Cardboard Keepers - LeBron!

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

Today's entry into this project is a basketball card, and I'm virtually certain this is the first time in the history of this blog that back-to-back posts have been basketball-related.  Don't worry, I'm not turning into a full-on b-ball collector or anything, just kind of worked out this way for whatever reason.

As many have commented on recently, this hobby has gone absolutely insane recently.  I'm not sure how long it can keep up like this, or how long I can remain a collector if it does, but I'm trying to make lemons out of lemonade and take advantage of some of these outrageous prices to sell some things I am no longer interested in and pick up some significant cards with the proceeds (before I can no longer afford them, which happens in a matter of days in this climate).

This card is an example of just that, as I funded it entirely from eBay sales just last month:

Yes, the newest inductee into the Cardboard Keepers project is my first (and only) LeBron James rookie card!  I know his Topps Chrome RC (and it's various parallels) is considered the LeBron rookie to have, but since that now sells in good condition for more money than I paid for my new car four years ago, that wasn't happening.

I settled on this Bowman Rookies & Stars card instead.  It was right in the range of what I could afford in a PSA 9 based on the sales I'd made, and I really love that it shows him in his actual Cavaliers uniform (that Topps base card where he's wearing the white suit makes me cringe).

When I started to think about basketball players that I'd want in this collection alongside Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain (the only two basketball inductees so far), LeBron was an obvious choice.  I'll leave the debate about the all-time GOATs to someone with more basketball knowledge than myself, but is there anyone who thinks there's been a greater player in the NBA these last 20 years?

Here's a look at the back.  I like the layout actually, though I totally see how some could consider it overly "busy".

And now for a small rant about the state of the hobby.  Cards, not just select cards but seemingly ANY card that I develop an interest in, are literally rising in price exponentially by the week.  I purchased this card less than one month ago now, and while I won't get into the exact price, I will say that it cost me "three figures".  And it wasn't $999.99 either, it was a good deal less than that.

Well, in the few days that it took for the card to arrive in the mail, it rose to about a $1,200 card in a PSA 9.  In the couple of weeks since then, it's now eclipsed $2,000, and continues to trend upward.  Increasingly I get the feeling that, with the types of cards I'm searching for during my mission to condense and pick-up iconic cards, if I don't buy a certain card now, I will never be able to afford it again.  This "FOMO" landscape is not how I want to enjoy collecting, and there is no way that prices can continue to increase at this rate for very long, it's simply mathematically impossible.  I mean, at the rate things are going is this going to be a $10,000 card by the summer time?  I don't see how that's possible, even though I continue to be proven wrong on that front over these past 12 months.

I'm curious how you all are handling this new climate that we find ourselves collecting in?  Are you trying to make lemons from lemonade, and flip some overvalued cards into other more expensive overvalued cards like I am?  Are you just waiting it out for a bubble to burst?  Will the bubble ever burst, and will collecting ever again be what it was for us prior to 2020?  Ready to give up and find another hobby completely, perhaps?

Alright, sorry for the rant there, I'm just highly concerned for the future of this hobby.  If kids these days are completely priced out, and they can't even grab a pack of cards at the local big box store while shopping with Mom and Dad because the flippers cleared the shelves, will there even be anyone left who cares about sports cards in 20-30 years?  

For me at least, and for many collectors that I know, a big part of what we love about this hobby is the nostalgia factor.  If my Dad hadn't been able to purchase any cards for me as a kid because they were unavailable everywhere, and out of his price range when he could find them, I know for a fact that I wouldn't be a collector today.  I'd love to hear in the comments from anyone else who has similar worries, or even a contrary viewpoint!

As for the non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection, it is up to 29 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 971 cards remaining to be selected.  With the way things are going it's looking doubtful that I'll ever finish this project, yet at this point anyway I intend to keep plodding along.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by! 

Cardboard Keepers - Black Sox Red Sox

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.  This is a rant for another day, but more and more as this hobby has "evolved" over the course of the past 12 months, I'm starting to believe that it is never going to be the same again.  

I'm more committed than ever to reducing the size of my collection overall, and am more and more leaning towards making this Cardboard Keepers thought experiment a reality.  Part of this is my desire for more space and less clutter, another part is frustration with parts of the hobby.

