1989 Topps Senior Baseball League Factory Set

In my youth, I was likely the only person who watched the spectacle of Senior League Baseball on SportsChannel. Of course, I was also likely the only person who would sit there and watch the thirty minute show of box scores, which was akin to reading the box scores in the slowest way humanly possible. I reckon this says a great deal more about me than it does SportsChannel, but I digress.

Given my love of watching elderly athletes in bright colored polyester, I always wanted to obtain a set of Senior League cards. Of course, my local cards stores never carried this fine set and I never could pull the trigger on overpaying for the set from an advertisement in the back of Beckett. However, last week, I found one at a very reasonable price and had it sent on its way to my home.

The set itself was made by Topps Ireland, who also made the Topps mini set back in 1988 as well. The cards are on a slightly thinner stock than those found in a regular set. The thinner stock is somewhat disconcerting, as the cards almost feel flimsy. Even stranger, if you were putting together a set with 132 cards in a box, would you place them randomly or instead, might you place them in numerical order. Topps believes you would prefer to sort the entire set to see if something is missing, rather than see the first card be 1 and the last card 132. Since I enjoy sorting cards, this was a major plus, however, any rational person would choose a pre-sorted set.





The cards have some interesting images.  Al Hrabosky, for example, traded his fu manchu for a tough guy beard which would offend Walt Frazier and Keith Hernandez with its greyness.  I also want to like the wooden border, but it was done far better on 1987 Topps but two years earlier.





For a set mostly containing has beens, there are four hall of famers in the set, two managers and two players. The uniforms are appropriately garish for a league based in Florida, filled with over-the-hill players.  My favorite is the Earl Weaver card which screams, what am I doing here and who put my shoes on.



Finally, there is this fine Walt Williams card.  I will tell you that I know nothing about Walt Williams, other than he is a St. Lucie Legend and a very angry man.  Actually, Williams was one of the older players in the league at 45 and was known as No-Neck throughout this career for obvious reasons.  I also suspect his anger stems from being the third athlete in a major sport named Walt Williams on Wikipedia and second baseball player, behind Pop Williams, whose name was also Walter.

In closing, these are some fascinating cards from a time when people thought baseball was a popular enough sport to get fans to attend games with men of advanced age and diminished skill sets playing the game.  Even a generation ago, the interest was minimal outside my own and quite honestly, aside from the garish uniforms, the admission from Rollie Fingers that he was destitute and needed to play ball again and this card set, few will have any reason to discuss the merits of the Pelicans or Legends again. 

Overall, It Was a Good Mail Day

Last week, I was able to finally close on the card at the absolute top of my want list.  I was rejected many times on eBay with reasonable offers on this card and in fact, I was even rejected once on this card, since someone else was interested in it first.  However, last Friday night this card went up for sale and within ten minutes and one scan, it was on its way to my home, arriving in today's mail.



The card is a T3 Turkey Red Orval Overall.  Turkey Red was a tobacco company around 100 years ago and offered the card as a premium.  If you sent in enough coupons, you were able to select one of the cards on offer at the time.  And by card, I mean, premium-sized cabinet card, which is 5 3/4" by 8".  If you want to learn more about the set and see all of the cards, which include 100 baseball and 25 boxing cards, I highly recommend Craig's Turkey Red site, who conveniently enough sold me this card.

The design is one of the many Topps used in the past.  In a number of years, Topps used this design on a standard sized baseball card.  However, unless the pictures were painted by Dick Perez, the cards fail to resonate with me in the same way as the original T3s.  Also, the smaller card doesn't show the same detail in the card's image, though they are admittedly easier to store than the oversized cabinet. 

The card would sadly only grade a poor as there is a small pinhole near the top where the card would've been mounted on a wall 100 years ago.  Fortunately, the hole is in the border and the coloring and image on the picture suffer from minimal defects.  Perhaps it is all the times I was unable to close the deal on one of these cards, but I am quite pleased to call this T3 Orval Overall mine.  

2012 Topps Heritage High Numbers: A Modern Topps Traded

With the blogosphere abuzz with opinions, mostly negative and strongly critical, about the 2012 Topps Heritage High Numbers set, I thought I would wade in and add my opinion now that a checklist for the set is available.  Also, I'm waiting for something in the mail and lacked the steely will to go through my photobucket or make new scans, so soap box posting time it is.

The Basics

Topps is releasing a 100 card add-on set to this year's Heritage set and including one autograph.  The set is a direct deliver from Topps alone, similar to Topps Mini from earlier this year. 

To a collector like myself, I've never found Topps Heritage that interesting.  Mid-1960s designs do little for me and I've always had a hard time accepting that I would pay more money to a company for cards which feel like they are made on a worse stock.  Admittedly, I am not the primary collector Topps is going after, but if the set was priced reasonably, say $20 and not very limited, I might consider purchasing a set, solely to make up for never being able to purchase a Topps Traded set as a child. 

What Are They Trying to Recreate

Topps seems to be trying to recreate two ideas from their past with this release: Scarce High Numbers and a Year-End Traded set contained in a single box.

Going backwards, in the 1980s, Topps released a traded set on a year basis.  The sets seemed to only be available in hobby stores and came in brightly colored boxes.  As there was only one Topps product each year at the time, the updated cards reflected trades and new rookies not previously eligible for a Topps card, using the same design as the flagship set.  As a child, I was quite excited about these sets, but was never able to find one at a reasonable price, such as under $40.  Of course, I lived in a fairly awful place for card shops in my youth and was unaware of shows, so your experience might vary.  Aside from the 1982 set for the Topps Traded Cal Ripken, these sets today are pretty much worthless and I passed on an opportunity about a year ago to pick up all of the sets from 1983 on for about $20 total, which is about the price you would pay for one in a brick and mortar shop. 

And by limiting themselves to 1,000 sets, