Grabbing Gretzkys - It Seems I've Got Some Competition!

I've got a pair of recent pick-ups to share today in my never-ending quest to improve my Wayne Gretzky collection.  These two come with a story about some apparent eBay competition that I'm up against!  I'm curious as to whether any of you have experienced anything similar to this...

Since deciding to really try to improve the focus of my collection and even minimize its size these past couple of years, I determined that better filling out my Wayne Gretzky collection was going to remain a priority.  Arguably the greatest hockey player of all-time, and certainly the greatest hockey player of the generation that I grew up watching as a kid, his cards still bring me a lot of joy.  Believe it or not, I really still think they're under-valued in the hobby too, when you see what other "GOAT" players like Jordan, LeBron, Brady, Trout, etc command in the marketplace.

I could obviously never hope to obtain every Gretzky card, nor can I afford to keep up with the super collectors who chase autographs, patches, 1/1's etc.  That's not the only way to collect though, although I certainly don't knock those who enjoy that aspect of our hobby.  For me, I decided to settle on some mid-range goals that were certainly more reasonable and affordable, yet still quite challenging.

One of those goals was completing a run of Wayne's flagship Topps cards from his '79-80 rookie through the 1980s, finishing with the 1989-90 card from the first set I ever collected as a kid.  Certainly an attainable goal; given the lack of a Topps set in both '82-83 and '83-84 we're only talking nine cards to complete this task.

Well, recently I thought it would be wise to increase the scope of that collection to include all of Wayne's Topps and O-Pee-Chee cards from his '79-80 rookies through the '89-90 sets.  This meant not only adding a new brand to chase in O-Pee-Chee, but also including all of the many, many subset cards that Wayne appeared in throughout the '80s, like Record Breakers, Highlights, Team Leaders, League Leaders, All-Stars, and so on.

So, I frequently search out these cards, often in PSA 9 mint slabs, and keep probably 20-30 of the cheapest available copies that I'm still looking for on my eBay watchlist.  Every so often, I pluck a couple of them when I have the funds to divert to the project. 

Recently I scored a pair of them from the '84-85 O-Pee-Chee set, in matching PSA 9 slabs.  First up, the 1984-85 Oilers Leaders card.  I always liked that Topps and O-Pee-Chee included team leader cards like these throughout most of the '80s, and of course Wayne graced the Oilers versions in just about every single case.

I really like the design and layout of this card.  There's a lot of information crammed on here, yet it doesn't feel overwhelming, still easy on the eyes.  It's also a cool card because it is not featured in the '84-85 Topps set, only in the O-Pee-Chee release.  For many years Topps had a condensed hockey set compared to its Canadian counterpart (sort of the inverse of Topps vs. O-Pee-Chee baseball sets I suppose).  In the '84-85 Topps release there are only two Gretzky cards, his standard card and his All-Star subset card.  By contrast, there are ten in the same year's O-Pee-Chee release if my count is correct!

The back of this one is also great, because it showcases something that I highly doubt we'll see in the NHL ever again...a 200-point season!  Holy smokes.  Just unreal.

Here's the other card I picked up, another of the ten Gretzky's in that '84-85 release.  This one is the NHL Power Play Goal Leader card.  Wayne paced the league with 20 PPGs in '83-84, earning himself this card in the following year's set.

Some of the other names on the PPG leader list were a surprise to me.  Would never in a million years have guessed that Pierre LaRouche of all people tied for second in the league with 19 PPGs in '83-84.  The things you learn.

Anyway, back to my story.  I'm extremely grateful to have landed these two, from the same seller, when he accepted my best offer of $20 each, $40 for the pair.  Over the next 48 hours or so after this purchase, I watched in horror as every single 1980s Gretzky PSA 9 that I had on my watchlist disappeared in rapid fire succession.

It's as if someone else had the same collection idea that I did, got panicked when I picked up the two I landed, and grabbed every other semi-affordable PSA 9 slabbed Gretzky in sight!  The well dried up so quickly that within just a day or two cards that I could have acquired for less than $30 are now available only at price points of $99.99 or greater.  Insanity.

The way I see it, it could be one of two things.  A collector like me who shares my goal of acquiring these cards in mint graded condition, and who like me feels they are presently very under-valued, scooped them all up for their personal collection while they could.  Or, maybe it's one of these sports card investors who have flooded the hobby recently seeing an opportunity to drive up the market single-handedly?  Either way, more power to them, I guess.