Recently, I tallied up all of my graded cards for the first time ever, and I ended up with a total that exceeded 800 slabs.  Pretty shocking number, even to the guy who purchased them all.  Now, those were accumulated over 13 years back in this hobby, but still, that's entirely too many slabs to have around here.  I've been selling on eBay like crazy while this market is hot, and have been making multiple trips to the post office weekly just to keep up with the sales heading out the door.

Like I said, more about all that stuff soon, but for today's entry into this project we have a card that survived even this most recent and more aggressive phase of purging, a true Cardboard Keeper...

This is one of my absolute favorite pre-war baseball cards.  I love it for a couple of reasons, most notably that absolutely fantastic Red Sox jersey!  I am an absolute and total sucker for any pre-war cards that feature that particular uniform, and there are precious few of them (this is the only one that I actually own).  Secondly, I love the concept that this card is so old that it actually features a young Ed Cicotte, a full decade before his reputation would forever be tarnished for his participation in the 1919 Black Sox World Series scandal.

I purchased this card all the way back in 2014, and even though it wasn't exactly a jaw-dropping sum in the grand scheme of things (<$250), it was still something that as a 31-year-old I had to give serious consideration to before picking up, and one of my more expensive pick-ups in this hobby at that time.  I'd be hard pressed to find one that looks this nice for less than twice that amount today.

For those that collect slabbed cards, this is a primo example of why you should buy the card and not the grade on the top (known as the "flip").  This card presents amazingly well for a piece of cardboard that is well over 100 years old now, yet received a "FAIR 1.5" from the folks at PSA for two reasons.  First, there's a crease in the upper right corner, very hard to make out but if you look closely you'll see it there.  Secondly...

...there's just a bit of paper loss on the back, at about the mid-way point there.  Does not bother me in the least, given that the back is just a checklist of the 25 subjects in this set, and overall still looks good despite the paper loss.

Besides, just look at this front!  It's absolutely glorious.  This card is, and will forever be, one of my favorite Red Sox cards in my entire collection.  With 100+ years in the rear view I think the fact that Cicotte was involved in the Black Sox scandal actually makes this card even cooler, if anything.  Some of my other pre-war Red Sox are already listed on eBay, and others will be joining them soon, but this is one card I simply could not bring myself to part with.

For that reason, this one was an easy choice for my Cardboard Keepers baseball collection, which is now up to 39 cards and counting, and can be viewed here if you're interested. I'll be back with more keepers soon, in the meantime thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - First Football Card!

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

Today's entry into this project is not only the first football card to be selected, but it's also brand spankin' new to me, as I just picked it up a couple of days ago...

Always wanted a Johnny Unitas card, and always loved the simplistic design of the 1964 Philadelphia football set.  This one is made even cooler by the fact that the Golden Arm was named NFL MVP in '64, his second of three career MVP awards.

I scored this copy at a small antiques store in my neck of the woods for the very reasonable price of $15.  It's in remarkably good shape, and I'm thrilled to have this be my lone representation of Unitas in my collection to date.

Here's a look at the back, nice and clean as well.  Pretty rough cartoon if you're a Steelers fan!

 

That's really all for today, just seemed like NFL football Sunday was the perfect day to unveil this beauty.  I may not have many football cards, but I sure am glad to have this one, and it's certainly a worthy card to be the first football representation in this project!

The non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection is up to 28 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 972 cards remaining to be selected.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - Joltin' Joe DiMaggio!

Time for the next installment of "Cardboard Keepers", a thought experiment where I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers and 1,000 other keepers.

Today's keeper card comes courtesy of an epic eBay flip that I already showed the results of earlier this summer.  In case you missed it the post can be found here, but in a nutshell I sold a single soccer parallel that I pulled from a pack in 2018, and turned it into this:

I'm going to spare you any long-winded summary of what a great player DiMaggio was, after all I went on at length about my love for this card when I first posted it only a month or two ago.  Suffice it to say that never in my life did I think an authentic, playing-era Joe D card would call my collection home!

While the front is really where it's at when it comes to this particular card, the back has a nice early-career write-up on the Yankee Clipper.

So yeah, there you have it, a real beauty with Joe swinging for the fences.  Not only was this card a very obvious choice to make the list of my top 1,000 baseball cards, but I think I'd probably include it in a list of my top 25 baseball cards, even.

Based on that, this was an easy choice for my Cardboard Keepers baseball collection, which is now up to 38 cards and counting, and can be viewed here if you're interested.  I'll be back with more keepers soon, in the meantime thanks as always for stopping by! 

