High end sets - the thorn in the player collector's side?

Being a player collector, I want to collect as many of my chosen player’s cards as possible. For many players, this would be a pretty much impossible task that would be take forever, and cost an arm and a leg. For instance, searching all sets for Alex Rodriguez on beckett.com brings up a whopping 10681 items. Since A-Rod is such a superstar, this is not really unexpected. He is probably in just about every insert set since 1995, and of course, Topps gave him a whole 500+ cards last year with their road to 500 set.

Since I am neither a billionaire, or a Yankees fan, I don’t bother with him. But, I still have favorite players. Take Kevin Kouzmanoff. He might not have the stardom or the power that A-Rod has, but he had a hot bat in the minors, hit a grandslam in his first MLB at bat, and had a good run late in 07 - right about when I was getting interested in cards again.

Back in August 2007, beckett.com showed the Kouz as having about 250 cards. Today, there are 421 of them. 98 of the extras are found in the UD Exquisite Collection Rookie Signatures set which retails for about $300US. Are they 98 exciting different variations? Are they a continuity set, or a sub set? No. They are boring parallels.

Take for instance the Exquisite Ensembles tri-signed card. You have the 'normal' card numbered to 35 and shown below:
Then you have the parallel numbered to 3:

Aside from the not-so-good pic, there isnt much difference is there?

And then of course the is the mandatory 1 of 1 of the same card. (no scan available as i havent seen it pop up on ebay yet)

This kind of annoys me. Essentially these are the same card, with the only difference being a serial number added by UD.

Next up we have the patch cards:

Numbered to 199

Numbered to 99

And....numbered to 25 (looking at $300US for this baby).

While there are some noticeable differences in these cards, the artificial rareness is just insane. The fact that people will pay significantly more for these short numbered parallels really annoys me, and I will be surprised if these cards maintain that sort of value over time. Especially when in the last ten years there have been more than 400,000 memorabilia cards made!

Another annoyance is when UD put 'regular players' (if you want to call them that) on the same card as superstars. Take for instance the Ripken All Rookie set:

This card, featuring Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken Jr, and a heck-of-a-long-way-from-being-a-hall-of-famer Kevin Kouzmanoff, and numbered to 8, recently went for more than $200 on ebay! This is a real kick in the teeth Kouzmanoff collectors. How could we justify spending more than $200 for that card? It is very difficult. Ripken collectors (of which there are probably many many more, and therefore statistically more likely to include people willing to pay big bucks for this sort of thing) would probably not be all that enamoured by this sort of card. However, those completists out there would cough up anyway.

This sort manufactured rarity and importance is a real shame (and a sham!). I dont see why the card companies do things this way. I guess they want to make sure that people who bust expensive product always get something with some sort of re-sale-ability. But surely there has to be a better way?

What to buy?

Well, after much umming and ahhing I made a decision.

Elements and Ultra.

A&G I think is too expensive for what it is, and co-signers i didnt really like the look of much. Plus I have set a target now of trying to get all the Kouzmanoff co-signers cards, so that could be fun and interesting.

So, stay tuned for a couple of box breaks coming up soon....

What to Buy Part 2: UD Elements

Next up for consideration is Upper Deck's Elements:

These boxes are going for about US$75 at the moment, and you get 15 packs of 3 cards. So looking at about $1.70 per card. They are bloody great looking cards, I already have a couple of singles I picked up off ebay.

According to the release notes, each box contains 3 mini-boxes of 5 packs. Each box will contain 1 autographed game used, 1 autograph and 1 memorabilia card. They have some crazy different card technologies. Each mini-box features a different technology.

The first is 'foil board', which contains 42 cards on foil board, 42 rookies, 'Essential Elements' Memorabilia cards (1 per mini-box), dual, triple and quad elements cards falling 1 per case on average. There are also Elemental Autographs featuring 2, 3 or 4 signatures. And of course there is the 'snowball's chance in hell card' the 1/1 printing plates.

The auto cards look pretty sweet, and if lucky enough to hit one of the multi signed ones, you'd be cheering. There some awesome looking cards, with top players signed on them. There are 'multis' with Hanley Ramirez, Tulowitzki and others, Jeter, Ramirez and Tejada, and Cal Ripken and Jeter. Representing the Padres are Kouzmanoff and Peavy.

Mini-Box 2 is called 'Lt Fx Technology' and features 42 base cards, 42 rookies, and elemental autos falling one per mini-box. Despite wasting about half an hour on google, I have been unable to find out exactly what the heck 'Lt Fx Technology' is. Anyways, I shall move on.

Mini-Box 3 is PETG technology (google tells me this is something to do with polyethylene-terephthalate). It is pleasing to know that if the cards are shit, they will make excellent use in many shop fitting and display applications, including industrial guarding and machine covers! Awesome! Topps is still using chrome, but UD are leading the way in cutting-edge, useless card material. I want to see someone come out with some titanium cards, or maybe even kryptonite! But I digress. The mini-box 3 contains 42 base cards on PETG, 42 rookies as well, some 'clear-cut elements' and parallels, PETG auto/memorabilia cards numbered to 350 or less and rare 'elements patches' foil numbered patch cards falling 2 per case on average.

This all sounds pretty good to me. By this time i am really liking the look and the sound of them. The whole 3 mini-box thing is a bit of a gimmick I think, but it sounds kinda cool. I havent been able to find too many reviews though, so I dont know what the deal with that is. There are a few mixed reviews on the Beckett forums, but the negative reviews seem to be mostly from Topps lovers, or UD haters - however you want to class them. I am not a Topps lover, and am open minded about UD. While I didnt really love the UD Series 1 cards this year, UD Goudey was pretty awesome.

I like the look of these cards a lot more than the co-signers. The checklist seems a bit more favourable to my tastes too. Hmmm, food for thought.

What to buy?

I am trying to figure out how I should spend some extra cash I have come into. I have about $200 and want to buy some box(es). I'm going to look at a few that seem ok, and compare them on a number of factors here, then I will decide what to buy and start breaking.

So, the criteria will be

• price
• number of cards/price per card
  likelihood of good hits
• look of set.

First up, 2007 Topps Co-Signers:

This box goes for $69.95 at Dave & Adam's Cardworld. Recent ebay purchases have been for between $50 and $80. Each box has 12 packs of 6 cards. So at $70 a box, it works out to be about a buck per card.

There are 3 autos per box, including 1 co-signer auto, and you get 9 parallel cards numbered to 275 or less per box. So you get 5 base cards per pack, and then 1 parallel/auto each pack. The set is 100 including veterans and rookies, and 18 additional young stars appear in some parallels too.

The commons look a bit boring:

The checklist for the base set has all the regular stars you would expect. 200 to collect, so would need a few boxes to get there.

The list of autos is not too bad, could possibly hit some dodgy autos, but there are plenty of stars on there too. Lots of crappy autos up on ebay going for less than 5 bux. Plenty of good reviews on the net though, and with the numbered cards being one per pack, and the guaranteed autos, they seem to be a pretty good, fun product.

Might keep an eye out for some cheap prices, just to make it really worth it.

MLB Box Break - 2007 Ultra

Broke a box of 2007 Ultra the other day. Nice cards. The photography is real nice, and the borderless design looks real fresh after staring at stacks of Topps 2007 cards. I think I like this design a lot better than the Topps one. I remember the Ultras I had in the early 90s looked good too. I think my biggest complaint with these is that it is pretty hard to read the players full name and details at the bottom of the card. But they do actually have the position shown on the front, which I like.

So we got 6 packs, 5 cards per pack.

Commons


Jeff Francouer, Tim Hudson, Josh Beckett, Jermaine Dye, Grady Sizemore, Matt Holliday, Justin Verlander, Dan Uggla, Hanley Ramirez, Brad Lidge, John Buck, Rafael Furcal, Justin Morneau, Tom Glavine, Carlos Beltran, Eric Chavez, Jamie Moyer, Pat Burrell, Greg Maddux, Raul Ibanez, BJ Upton, Rocco Baldelli, Mark Teixeira, Nick Johnson







Rookies

Mike Rableo, Jay Marshall



Parallels

Vladimir Guerrero Gold Parallel



Inserts

Miguel Cabrera Faces of the Game

Cal Ripken Jr Iron Man UIM-33

Ryan Braun (MIL) Lucky 13 RC

They look good

I like that

And there are only 200 in the set, tempting to buy some more and try and complete it. This was a fun break cause the cards are so good to look at. But with only 5 cards a pack and 6 packs in this box it was over pretty quick!

MLB Box Break - Upper Deck Artifacts 2007

Picked up a blaster box of Upper Deck Artifacts off Ebay. Not a bad looking set, has a bit of an archaelogical sort of desert/pirate/indiana jones type feel to it.

