Mantle lives on

A recent development in the trading card industry is that Mickey Mantle (or rather his estate), is once again part of the Topps family.

From the '90s right up through the last few years, Mantle was a staple in Topps products. Whether it was constant dedicated insert sets that no one was asking for, or inclusion into base sets, Mantle was always there. And he was there basically to the point where it wasn't special to get a Mantle card in a pack, which is sort of a weird feeling. He was just another guy in a pack.

But then his estate's Topps deal expired and he became a Panini guy. And while Panini didn't bash us over the head with Mantle, he was included in most sets, such as Diamond Kings and Optic.

In the last few weeks, Topps has brought Mantle back into the family, and he made his return in the Topps Living set. I haven't bought a Living Set card in a few years, and don't pay much attention to it, but I thought this card was really nice looking, so I snagged a pre-order on eBay for a few bucks and it arrived yesterday:

I think it's just a simple, classy looking card.

I'm sure Mantle will once again be shoved down our throats, but for now, it's nice to see him back.

SI for Kids nets me two Mantles

Cards are crazy right now. 

We all know that. The day trading that's going on is insane. Guy who has been meddling in the Majors gets off to a hot start, and his RCs go high. I've parted with several Tyler Naquin RCs over the past week for $3-5 each, and don't feel like for a second "maybe I should have held because he's going to be a star." Nice story of a 29-year-old who had a good first few weeks of the season. Nothing more.

Beyond low-end stuff like that, cards from the non-core sports are also in a similar state. When Hideki Matsuyama won The Masters, I was sad to see I didn't own an SI for Kids card of him (he doesn't have one), since those have been a go-to source for taking advantage of the topicality of an event.

I've mentioned a few times that I still hold a Sports Illustrated for Kids magazine subscription. A few years back I booked a flight on an airline I didn't often use, and accumulated a few frequent flyer miles. Since then, I've been exchanging these miles for an SI for Kids subscription. I do it strictly for the cards.

I always hand off the magazine to my son in hopes he might flip through. But he never does. Kids don't care about magazines or pro sports. 

Regardless, the cards are interesting because they feature a wide-range of subjects, from pro sports to olympic sports to college sports to extreme sports to motor sports. The oldies can be quite valuable, such as the 1997 Tiger Woods. Iconic, even.

One card that spiked in value in my possession was the Naomi Osaka 2018 edition, considered by many to be her rookie card. She's a terrific talent and excellent ambassador to the sport. But when she won the Aussie Open again, I immediately listed the card on eBay for $749.99...and sold it in a matter if hours. $750 for an SI for Kids card of a tennis player. Laugh out loud.

Image from Google because I sold mine...

The card has now settled in the $200-$300 range, and will probably spike again after her next Grand Slam title...probably some time this year. Maybe the card will be worth thousands down the road, but I didn't blink twice. It's nothing against her. She's incredible and I'm sure has many more Grand Slam titles in her. She's a role model for many young fans. But a tennis card sitting a box of other perforated SI for Kids cards really didn't mean anything to me.

After eBay got their astronomical cut, I had a bit of funny money to play. Most of my surplus goes into the stock market these days, but I decided I'd treat myself here. I considered buying new golf clubs, but ultimately chose to put a portion of it back into cards. Napkin Doon kept pressuring me not to back out and to buy something card-related. Peer pressure at it's highest form.

Without a want list or a current project I'm working on, I decided I couldn't go wrong with a few Mickey Mantles. So for one SI for Kids card, I bought these two Mickey Mantle cards, and had a nice chunk leftover after the fact:

1958 and 1964. I think many of us would make that swap any day. A card that came in a magazine for free and sat in another pile of cards ended up netting me two vintage Mantles.

There was no real reason I chose the two I did. I liked the look of them. It boiled down to that. These will immediately go into my "honey if I die unexpectedly just focus on this box of cards" box.

All that for a 2018 Sports Illustrated for Kids tennis card.

What a world.

Screw You

When I was a kid, screw down cases were reserved for only my most special cards.

However, now the Twitter hobby gatekeepers have deemed them absurd and a nuisance. Anytime someone shows a card in a screw down, it's followed by "hope it didn't mess with the condition" or "get that out the screw down right now." 

