First Baseball Card of 2014

It's not the first card of 2014 for me. I've picked up a few packs of the MLP CCG and snagged a grab bag of non-sports cards like American Pie, Golden Age and Americana. I've also gotten a pack of baseball cards from a certain blogger that I'll show off soon. This is the first baseball card I've bought this year. Got it for the price of a rack pack. I'll just show it off and let it speak for itself.

Hopefully this card will set a tone for the rest of the year.

Purposely and Maliciously Tormenting Night Owl at 3:00AM

Because I know you're awake....

Oh lookie here... BROOKLYN

TAUNT TAUNT TAUNT TAUNT TAUNT

Piedmont... The Cigarette of Quality.

Tobacco use is addictive

This may very well be the greatest music video known to man.



I've been listening to Tobacco and Black Moth Super Rainbow all weekend. I'm mildly obsessed with these bands right now. I'm certain that my insane musical tastes are not shared with most of my readers so I'll give you a little Tobacco that you can like.

I chose Mr.Fielder Jones of the Chicago Americans because he's giving you the exact same look that you all are giving me after watching that video:

ಠ_ಠ

I don't care what you think, that video is completely wonderful and no one can sway my opinion on this matter. For all you who watched, here's the back of the card as a bonus. If you didn't watch  it then go away, you don't deserve to see how many subjects there are.

 Mmmmm mmmmm, Piedmont goodness.

Random Vintage Brave #4

I've had my fantasy vintage shopping spree, now for a dose of cold hard reality.

Ain't it BEE-YOOU-TEE-FOOL???

I don't know what the hell happened to these things but I bought a whole mess of 'em in the '80s that all looked like this. 80% of the front was washed out, all four corners stapled or something, round corners, dirty, a mess. And out of all of them I got this was the only Brave. I'm not sure if I was too young to grok that Boston - Natl meant the Braves back then or if they stunk so bad I just didn't care. Anyway, Ginger Beumont was the only Brave I got gtom back then and the big crease in the center you see was created by me when I had a mishap with the scanner last year  while getting an image for another post. Whoops. I think it might have gone up a grade though so no worries.

Two things I noticed about the back when comparing them to a 2009 Topps206 Piedmont back. Besides squishing the shield a bit to fit in the legalese and replacing "Cigarette" with "Brand", whoever drew the thing got lazy and didn't do the shadow effect. I'll have to doublecheck a 2002 T206 and see if they did it there too. Also the original is just slightly larger than the newfangled ones. Only by less than a millimeter or so but it's noticable. I wonder if the 2002 minis have this problem? Dammit now I'm going to have to do another post. There are rumors of a 2010 Topps206 set being prioduced for no goddamn reason so there's another back to scrutinize. Fix your backs, Topps! And Bring back Topps Total! I know you're out there, you're following my Tweets!

Actual Trading Card History - 1909 T206

LONG day today. Too tired to post the rest of my now-ripped-and-Gint-a-Cuffs-scored A&G box. Soon, though... In the meantime here's a happy smiley Dice-K 2008 Trading Card History T206 card.

Here's is an actual T206 card of Hall of Famer Ed Walsh so you may compare the two and discover Topps' chicanery for yourself.

That Topps card shore looks ugly in comparison, don't it?

September 23, 1908

This card gives me a boner.

Fred really was a good player though... Johnny Evers just badgered the ump into making a really bad call on one crucial play.

Generic Ebay Insanity Post

Mario at Wax Heaven reports that 2008 Bowman is getting some big sales already. I wouldn't be shocked if the buyer of the LaPorta auto card was Merkle923 or another such Topps operative trying to build buzz on the new product, but hey, I'm cynical. Actually I'm just frustrated because the shop still has my car and I can't go get the first '08 Bowman pack to rip on A Pack A Day. I don't even like the stuff, but I MUST BE FIRST. Yeah, I'm kind of obsessive about that. I need a hobby or something. Oh wait.

This post isn't about '08 Bowman though. This is about an eBay auction Mario snuck into his post. Let me show you a couple of cards.

This here is a T206 card of Sherry Magee, an underrated hitter from the deadball era. He was a very good hitter for Philadelphia and some claim he should be considered for the Hall of Fame. This particular card is one of the Big Four T206 cards as it has the very rare "Magie" spelling variation. The error was apparently caught early in production and very few are now known to exist. Possibly no more than 150 copies are available for collectors of this legendary set.