Thankfully, while I'd prefer to find PSA 9 slabs for this project, I am certainly not limiting myself to graded cards only.  I'm very appreciative that I landed these two before things got crazy, and I'll certainly keep my eyes open for cheap slabs in the future, but in the meantime I'm more than happy to find raw cards to keep checking the boxes on this initiative.

How about you, have you ever experienced something like this where a particular player, set or other collecting goal that you were working on just exploded right in front of your eyes price-wise?  If so, I'd be interested to hear your story in the comments.

BONUS COVERAGE!!!

In case you have not heard, the English Premier League is returning today to finish out their 2019-20 season!  Albeit without fans, but I don't care.  I am absolutely ecstatic for many reasons, not the least of which are A) I'm a Liverpool fan, and for the first time in my lifetime they were a lock to win the table before this season went on hold, looks like they'll actually have a chance to do so now, and B) I've enjoyed the Premier League for almost ten years now and would record as many games as I possibly could each week, so I'm just thrilled to have any sport that I enjoy available to watch again at last!

As a tribute to the return of the league, here's a sweet 1977-78 Topps Footballers card featuring one of the four teams in action today, Sheffield United:

These are obviously inspired by the 1976 Topps baseball design.  I love all of the Topps soccer cards from the '70s like this one, but they're actually surprisingly tough to find.

Amazing card backs as well.  Imagine if the '76 baseball backs looked like these?!?!  Would be quite an improvement, no?

If you've been curious about professional soccer but have never checked it out, or even if you can't stand soccer but are completely starved for live sports of any kind, why not check out the games today?  If you're a dinosaur like me who still has cable you can watch on NBCSN, or if you've cut the cord you can watch live at NBCSports.com.

That's all for today, thanks as always for stopping by!

COMC Blaster - The Anatomy of a COMC Blaster

I have probably explained this at some point in this blog's past, but based on a couple of comments on my last "COMC Blaster" post, I figure it makes sense to re-hash it quickly today.  What you see above is a cool, unique piece of furniture that I refer to as my "card chest".  Essentially, it's a four drawer sewing needle chest that I got at an antiques store for a bargain, sitting on top of a really cheap four-legged end table from one of the big box stores.

The reason I bought this thing is because I had a feeling it would be an awesome card storage unit for my hobby room.  Each of these four drawers conveniently holds a decent-sized stack of penny sleeved cards laid on their sides.

What I ended up using this for is to store "yet to be processed" cards from COMC.  Sort of like the "rainy day pack stash" equivalent, but with singles purchased on COMC.com.  Any time I get a new shipment in, typically when I reach 100 cards accumulated on the site, I split it up and drop the cards into these four drawers for scanning, inventorying, posting and adding to my formal collection at some point in the future.  When I want to do a "COMC Blaster" post, I just pull and scan randomly from this stash until I reach the $20 mark.

By using this method, I can end up with cards that arrived only recently and cards that are years and years old being featured in the same "COMC Blaster", and entering my "official collection" at the same time.

Anyway, with that out of the way I hit the card chest today and started pulling and scanning for another edition.  Let's see some of my past pickups that are finally joining my formal collection at last in today's blaster...

1954 Bowman Al Brazle - $1.25

Surprise, surprise, another 1954 Bowman.  I've really ended up pursuing this set with more vigor than I thought I would years back.  I'm a long way from ever completing it, and don't really have any of the major stars of HOFers yet.  I am past the 15% complete mark and well on my way to 20% now though, mainly due to cheap pick-ups of commons like this one.  Love it!

2014 Topps Finest X-Fractor Wilmer Flores - $.75

Another set that's appeared frequently in these posts are the blindingly-bright 2014 Finest X-Fractors.  With just 100 cards on the checklist for this colorful beauty of a set, I decided to try to complete it in X-Fractor format a year or two back, maybe longer.  Wilmer Flores...

2014 Topps Finest X-Fractor Jonathan Schoop - $.63

...and Jonathan Schoop RCs bring me up to 62 of these now, or 62% (gotta love the easy math of a 100-card set).  Some cards seem oddly hard to find.  I don't think I've ever seen an Anthony Rizzo, for example.  Like ever.  Even have a saved eBay search for '2014 Finest Rizzo' that's been running for better than 6 months now, and not a single copy has shown up.  What gives?  I'm still confident that I'll be able to call this one complete someday, but it has been more challenging than I anticipated.

