the worst aging autographs in the set.  This is my copy which has been sleeved and placed in a top loader in a box.  Yet, if you look closely at the signature it clearly has some points where the ink has started fading.  

Overall, this set is a great addition to any collection given the quality of rookies included.  Plus, if you can find a sealed version you always have a shot at pulling out a Cabrera autograph.  The base set will generally set you back about $50, or you can try to find the Topps Chrome version which will run between $100-$120.  

Like the 2000 Topps Traded Set?  Not in my Top 50 countdown is the 1999 Topps Traded set.  Similar to the 2000 Topps Traded set, the 1999 version was loaded with high talent rookies.  However, while the 2000 Topps Traded set continues to have its rookie crop rise in performance and value, the 1999 set has gone the other direction.  

At the time of it's release the sets key rookies included C.C. Sabathia, Josh Hamilton, Adam Dunn, Carlos Pena, Carl Crawford, and Alfonso Soriano.  The best of that bunch is the Hamilton and Sabathia cards.  The others have all trailed off for various reasons.

1999 Topps Traded Josh Hamilton 

1999 Topps Traded C.C. Sabathia

While both the Hamilton and Sabathia are nice cards and good additions to the collection I would be hesitant and skeptical of their future values.  While I am sure that most teams interested in signing Hamilton this offseason will be successful in managing his off the field issues, I am not sure that he is going to hold up well in the long term.  The second half of this season should be a warning.  Sabathia is chugging towards 300 wins and has proven durable most of his career, but he did have some injury problems this year.  Plus, C.C. is not the most well conditioned professional athlete and I would, like Hamilton, have to question how well he will hold up over time.  After all, there are those who believe the C.C. stands for Captain Crunch.  As in, two boxes per day.  

Quick McGwire Countdown

Mark McGwire's stay in St. Louis was brief in the grand scheme of things.  He played for three whole seasons and parts of two years.  The first half season in 1997, along with the 1998 and 1999 seasons were great.  The end of McGwire's career was hard to watch.  The 2000 Cardinals won the National League Central, but McGwire at different points of the season and used as a pinch hitter extrordinare by Tony LaRussa.  The 2001 season was terrible and if fans in St. Louis recall, McGwire actually retired via fax to ESPN.

Big Mac's career as a hitting coach was good.  The Cardinals won the World Series in 2011 with a powerful offense and also had a good year at the plate in 2012.  While I am sure that the hitting coach does have some impact on the players, I am not sure how big of a factor McGwire made on the Cardinals line up.  I guess we will find out next April.

In the meantime, I took a little time this evening to dig through my McGwire cards and pick out my top three from his career in St. Louis.  Sorry, no 1985 Topps Olympic card.

3.  1999 Topps Mark McGwire #220 62 Variation

Sure it was steroid induced, but the 1998 season was a good ride for McGwire and Cardinals fans.  The team was pretty bad.  I believe they miraculously finished above .500, but their closer was Juan Acevedo and Manny Aybar started a bunch of games.  McGwire did a great job of keeping everyone entertained.  Topps released this card in the 1999 Topps with 70 variations, or one per McGwire home run.  Great card.  

2.  2001 Pacific Private Stock Mark McGwire Bat Card

Pacific wasn't even supposed to produce McGwire relic cards since he was an Upper Deck exclusive, but I guess if you are losing your license you might as well have some fun on your way out.  Must have card for any true McGwire fan.  

1.  2002 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Mark McGwire Autograph

McGwire has had very few certified autographs hit the market over the past decade.  For along time he was an Upper Deck exclusive, but rarely signed.  In fact, I believe the majority of his autographs were issued in the 2002 Upper Deck Ovation set.  Most of the cards were recollection cards that were signed at low numbers, 9 of each Upper Deck McGwire card, and inserted into packs.  This has always been my favorite McGwire autograph.  On card, clean, with a nice signature.  

Hope McGwire does well in Los Angeles.  

30 Year Top 50: 1987 Fleer

#38-This is another great 80s set with great rookies, but was completely overproduced.  However, the potential for this set to move up or down is tied to how the Hall of Fame voters deal with the Steroid Era players.  Currently, the 1987 Fleer set houses one important Hall of Fame rookie card, but could potentially be holding other key Hall of Fame rookies.

1987 Fleer Barry Larkin

Barry Larkin was elected to the Hall of Fame this past summer.  This isn't the best card in the set, but is an easy and cheap rookie card of a Hall of Fame player and should be a card most collectors are able to put into their collections.  The regular Fleer issue sells for $2 max while graded versions might max out in the high twenties.  The Glossy version of the Larkin card sells for $2-$3, but the graded versions are a little steeper.  A good graded Fleer Glossy Larkin will run over $50 depending on the grading.  

1987 Fleer Barry Bonds

The best card in the 1987 Fleer set is clearly the Barry Bonds rookie.  Love him, or hate him this is the best card in this set.  Raw versions of the card sell for between $5 and $10 dollars with a premium on the Graded and Glossy versions.  A high end grade on a Glossy Bonds rookie will easily take you over $100.  In my opinion, Bonds is a Hall of Famer and is slightly different from the other steroid cheats in one regard.  Since the steroids case around Bonds has played out in court it is widely accepted that Bonds start date for steroid use was the 1999 season.  Look at the first thirteen years of Bonds career and he is a Hall of Famer.  This is another great card that collectors should try to add to their collection.

1987 Fleer Will Clark 

There are several other nice rookie cards in this set besides the Bonds and Larkin.  Most noteably are the first year issues of Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, and Bo Jackson.  While none of those players are Hall of Famers, they are all solid Major League players with a good collecting hobby.  Particularly the Clark and Jackson.  The complete sealed Glossy set of cards can be found for between $25 and $30 while the regular issue set can be found for less than $10.  If you aren't interested in owning the whole set I strongly recommend keeping your eyes open for single copies of some of the key rookies from this set.  

Like the 1987 Fleer Set?  Not in my Top 50 is the 1989 Fleer set.  Just like the 1987 set the 1989 Fleer issue has some nice rookie cards.  My two favorites are the Ken Griffey Jr rookie and the Randy Johnson.  If you have some spare time and want to research the Randy Johnson card, it has a few different versions.  Notice over his right shoulder is a Marlboro sign.  Fleer creatively edited this card multiple times.  

1989 Fleer Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. 

The real story of the 1989 Fleer set is the card of Orioles second baseman Bill Ripken.  In fact, the card is so important to the world of baseball cards the last 30 years I almost put this set in the Top 50 based on that card alone.  So, if you have never seen the Bill Ripken card here it goes.  

1989 Fleer Bill Ripken

This card was issued at a time when kids still collected baseball cards, so imagine the horror Fleer must of felt when they made the ultimate proofreading gaffe in baseball card history.  A quick check of Ripken's bat knob will show that the handle of his bat reads F*** Face.  Collectors went crazy for the card.  Fleer, of course, tried to correct the mistake.  Several different ways.  I am not sure which came first, but here's a look at the edit job.  

1989 Fleer Bill Ripken Whiteout

1989 Fleer Bill Ripken Blackout

1989 Fleer Bill Ripken Black Scribble