There were 8 packs with 5 cards per pack, but somehow I ended up with 41 cards... and I scored a few nice hits. Ended up hitting 40 out of the set of 200, with no doubles, a couple of ok rookies, some Padres cards, and an Artifacts Apparel Gold Edition game used card for Khalil Greene:



Also hit the A-Rod common:



and a Kevin Kouzmanoff rookie:





All in all it was a pretty good box. Its something different I guess, and with only 200 cards in the set, it seems pretty easy to get the full set.. at least compared to the Upper Deck Series One Set. Maybe I will pick up a few more boxes and see how I go.

bustin boxes

i got a couple of boxes in the mail this week: a hobby box of 2007 Topps Series One baseball, and; a Jumbo Hobby box of 2007 Topps Series Two. I have already cracked a hobby box and about 10 blaster boxes of Series One, and this was my first Series Two. I was hoping to complete the Series One set, go close to the Series Two set, and maybe get some nice inserts. here are some of the highlights:

Alex Rodriguez Gold Parallel #1908/2007

Joe DiMaggio and JFK Distinguished Service Cards

Daisuke Matsuzaka Rookie Card and Japanese Variation

Craig Wilson and Paul Konerko Season Highlights

Overall, a bit disappointing. Out of all the series 1 boxes i have opened, the best cards came from the retail blaster boxes. the guaranteed game used and relic cards in the series 2 box were a bit of a let down, but i did get 304 out of 330 of the base set, and some nice looking inserts:

cards for trade

to continue to get back into card collecting and trading, i suppose i should have some cards to trade. while i dont profess to have anything super exciting to trade at this point, it is a starting point. here are my current cards available for trade:
all are from 2007 Topps Series One Baseball:

• 141 - Rich Aurilla Gold Parallel #'d 773/2007
• 301 - Derek Jeter Gold Glove - First Edition
• OTG2 - David Ortiz Own the Game
• OTG6 - Jermaine Dye Own the Game
• OTG19 - Alex Rodriguez Own the Game
• GN9 - Ryan Howard Generation Now -HR9
• GN73 - Chase Utley Generation Now - Game 23
• DS1 - Duke Snider Distinguished Service
• DS10 - Douglas Macarthur Distinguished Service
• Unlock the Mick card 4 and 5

See the previous post for my current want list. In particular I am interested in game used, autos and the generation now inserts for Hanley Ramirez.

a post for the ages.....or not?

So here I go. I am entering a new frontier in the internet. With the production line of Australian Idol clanging quietly on the TV in the background, and my partner reclining on the couch immersed in the intrigue of Harry Potter and the half blood prince, I find myself tapping away on my first ever blog post. Despite surfing the net since the age of 16, I never thought about reading (let alone writing) blogs. I guess I have been ignorant of the whole blog thing, not getting into myspace or facebook or whatever. However, in recent times, the planets have aligned to have me exploring new frontiers of the internet like a pioneer striving for gold. After wasting away on wikis, finding fun on forums, getting hooked on ebay, and spending weeks looking at new and different websites, I thought I had seen it all. 10 years of wasting time on the net - I have seen it all. The internet is dead. There is nothing new out there. If you’ve seen one website you have seen them all. Forget it.

But then I discovered “blogging”. I said to myself “why can’t I do that”, and set about checking out all sorts of blogs about the place. I have opinions. I have thoughts. I have things to talk about. I have a bit of spare time. I have opinions. I am net savvy. So why not have a blog.

After meandering through some of the interesting blogs out there, I figure that it might be a bit of fun to have one for myself. It doesn’t cost anything, I don’t have to live up to any standard, I can do it for a bit of fun. I have a few hobbies that lend themselves to discussion and commentary, and I don’t always like hearing what others write, so why shouldn’t I write it myself? This can be an outlet for the little bits of creativity that the world has not yet ground out of me.

Also, I have a lot of ideas and do a lot of things that I lose track of. I want to keep track of movies I have seen, or music I have heard, things I have done, cards that I have and those that I want. I guess you could call it a diary of sorts, but I would prefer to think of it as a record of stuff, things and ideas.

So here it is, I present me (and you) with THIN MAN’S HAT, a place to write about tv, sport, baseball cards, movies, books, and anything that sparks my interest. Who knows, I might even write the odd political piece! Gasp. Thanks for checking it out. Drop me an email at thinmanshat@gmail.com.