A Trip To The Co-Op

Everyone has written up something about their 2017 cards.  I am slowing down a bit this year, so I am doing a little more picking and choosing of sets to collect.  I set out recently to my local card, The Trading Card Co-Op to check out two different products.  In past years I have really enjoyed opening boxes of Heritage and Gypsy Queen, so they seemed like something good to work on.  I'd like to think of them as kind of staple products, or sets that are long running that I have been opening since whenever they started..... Beyond Gypsy Queen and Heritage, I also picked up a single card which fit nicely into my card collection.

New single card.

Love the black card with the gold signature and gold foil.  I am a little depressed about the Cardinals at the moment, so I am just going to leave this card here and move on to my Heritage box.  

The 1968 set is not my favorite, but it's not terrible.  I have always heard it described as the "burlap sack" set.  Good description, but I have always felt that was kind of a negative and I don't really see this set as one that I would run away from.  Besides, my box was pretty sweet.  The card above is a mini and the card below is a mini.

I think mini cards are supposed to be one per box, but mine had two.  Beating the odds is always good.  I also got a chrome Rizzo card.  Another good name to go along with the Posey and Machado.

I had one of cool parallel card which I did not scan because I did not find it until I started sorting out my cards into making my set.  One of those things you miss the first time around because it just doesn't stand out.  The other card was a grey back card which I believe are limited to just 10 copies.  All sounds good, but the card is the Rockies team card.  Not the best, but I am sure I can trade somewhere, or something like that.

On to the autograph.  I cannot complain about this one at all either.....

I actually spent the last few days watching the Cardinals play the Yankees, don't mention the outcomes, but Judge seems to be a really impressive player.  I am going to file this card away in a box and revisit it in the future.  Hopefully Aaron Judge has a nice career, if not I will look back and remember when I could have sold this card for more than $50, but now it's under $5 on COMC.....I like my chances of it staying pretty high.

Shall we Gypsy Queen?  I am going to do this one quickly.  My two autographs....

two pretty good young players.  The Severino is serial numbered to 150.  The Piscotty is not numbered, but it is always nice to pull an autograph that fits into my collection out of a box of cards.  A few other hits, not showing them all.  

My best non-autographed card, might be even better than my autographs, is a Manny Machado throwback variation.  The card is also missing the his position above his name, so this is a short print within a short print.  Way too over complicate things Topps.  Still a cool card.  

I pulled three other color variations out of the Gypsy Queen box.  The Car-Go card is a black and white variation and serial numbered out 50, Dozier and Judge are both purple and serial numbered out of 250.  

I also pulled a couple of cards with no name on the front and a few others with out the player's position above their name.  It seems like you get a couple of these per box based on what I have seen out of other people's pictures around Twitter and Instagram.  

Overall, I am happy to have finally picked up boxes of these two products.  I pulled some really cool cards out of the boxes and also am enjoying the new Matt Carpenter autograph.  Overall, a good day at the local card shop.  

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #24 Buster Posey

My Top 50 On Cardboard 
#24
Buster Posey

2010 Upper Deck Buster Posey RC 

This is one of the higher young players on my list.  There is one more who is slightly higher, but Posey belongs on this list for two reasons.  First, he's a really good player with a Hall of Fame trajectory to his career and he's only 26 and already won an MVP award, batting crown, and two World Series rings.  Posey has a ton of rookie cards if you are looking to pick one up.  I flipped through my boxes before making this post trying to find one and found literally twenty different cards to choose from for my post.  They range greatly in price, but if you are looking for just a basic Posey rookie card you should have no difficulty pulling that off for anything more than $5.

Hobby Impact-
Posey definitely has a pretty large hobby presence.  His cards are popular and you will definitely pay a pretty price for anything that is low run or autographed, or a combination of the two.  I liken Posey's hobby presence in many ways to Cal Ripken.  He's one of those players who collectors seem to universally enjoy, maybe not in Dodger land, and collectors are happy to land a good Posey card whenever, or however they can get their hands on one.  I do not specifically collect Posey cards, but I have two Posey cards which I thoroughly enjoy owning and would not consider trading or selling unless my socks were knocked off.

I will share, but both cards have already been on my blog in the past.

2008 Donruss Elite Collegiate Patches Buster Posey

I was on the lookout for one of these cards for a few years and finally tracked one down last year.  My first introduction to Buster Posey happened while he was in college playing for Florida State.  Living in the middle of the conference, within an hour of the four North Carolina schools, I heard plenty about the play of Buster Posey a few years back.  I really enjoyed getting the chance to see him a few times over the course of his college career.  These are really great looking cards and a great add for fans of college baseball.  Probably my favorite Posey autograph in my collection.