Cardboard Keepers - Changes at Shoebox Legends Headquarters, & Soccer Greats

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

Times have been pretty crazy here recently, which is why I've been away for a few days.  Everyone in my family is healthy, no worries there, but I am losing my job of 17 years completely by surprise due to outsourcing, which is a tad bit stressful to say the least given that I'm the breadwinner for our household.  Going through this experience, combined with the pandemic, and the awful recent upgrades to this Blogger platform, has me thinking.

Coming up on thirteen years of running this blog and collecting in largely the same manner as an adult, I think it's time for a change in the way that I go about this hobby.  I'm a 37-year-old adult male, and this is the current scene in my home office/hobby room:

Yeah, this isn't going to fly any longer.  It's been a really fun ride, but it's time to downsize big time.  I need to take back control of my space, and at the same time should be able to pad my emergency savings with some much-needed cushioning for what lies ahead.

It's not just that first photo, look at this filing cabinet drawer of my office desk, nearly completely filled with "to be processed" buybacks for my Buyback Franken-set project (which I'm sticking with, by the way!).  I swear every nook and cranny of this room is filled with baseball cards!

I'll have posts covering this as I get back to regular blogging I'm sure, but for starters I'm still going to collect, and I'm still going to blog, so no worries there.  It's just the way that I collect that needs a refresh.  No longer am I going to ravenously seek out every single Red Sox card in existence that I don't already own.  No longer am I going to have tens and tens and tens of thousands of sports cards taking up the majority of the space in my home office.

Actually, what I plan to do is condense big time, by sending cards out to my friends in the hobby, and by selling on eBay.  I want to see how close I can get to making my "Cardboard Keepers" experiment a reality.  A couple of thousand super awesome/critical/nostalgic/iconic cards stored and organized neatly just seems much more appealing to my state of mind these days than the overwhelming mess I'm looking at presently.  Massive eBay selling has already begun, with the bulk of the proceeds padding my savings, but with a portion going to making my collection even greater.  I'll be sharing the fruits of those eBay sales in the coming weeks I'm sure.

Along those lines, I thought it would be pertinent to get back in the blogging saddle by selecting another three cards for the non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection.  Tonight, we touch on soccer for the first time...

I've been an international soccer fan for about a decade now, and have been a casual collector of soccer cards for the better part of that time.  One of my favorite sets to be released in the time I've been at it was the 2018 Panini Prizm World Cup set.  My favorite thing about this release are the many colorful parallels, and I selected three cards in particular to survive my current sell-off in the world of soccer.

First, the man who many argue has been the best soccer player on the globe for the past decade and a half, Leo Messi!  This beauty is a Red Mosaic parallel, and good lord does it shine incredibly in hand.  I believe these were retail hanger pack exclusives, and they are definitely not the easiest parallels to come by at all.  I got this Messi as a Buy-It-Now bargain earlier this year, at a price point that I'm positive I will never see this card anywhere near again.  Easily my best Messi, therefore absolutely merits inclusion in my Cardboard Keepers collection.

If you watched any of the 2018 World Cup, then you know that the star of the tournament was French striker Kylian Mbappe.  Dude had an unbelievable tournament, leading France to the Cup as an 18-year-old.  He's been arguably the biggest name in soccer since, and the man most likely to pick up the torch from Messi & Ronaldo in terms of world's greatest.  He's still just 21 years old, and that's a hefty weight for someone that age to carry, but so far Kylian has been up to the task.

I actually accumulated quite a few parallels of this card back in 2018.  They've gone up so much in value that I have sold most of them off over the course of the pandemic here.  The one I decided absolutely to keep though was this Red & Blue Wave parallel.  It's my favorite just because the colors mesh so well with the French kit/flag.  A really aesthetically pleasing card of the hottest name in soccer for the past couple of years.  Another easy call here.

Bringing up the rear, we have this Green & Orange Wave Ronaldo.  He's obviously the other guy in the conversation with Messi with respect to best soccer player on the globe these last fifteen years.  Ronaldo's cards demand a pretty penny these days as well, and I've sold my base version of this card along with another parallel or two.  I kept this one though for the same reason as the Mbappe above, the colors here just work so well with Cristiano's uniform, and with Portugal's flag.

So, there you have it, three very deserving inclusions to my Cardboard Keepers collection from the soccer side of the house!

If you're waiting to hear back from me on a message or email, or even a package of cards you sent me, please be patient and understand that these past two or three weeks have been absolutely brutal.  I'm hoping that I'll have the time and mental energy to get back to regular posting here in the near future.

The non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection is up to 27 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 973 cards remaining to be selected.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - Stan the Man Tallboy

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

Today I add a hockey player to the non-baseball collection who absolutely belongs there.  One of the great old-time NHL players, and certainly one of the all-time best Chicago Blackhawks...

...it's Stan Mikita!  If you've followed my blog for any length of time then you know that I absolutely adore the various 1960s/70s 'tallboy' sets that Topps produced.  On the hockey front, these card dimensions were used for just one year, 1964-65.  I've got well over a dozen of these now and will be closing in on two dozen soon, but Stan the Man here is the best of the bunch I'd say.

He's a little dinged up, but great visual appeal overall for a card that's pushed well past 50 years old now.  I love the contrast of the vibrant yellow background with the bright red 'Hawks gear.  I'll save you a complete write-up of Mikita's career and various accomplishments, that's not what you came here for anyway.  Suffice it to say he's widely regarded as the best NHL center of the 1960s, and I'm absolutely pumped to have this beauty in my collection.

Here's a look at the back, though I have to say that's not much of a likeness there in the cartoon.  I've not heard of the documentary that's referenced here before, but I suppose that's not surprising given that I was still nearly a couple decades from even being born when this set was printed up.

I have a few other Mikita playing era cards, mostly from the '70s, but not many of his '60s releases.  I've yet to acquire his rookie card, which can be pricey, but aesthetically speaking this '64-65 is the better card of the two in my opinion anyway.  Certainly a card that I think merits inclusion on a list of my top 1,000 non-baseball cards!


The non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection is up to 24 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 976 cards remaining to be selected.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - The First Basketball Inductees!

Time for the next installment of Cardboard Keepers, a thought experiment in which I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers, and 1,000 "other" keepers.

In today's post, we'll finally get around to inducting a couple of basketball cards to the Cardboard Keepers collection.  I'm not a big basketball guy overall, but I have decided to try to pursue some significant cards of the best players across many different sports, and so finally have a couple that I feel are worth induction into this collection.  Let's get to it!

In the lead-off spot today is my very first card of an absolute legend of the game, Wilt Chamberlain!  This is actually a tall-boy format card from Topps' 1970-71 flagship basketball release, which is the same width as a standard, modern-day trading card, but taller.  Very fitting for basketball in particular.

Even limiting myself to just 1,000 non-baseball cards, it seemed fitting that Chamberlain should be included in this project.  Easily one of the greatest basketball players of all-time.  The fact that he's the only player ever to record 100 or more points in a single NBA game alone is probably enough to make sure I include him.  Or, how about the fact that he's the only player ever to average 30+ points and 20+ rebounds per game across an entire season, and did it seven times!

An easy choice here for inclusion in this project.

Same goes for the second and final inductee in today's post!

BAM!  If you've been following my blog throughout 2020 then you probably knew this was coming.  Arguably the greatest basketball player of all-time, and certainly on anyone's top 5 list.  By many standards, the most iconic single basketball card ever produced, though opinions obviously differ there.

When I started working out this Cardboard Keepers project in my mind, one of the big goals was to acquire some significant cards of greats in sports other than baseball and hockey in order to broaden my horizons and better round out my collection.  This exact card was one that I specifically had in mind from the outset.  I had to sell about three dozen graded cards over a period of weeks on eBay to raise the funds required, and made many trips to the post office, but finally this beautiful Jordan "RC" was mine.

It's my favorite basketball card by a country mile, and always will be.  It was only a matter of time before I selected it as a Cardboard Keeper.  Hell, it would make this list even if I were hanging onto only 20 non-baseball cards, forget 1,000!

Hard to argue with either of these cards, and I'm happy to have them be the first cards to represent the sport of basketball in this project overall.  I guess I need to get out there and find myself LeBron and Kobe cards at some point now, and I wouldn't mind a nice Dirk Nowitski either.

In the meantime, the non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection is up to 23 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 977 cards remaining to be selected.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for the project, but until then thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - Aaron > Jordan

Time for the next installment of "Cardboard Keepers", a thought experiment where I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers and 1,000 other keepers.

Today's keeper card comes via yet another eBay flip that I pulled off while sheltering in place these past few months.  My activity is starting to wind down on this front, both because the market is cooling off a bit and because I'm running out of good low-hanging fruit in my collection as far as flippable cards go.

