Shades of Pat Burrell

Long ago, the Phillies selected Pat Burrell from the University of Miami with the first pick of the Major League Baseball draft.  All the baseball card companies rushed to throw his cards into packs.  I actually managed to pull a few Pat Burrell cards when they were popular and I also felt like I had somehow been ripped off.  It was not really the quality of the baseball cards that were disappointing, but Pat Burrell's signature made them hard to love.  

I still cringe to this date.  

It's hard to believe that Pat Burrell was popular at any point based on the quality of his autograph alone.  

Fast forward twenty years into the future.  

The San Francisco Giants selected NC State catcher Patrick Bailey in the first round of the Major League Draft. I was excited to see the former Wolfpack player play for the Giants and appear on a few baseball cards.  The baseball cards were actually slightly anticlimactic.  Bailey had been playing for USA Baseball for several years and had appear in all kinds of different Panini products.  

Not the best signature, but he was also in high school when this card was made.  Still, I was on the look-out for his cards right up to the moment when I saw his signature.  

It changed. 

Bailey has now been in professional baseball for over a year. Topps and Panini have cranked out a decent number of Patrick Bailey cards.  I am just getting around to adding a few of his autographed cards.   They weren't expensive or hard to find.  They just have an uncanny resemblance to the old Pat Burrell cards.  

This is a Bowman Chrome autograph of Bailey.  

I actually think Bailey has a worse signature than Burrell.  This card is actually the better of the two Patrick Bailey signatures in this post.  It's really hard to quantify, but this is a really bad signature.  This autograph feels like it's in the neighborhood of Geronimo Gil, who was an Orioles catcher in the early 2000s.  

Last Bailey card is from Bowman's Best.  

This one is even worse.  I feel so unsatisfied.  

I cannot wait to see Patrick Bailey in the Majors and I hope he has a long career.  I also hope he takes a little more time to sign his name in the future.  Bailey's autograph can only get better.  

I think.  

Trading Card Co-Op Part 3: Babes In Card Land

I was boxing up a few cards late last week, figured I would have some down time during Hurricane Matthew, so I ventured into the Trading Card Co-Op for a few 200 count boxes.  One does not simply walk into a card store however and just buy boxes, we still have to check out the cards.  Right?

I also brought along my newest assistant to help me look through the cards.

A child's first trip into a card store is a big deal right?  I am not sure what kinds of cards my daughter likes yet, what team she is going to cheer for, but it's a monumental occasion nonetheless. She slept on the trip into the card store and the first fifteen to twenty minutes that we were at the store.  Not much hep initially.

Since she doesn't really have any opinions on the baseball card front at the moment, I went ahead and picked out the cards that I thought she'd like best.  Let's take a look.

First up is an older Topps autograph.  I am pretty sure that I have a few Pat Burrell autographs in my collection already, but I was also pretty certain that I did not have this card.  I was right.  Pat was the first overall draft pick back in 1998.  He was sort of the hot rookie card guy back in the late 1990s.  I am not sure that people were crazy for Pat the Bat cards like current collectors fawn over Kris Bryant, but he was definitely popular.  Pat was briefly on the Rays towards the end of his career.   Little girl approves.  

There were two framed Ginter cards in the same box as the Pat Burrell card.  When I am watching baseball with my daughter she really enjoys looking at the black framed pictures in my baseball card room.  Babies like contrast.  I am pretty sure that she would have liked these cards if she had been awake to gander at them.  I like that the Braun card has a gold background on the mini and the Upton is a Buyback from last year's Ginter set.  I have a few of the Cardinals buybacks, keep meaning to post them...another day, another post.  Frames, that is what was important here.   Again, little girl approves of these cards.  

Last two.  

I picked out two cards that would fit my collection a little bit better than the three up top.  I still like those cards, but they do not exactly fit in with the whole Durham Bulls, Cardinals, and Rays thing.  So, the card above was a nice pick up that the store manager Jimmy had set aside for me along with the card below.  The Longo patch is from this year's Museum Collection....

The card above is an Alex Reyes autograph out of Bowman Inception.  This year's autographs are not his first, so they are a little bit more affordable than some of his previous Bowman graphs.  He's going to be a good one.  Since these two cards fit my collection, and are great looking cards, I am sure that the little assistant would be happy that I added these two cards to my collection.

Four Big Macs

It's been awhile since I have picked up cards from Facebook, but had a few recent finds from trades and purchases which I should probably post and share during the next week.  First up is a cool little lot of McGwire inserts which I picked up for less than $5 shipped.  The seller even threw in a nice Anthony Reyes jersey card to boot.

While these are not the most expensive and rare McGwire cards they are all from the late 90s and bring back some good memories of some great old sets.  Are the 90s sets really that old?  Feeling old now.  Here are the cards......

Complete Set: 1999 Skybox EX Century

Last week I posted an unfavorable assessment of the 2000 Skybox EX set and deemed it one of the worst baseball cards sets to occupy space in my collection.  While the 2000 issue of the EX line is terrible Fleer generally did a really good job with this product and I usually made a point to open a box or two every summer.  I posted a write up on my favorite product from the EX line, the 1998 Skybox EX-2001 set, during my 30 Year Top 50 countdown last year.  This week I decided to take a few minutes to assemble my 1999 Skybox EX Century set while I am working on my reorganization project.