2013 Topps World Series Champions Buster Posey Patch/Autograph 

My other really cool Posey autograph comes from this year's Topps base set after the Giants won the World Series.  The patch is spectacular, but I am not a fan of the sticker autograph on a high end card.  Either way, both cards are awesome and a little taste of what collectors can find floating around from the Giants All-Star catcher.

The bottom line is that Posey cards are fun to collect and a blast to find.  There are a lot of unique cards out there and they can fit into any budget if you are willing to be patient and look hard.  If you are in the small minority of people who dump your Posey cards when you land something good, you know where to find me.

On The Field-
This one is a little bit harder to do with a young player, but let's try it out.  It would be really easy for me to sit here and point to the fact that Posey has already won two World Series rings during his brief career, but lots of players win rings and they do not necessarily contribute much to the cause.  See Ryan Dempster this year.  Posey has won two rings and had plenty to do with helping the Giants reach the pinnacle of Major League Baseball twice.

This is usually the point in the post when I point out where a player ranks on the JAWS rating system, or who their comparable Hall of Fame caliber players are on Baseball Reference and you are probably thinking I might not do that with a really young player like Posey.  You are wrong, but with young players, they always need time.  Meaning if Posey plays at his current level over an extended period of time I think there is no reason why he will not reach a really good place in his career which will merit Hall of Fame consideration.

Cureently Posey is the 86th best catcher all-time in the history of Major League Baseball.  With a career WAR of 17.5 he just behind Paul LoDuca and Ramon Hernanez.  Sounds pretty missable until you realize that Posey has equaled two guys who have basically played in the Majors for a decade in what amounts to a three year career.  In fact, the average Hall of Fame catcher has a career WAR just above 50, so Posey is already nearing the mid-point for reaching that career total.

If you want to eliminate the longevity factor with Posey, which handicaps him, we can use average OPS+ to compare him to the rest of the catchers in MLB history.  The list of players ahead of Posey on that list is incredibly short: Mike Piazza.  That's it.  He's actually tied with Joe Mauer, but with his move to first base next season, Posey will have no trouble passing him as he enters the prime of his career.  Posey, at this point in his career, ranks about 16 to 17 points ahead of the highest Hall of Fame catchers in terms of OPS+ with the highest two notable being Johnny Bench and Bill Dickey.

As with all players, this all depends on them staying healthy and playing long enough to accumulate some numbers over time.  While Posey has suffered one bad injury, and missed a chunk of the season, I actually view him as a pretty durable player.

Favorite Card-
There are several direction I could here, but I am going to highlight another one of Posey's rookie cards.  Topps put out the National Chicle set for one year, in 2010, and based the set off of the 1935 football card set with the same name.  Posey was included in the set, along with several other significant rookies.  The Posey card looked like this:

2010 Topps National Chicle Buster Posey RC

Definitely a unique card for one of Topps vintage throwback sets.  I think that Turkey Red and Ginter sometimes have similar feels in terms of the pictures and artwork.  National Chicle was just completely different.  I love the painted backgrounds with the different shapes and colors the artists used for the cards.  This Posey card has always been amongst my favorites in the set.  The Madison Bumgarner is awesome.  This is a very affordable rookie of Posey too.  Again, $5 or less will put this card into your collection.

2013 Topps World Series Champions Buster Posey Patch/Autograph

Topps began issuing a set of relic and autographed cards from the previous seasons World Series Champion starting with their 2006 set which featured the White Sox.  The cards are usually pretty popular and usually get swallowed up pretty quickly.  I first took interest in the cards when I pulled a Frank Thomas jersey card out of a pack of 2006 Topps.

2006 Topps World Series Champions Frank Thomas Jersey

I thought the cards were a pretty cool idea, so I have made finding one card from the World Series champions card set a priority for my collection.  Some years I will settle for any card from the set if I am indifferent about the team, but other years I try to pick up a certain player.  For example, I was really excited to put together a few cards from the 2007 set with the Cardinals.  I could have easily gone after a Pujols card, or one of the other name Cardinals players, but instead went after a card of Jeff Weaver.  

2007 Topps Word Series Champions Jeff Weaver Jersey

Weaver pitched a great clincher game for the Cardinals in the 2006 World Series and had several other great pitching performances in the earlier rounds of the playoffs.  I figured if I was ever going to hunt down a Jeff Weaver card, this was the one to find.  While I wouldn't say no to a Pujols card from this set, they generally trade or sell for over $100.  Yawn.  Which brings me to this years World Series Champions addition:

2012 Topps World Series Champions Buster Posey Autograph/Patch

I am not a huge fan of the design of these cards, especially the blue plaid stuff up at the top of the card.   However, I love the patch piece with the gold, orange, and black piece.  Great piece of patch and Topps has sprinkled many great ones throughout the set with many of the Giants players including Posey.  Now, I've been on a bit of a Posey kick lately and figured that this would be a sufficient addition to cover having a card from this set for this year.  

