2012 Panini USA Baseball Carlos Rodon Dual Jersey

I am still working on picking up a few more of the 2012 Panini USA Baseball cards, especially players that I have been able to watch locally during the ACC baseball season.  This week I was able to pick up my second card of NC State pitcher Carlos Rodon.  I gave a run down on Rodon's accolades on my last post about the great left handed pitcher from Holly Springs, North Carolina.  My newest card I picked up is a dual jersey card.

2012 Panini USA Baseball Carlos Rodon Dual Jersey

I've been able to pick up a few other Panini cards the past few weeks, but have never landed the plain jersey version of one of these cards.  My newest Rodon addition features two different pieces of jersey and is limited to 75.  This card has been difficult to find on the secondary market and Rodon cards are drifting north fast.  A few months ago most Rodon autographs were selling for around $20.  Today, most of the autographs of Rodon on the secondary market are over $50 and the jersey cards are approaching $30.  Definitely excited to see what his cards jump to once he is drafted.

2010 Donruss Elite Franchise Futures Jordan Swagerty Autograph

I picked up my second version of a cool error card last week and helped out a trading partner a bit in the process.  The 2010 Donruss Elite Jordan Swagerty cards are apart of the companies draft set which features college and high school baseball players selected during the June amateur draft.  Jordan Swagerty was selected in the amateur draft by the Cardinals out of Arizona State and was included in the set.  His autograph card looked like this:

2010 Donruss Elite Franchise Futures Jordan Swagerty Autograph

The problem with this famous error card is that the autograph on the card actually belongs to basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.  There are many rumors about how this error happened, but I just think this is simply a really cool card.  

2000 UD Ionix Vladimir Guerrero Autograph

It's amazing how quickly collectors forget about really good players.  Vladimir Guerrero did not play last year, not because he did not want to, but he's more or less retired due to lack of interest.  The end of Vlad's career was a steep drop off from going from a 4.9 Wins Above Replacement in 2007, to a 3.0 WAR in 2008, and finally falling to a woeful 0.8 WAR in 2009.  He would bounce back and post a 2.0 WAR for the Rangers in 2010, but his career would ultimately come to an end the following season as an Oriole.  There are a lot of people people who remember the fragile Guerrero trying to play right field for the Rangers in the 2010 World Series, or remember him as an Oriole and not the All-Star right fielder for the Angels and Expos.  In fact, last week I surprised to find an autograph of Vladimir Guerrero for under $10.

2000 UD Ionix Vladimir Guerrero Autograph 

Not that long ago an autograph of Vlad would have cost a collector a pretty penny, but today they are easy to find for less than $10.  I was honestly really surprised.  I guess I do not check the market on his autographs that often, but I counted at least a dozen autographed Vladimir Guerrero cards that sold on Ebay for less than $10.  Not just the cheap Royal Rookies autographs, but certified autographs from Donruss Signature Series, SP Signature Edition, Playoff Absolute, SPX, and others.  There was even an Upper Deck Century Legends that closed for less than $10.

When did this happen?  I am not sure, but I do encourage collectors to take advantage of the low low prices on Vladimir Guerrero autographs.  Take a spin around the Impaler's Baseball Reference page and you will see that he was not only the 2003 AL MVP, but also is a Hall of Famer as measured by three out of the four indexes used, and his career and age comparisons are littered with Hall of Famers like Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Willie Stargell, Jim Rice, and Albert Pujols.  It's hard to find a Hall of Fame autograph for less than $10, but this is your chance.

1998 Donruss Crusade Alan Benes

Long ago in the 1990's card companies started making parallel cards.  Most sets by the late 90s had at least one such insert set.  Notice I said one parallel set and not the five or six that often appear in the sets of today.  Last week's Topps release of Gypsy Queen contained at least that many if not more.  Sure, the numbers on the backs of the cards today actually appear to be smaller and many of the parallel sets frequently run a one out of one and several other versions up to 100.  At the end of the day, there are plenty of collectors chasing the modern parallel sets, but when you look at the price of some of the parallels on Ebay and COMC some are disappointed at the return on their cards that are limited.  I attribute the low prices on parallels to the fact that multiple parallel sets actually mean that the number of parallels available on the secondary market is higher than in the past.