In the case of today's flip, it was a one-for-one exchange.  First, let's see the card I sold...

Michael Jordan's first Topps Finest card, graded a PSA 9.  Not the refractor or anything like that mind you, just a lowly ol' base card, albeit from a set that in 1993 was cutting edge and high end.  I picked this one up in the fall of 2018, and as I commented at the time it was because I just wanted one significant Jordan card to represent him in my collection.

I paid $16.49 for this card, which at the time seemed about right for a card like this that, while iconic, isn't exactly rare or hard to find.  Once I picked up Jordan's RC in a mega-flip this spring though, this Finest release became expendable as far as my collection goes.  With MJ's cards just skyrocketing off the charts price-wise thanks to the ESPN documentary, I decided to part with this one, and netted well over ten times what I shelled out for the card not even two years ago.  Yeah, the sports card market was just insane this spring.

So, what did I use the sales proceeds on?  As I mentioned, just a single card, but it's quite a whopper.

Behold!

I am now the proud owner of a second-year Hank Aaron card!  A real beauty if you ask me, and with great visual appeal but a lower assigned grade this is exactly the type of vintage legend that's right in my wheelhouse.  The front of this example is just so clean, no missing chunks, holes, giant creases, facial "snow".  Just a really solid card on the presentation front.

Here's a better shot, taken with my iPhone, to give you an idea of how the colors really pop on this card, which is now actually "retirement age".  Looks stunning to me!  I'm not sure there's a better looking PSA 2 in existence than this one?

If you look closely at the back you'll get a better idea of why this one graded out as a "Good 2".  There are quite a few surface creases, with the most noticeable being over the card number in the upper left.  You really have to click to enlarge the image to notice them, and as you can see they really don't detract from the overall visual beauty of this card back.

I've been a Hank Aaron fan since early childhood, when I read a biography of his cover to cover as a rabid kid baseball fan.  It's been very rewarding landing some of his playing-era cardboard since returning to collecting as an adult, but this card easily takes the cake as my favorite Hammerin' Hank to date.  I'd love to one day acquire a rookie, but I can expect that to set me back well into the four figures, so for now I feel extremely fortunate to have this beauty.  Pretty crazy to think that from eBay flips alone I've now acquired the Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron cards from this iconic set!  My casual '55 set pursuit has some real merit now.

An easy choice for my Cardboard Keepers baseball collection, which is now up to 37 cards and counting, and can be viewed here if you're interested.  I'll be back with more keepers soon, in the meantime thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - Another Hard-to-Believe eBay Flip Lands Me a Legend!

Time for the next installment of "Cardboard Keepers", a thought experiment where I theoretically whittle my entire collection down to just 2,000 cards; 1,000 baseball keepers and 1,000 other keepers.

Today's keeper card comes courtesy of a recent eBay flip.  I've been on a pretty incredible run of these in the past couple of months.  I guess my timing for thinning out my collection and selling some unwanted items matched up nicely with the insane recent rise in the sports card market.  So far this year I've:

• Flipped nearly three dozen graded cards into a beautiful Jordan RC
• Flipped a single modern soccer card for five stunning HOFers

Today's flip is more in line with the Jordan RC, in that it was a many-to-one flip in terms of number of cards coming and going.  Flipping a bunch of smaller cards into one bigger, more valuable card is actually my favorite method, since it's in line with my goal of reducing the overall size of my collection.

So, what did I part with to raise the funds?

For starters, a lot of 26 1995-96 Topps Finest hockey refractors.  This was every single bronze (the most common, though still rare) refractor that I'd accumulated over a period of years.  Most were had on COMC for a buck or less, but a couple (like the Jagr and Lemieux) were a few bucks on eBay.  There's a very good reason that I didn't mind parting with these, and in fact had been meaning to for some time, but that's a post for another day.

After a bit of back and forth with the eventual buyer, I let the lot go for $95.  This was a fair price for both of us, and I'm certain it's more than I paid for these individually over the years.  The buyer is working on a complete set and was so excited to land this many at once, and I was about halfway to raising the funds for the dream card I was targeting.  A win/win!

Next up, a '52 Bowman Bob Feller.  I had to think long and hard about this one, given that I have a long term passive goal of completing the 1952 Bowman set.  The thing is, though it's not that easy to tell in the scan, this card has a yellowed tint to the front that makes it stand out noticeably when viewed alongside the couple of dozen other singles I have from this set.  Enough so that it always drove my OCD a little nuts, and thus Bob Feller was left on the proverbial cutting room floor as far as my purging goes.

