What does this field have to do with baseball cards? It's where the players came from, at least on average. This month I had a little fun with maps, stadiums, and the backs of 1952 baseball cards.
What else happened at CardBoredom HQ in June? There was a recap of finding a fantastic table at a very unassuming card show, one that was manned by the owner of a very impressive set of cards. I took an in depth look at my first wallet card, a 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco that spent a year riding around in my pocket. I also summarized much of the comings and goings of the last three months in the second quarterly update of 2024.
I also belatedly discovered Junk Wax Jay, one of the better written card blogs to arrive in the present decade. Readers with an appreciation of literary pursuits will find this one well worth following.
Out With the Old
Last month's update included a few words about my decision to jettison some of the cards that were at the periphery of my collecting interests. I sold all my 2018 Sandlot cards to someone building a set and sent a signed Frank Thomas card to someone in Hawaii. My ripped (and trimmed!) 1952 Topps Monte Irvin found a temporary new home with someone planning to flip it for double their purchase price 🤷 (Good luck with that?). A number of other '52 Topps duplicates, a handful of items that were waiting to eventually become wallet cards, and a bit of graded junk wax were also let go in the past few weeks. A small number of extraneous cards remain and will hopefully be on their way to new homes by the time of my next update. Combined with giving away a few extra cards to fellow bloggers I reduced my pile of cards by a few dozen. Progress!
In With the New
Three new cards and an upgrade were added to the collection this month, which combined with the previously mentioned outflow of duplicates makes this period one of quality over quantity. Two of the newcomers helped build out the Jose Canseco wing of my collection. Interestingly enough, both are die cut examples from some fairly limited hobby-exclusive sets of the late '90s.
The first hails from the 1997 edition of Upper Deck's SPx product line. SPx was a further step up in the decade's Topps Finest/Upper Deck SP premium card rivalry with the latest iteration consisting entirely of die cut holoview cards. The set was all about parallels, as the tiny 50-card checklist ballooned to 300 with all the different color variations. These cards sported a retail price of $6 per 3-card pack 27 years ago so I never so much as glanced in their direction when they were on store shelves. The cards from this set no longer carry astronomical price tags, but finding specific variations of your chosen player without damaged die cut edges can prove maddening. I finally came across a silver parallel that checked all the boxes.
I didn't have to go looking for the other die cut Canseco. Rather, it came looking for me in the form of a gift from Jon, the author behind A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts. The card in question is a 2000 Pacific Crown Royale Proof, and Pacific, much like Jon, made it a habit to always go an extra step for collectors. The card manufacturer threw everything at this card. It is die cut, see through, an insert and a parallel, and even exists in an ultra scarce serial numbered version.There's a lot more to unpack about this card and the manufacturer that produced it in Pacific's final year of making baseball cards. A more in-depth look at the card and Pacific will soon be forthcoming.
Thanks Jon!
One final new-to-me card arrived just a two weeks ago to complete a project I have been working on, the fruits of divesting some of my extraneous cards. I held it in my hands for just a few days before sending it to SGC's facility in Florida where it remains for the present. A casual mention in a blog post doesn't do the card justice, so I will not spoil the surprise by just blurting out which card it is. A proper appreciation of this piece of cardboard needs more than a few days of work to put together so you will see more about this one early next year. Trust me, it's worth the wait.
The upgrade mentioned a few paragraphs ago helps improve my 1952 Topps set building project. Some time ago I marked the name of Bobby Avila off the checklist after nabbing a super cheap copy from a card dealer that had actually been in the business of selling cards prior to the release of '52 Topps. That alone makes for a special card, but this one was even more interesting due to the fact that it featured a guy who flirted with hitting .400, played professional soccer, and had an entire professional baseball league named after him before becoming a multi-term member of the Mexican Congress. The card residing in my card collecting box had several bits of paper missing, some of it distractingly near the center of the image. A few days ago I came across a PSA slabbed example of the card that somehow only garnered a numerical grade of 2 out of 10. Enhanced hi-res images showed little more than slight corner damage, none of which looked remotely close to being worthy of knocking a card down to "good" condition. I picked it up, essentially paying the seller the cost of the Avila card having been graded in the first place.
A Bit More on the Theme of Cardboard Renewal
It has been a few weeks since I last posted at the main CardBoredom site. After writing nearly 500 posts and reading through past entries, I have come to the conclusion that some elements could use a bit more work. Upgrades to navigation, reference data, selected writings, and even visual appearance have been underway in the background and are nearing the point where they can be deployed at scale, though the need to fine tune a few of these has pushed back the timeline for some writing projects. The first of these changes will publicly appear in late July and I can't wait to share the results.
Never build a boring collection!
Enjoyed the post about the center of the baseball world. Have there ever been two MLB parks as close to each other as Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds? If one team was playing a 1pm game and another a 4pm game, people could easily walk from one to the other. (Way before my time of course.)
ReplyDeleteWhile the Cardinals and Browns shared facilities for much of their time in St. Louis, there was a brief period in the deadball era where they had competing ballparks less than a mile from each other.
ReplyDeleteThe map post was fun. I really enjoyed the show post as well. Did you and that dealer end up exchanging contact info? He seems like the sort that could turn into a lifelong friend, for you.
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