Classic Cubs Cardboard

I remember when the 2001 Upper Deck Prospect Premiers set first released in the fall of 2001.  There were so many good autographed cards in the set at the time of its release, but one stood out head and shoulders above the rest.  The autograph of one Chicago Cubs pitching phenom: Mark Prior.  At a print of 1000 (go ahead and laugh) it was a hot and expensive commodity on the card market.  

Prior was viewed as a "can't miss prospect" and for awhile looked like he was going to live up to the billing.  In 2003 Prior helped the Cubs to a near World Series appearance before an infamous incident was a certain fan and Moises Alou.  I bet you are expecting a video of Bartman?  No, but I do like the word infamous.  Love it.  

Eventually Prior got hurt, bounced around the minors, and has appeared here and there in a few independent leagues over the past half a decade or so.  Ever spring it seems that there is a rumbling about Prior catching on with a minor league team, or something to that effect, but the man has not appeared in a Major League Baseball game since 2006.  During that time he has signed with the Padres twice, Reds, Yankees, Red Sox, and Rangers.  He also pitched in the Golden Baseball League too.  Despite all the bouncing around the 2001 Upper Deck Prospect Premiers card of Mark Prior still remains a pretty popular card.

2001 Upper Deck Prospect Premiers 

I have owned several copies of this card over the years and always seem to walk into new copies every few years.  Surprisingly it's a pretty difficult card to find at times and outpaces the other autographed Prior rookie cards from 2001.  His Leaf Limited and SPx autograph are both easy to find for less than $5, but for whatever reason the Prospect Premier card seems to break the mold.  The card often drifts north of $20, and for high graded versions, can go as high as $50.  Shocking for a player who not only did not live up to his career hype and expectations, but cannot even be described as very memorable.  Maybe I am being hard on Mr. Prior.  Nice player, great card.  

Organizational Cardboard Depth

2013 Bowman Platinum Mike O'Neill Autograph 

I was pleasantly surprised to Topps put Cardinals minor league outfield Mike O'Neill into their Bowman Platinum release this year.  I am positive that O'Neill is not a Top 20 prospect within the Cardinals organization, and as a 25 year old player starting the year in Springfield, it's hard to see O'Neill getting a serious crack at the big team.  Matt Holliday still is signed for another three years.  Uber-Prospect Oscar Taveras is on the mend from a high ankle sprain and might still make it to St. Louis in September.  Then there is Jon Jay and Allen Craig when Matt Adams is playing first base.  Yet, here O'Neill with an autographed card.

Topps should be applauded for taking the time to put a player like O'Neill into one of their Bowman sets.  There are many attributes which make him cardboard worthy.  While O"Neill is an older minor leaguer he has a career batting average of .333 and has posted a line of .320 in AA Springfield and a .370 line in AAA Memphis.  O'Neill has a little speed, but absolutely no power.  He's got a pretty good eye and patience at the plate with an OBP of over .438.  While many are down on O'Neill as a prospect, often compared to Juan Pierre, his ability to get on-base makes him a desirable commodity in my opinion.  Critics understand that O'Neill's on-base percentage is about 100 points higher than Pierre's.

I think of O'Neill as a sort of diamond in the rough.  He is an older minor leaguer, but I don't care if he is a 35 as long as he can help the team win.  Further, he is a pretty popular player amongst the fans in the minors making him the perfect candidate for an appearance on a baseball card.  How many Carlos Martinez and Oscar Taveras cards is Topps going to make before they reach the majors?  There are other good players in the minors beyond the few usual suspects that Topps sticks into their Bowman sets every year.  It's nice to see one get a nod.  Now, how about a Leslie Anderson?

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Henry Rollins Autograph

I do not do many non-baseball autographs and I cannot think of a single non-sport autograph in my entire collection.  I have pulled a few things out of different products over the years.  I got a Tina Carrere and Jesse Ventura autographs a few years ago out of a Donruss product while they were printing the fans of the game cards.  However, I quickly sold both cards and moved the money onto other cards.

Topps released its fantastic Allen & Ginter product this week which is always full of non-sport autographs.  The product is one of my annual pack busting experiences, but I have never pulled a non-sport autograph out of a Ginter pack.  In fact, I usually hope to just avoid the non-sport autographs all together and land my nice baseball related autograph.