1999 Skybox EX-Century J.D. Drew

The 1999 Skybox EX-Century set was the last set of this line that seemed to fit in with the first two EX set issued in 1997 and 1998.  The 2000 set obviously strayed from the course and Fleer would not return to the original look and feel of the set again until the last EX set was issued during the summer of 2003.  Like all of the EX sets, the 1999 EX-Century set is relatively small at 120 cards.  The first 90 cards in the set are veterans and the last 30 cards in the set are younger players and prospects.  The usual cast of characters from the late 90s appear in the base veteran set of 90 players.  Name a team and think of their best three players and chances are that those are the cards in the set for that team.

1999 Skybox EX-Century Pat Burrell 

The "hot" card in the 1999 EX-Century belonged to Phillies prospect and Golden Spikes winner Pat "The Bat" Burrell.  The Phillies selected Burrell first overall in 1998 after they drafted and failed to sign J.D. Drew the previous season.  Burrell played his college baseball at Miami and was viewed by many as a can' miss prospect.  Of course, the usual suspects hyped up his cards and they were pretty popular for a short time.  The card above was the only card I was missing from the set last week, I am sure that I traded for something good back in 1999, and completed this set for less than $0.75.  

30 Year Top 50: 1997 Pinnacle Certified

#30-I've noticed a lot of people raving about their collection of "rainbows" recently.  A rainbow is the complete run of a card and all of its colored parallels.  For example, this is a complete rainbow set of a Bowman Ryan Tatusko card.  While the popularity of collecting a complete set of a cards parallels is very popular at the moment, it is hardly a new concept.  Several of the Pinnacle and Fleer products of the mid to late 90's also thrived by offering collectors a chance to complete a "rainbow" of cards from their favorite players.

In my opinion, the 1997 Pinnacle Certified set was the best of the bunch.  There are other issues of this set and there are similar sets, but I have always has an affinity for this one above all the others.  In all honesty, the Pinnacle Certified Rainbow was also a little simpler to collect to collect and had a better overall appearance and design then many of the rainbows sets of today.

The rainbow in the Pinnacle Certified set started with the base cards.  Sorry, no autographs or relics.  The design of the Pinnacle Certified set was very typical of 90s Pinnacle sets.  They added a clear protective sheet over the top of the cards which takes away a little bit from it's appeal, but looking around at other late 90s card releases, you can find several other examples of this being done.

1997 Pinnacle Certified Ray Lankford

In addition to the base set, Pinnacle issued three different colored parallel cards with a Mirror and Platinum version, or serial numbered and non-serial numbered issue.  The three colored parallels were Red, Blue, and Gold with red being the easiest to find and gold being the most difficult.  The non-serial numbered parallel of the base cards have the same picture as the base card and are labeled as a "Mirror" card on the back.  The Gold Version was limited to 30 copies.  

1997 Pinnacle Certified Red Ray Lankford 

1997 Pinnacle Certified Blue Ray Lankford

1997 Pinnacle Certified Gold Ray Lankford

The serial numbered versions of the cards varied by the color.  The Red Platinum was the most common at a print run of /3999.  The Blue Platinum print run was /1999.  Both are pretty common by today's standards, but in 1997 it was somewhat challenging.  Also notice that to the picture has changed and the card has the appearance of texture commonly found on Pinnacle issues.  

1997 Pinnacle Certified Red Platinum Ray Lankford

1997 Pinnacle Certified Blue Platinum Ray Lankford

If you are into the Topps Finest or Bowman rainbows a venture into the 1997 Pinnacle Certified set is well worth your time.  The Blue, Red, Blue Platinum, and Red Platinum cards are not a difficult find and can be yours for often a few dollars.  Even the Gold Cards aren't difficult to find.  Currently, Ebay has more than 300 for sale with the price ranging from $7.99 for a Ray Montgomery or Jay Buhner card to $999.99 for a Jeter Graded at a 9 or a Bernie Williams graded at a 10.  Really fun set to collect. 

Like the 1997 Pinnacle Certified Set?  Not in my Top 50 is the 1999 Fleer Brilliants set.  Similar to the Pinnacle Certified in style and appearance, the Fleer Brilliants set was a simple, no autographs or relics, set that offered collectors a chance to put together a set of colored parallel cards for each player.  Here's a non-Lankford look at the parallels.  The base first:

1999 Fleer Brilliants Johnny Damon 

The base set in the Fleer Brilliants set had three parallels.  One of the parallels, Blue, was not serial numbered.  The other two Gold and 24K Gold were both serial numbered, but were far harder to find then the parallels in the Pinnacle Certified set.  The Gold is numbered to 99 and the 24K Gold is numbered to 24.  Both are pretty challenging to find.  Here's a glimpse at the parallels:

1999 Fleer Brilliants Blue Pat Burrell

1999 Fleer Brilliants Gold Rusty Greer 

1999 Fleer Brilliants 24K Gold Roberto Alomar