2019 Allen & Ginter Hot Box Gold Rafael Devers - $.45

Picked this one up just because A) I really like Devers, he's my second favorite active member of the Red Sox, B) it's got a cool old-time feel to the design and backdrop, and C) it was dirt cheap.  Enough said!

2015-16 Upper Deck Young Guns Canvas Noah Hanifin - $3.00

Since I keep such a large backlog of "to be processed" COMC cards, it can result in some interesting reactions when I pull a card for scanning, inventorying and posting years after purchasing it.  Sometimes it's a pleasant surprise in terms of a great deal I got on a card that's now much more valuable in hindsight.  Other times it goes the opposite direction, and I say to myself "Wait, I paid how much?  For this?".

This Noah Hanifin Young Guns Canvas parallel is a case of the latter.  I bought it back in the winter of 2015 for $3 even, mostly because he was a local guy (having grown up in Norwood, MA and attended Boston College for a year before transitioning to the NHL) who was a highly touted draft pick.  Could still end up being a cool card if Hanifin, now locked up in a 6-year deal with the Calgary Flames, goes on to be an all-time great defenseman or something, but I can't say I'd drop $3 of credit on one today.

2013 Topps Gold Joel Hanrahan (#'d /2013) - $.57

Ditto for this Joel Hanrahan, purchased many years ago when I was on a streak of acquiring Gold flagship parallels of Red Sox players.  With many thousands of Red Sox cards now though, I find myself starting to ask how many cards is too many cards, and to be honest I don't seem to appreciate cards like this one as much anymore.  Oh well, not like I need to have much buyer's remorse at a 57-cent price point!

2002 Fleer Tradition Glossy Mike Lansing (#'d /200) - $.62

This one's kind of cool, only because it's a somewhat rare parallel from the period where baseball cards were the furthest thing from my mind, and was available for cheap coin.  I like this card slightly better than the Gold Hanrahan, but it's probably another that I wouldn't necessarily seek out these days if I'm being totally honest.

1982 Zellers Terry Francona - $.53

This one, on the other hand, is simply fantastic!  I am not a Terry Francona collector by any means, but I like to have at least a small grouping of his cards in my collection given how significant his stint as Red Sox manager was.  I could not pass up this oddball from Zellers, a former Canadian chain department store, at just 53 cents.  I'd have to look at my collection on TCDB to be sure, but this very well may be my favorite Francona card in my collection now.

2014 Panini Prizm World Cup Stars Blue & Red Wave Luis Suarez - $.99

This one's kind of cool, from the 2014 Prizm set commemorating that summer's World Cup.  The market on soccer cards has been out of control lately, so I probably won't find too many more of these at sub-$1 prices.  Glad I grabbed this Suarez back in the day.

1994 Topps Kevin Mitchell - $.50

This Kevin Mitchell was acquired with a specific purpose in mind, a future "Stat Kings" post that I have planned covering the shortened 1994 season.  I always love when a player is featured signing for the fans on his card, good stuff.

1959 Topps Jerry Staley - $.75

Let me just say that this common, had for three quarters, is in absolutely amazing shape.  I feel like I could send this in and have it graded and reasonably expect it to come back at least an 8.  Certainly one of the best cards condition-wise in my '59 set binder where it now resides.  I've got an impressive 358 cards and counting now from this set, by far the most of any set from the '50s in my collection.

Prior to today's post, this '58 George Susce called my collection home.  The amount of fading and the big creaase through George's head sort of bugged me on what is such a cheap card to acquire.

1958 Topps George Susce - $.91

I rectified that for 91 cents.  This one still has a little bit of white "snow" in the upper right, but presents so much more nicely than the previous copy.  If any of my frequent trading partners or commenters would like the prior copy just leave a comment and I'll gladly set it aside for you.

2012 Topps Jason Heyward (Photo Variation) - $2.00

Well, this seems to be a common theme today, but here's another one picked up long ago that I probably wouldn't shell out $2 in credit for nowadays.  Though I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the stuff Topps churns out the past few years, I am a sucker for the flagship "variations", be they retired legends or photo variations like this Jason Heyward from the 2012 set.

2008 Upper Deck Heroes Tom Morello - $.39

For 39 cents I now have my second Tom Morello card, if you can believe that.  The other one is from this same "Guitar Heroes" subset from the 2008 Upper Deck Heroes football release.  Saw Rage Against the Machine live in the late '90s, and it was one of the crazier concerts I've attended to this day.  And that's coming from someone who attends a lot of concerts.  Or at least did.  Damn you, COVID-19.

2016-17 O-Pee-Chee Update Retro Mathew Barzal - $1.05

A couple of years back I got on a Mathew Barzal kick for about a whole five minutes.  I'm still not convinced he's a great two-way forward at the NHL level yet, but he does have a knack for finding the score sheet.  Chalk this one up to "dollar box prospecting"?

1971-72 Topps Rod Gilbert - $1.12

I never noticed it I suppose until these two cards were pulled back-to-back by chance, but it's obvious now that the team name in that 2016-17 OPC Retro design from the last card was borrowed from the '71-72 Topps/OPC hockey release!

As a hockey card collector who loves vintage, I feel like a complete '71-72 set is sort of like a rite of passage almost.  I have not been giving this set build the attention it needs the past couple of years, but maybe adding this HOFer for just a shade over $1 will give me some newfound momentum?  I'm right at 70% done as far as this Topps set goes with this one added to my collection proper.  With 40 cards left to track down, I really should move this up the list pronto!

2018 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractor Andrew Benintendi - $.75

I love me some Sepia Refractors, simple as that.  In 2014 Topps Chrome and prior they were typically somewhat rare, serial-numbered cards that can be expensive to acquire as a result.  Beginning with the 2015 Topps Chrome release though they're much more prevalent, and much more affordable.  I may be mistaken but in 2018 I believe they came in 3-card Sepia-only packs that were included in certain retail purchases like blasters?

Anyway, in one fell swoop from the same seller I picked up Andrew Benintendi...

2018 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractor Craig Kimbrel - $.43

...Craig Kimbrel...

2018 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractor Chris Sale - $.62

...and Chris Sale, each for pretty much pocket change.  I really need to see where I'm at with these team sets; given my love for these and their cheap prices there's really no reason that I shouldn't have complete Red Sox team sets from 2015-2019 at least...

1963 Topps Veteran Masters (Stengel/Woodling) - $.70

Just an awesome vintage grab here, again for pocket change.  Casey Stengel is one of my favorite old-time ballplayers/managers, so I was pretty pumped to land this '63 Veteran Masters combo card for such a reasonable price.

2014 Topps Opening Day Blue Jon Lester (#'d /2014) - $.82

These Opening Day "Blue Holofoil" parallels are really sharp in person, and they look particularly good for Red Sox players.  Not sure why, maybe it's the bold red and blue/primary colors thing.  Anyway, after recently discovering the Xander Bogaerts RC from this set in my card chest, I've got the biggest hurdle to a team set cleared already as far as these parallels go.  Nice to add another one in quick succession here!

1994-95 Pinnacle Rink Collection Alexander Mogilny - $.75

How about a couple of cheap hockey pick-ups to wind down today's blaster? 

From possibly my favorite parallel set of the entire decade that was the '90s, '94-95 Pinnacle Rink Collection, we have Alexander Mogilny.  This guy is best remembered for his insane 76-goal campaign in '92-93, but was a solid player at the NHL level for many seasons.  In fact, by the time he hung up the skates he fell just short of 500 goals, but exceeded 1,000 points at better than a point-per-game pace.  Certainly a member of the Hall of Very Good, and someone whose cards went into my "stars binder" during childhood.

2017-18 Upper Deck Canvas Nikita Kucherov - $.32

Lastly, a guy who may very well be enshrined in the Hockey HOF someday, Tampa Bay Lightning star Nikita Kucherov.  Still just 26 years old, Kucherov has already won a Hart Trophy and an Art Ross Trophy, in addition to making multiple All-Star teams.  The knock on the Lightning though during his era has been their post-season play.  If the NHL returns this year, which I fear is unlikely despite their announced plans, maybe this will be the year for Tampa Bay?

Well, that brings our running total for today's pick-ups to $19.90, so we'll call it there as far as this "blaster" goes.  I hope you enjoyed the brief "behind the scenes" look at how I store my COMC backlog and create these posts, or if not at least saw a card or two that interested you.

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!

Weekly Cardboard Recap - Helmar, Knocking of Team Sets, WHA & More

I seem to have gotten into a routine the past couple of Fridays of just posting some goings-on from my little corner of the collecting world from the week prior.  No reason to break that streak today I suppose, let's see what I've been up to hobby-wise...

Another nice new Helmar card here, from their T206 tribute set.  I picked this one up a while back now, but only just got around to processing and adding it to my inventoried collection this past week.  Perhaps not as cool as my first card from this set, but an interesting one in that it's my one and only card of Hugh Bedient.

This guy was a rookie for Boston in 1912 and was absolutely huge.  He won 20 games for the Sox in that first season, and was clutch in the World Series against Christy Mathewson and the Giants as well.  It's crazy that, as far as I know, the guy doesn't have a single mainstream card out there.

I know they're not for everyone, but this is exactly why I love the Helmar art cards.  So many of the subjects in the sets they make just aren't available to be added to your collection elsewhere.  I was more than happy to bring this one home for the opening bid of $9.99.  I mean, check out this back:

Simply awesome!  After landing quite a few Helmar cards last summer and early fall, I've really laid off and it's been many months since I landed one or really even paid close attention to their weekly eBay auctions.  Every time I do though I'm reminded of what great work they do.

On the hockey front, it was another great week for my Whalers collection, as I processed and added a full 30 new cards from the stack that I recently rediscovered.  This lot brought me to over 1,800 total Whalers cards now, within 200 cards of my goal of reaching the 2,000 mark this year.

Most of them were '90s cards, but included in the lot was this '89-90 O-Pee-Chee Sticker.  It's half a Whalers card, anyway.  That's the great Dave Tippett on the right there!

A handful of the cards were from Upper Deck's 1993-94 flagship set.  I ripped a wax box of this many years back, probably at least ten years ago now.  Still haven't decided what I plan to do with that, but in the meantime...

...the ones that I processed this week completed my Whalers team set for this release!  This is a pretty solid design, if less memorable than the first two to three years of Upper Deck hockey.  I feel like the photography was especially crisp for the early '90s.  Maybe it's just me, but the colors seem to absolutely pop off the card when it comes to this set.

These Playoff One on One game cards are something only a team or player collector could love in my opinion.  If it's got a Whalers logo on it though, I'll take it!

The team set completion momentum continued, as this '94-95 Donruss card is the final Whaler I was missing for this release as well.  I think what Donruss went with design-wise here could have actually worked quite well had they not made the entire thing blinding, largely illegible foil.

It just kept getting better as I processed through the stack, as I also completed the 1994-95 Score team set when I scanned and logged this overly busy card celebrating Brian Propp's 1,000th career point.  That's right, the longtime Philadelphia Flyer recorded point number 1,000 while sporting Whaler blue.

1993-94 Pinnacle doesn't do much for me.  It's a clean design I'll say.  Anyway, that's enough Whalers for this post, but again it was a good week.  I have one more small stack probably the same size as this to process, so maybe I'll be featuring the Whalers one more time in a weekly round-up post like this.

Let's see, what else?  Oh, here's another '72-73 O-Pee-Chee high number WHA card.  Mike Amodeo looks pretty much like a spot-on WHA stereotypical guy here.  Love that handlebar 'stache!  I'm approaching one third complete now as far as the 51 WHA cards in this release go, and feeling more and more confident with each addition that I'll complete this someday.

Not much to say about this one, just a really cool Pedro that I picked up in a quarter box many years back and just got around to processing now.

In collection news, back in April I'd posted about the first ten athletes that hit the 100-card threshold within my collection.  Since then two more have been added to the list.  The great Mario Lemieux (his '91-92 Upper Deck card here is a real beauty, no?)...

...and the controversial Roger Clemens!  Mario Lemieux hitting the 100-card mark is a result of me seeking out his cards every so often since he's one of my all-time favorite players.  Roger on the other hand hit the mark simply because I'm a Red Sox collector, and he was included in practically every single release with the team during the height of the junk wax era.

Different rationale, same end result.  Welcome to the 100 club, Mario and Roger!

We'll close it out with a new shiny card.  I've become highly intrigued by these 1999 Bowman's Best Refrators since learning about them from a collector on YouTube a few weeks back.  After picking up the Vlad Guerrero 'Performers' subset card for just a few bucks, I was looking for other low-hanging fruit and found Todd Helton here for the same price.

He may not be enshrined in Cooperstown, but he's certainly a member of the Hall of Very Good.  That was enough to get me to bite on this Refractor.  These are really stunning in hand, happy to have one to pair with my Vlad.

That's a wrap for now.  Thanks as always for stopping by, and check back this weekend for more great cardboard.  Until then, stay safe!