Two Giants Autographed Rookies

I've slowed down a little bit on trading during the past few months in terms of quantity, but I am still finding many great quality pieces for my collection.  Earlier in this weekend, I set a goal to post a few  sets here and there and try to finish them off in a reasonable amount of time.  In fact, I should have a few updates on my Topps Tek post coming in the next few days along with another post on a set I am going to complete.  However, this past week I had time to complete a few trades with a few different traders.

My first trade for this week was for a pair of Giants cards.  I have been slowly working on assembling the Donruss Elite College Patches sets from the past several years and have had several posted in this space over the past few months.  The common cards really aren't very difficult to find, but some of the better players from the set can be challenging to find, or can be fairly pricey.  For the past year I have had my eyes open for a copy of the Buster Posey autographed patch, but have been unable to track one down until now.

2008 Donruss Elite College Patches Buster Posey Autograph 

The Posey autographed patch is one of the real highlight cards from the run of Donruss Elite College Patch cards.  I am not sure if this card is technically listed as his rookie, or not, but it often trades and sells like one.  Sure, there are other 2008 Buster Posey cards, but this card frequently approaches $100, or exceeds, $100 on the secondary market.  This card has also generally "dried up".  Meaning that it is difficult to find copies in the secondary market.  I was ecstatic to find this copy.  

2006 Topps 52 Matt Cain Autograph 

I was also able to pick up a copy of a Matt Cain Topps 52 autograph in the same trade as the Posey.  The Cain autograph is an on-card autograph, which is a plus, an hails from a really underrated set.  While there were huge quantities, four per box, of autographs signed for this set there are some really good early autographs in the set.  Some of my favorites include Matt Kemp, Ben Zobrist, and Justin Verlander. 

30 Year Top 50: 2010 Bowman

#33-Looking to buy a set for future?  This is your post.  The 2010 Bowman set mainly revolves around three big cards of players appearing all in only their third professional seasons.  However, this set appears this high in my countdown because of the flashes of brilliance shown by the key rookie players in this set.  Think about that for a second.  Of the hundreds of sets that have been released over the past thirty years I am trying to pick out the best fifty.  This set, three years old, potentially has three rookie cards that are already more important to the hobby of baseball cards than Chipper Jones, Pedro Martinez, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio, Joe Mauer, Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, Felix Hernandez, Barry Larkin, Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson, Tino Martinez, Robin Ventura, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Mussina, and a few others I am sure I am missing from the previous entries in this series of blog posts.  Let's look at each card.

2010 Bowman Buster Posey

This card is the most underrated of the three rookie cards in this set.  Underrated.  In three seasons in the Majors, Posey has won the Rookie of the Year, Two World Series titles, a batting average crown, and will have an MVP award sometimes later this week.  Pretty impressive resume given he has played just three seasons and one of them was lost to a really bad leg injury sustained in a collision blocking the plate.  Posey isn't going to fool anyone into thinking he's a great defensive player, but a quick glance at his Baseball Reference page shows he has similar numbers at 25 to Mike Piazza, Yogi Berra, Gabby Harnett, and Carlton Fisk.  Underrated.  

2010 Bowman Jason Heyward

Of the big three rookies in this set this is the card I am most unsure on.  I figure that at worse Heyward is a solid and productive Major League outfielder.  However, for those who regularly check out the Braves there are definitely some flashes of brilliance which make Braves fans drool.  The first half of his 2010 rookie season was incredible.  Heyward trialed off in the second half of the season, had a down year in 2011, but responded nicely this past season to post career highs in several offensive categories and won a Gold Glove.  It's also easy to forget that Heyward just turned 23 at the end of last season.  Plenty of time for Heyward to grow as a player.  His cards have trailed off in value over the past year, so picking up one or two nice cards and putting them away for a few years may not be bad notion.  

2010 Bowman Stephen Strasburg

I won't call Strasburg's cards underrated, but you should put a few of these away in your collection soon.  Strasburg has pitched parts of three seasons and looked pretty untouchable along the way.  I can't imagine the Nationals will place many restrictions on him next year and I have little reason to doubt he will not be anything less than stellar.  Card really doesn't need much selling.  Awesome player, awesome card.  Buy one, trade for one.  You need one.  

Of course, there are other rookie cards in the set beyond Posey, Heyward, and Strasburg.  Aroldis Chapman, Madison Bumgarner, Dustin Ackley (GTHC), and Austin Jackson also appear.