This is a card I absolutely intend to pick up another copy of someday, when the time is right and the right deal comes along.  For now, I was happy to collect $75 for it, a deal that again I think was fair for both parties.

Finally, I sold this very shiny Jimmy G rookie card for $35.  It doesn't mean much to me as a Pats fan since Garoppolo plays for San Francisco these days, and it was an easy choice to part with for that reason.  I got $35 for it, which truthfully is probably right around or even slightly less than what I paid for it when I picked it up.

I was excited to let it go, because when the funds from those three sales came through I had what I needed in my Paypal account, and sprung into action!

With just a few clicks of a mouse, a card I've drooled over for pretty much decades now was finally mine.

Check it out!

Ain't she a beauty?  I had this absolutely stellar looking '55 Robinson in my eBay watchlist for weeks before pulling the trigger, hoping the entire time that nobody would grab it before I had a chance.  It's graded a 3.5 "VG+" by PSA, but I can tell you from looking at many, many examples of this card over that period of weeks that this is one of the nicer looking examples in terms of overall presentation that I could find at this grade/price point, and even a couple grades above this quite honestly.

Here's a better look, taken with my iPhone since my scanner tends to wash out PSA slabbed cards a bit.  If you click the image for a larger version you may be able to tell that the top right corner has a ding, which I'm assuming is why this card was graded as low as it was.

To me, it's an absolute stunner.  Good centering, not perfect but good, and just a clean, vibrant front.  Those colors are absolutely popping off the card even 60+ years after it was produced.  No surface creases, "snow" over Jackie's face, or any other detractors like that.  Not that I even mind that type of stuff when it comes to cards like this, but this example doesn't seem to summer from any of that.

This card makes me smile every time I hold it in hand and look at it.  I don't miss that Bowman Feller much now!

Here's the back, a little off center but perfectly clean.  Like the front, colorful and vibrant.  Even if I am fortunate enough to collect for many decades to come, I will never, ever have to upgrade or replace this Jackie!

Well, that's the story of how I acquired the first playing-era Jackie Robinson to officially enter my collection.  To be able to do so using cards I already had laying around and wasn't totally appreciating makes the experience even better. Cleared out two graded cards, and a couple dozen more in toploaders, and brought in a single stunner in return.  More space freed up in my card room, and a card I've always dreamed of owning in had, now that's how I like to collect!

That's 36 cards down in the baseball Cardboard Keepers collection altogether now, 964 to go.  You can see the virtual album here if you're interested.  As you can see in the snippet above, it's starting to look pretty impressive thanks to all this eBay flipping.

I'll be back with more keepers soon, in the meantime thanks as always for stopping by...

Cardboard Keepers - My Favorite Card Acquired During Quarantine

Today's post is in response to a prompt by Tim B., who blogs at Cardpocalypse (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning).  Recently Tim laid out the 7-post Trading Card Challenge depicted above, and invited and encouraged other bloggers to partake.  I'm a little late to the party, but today I'm answering the first challenge, which is my favorite card acquired during quarantine.

Since my wife and I have been fortunate enough not to have our household income impacted by the pandemic to date, something we are incredibly grateful for, I have actually picked up a few different cards during quarantine.  I wanted to select a card that I hadn't already blogged about only recently though, and just yesterday the perfect candidate arrived in my mailbox.

This is a card that in some sense I never even knew existed until I stumbled upon it while browsing eBay, but that I absolutely had to have once I located it.  It was listed for less than $80, but features multiple HOFers, and may be the only copy like it in existence (or one of just a few, at most).  Intrigued?

Well, before we get to the card, the way that I acquired it was actually via an "eBay flip".  I've really been digging this process lately.  As I have been using my increased free time the past few months to fast-track the ongoing purging and thinning down of my collection, I've begun selling cards on eBay and bundling up the proceeds from those sales to acquire fewer but much more significant cards.  The best example yet was when I flipped nearly three dozen graded cards for a Michael Jordan RC.  Today's flip may not exactly be on that level, but I love the end result equally as much.

For this particular acquisition I parted with my 1977, 1978 and 1979 PSA 8-slabbed Yaz cards.  Many years ago I thought I'd try to chase every base card that Yastrzemski had in the Topps, Donruss and Fleer lines from his 1960 RC through his final cards in 1984.  It didn't turn out to be as fun a quest as I'd envisioned, and I'd already sold off some of the '80s graded versions a while ago.  Since I already have all three of these cards in raw form as part of complete sets, it made perfect sense to part with these three.