Well, my streak of all baseball autographs out of Ginter ended this year when I was opening my box and landed an autograph of musician/spoken word artist/actor Henry Rollins.

2013 Topps Allen & Ginter Henry Rollins Autograph 

If you are not familiar with the work of Henry Rollins there is much to share, so I would point you in the direction of my favorite Rollins Band disc, but you also can't go wrong with his work in Black Flag.  I am not a consumer of spoken word material, so I am not going to tell you it's great, but people seem to enjoy it.  

Rollins has also appeared in several television series and movies.  I think the first movie I remember him being in was the mid 90s Al Pacino/Robert Diniro movie Heat.  Really, there is a lot the guy has done during his career.  Back to the card.

The one intriguing feature of this card that caught my eye was the signature.  Usually Topps provides signers with pens to sign their autographs which Rollins obviously did not use.  I am going with a Blue Bic pen on this card.  Pens on cards are a rarity.  In fact, after pulling this card I went back through my autographs, all 4,000, and tried to find another card signed with an ink pen.

I found no certified autographs in pen, but.....

I did find three cards that I did own, non-certified, that were signed in pen.  Whitey Herzog I got at an event in St. Louis and he was not putting down his pen.  Everyone got an autograph signed in pen.  In retrospect I should have brought a baseball to the event.  The Lenny Harris was from my brief period of TTM signatures.  The Donruss card is a pretty bad signature, but I have always really liked the Upper Deck.

The Rollins autograph is a really good signature in spite of the fact that Henry used a Bic pen.  Have not quite decided if he's going to stay in my collection or not, but I will enjoy the card while it's sitting here.

One Last Item From the Vault...

I really enjoy collecting certified autographs and like to steer clear of in-person autographs unless I have extreme faith in the person or I am getting the autograph myself.  Those always make for good stories.  One of the biggest problems is that we are now down to a sparse few card companies who do not vary their autograph field greatly from product to product.

For example, I try to collect as many Cardinals and Rays autographs as possible.  The Cardinals are my favorite team to follow, but also enjoy watching the Rays since many of their players spent time playing for my hometown Durham Bulls.  I dabble in the Tigers and have a few other players I check in on, but the list of items going into my collection is not really all that wide.  You would think that would still leave me plenty of cards to chase down, but it seems like Topps excels at having the same few players for each team sign for each product.

So, I ask myself somedays: How the hell am I going to get a certified, or highly reliable Tony Cruz autograph?  I do not live in St. Louis anymore, he's not making an appearances in the Raleigh-Durham, or central North Carolina area, and I know Topps will not put him as a signer in a baseball product.  It's not that I am singling in specifically on Tony Cruz, I am not.  However, he's a useful role player on the Cardinals and has now been on the team for several seasons.  It would be a nice addition.

This is an area where the Topps Vault can come in handy.  Sure, Topps is not rushing out to make the first certified Tony Cruz autographed baseball card for a 2014 Topps product, I am sure the Cardinals will have Holliday, Lynn, Jay, and Craig, but since he has a card in their base set he has signed a card contract.  Topps actually puts their invalid, out of date baseball contracts, up for sale in their Topps Vault Ebay Store.

Just this past week I was making my weekly stop in to check out their new items and ran across a sweet  autograph of former Cardinals player, and current Cardinals employee, Kerry Robinson.  This was probably my one chance to snag a certified autograph of the Cardinals, and fellow SEMO (Southeast Missouri State) alumni, unless Topps is coming out with a front office employees of Major League Baseball set.  For $9.99 I picked it up.

I own a couple of these Topps contracts now, all really inexpensive.  Robinson is just the latest addition to my collection, of a Cardinals player, I have found in the Topps Vault.  For those not fimiliar with Kerry Robinson, he was originally drafted by the Cardinals and ended up on the expansion Rays (the 1998 Durham Bulls) and the Reds before returning to the Cardinals.  Robinson played three seasons for the Cardinals from 2001 through 2003.  He pinch hit for Mark McGwire in the last game of Big Mac's career and had this hit against the Cubs: 

The Topps Vault is a great way to pick up a certified autograph of some really cool players.  Now, I am filling in my Cardinals autograph collection and usually end up finding my autographs for less than $15.  Better players can fetch high dollars, but sometimes you'd be surprised and can walk away with a solid Major Leaguer for between $20-$30.  At the end of the day you will have a very unique collectable and a great item for your collection.  I have actually thought about having one or two of mine framed for my Cardinals room.  