I never remember ever buying a screw down case, so I'm not sure how they even came into my possession as a kid. Probably from a family member who moved on from collecting. I didn't have a lot of them, maybe five or six. But I knew that screw downs should be reserved for my most special cards. That's why my 1967 Topps Giants team card went in there. It was my oldest card. It had Willie Mays on it...somewhere.

I liked how they stacked and connected, except for that one that was a different brand. I hated that one.

It was a chore to put a card into a screw down. I had to secure a screwdriver from somewhere, and my Dad's tools were off limits because people would take them and not return them. Boy, can I relate to that now. Luckily my Swiss army knife had a pop out Phillips head. It was painstaking, but it would do.

I've since rescued most of my cards from screw downs, not because I am committing a 2021 hobby sin, but because they are bulky and annoying to store. However, recently I bought a small collection from a guy around my age, and there was a card in a screw down. I think he thought the same way I did as a kid: that the screw down was reserved for the rarest and oldest of cards.

That is what he had in his screw down. Not a bad choice, at all. And the card was beat up, but that didn't matter. The crease down the middle? Who cares! This was a Mantle (and Mays and Killebrew), and a card like that deserved a screw down.

I decided to rescue it last night, even though it won't grade high, because that's what you're supposed to do with cards now. The card will now go into my growing Mickey Mantle collection, which will increase by two when an incoming shipment arrives. I treated myself, a little.

But I didn't want to leave a perfectly good screw down case to waste. So I found a card to put into it to keep that premium, high end feel. Bel-air's finest:

A Mantle Walks into my collection

Have you ever gotten an unexpected card that makes you stop in your tracks?

A couple weeks back, Matt over at Bob Walks The Plank sent me a bubble mailer. I wasn't expecting anything from him, although he did give me a shout about a few Jeters he set aside. (side note - Matt blogged last week - check it out!)

When I opened the package, a post it note apologize for the condition of a Dirk RC he sent me. I wasn't worried about it! It was cool to have, and happy to add it to my collection of growing basketball rookies. 

But the Dirk wasn't what made me say "wow."

It was the third card in the package.

The second card, and on top of one of the team bags, was a very cool Don Mattingly Leaf bat relic. Pretty solid relic card, actually. Nice photo of the player, nice chunk of bat, some classy script font. Certainly an excellent addition to my Mattingly collection, but still not the card that made me say "wow," even though I was thankful for it.

Now, onto the third card, tucked nearly behind the Mattingly, was the one. I legitimately said "WHAT" out loud. No exaggeration. Flipping past the Mattingly was this piece of vintage goodness:

WTF, Matt. Are you kidding me? That is a Mickey Mantle card. A real one. Just look at what a perfect card that is. I was so floored I could barely even focus on the Jeters that followed.

To me, original Mantle cards, all of them, are still such holy grail territory. And to have one as part of an unexpected card package was something that was hard for me to grasp.

The Jeters were great as well, highlighted by an Action Packed I had seen for a long time but never owned.

I also thought this was a great looking card on the old school Fleer design. Jeter rocking the Franklin batting gloves in his pre-Jordan days.

I had no idea Jeter was in 1998 Ultra RBI Kings. Tino was in this set, but I never expected to see Jeter in there, as he wasn't quite known as an RBI guy.

What an amazing gesture from Matt, and I look forward to repaying him with a package of Acunas, Vlads, Bellingers, Trouts, and maybe even a Dominguez.

Diamond Kings 16 years apart

The same day this brand new Tino Martinez card came in the mail, I picked up a fat pack of 2019 Panini Donruss Diamond Kings.

First off, the Tino is a framed black parallel #'d to 100. I'm a little "meh" on the card, likely because it's him as a Cardinal, but at the end of the day it's a low-numbered Tino that I needed. It's also #875 in my collection.

Onto the 2019 stuff, I was at Target, hoping to find some Bowman. There wasn't any, but I did see some blasters and packs of 2019 Diamond Kings. The fat pack was hanging under a 4.99 price tag.

Except it didn't ring up that way.

It came up as $9.99. Yuck! I did not want to pay that much for 20 Diamond King cards. But I was too lazy to get out of line and go put it back, so I sucked it up and paid for it. I guess the $5 was worth not having to return to the card aisle and start the checkout process over again.

Outside of the price tag, I think the set looks great. Team color designs, and outside of the whole no-logo thing, one of the sharpest sets this year.

I even pulled a Mantle, and felt good about it. It's nice not having Topps shove Mantle down our throats, and it's starting to feel special once again to pull a card of him. Yay, Mantle estate!