On their own, each is no more than probably a $15-$20 card in a PSA 8 holder, so for efficiency I batched them up and listed all three together.  Got close to $60 within a few days, which I was more than happy with!

I was still just a few bucks short on covering the cost of today's card after the Yaz sale, so I went ahead and listed one of my two doubles of Mookie Betts' Stadium Club RC.  Mookie's cards haven't been quite as red hot as they were say a year ago, but they still do alright and I hauled in $15 for this base card from just a few years back.  About what I'd expected based on checking the prices of other recently completed auctions prior to listing.

The good news is that was enough that, when paired with the proceeds from the Yaz trio, I was able to click "Buy-It-Now" on today's gem without it truly costing me a dime!

Alright, thanks for sticking with me through that lead-in.  Here's my favorite card acquired during quarantine at last!

Whoa!  I don't even recall what led to me stumbling across this one to be honest with you.  All I know is that, as I mentioned above, the moment I saw it I knew I wanted it in my collection.  For those who aren't hockey card collectors, this is the NHL Goalies Wins Leaders card from the 1971-72 Topps hockey release.  It depicts the top three (or in this case four, since two goalies tied for third place) netminders from the previous year in terms of games won.

Someone took the time to have all four subjects autograph this card, then submit it to PSA for authenticity/slabbing.  The above image is a scan from my flat-bed scanner, but here's a better look courtesy of my iPhone...

There are so many things going for this card.  First of all, I think it's fascinating to consider the amount of effort someone must have gone through to get this signed by all four subject, three of which are enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame no less!  I suppose maybe at some point these gentlemen were all at the same event, but it's much more likely that the collector who got this signed had to work it as a long-term project, bringing it to multiple events over an undetermined period of time.  It's fascinating to think about the stories this card could tell.

Secondly, this autograph hunter was apparently a pro because you could not ask for more clear, legible, bold signatures than this.  Even in such limited space, all four signers did great work.  The signatures themselves are fantastic, and they're placed just perfectly to avoid covering their faces even.

Talk about four solid subjects right there.  Of the four, only Ed Johnston is not in the HOF, and he was no slouch with a decades-long career in playing and coaching, two Stanley Cup championships, and is also the last goaltender to play every single minute of every single game for his team for an entire season (in the early '60s).  Cheevers, and of course Esposito, were cardboard heroes of mine and legends in my mind based on sports cards alone when I was a kid collector.

Lastly, this set itself is just fantastic.  If it weren't for the 1979-80 set that many collectors (myself included) feel is the best hockey set ever created, this would be many hockey collectors' favorite set of the '70s.  I know it's my personal favorite from that decade after '79-80.  Plus, during the season this card came out the Bruins won the Stanley Cup behind the play of two of the guys who signed this card.  Simply awesome.

Obviously the back isn't really the star of the show here, but there it is in case you want to see the other guys who racked up some wins in '70-71.

So, there you have it, my favorite card acquired during quarantine.  This is an absolute gem, and goes straight from my mailbox to my "Cardboard Keepers" collection in record time!

I'll try to get to the remaining posts in Tim's challenge in the coming days.  In the meantime, the non-baseball Cardboard Keepers collection is up to 21 cards in size now, and can be viewed here.  I've still got a long way to go, with 979 cards remaining to be selected.  I'll be back soon with the next card or group of cards for that project as well, but until then thanks as always for stopping by!

Cardboard Keepers - My Best Card Flip Ever - Part 2!

Welcome to the conclusion of my best single-card flip ever.  If you missed yesterday's post you can click here to see how I turned the above Kylian Mbappe National Treasures card, which I paid $4.99 for back in July of 2018, into...

...a playing-era Mickey Mantle flagship Topps card...

...a Mario Lemieux O-Pee-Chee rookie card...

...and my oldest Willie Mays card to date!

Any single one of those cards would have been a win for me over the Mbappe as far as appreciating the card and having it fit well into my collection.  To get all three of them was just nuts.  Like I said at the end of yesterday's post though, the market on Mbappe cards is so crazy right now that even those three amazing singles somehow did not deplete all of my profit from the sale.

I have two more significant cards to show today that I grabbed before the well went dry.  First up...

