Manufactured Imperfection

I started collecting baseball cards in the early 1980s as a kid.  There were all sorts of cool things about collecting cards in that era.  There were only a few sets out each year and I spent most of my energy trying to put together the 792 cards for the Topps set every summer.  A few packs from the Dierbergs in Manchester and a few from the Ben Franklin and by the time school started up in September I had finished off my set.

The packs of cards had a completely different vibe back then.  Wax paper wrappers and the gum were the two biggest differences.  Of course those two items also meant lots of imperfections with the cards.  There are still plenty of unopened wax from the 1980s floating around if you have never experienced the awesomeness of opening a pack of cards with a stale piece of gum in the pack, but you were often left with stains, discolorations, and sometimes even dings and dents in the cards.

Today there is no gum in the packs and everything has foil packs.  There are still some dings and dents on cards, but the stains and discolorations are a thing of the past.  Well, for the most part.  In this year's Topps Heritage set Topps announced that they were inserting cards with bubble gum stains into the product.

It sounded like a cool idea and I was actually excited about landing a copy of one of these cards.  They were even supposed to be scented like bubble gum.  I guess you could say they were scratch and sniff.  So after opening two boxes of Heritage, a few retail backs too, I had plenty of cards for my set along with some short prints, relic cards, and variations.  No bubble gum stain cards.  But wait....

While I was sorting out my Heritage doubles to help out another collector this afternoon I found this....

and then I found this.......

Very slight difference and there was no difference in code at the bottom of the card, which is probably why I missed the variation the first time around.  I must admit that the manufactured imperfection of the bubble gum stain on the backs of the cards is pretty cool and a nice creative touch.  I was thrilled to find this card too before I shipped it off to someone else.  While I am not a huge fan of Andre Ethier I think I am going to file this one away in a box.  Cool idea by Topps.

A Case Break With A Few Trades

I used to trade regularly on Facebook, but have wained on it a little in recent months.  Instead, I have been trying other avenues both through other social networking sites and actually face to face trading.  Venturing and dabbling in new media is always a little bit scary for all us, but once you get into a good trading loop, it's easy to pick up on the different trends and tendencies of a group of traders whether you are sitting next to them looking at actual cards, or whether you are chatting looking at scans.

For example, I have become much more comfortable with the world of Twitter the past few months and have actually preferred it in many ways to some of the trade pages on Facebook.  One of the most popular activities on Twitter is the case break/box breaks.  There are tons of them.  Sure, there are some on Facebook, but they are much more constant and bigger on Twitter.

I am not a huge box break person.  If I am going to break a box I would rather order a box myself and open the cards myself.  There is something that takes away the fun of opening cards if you are watching someone else do it on a webcam.  However, there are several benefits to the case breaks on Twitter.  First, they are so frequent in some cases that the prices to get your foot in the door of the break are really cheap sometimes.  Second, they are a great conversation starter for trades.

2012 Topps Five Star Andre Ethier Jersey/Auto

Recently, I ran across a case break on Twitter at a discounted rate.  I joined and landed a few hits.  If you have never watched someone do a live case break people usually ew and ah over the hits.  So, I took my hits and flipped them around a few different ways to someone persons in the case break and ended up with a good haul of my own.  I still landed two Five Star Autographs.  The Ethier shown above and the David Freese card pictured below.  

2012 Topps Five Star David Freese

My other two trade pieces were kind of odd choices given that I wrote a post earlier this week knocking cards that were manufactured without a license.  It's true that I'd much rather have a card with a player wearing a logoed uniform and features the players team name rather than just the word Cincinnati.  However, there are time in life when you are limited by what is available.  So, being a fan of really cool autographs I couldn't find these two certified autographs in a MLB licensed product.  

1993 Nabisco Don Drysdale Autograph 

2012 Leaf Pete Rose Autograph

In this case, I added two great Hall of Fame autographs to my collection.  The Rose autographs from Leaf are plentiful, and there are better ones than the one above, but because of Rose's lifetime ban from baseball he has 0 licensed autographs.  Still a player worth owning an autograph of, but limited by what products are available.  Drysdale is limited since he died in 1993 before the certified autograph boom started.  This is, to my knowledge, his lone certified autograph.  

Two Allen & Ginter Autographs

I picked up a couple of older Allen & Ginter autographs last week.  The Allen & Ginter set has been a staple of Topps the past few years and the autographs are always on card making these a good target for autograph collectors.  I believe that the 2006 Allen & Ginter autographs are considered the benchmark, but there is always a few worth collecting every year.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Andre Ethier Autograph 

2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Evan Longoria Autograph

The Ethier was my original target in this trade since it was the only baseball autograph I was missing from the 2008 set.  The best baseball autograph in that set is Matt Kemp, but also includes Prince Fielder, Matt Holliday, and Manny Ramirez.  The rest of the cards are relatively easy to find whether you are buying or trading.  While picking up the Ethier I was offered a shot at the Longoria and went ahead and traded for it too.  Longoria usually has a few on card autographs every year and I did not own this card before the trade.