I don't care too much about manager cards in general, but it's cool to see some of the old times ones featured in this set.

The framed cards also look really nice.

Here are a couple of the non-base design cards I pulled. All look pretty good, although the Squires card seems out of place with the classic-looking design of the rest of the cards. Still, Jimenez cards are solid pulls these days and he'll go into my box of guys like Soto and Acuna. You know, the ones who are going to pay for my kids' college educations some day.

Outside of the price tag, a really nice set that probably won't get the love it deserves, but it does kick the crap out of 2019 Donruss.

Cards from a Sox fan ahead of Yankees/Red Sox

With the Yankees and Red Sox facing one another tonight, it’s a good chance to show off some cards from one of the nicest Red Sox fans out there – Mr. Mark Hoyle. I’m not thrilled with the Yankees going into Fenway right now playing as poorly as they are, but they need to turn it around sometime. I don’t love the “it’s early” excuse. I think every game matters. When a team is fighting for a Playoff spot in September and is a game out, you better believe I’m looking back at losing two extra inning games at home to the Orioles in April.

Anyhow, maybe a road trip is what the doctor ordered to right the ship a little.

Back to the cards. Mark sent me a surprise package recently, and the highlight for me was definitely an unopened pack of Upper Deck cards from the 2006 National Convention. While tempting to leave them in the shrink wrap, that’s not how I roll, so I opened them:

Nice, three Yankees! I like the Jeter a lot. Scott Podsednik was an interesting inclusion. I figured each Chicago team had a card in the set because the National was in Chicago…but Google tells me it was in Anaheim. So I’m not really sure, other than those cards will go to those team collectors I trade with.

This was a cool item! A Mickey Mantle HOF postcard. I know I had this at one point of my life, but have no idea what happened to it. Glad to have it back!

Speaking of Mantle, a really nice Topps Chrome of “the next Mantle”, Ruben Rivera. Of course things didn’t pan out, but he really was featured on some nice cards as a prospect. I like the “new arrivals” logo on this card.

Mark also included these Clint Frazier promo cards. These totally count as a unique card in my small Frazier collection. Mark your calendars for June 13 when Series 2 comes out!

Mark, thanks for the kind package. Take it easy on the Yanks this week.

Who you callin' a Squirt?

Matt from Doc Holoday is one of the best blogging dudes out there.

First off, his customs are true works of art...even when they have Red Sox players on them.

Some of my best blogging buddies are Red Sox fans, so it just goes to show what a great group of collectors we've got around these parts. Matt is no exception, and this trade package meant a lot because I know he's been dealing with a lot since late summer when Hurricane Harvey affected him and millions others in Texas and the southeastern US.

Matt sent me a message that I had 2 lbs of Yankees headed by way, and right away I was greeted with a card I had always wanted:

Squirt! I love this card. And I love squirt. Full disclosure - on New Year's Eve this past year I was shopping for food to make that night, and wandered down the soda aisle and my eyes immediately went to Squirt. The colors are so catchy! I bought a 2 liter and drank the whole thing that day. It's delicious! And I'm really happy to have this card.

He wasn't joking about the 2 lbs of cards either. Holy moly was their great stuff, including this Dellin Betances holiday relic.

And some really, really shiny Yankees. I don't know much about Topps Finest these days other than knowing the Refractors still look awesome.

Roger Clemens was represented well in this box. I really like the Double Play insert with Greg Maddux on the flip side.

Derek Jeter cards are always welcome in my collection:

At the time, this was probably a stretch. Now, even more so! Ruben Rivera sharing a card with The Big Hurt? Not a great look.

Oddballs besides the Squirt Reggie were found too. Sweet Woolworth card of Mattingly!

I keep saying it, but Severino is criminally under-priced right now.

Some nice cards of Yankees legends from some newer products - Reggie, Gehrig, and The Mick finding his way into Donruss.

I had no idea that Steve Sax's brother, Dave Sax, played in the majors!

Two trippy ARods. The old Fleer Ultra inserts really hold up today. This was a Diamond Mine insert.

Big Mike /499! Good luck in Minnesota, my friend.

Look how young Jorge looks! I collected a ton of Collector's Choice growing up, but I don't think I have this card. The base card designs were always pretty tastefully done.

Trust me, there were many, many more great cards. Matt, I really appreciate you thinking of me. Keep up the amazing work with the customs!