...a 1955 Topps Ted Williams!  I'm still in a bit of disbelief over this one.  I knew I wanted at least one of the cards I bought here to be a significant Red Sox card.  While I briefly debated going for a Carl Yastrzemski RC, my goal for this year was to make some good progress on my 1950s baseball collection.

Ted Williams became the obvious choice in that realm, and I spent a couple of hours hemming and hawing over different examples of his cards from the decade that were available on eBay.  This one was an easy choice after all that research because it immediately becomes my oldest Ted Williams, it's from a set that I've actually made really good progress on and am now more than 25% of the way through with, and lastly...

 ...it's just plain gorgeous!  My 1955 Topps set attempt instantly gains some legit credibility with a pick-up like this.  I had just one other HOFer in the set build prior to this (Ernie Banks), so like the Willie Mays yesterday this instantly becomes my best card from this particular set.  Great feeling to score my most significant 1955 and 1956 Topps cards as a result of this sale.
 

Again, a nice, clean back here.  As with every card in this post, and with just about every card I pick up period nowadays, I really spent a lot of time researching and making sure that I got an example that I'll be happy keeping for the rest of my life, one that I'll never feel the need to upgrade due to an obvious flaw.

Yeah, that Ted Williams is a real beaut', and instantly becomes one of the cornerstones of my Red Sox collection!

One more big gun left here, and it's potentially my favorite of the five I scored as a result of this flip.  I've coveted this particular card for over a dozen years now, and it feels amazing to finally have a copy of my own...

Thanks to the Kylian Mbappe flip I am now the proud owner of a third-year Yogi Berra card!  This card is not only the pinnacle of my very small 1950 Bowman collection, but honestly one of the crown jewels of my entire baseball card collection.

I've mentioned this on the blog before, but one of my earliest childhood card memories was my dad buying me a 1950 Bowman Maurice McDermott at an antiques store in Putnam, CT when I was probably just seven or eight years old.  It cost just a couple bucks I'm sure, but it was my first vintage card and one of the absolute collecting highlights of my youth.  That card and the memory of that day were the catalysts behind my love for the early '50s Bowman sets, as well as my love of baseball cards in general.

Aside from being one of the absolute best, arguably the best, catchers in baseball history, Yogi got one hell of a card in 1950 Bowman.  I love the perfect pose and fantastic look at 1940s catcher's gear here.  Yogi squatting in classic catcher's pose, with his mitt resting on one knee in an open field, backwards hat, ready to throw the ball straight to you.  The trees in the background, mask in the foreground, just wonderful.

Yogi's 1948 (RC) and 1949 Bowman cards are wonderful in their own way, and certainly iconic cards that I'd love to one day own.  For my money though, based on aesthetics alone, his third year card is the best of the three.  This feels as much like a small piece of art as it does a baseball card.

I couldn't be happier with the shape this is in now that I have it in hand.  There's always a degree of risk purchasing high-end cards sight unseen online, and in this case after doing all of my research that risk was a bit greater with the Berra card as the copy I liked best didn't exactly have the most quality scans from the seller.  I went for it though, knowing that eBay protects my purchase in the event that I got a nasty surprise when it arrives.  Centering can be a real issue with these, and this is one of the better examples I've seen in that respect, almost perfect actually.  Bright, vibrant color too, just a stunning card overall.

The reason this one graded a 2 is that there's a crease running from around Yogi's wrist down and to the left border of the card.  It's tougher to make out on the front, but you can see it better here in the upper right on the back.  Again, an amazingly clean and legible back, those reds really still pop even 70 years later.  I absolutely love the fact that the write-up references Yogi coming from the "Missouri sandlots"!

Well, there you have it, the story of how I obtained a 1968 Mickey Mantle, a Mario Lemieux RC, a '56 Mays, '55 Ted Williams, and a 1950 Bowman Berra for about a dollar a piece all said and done.  I'm still in a state of disbelief even now, after receiving positive feedback from the guy I sold the Mbappe to (and even becoming email buddies at that!), and getting my return in hand here.

Sure, there's a chance that Kylian Mbappe becomes the next Pele, and that National Treasures card multiplies in value.  He's still only 21 years old though, so there's also a chance that something like injury derails his career and years from now people are saying "remember when his cards went for insane prices?!?!".  Whichever way it goes, I'll take these five new cards over that one I sold all day long!  Besides, I've got other Mbappe cards...

That's 35 cards down in the baseball Cardboard Keepers collection altogether now, 965 to go.  You can see the virtual album here if you're interested.