More Goodness from the Topps Vault

Last night I shared a cool proof card of former Cardinals outfielder Ray Lankford which had been picked up originally from the Topps Vault.  If you are not familiar with the Topps Vault, it's basically an Ebay store that Topps uses to sell off its old pictures, proofs, and player contracts.  Some of the items are really fun to look at and every once in while I will pick up a card or something else from the store.

Most of my purchases from the Topps Vault would be best described as unique baseball cards I do shop the store for unique items too.  Mainly I am looking for cool items, which fit into my collection, and would look cool displayed in my man cave.

A few years back I picked up a set of photo proofs from the 2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame set from the Topps Vault:

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame George Sisler Photo Proof 

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Jim Bottomley Photo Proof 

2003 Topps Gallery Hall of Fame Frankie Frisch Photo Proof 

 


There a pretty cool item that I decided to buy, for less than $10 each, after reading the descriptions of the photo proofs.  Each photo proof is roughly 4 x 5 and is a piece of transparency with a color picture printed on top of the clear material with a heavy piece of white cardboard dropped in behind.  I am not sure what the transparency paper is exactly, but as a teacher, it is stiffer than the transparencies you might have seen around a school back in the day.  The top of each plastic piece has a label which reads Kodak EPY which is a Tungsten based film used for slides.

Again, I am not sure what steps Topps takes in making their cards, so I am not sure where these cards fit into the process, but the cards do have labels underneath the pictures that are curious.  The labels identify the card year, player, team, and card number.  The last line is the curious part of these proofs which is the artist line.  Each artist line is dated, but the last two cards have a date listed in 2006, which is after production.  The Sisler card has a 2002 date.  I am not sure what to make of the dates on the last two cards, but it is certainly been a detail I have always found curious about those two proofs.

I have really enjoyed having these three items in my collection and have each of the proofs framed and hanging up in my man cave.  I put each in a nice black frame and have them hanging on a small wall right inside the door to the room.

Odd Ray Lankford

Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out some of the things that Topps puts for sale on the Topps Vault auctions.  It's fun to look at and obviously some of the stuff on there is cool to scout out.  I'd like to buy one of those Topps Player Contracts and hang it on the wall of my man cave, but there are also plenty of odds and ends too.  I am always amazed at the number of proof items they have up for auction.  Slides of players, sample photos, sample cards, blank back proofs, blank front proofs.  With all of those rough drafts and edits flying around you would think that Topps would make a few less errors.  

I actually already own a few cool proof cards, which might be worthy of a post at some point soon, and recently saw a proof which I could not pass up for less than $5 delivered.  

1999 Topps Gallery Ray Lankford Private Player Issue Proof 

The proof card is some sort of pre-production card used by Topps for something.  I am not exactly sure what their process for making a set of cards is these days, but this card is in there somewhere.  There are some slight differences between this card and the regular issue 1999 Topps Gallery Ray Lankford card.  First, this proof card is actually of the Players Private Issue card, not the base model of the card.  Notice the inscription in the top left-hand corner of the card showing it to be a Private Player Issue.  The Private Player Issue cards were a parallel to the base set which generally ran at one per box with a print run of 250 per card.  Here's a look at a copy of an Albert Belle Private Player Issue:

1999 Topps Gallery Albert Belle Private Players Issue 

The Lankford card and Belle card are nearly identical including the Private Player Issue script in the top left-hand corner of the card.  However, as mentioned before, there are two slight differences between the regular issue and proof issues of these cards.  

First up is the difference in size.  As you can tell, the Lankford card is both taller and wider than the Albert Belle card.  It looks like a huge difference in this picture, and is noticeable when handling the card, but for the sake of storage the proof card does fit inside a regular top loader.  My other proofs, I swear I will put them in a post this week, were big enough to frame and hang on the wall.  

The second difference is in the serial numbers on the back of the card.  The standard issue Belle Private Players Issue features the usual serial number written on the lefthand side of the card with the print run at 250 cards.  The Lankford card however is a proof which means that it is likely a one of a kind card and features.....

