Cards I Love Part 27 - 1998 SP Authentic Chirography Ray Lankford

There were a bunch of Cardinals autographs in Leaf Signature and Donruss Signature, but I bought all of them as single cards, either from card shops or off of Ebay.  The first Cardinals autograph that I ever pulled out of a pack? 

Just my favorite 1990s Cardinals player.  

I bought a box of Upper Deck SP Authentic from 1,000,000 Baseball Cards in Ballwin, Missouri.  Upper Deck had rebranded the product that year, it had just been SP for years, so I was not sure quite what I was going to get.  The base cards are nice.  

Pretty standard Upper Deck baseball card product.  

Now, the autograph checklist in the 1998 set is really deep, lots of really good names.  It's 1990s Upper Deck, so there is a Griffey.  There is also a Tony Gwynn, ARod, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, Sheffield, Ivan Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Scott Rolen, Vlad, Nomar, Roberto Alomar, Mike Mussina, and others.  

Those all would have been great cards to pull out of a pack, but there is no better feeling than opening a pack of cards, and seeing a great card of a player you collect.  Like many autographed cards, my first view of my first pack pulled Ray Lankford autographed card was the back.  

That Richard McWilliam signature on the back of the card brought a lot of joy back in the day.  I had to pause for a moment when I saw that the autograph was a Ray Lankford.  Best feeling while opening a pack of baseball cards.  

The front.  

Really sweet card.  Lankford does not have many autographed cards, but this has long been my favorite simply because I pulled it out of a pack of cards myself.  

A Venerable Old Card Part 57

This past week saw the NBA Draft come and go.  There were several NC State in the draft, but the only one who had a legitimate shot at getting drafted was Dennis Smith Jr.  In a normal year, where there are not half a dozen point guards amongst the top players in the draft, it's likely that he would have gone higher in the draft than 9th to the Mavericks.

I like the idea of Smith going to the Mavs.  The Mavs have been down the last year or two, but I figure that Mark Cuban is the type of owner who isn't going to let his team slip too far down the NBA food chain.  While I am not an huge basketball card collector, I have started adding cards of former NC State players the last year or two.  I am excited to add to my Dennis Smith collection which currently stands at just one.  

This is the one, it appeared in a post two weeks ago.  

The whole Dennis Smith draft excitement got me thinking a few weeks ago about other high NC State draft picks.  There is the obvious David Thompson pick from the 1970s who was the first overall pick in both the ABA and NBA drafts.  He was not on the Flint Tropics.  So, besides that the highest NBA draft pick out of NC State was this guy.....

Googs was drafted sixth overall by the Phoenix Suns in the 1992 NBA Draft after averaging more than 22 points a game with 10 rebounds during his senior year in Raleigh.  He wasn't a great pro by any means, but a 16 season career with 13 points per game, including two over 20, has to be at least deemed as solid.  

So, I didn't have a Gugliotta autograph until a week or so ago when I found this gem for next to nothing.  

Seems like a pretty cool card, makes me miss Upper Deck baseball cards a little bit.  I used to love the SP Authentic sets and the autographs.  I have picked up a ton of them over the years.  The basketball versions look pretty nice too.  On card autographs, nice spaces for the players to sign, and classic Upper Deck design.  

I also looked around to see if he had any NC State autographs, but I could not find any.  Considering that card companies have gone back to make autographed cards of Vinny Del Negro and Spud Webb in Wolfpack uniforms I was hoping I could find a Gugliotta.  Besides, I am not sure I have seen Spud or Vinny at a State game recently, Googs still goes and he had that one run in with Karl Hess......

North Carolina is a basketball crazy state, and there is much that fans of the big 4 ACC schools can find to argue about, we are all in agreement that Karl Hess is/was a horrible referee.  The ACC actually canned him a year or two ago for a rather nasty incident at a Wake Forest game.  

More basketball cards later in the week.  

My Favorite Buybacks

I am still going to post more on the 2015 Allen & Ginter set, but thought I would take a quick detour to talk about a few buyback sets from the past that were fun to collect.  As mentioned in my post last night, Ginter is just the latest set to offer collectors a second chance at adding cards to their collection.  Almost every card manufacturer has done something with this concept.  Specifically I have two past favorites.  Here's a look at the two sets:

1. SP Authentic Buybacks- These ran for years in Upper Deck's SP products which spanned from the mid 90s until the mid 2000s.  The buyback cards started to appear in the late 1999s and featured players cards from the mid 90s SP products.  The cards were also autographed and serial numbered.  I know that these are really popular with collectors from this era.  I own a whole slew of them and always am looking for cool copies from unique players.  I have only pulled one of these autographs out of a box, also got the Chirography autographs out of these boxes, but I still have the card.  Always had a special thing for this card.......

Again, there is a wide range of players in this set, but one of the part things about buying/trading for these buybacks is the fact that the autographs are all on card signatures.  The later SP Authentic sets were smack dab in the middle of the sticker autograph era which started in the early 2000s.  There are some great autographs out there from these sets.