This card is a 2005 Superfractor autograph of Ryan Braun. Ryan is a great young hitter who won the Rookie of the year award last year. Braun has been rewarded by the Brewers with an 8-year contract, the richest in club history. There is only one of this exact card in existence by design, however there are hundreds of Braun autographed cards from the same set available, just without the 1/1 stamp and funky shiny squares. The 2005 Bowman Chrome set is not considered particularly historically significant or groundbreaking.

If you act now though, one or both of these cards can be yours through the magic of eBay. So how much would you pay for these cardboard (or in Ryan's case, foil and assorted polymers) beauties? Fifty dollars? Eighty Dollars?? ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS??? Well if you act now, you can get both of these cards for only $19.95 plus shipping and handling! And if you call in the next twenty minutes we'll double your order FREE! That's right, TWO Sherry Magie error cards and TWO Ryan Braun 1/1 Superfractors! But that's not all! You also get the Ronco turnip twaddler ABSOLUTELY FRE- um, wait, no. They are $12,500. Each. But you get free shipping! The free shipping is important because to afford either of them I'd have to sell both my cars, steal the neighhbors' cars and pawn them to a chop shop, then maybe sell a kidney or two. No cars means I can't pick it up and it might be hard to walk after the surgery.

But which one to buy? One of the top five cards from the greatest set of all time or the hot rookie card that was made artificially scarce? To be honest I wouldn't buy either. If I'm going to sell my organs on the black market for cards, you can bet your sweet bippy I'm going for the gusto. That's right, it's Mickey my little bitches! These high dollar cards are nothing but staus symbols anyway and if I'm going to have a status symbol I want a '52 Mantle. That way I can go to the mall and wave it in the faces of all those dorks decked out in bling trying to look cool. Who's the cool one now?!? Ok, so the T206 Wagner would be the ultimate status symbol, but I'd have to sell at least one organ from every reader of this blog to afford one of those and I'm not quite ready to commit mass murder for one card just yet. I know, I'm a disgrace to our recklessly consumerist hobby, but we all have to put limits on our collecting.

Beckett T206 page

Beckett is slooowly posting pics of that Sweet Caporal T206 find they recently graded, but the good news is they now have a single page where you can check out all the cards. Only 10 so far but let's cross our fingers and see if they'll put the other 540 up before they sell them all.

If 10 cards isn't quite enough for you, you can see a lot more at the T206 museum (although they marked up all their cards) including all the Big Kahunas.

Beckett sent me a press release for some reason

I'm glad because it's a cool press release. Apparently someone came out of nowhere and submitted a previously unknown T206 collection to be graded by Beckett. It's a collection with all Sweet Caporal backs. Guess which card is only found with a Sweet Caporal back. Read more about it on Beckett Behind the Scenes, which also has a brilliantly unhinged rant against all Beckett products in the comments section. I'm not a huge fan of grading myself, but it's neat to see a collection like this pop out of nowhere into the light. Hopefully somebody scans the whole collection for posterity before it gets broken up into a bunch of people's collections. Since Elon sent the press release to me, I'm guessing he wouldn't mind if I posted it here, so I will.

-For Immediate Release-

Famed Wagner Card Highlights Massive T206 Collection

-Beckett Media Plans Historic Multi-day Auction-

DALLAS (January 16, 2008) --- For the past month Beckett Grading experts have been verifying and grading over 550 T206 Sweet Caporal tobacco cards including a rare Honus Wagner card, from a single collection previously unknown to the hobby. This collection, submitted by a private collector, is thought to be one of the most extensive T206 private collections of raw, ungraded, turn of the century tobacco cards uncovered in the past 30 years. There are believed to be only 55-60 T206 Honus Wagner cards in circulation.



“The story behind this find, and the fact that the entire group is from the Sweet Caporal brand, suggests it is likely an original collection from an early 20th century collector who smoked Sweet Caporal cigarettes. There is no doubt that unearthing a T206 collection of this breadth, headlined by a Wagner, is one of the most significant trading card finds in recent memory. Beckett Grading Services is very pleased to have been selected to grade not just our first Wagner but also over 550 of exceptionally well-preserved tobacco cards from that era,” said Mark Anderson, Director of Beckett Grading Services. “Having been hidden away for decades, the color on these cards is extraordinary, and a very large percentage of these cards should grade Excellent or better.”