One of my favorite parallel, or chase sets of all-time is the Donruss Crusade set.  Specifically the 1998 version.  Last week I had the chance to add a nice Alan Benes card from this set which helped me close out my Cardinals set I was putting together over the past few months.

1998 Donruss Crusade Alan Benes

I paid less than $5 to buy this card and have it shipped to me on Ebay, but always enjoy closing out a set I am trying to put together.  While I was assembling the set it was clear that some of the high end players featured in this set, which again is printed to /250 or /100 for the purple version, carry far more value than the parallel cards of today.  A parallel print run card of a star player with that print run would be easy to find for less than $5.  However, the star players and high grade cards in set frequently sell for more than $50.  For example, three cards from this set that I looked into were a Cal Ripken, Bernie Williams, and Randy Johnson.  All three cards ended north of $50.  Imagine if you could sell you cards with a print run of 100 or 250 for that much.  

2013 Topps Heritage Chris Archer Autograph

The baseball season officially starts for the minor leaguers tonight, which means that my favorite Durham Bulls returned to the field tonight.  Unfortunately, the Bulls are opening the season on the road in Norfolk playing the Tides (Baltimore AAA) and the game was also rained out.  My only enjoyment from Durham today came way of a wonderful meal at one of my favorite restaurants.   To celebrate the beginning of the AAA season I picked up a sweet autograph of the Durham Bulls ace, and North Carolina native, Chris Archer.

2013 Topps Heritage Chris Archer Autograph

This autograph come from this years Topps Heritage set and is the second autograph I've picked up from the future Rays pitcher during the past two weeks.  I love the design of the Heritage cards this year and have picked up almost the complete Master Set along with a few nice inserts, autographs, and relic cards.  This Archer card is pretty sweet except he signed the card in blue pen across a spot where the blue undershirt on his jersey is showing.  Still a really awesome card.  The Bulls are playing a few games in Durham next week and I am looking forward to being able to watch Archer pitch a few more times in Durham before the Rays call him up.  

2013 Topps Turkey Red Steve Cishek Autograph

The World Baseball Classic needs to be revamped or done away with.  Something.  I honestly went into the spring looking forward to having a little bit of extra baseball on television this spring, but could not muster much past the Brazil vs Japan opener.  The highlight of the game was Barry Larkin managing the Brazilian national team.  I watched parts of other games, but most importantly it reminded me that I needed to find a Steve Cishek autograph.  I know that I do not publish my want list in this space, but I assure you that the cards that appear in this space that I trade for or purchase or generally not random and that I actually have a method behind my madness.  So, why a Steve Cishek autograph?  Let's go to the video....

I wandered into a whole bunch of Marlins games last year living in the neighborhood of a few National League East teams and really enjoyed watching Cishek pitching last year.  He's not an automatic shutdown relief pitcher, but I like the sidearm delivery and the frisbee like pitches he throws.  It's a little bit like Pat Neshek or Kent Tekulve minus the cool glasses.  

2013 Topps Turkey Red Steve Cishek Autograph

The best part about snagging an autograph from the Marlins closer is that this card cost less than $5 delivered on Ebay.  Sure it's a sticker autograph, but considering Turkey Red was a pack per box product, you cannot complain about finding any cheap autograph out of a high end set on the secondary market.  I am looking forward to watching Cishek pitch again this summer for the Marlins and maybe some good things out of this card in the future.  

2003 Fleer EX Essential Credentials Future Larry Walker

It's opening day, so I am trying to spend most of my day watching baseball.  With that goal in mind today's post will be a little bit shorter than normal.  I picked up a new Larry Walker card a few weeks back and haven't had a chance to post yet on this space.  It would fall into the category of Ebay purchases made for less than $5 which is surprising given that the card comes from a really good chase set and features a pretty good player.

2003 Fleer EX Essential Credentials Future Larry Walker

I have featured a few other Essential Credential cards over the past year in this space and highly recommend collectors taking a look at the EX sets to see if their favorite player or favorite teams have players in these sets.  The Essential Credential cards are actually a dual parallel set, there is a Futures and a Now parallel, with one usually being a high number and one being a lower number.  With this Walker, who played his final two seasons with the Cardinals, I would assume that this card is the higher print run of the two Essential Credential cards in this set.