2.  Donruss Recollections- These buyback cards started in the early 2000s when Donruss relaunched. I loved these buybacks because there were a lot of cool cards from my middle school and high school years.  Donruss was always a good brand for me.  Not the best looking cards, nor the best designed, but this was always a fun pack of cards.  My favorite Donruss sets are probably the run from 1987 through 1990 and then the sets from the mid 90s.  Similar to the SP Authentic product, there are some really nice high end cards in this set.  If you want to find an autograph with a low print run, that will cost upwards of $100, there are plenty of buybacks from Frank Thomas, Tony Gwynn, and Greg Maddux type players.  The thing I liked most though about the Donruss Recollections was the fact that the cards were a little bit more affordable, but featured more players from the "good player" category.  Take this card for example.....

Carney Lansford is pretty far from a Hall of Famer, but was still a good player for the late 80s A's teams.  I know he played for the Red Sox and Angels too, but I remember him as an A's player.  I pulled this card out of a box which sparked my interest in the Donruss Recollection cards.  Playoff, who owned Donruss at the time of the Recollection cards, was the worst offender of all the sticker autograph users.  One of the coolest things you could pull out of one of their boxes was one of these buybacks.  All of the signatures are on card, with a silver stamp somewhere on the card, and the serial number on the back.  Here's a peak at the serial numbering....

There are other buyback autograph sets out there, but these are two of my favorites mainly because they feature some nice on-card autographs and offer a pretty wide range of players and buyback years.  

What is your favorite buyback product?  Favorite buyback card?  

Da Albertross...I mean Albert.

I have done a little writing about Albert Pujols in the past two years since he left the Cardinals for the Angels.  Like most Cardinals fans I would have loved to have seen Albert end his career with the birds on the bat, but for $240 million dollars and the performance he has put up for the Angels in 2012 and 2013, I am doing just fine with Allen Craig, Matt Adams, and Carlos Beltran filling his spot in the Cardinals offense.  Who would have thought the Cardinals would have played more playoff games in Los Angeles than Albert Pujols? 

Like many Cardinals baseball card collectors I decided to part ways with a fairly significant chunk of my Albert Pujols collection towards the end of the 2011 season, when his re-signing started to look murky at best, through the spring of 2012 when Angels fans were going crazy trying to find all the Pujols cardboard they could get their hands on.  And now? 

Just like Albert has become an albatross (I prefer Albertross) to the Angels winning much of many thing for the next decade, Angels collectors have suddenly found themselves stocked with Pujols cards that are plummeting in value.  Many are starting to try to get out from underneath their cards before they fall much further.  The resulting purge of Albertross cards has left the market on his cards considerably lower than when I last did much checking around Pujols cards in 2011. 

So, I recently pulled off swapped out some "garbage" with an Angels collectors to help them move out from underneath two of their Pujols autographs.  Garbage meaning, cards I figured to take a significant hit during the next year in terms of value.  It was a nice package of a Ryan Braun auto, a pair of ARod autos, a Prince Fielder, and a Brian McCann, and package of Darin Erstads.  I also had to part a Jim Edmonds.  It had been awhile since I had pulled off a big trade, but here's what I got back in return:

2003 Topps Albert Pujols Autograph

I have always loved this Pujols autograph.  On card from the base Topps set, but I either could not find one when I had the money and cards to buy or trade for one, or I found one and did not have enough to buy or trade.  I actually found a few of these on Ebay while I was working on the trade and was shocked to see that these cards have a really hard time pushing the century mark in auctions.  In fact, all most every non-premium autograph of Pujols is finishing under a Ben Franklin.  Premiums still catch some good bucks, but not nearly as much as you would think. 

One of the last cool low-print run Pujols cards I sold in 2011 was this cool 2008 Topps autograph card which was numbered out of 25 and was a sticker autograph. 

 

At the time, I was able to sell the card for $250.  Pretty nice price at the time, but it still was not the top of the line for Pujols cards.  It was not hard to find Pujols autographs from his rookie year and extremely high end brands fetch another $100 over that price.  In fact, most of his rookie autographs were much closer to the $500 range two years ago.  Not anymore.  My other new Pujols autograph:

2001 SP Chirography Albert Pujols 

Surprisingly while working on this trade I found several copies of this card that barely crept over $200 which is considerably lower than the price the card used to sell for a few years ago.  I never owned a copy of this Pujols rookie card, but am happy to add it to my collection for the price I picked it up at.  

Honestly, as poorly as Pujols has played the past two years for the Angels, and the likelihood that his 10 year contract with Angels is likely to end, he is still a future Hall of Famer.  Pujols had a great decade long run for the Cardinals and whatever happens during the next eight years with the Angels will have very little effect on the fact that Albert is going to have a plaque in Cooperstown at some point during his lifetime.  

While many collectors are still pointing to the fact that Pujols could fall further, I think we are honestly to the point where his cards are getting to be really good bargains.  There have been plenty of baseball players who played too long (Willie Mays and Rickey Henderson) and while collectors and baseball fans might occasionally talk about Rickey Henderson on the Dodgers or Willie Mays on the Mets, most remember the good points of those players careers.  

At some point Pujols will retire and time will wash away whatever becomes of the Angels years.  I would guess that he will mend fences with the Cardinals at some point and we will see Cardinals fans reengage with Pujols.  It may take a long time, but if Vince Coleman can get a bobblehead after leaving the Cardinals for the (at the time) hated rival Mets, than Pujols can work his way back in too. 

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.