The entire collection will be auctioned off through multiple auctions overseen by the Beckett Select Auctions division of Beckett Media beginning in March of this year. The single card and lot auctions will culminate with the multi-day auction of the T206 Honus Wagner ending on April 10th.



“The history and lore that surround the previous Honus Wagner cards makes this one of the most exciting announcements Beckett Media has ever made. We expect this card alone to sell for well over $100,000 at auction and based on the exceptional appearance and condition of many of the other cards in the collection we feel that many collectors will be able to enhance their T206 collections dramatically in the coming months,” said Grant Sandground, Beckett Media’s Technical Director of Hobby Development.



“The T206 set has and remains to this day, by far, the most important pre-war set of trading cards ever issued. In fact, you could make a viable argument that it’s the most important set of trading cards ever issued. Period. The set represents every element that comes to define a collecting masterpiece,” added Sandground.” The Wagner is, of course, the centerpiece of the set. It’s gotten to the point where it’s virtually an iconic image when discussing American pop culture. The set is loaded with multiple cards for benchmark Hall of Famers like Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Cy Young. The artwork and images, to this day, remain universally compelling. The cards have a perfect balance of scarcity and commonality. Low grade copies are affordable for options almost any collector and high-grade cards and scarce short prints continue to grow in popularity with aficionados.”



For information about this collection or the upcoming auctions please contact Dave Sliepka, Beckett Select Auctions, 972-448-9182 or dsliepka@beckett.com.

UPDATE!!! ~ Here's a quote from the comments of the Beckett blog from the main man himself:

We will be launching a complete photo gallery of all 550 cards shortly. We will also be listing all the specific cards and grades. It is a lot of information and rather than dump it on the world all at once we are going to spread out the happiness.

Elon

Awwwwww YEAH!!!!!!!! A five hundred fifty card gallary of the T206 set! That is freakin' SWEET! I will be linking like mad to that, rest assured. Beckett has a new friend today, although I'm still calling them The Propaganda. (remind me to tell you the story behind that one day)

Red Sox Tribute - 1909 T206 Jake Stahl

If I know my audience by now, I know that you guys just loooooove old ugly cards. Well do I have a treat for you! This card is so ugly when talking about it you have to pronounce it OOG-a-lee to get across just how beat it really is. But since it's a T206 card (and I'm not talking 'bout Topps) it is by default in Gem Mint condition. It just has a bit more character than most Gem Mint cards.

Isn't that just gorgeous?!? I have a bunch of old T206s in this condition. There was a memorabilia store called The Paper Chase in Atlanta a while back that sold magazines and posters and movies and all kinds of stuff and also had a few baseball cards on the side. Apparently they acquired a collection of T206s that had been stapled to a scrapbook that was thrown in the sewer. I was about 11 or 12 when there were selling these and I went berserk over them. I had a bunch of reprints from Dover and Baseball Card Hobby Report so I was excited to see real T206s for sale. I bought a few for a buck apiece with all the money I had, saved up about 40 bucks and went back but was denied buying more when I pissed off the guy behind the counter (long story, maybe I'll tell it later) and finally picked up a few more after they had been picked over. I have a couple dozen of these beauties including this fine specimen of Boston Red Sox player-manager Jake Stahl.


Jake led the Red Sox to their best record and a World Series victory as a first baseman and manager in 1912. Jake was a decent catcher and first basemen for the Red Sox, Senators and Yankees (then Highlanders) and was one of the youngest player-managers in the league. Stahl was out of baseball and working for a bank when his father in law bought the Red Sox and installed Jake as manager. That's right, he BOUGHT the team. This kids, is why you work hard and go to college (University of Illinois in Jake's case) and get a degree so you can find a swanky broad with a rich daddy who can buy a ballclub for you to manage. Nepotism aside, Jake lead the formerly underachieving Sox to their 2nd title. Unfortunately for Jake the team president, scared that Stahl would take over his cushy job, forced him out of the manager's job the next season and ultimately out of baseball. No other Red Sox manager has beat the 105 wins Jake lead the team to in 1912.