Absolutely no serial numbers.  The box for the serial number is on the card if you look carefully.  Very happy with my new Lankford addition.  Though a little bit of an oddball card a really cool and unique find from one of my favorite players.  More proofs and Topps Vault stuff later this week.  

The End of ARod

I think that my dislike of Alex Rodriguez started sometime around the end of the 2007 World Series.  I remember watching the fourth and final game of the 2007 series between the Rockies and Red Sox after catching Roctober sometime in late September and wanting to follow the Rockies until they were officially done.  Bizarrely, the end of the game focused on ARod opting out of the last years of his 10 year 252 million dollar contract originally signed with the Texas Rangers.

Rather than hearing about the Red Sox winning their second World Series in four years, the amazing run made by the Rockies, or the fabulous efforts of the Sox pitching staff the commentators on Fox spent the last two innings talking about ARod speculating whether he would resign with the Yankees or whether another large market team would swoop in and land the star third baseman.

As a baseball fan I felt that Alex Rodriguez picked the most inopportune time to venture out of his contract option.  It would have been like Dwight Howard announcing his refusal to sign with the Lakers while LeBron James was polishing off his second NBA championship.  However, even Dwight Howard has better sense than to make a major announcement about contracts and money during another team's championship moment.

I decided to go easy on ARod cards from that moment forward.  If I landed a good ARod from a box or pack of wax it was listed and posted on Ebay quickly or tried to trade it for as much as possible as quickly as possible.  I was not totally against ARod, but I was not taking on anything else.  I eventually whittled my ARod collection down to a single ARod autograph.

1999 Topps Alex Rodriguez Autograph 

I made sure that my remaining ARod signature was slightly uncommon, on-card, and featured a cool picture of ARod before the Rangers or Yankees.  Before steroids.  Maybe.  Who really knows anymore.  The other ARod card that I could not part with was a copy of his 1994 SP rookie card.

While I really do not enjoy ARod the person, nor the player, his rookie card is one of the iconic cards of my generation of collectors.  I also do not really like Mark Prior, but I picked up a copy of his 2001 Prospect Premiers autograph after they dropped below $10.  Great card, crappy player.  Much as a view Prior's iconic rookie card, ARod fits into the same card.  Villain on and off the field, but I am sure that someone somewhere will still value this card:

I actually still own the non-diecut version of this card too.  I remember when I could have sold this card for over $100.  The non-diecut version for more than $50 about ten years ago.  Since then the value of ARod cards has plummeted.  I do not even remember what I put into buy this card, I think in the late 90s, but I am sure it was significantly more than the $20-$30 the die cut versions now sell for on Ebay. Non-diecut?  Less than $15 and if you are patient less than $10.

So, as bleak as it looks for ARod on the field his cards have already taken a huge nose dive in value by collectors unwilling to pay a premium from a steroids era player.  I am sure that many collectors have learned their lessons from taking a bath on Clemens and McGwire cards that ARod will probably never draw a premium from his cards again.

While many collectors might resent ARod for ruining some part of their collection I am taking the swan dive in card values from ARod with a grain of salt.  I own three really good ARod cards that combined probably would have totaled more than $300 a decade ago and now they probably would not make half of that today.  However, there are a ton of really cool ARod cards out there that I never bought because they were really expensive and I did not want to buy them because I just did not want to pay the price.

In fact, I have been working on the 2000 Upper Deck Game Jersey Autograph set, the unnumbered cards which were in Series 2, for years, probably since 2001.  I own most of the set, but I have been missing the Arod and Jeter autographs for years.  When I started putting the set together I knew there would come a day where I would either have to give up the chase, or part with $400 to pick up both cards.  Now?  I actually picked one up this weekend in a trade.  Here's a picture my trade partner sent me of my new ARod:

2000 Upper Deck Game Jersey Alex Rodriguez Jersey/Autograph

I probably gave up $40-$50 worth of cards to acquire this card.  While it might fall more over the next year, I figure there is probably a limited quantity of this card and picking up the card at a quarter of its anticipated cost is great.  I completely understand the disappointment of ARod and how his actions have had a negative impact on the game and the collecting industry, but in the meantime, go find some cool cheap cards and add them to your collection just because....