Like the 2010 Bowman Set?  Not appearing in my Top 50 is the rest of the 2010 Topps baseball card lineup.  I had to pick one and I went with Bowman.  However, if you were going to ask me to point a year to buy up singles, wax, etc.  I would say you cannot go wrong with the potential contained within the 2010 card releases.  Topps did a great job of putting Posey, Strasburg, and Posey cards throughout their products during the 2010 calendar.  Collectors should also check out rookie cards from Mike Stanton, Starlin Castro, Aroldis Chapman, Madison Bumgarner, and Mike Trout.  Here are a few sets you can find some of these players in:

2010 National Chicle Buster Posey

2010 Topps Chrome Mike Stanton 

2010 Topps 206 Stephen Strasburg 

2010 Topps Update Jason Heyward

 2010 Bowman Prospects & Draft Picks

2010 Topps Pro Debut Mike Trout 

30 Year Top 50: 1999 SP Signature Edition

#35-This release represented Upper Deck's first venture into the world of a huge autograph focused set.  By the time 1999 rolled around, the hobby had already seen the release of the 1996 Leaf Signature Series and the 1997 and 1998 releases of the Donruss Signature Series.  Since Donruss was bankrupt by the end of 1998 I am guessing that Upper Deck was trying to fill the void.

The packs for the 1999 SP Signature Edition were $20 and only available at Hobby Shops.  Each contained three cards.  Two base cards and one autographed card.  Now, there were some really nice cards in this set that are really cool and worth owning.  However, in a mega-autograph set there are also plenty of cards that are painful to see inside a pack of $20 cards.

One of my big pluses in owning cards from this set is the design.  The autographs are all on card and the card themselves feature a white background which showed the blue ink autographs very well.  As far as the autographs go I break them into three categories.  Lets take a look at a few cards from the set using a few Orioles.  Just picked a team.

1999 SP Signature Edition Ivan Coffie

1. Common Cards- Every mega-autograph set has tons of filler cards like this Ivan Coffie.  It stinks to buy a per pack autograph, spend good money, and pull a card that sells on Ebay for $2 on a really good day.  I often look at the common cards in mega-autograph sets from this perspective:  Collect your favorite team and fill in your autograph collection.  For example, one of my favorite Cardinals teams was the 1996 National League Central Champions.  It was LaRussa's first year, Ray Lankford and several other personal favorites were on the team, and they came within a game of the World Series.  It was also the same year the Leaf Signature set was released and I was able to get a lot of the team in the set with a certified autograph.  They won't all fit in the picture, but here's a sampling.  

1996 Leaf Signature Cardinals Autographs: John Mabry, Tom Pagnozzi, Mike Gallego, and Gary Gaetti

Love the Gary Gaetti card the most out of this lot.  

1999 SP Signature Edition Albert Belle Autograph

2.  Current Stars- In 1999 Albert Belle was fading at the end of his career.  His cards were still pretty desirable and held their value pretty well at the time.  Even to this day his cards have a bit of following and are never super cheap.  If you scour the internet and local card shops you will find that Albert Belle has a few autographs floating around out there.  Especially recent autographs.  At the time of this product release however there were very few floating around.  If you wanted an Albert Belle autograph, this was your best bet.  Most mega-autograph sets have a few cards like this.  Ron Gant is another big one from this set with a similar story.  

1999 SP Signature Edition Frank Robinson Autograph

3.  Hall of Famers-My third category is what most people want to find in their one per autograph packs, but the odds are always difficult on these cards.  Looking at my Frank Robinson, it is probably one of the cheaper Hall of Fame autographs in this set.  In fact, some people would argue that a card like Frank barely covers the cost of the pack on a good day on Ebay.  I disagree.  While it is probably just in the $20 range, covering the pack cost, the cards in the 1999 SP Signature Edition are on card.  For my collection I would much rather own a slightly less expensive on card autograph then a limited print number, high end, sticker autograph.   

Like the 1999 SP Signature Edition?  Not in my 30 Year Top 50 is the By The Letter insert in SP Authentic sets.  If you have been following my countdown you'll notice that the Not in the Top 50 and the in the Top 50 set are often tied together somehow.  Today, I am straying a little bit.  Upper Deck has released some other uber-autograph sets, but this thread is supposed to be about the highlights.  

I could have easily focused this section on one of the Ultimate Signature sets, but the By The Letter Autographs deserve a little bit of love.  I miss them so very much and while Topps has duplicated them into their own creation:

2010 Topps Finest Buster Posey Letter Patch Autograph

They aren't quite the same as the original Upper Deck product.  The By The Letter Autograph concept started in the 2006 SP Authentic set.  The cards were an instant smash hit.  The concept of course was to collect all the letter patches of a player to spell out their name.  Here's how they started out:

2006 SP Authentic Matt Holliday By The Letter Autograph

Over the next several years the cards changed very little in concept and design, but still offered collectors a cool product to chase every year.  Whether you were collecting players from your favorite team:

2009 SP Authentic By The Letter David Freese Autograph

Or you just ran into a cool inexpensive card of an average player.  

2008 SP Authentic By The Letter Edwin Encarnacion Autograph 

The By The Letter Autographs are a set that I strongly considered bundling together and putting on my countdown.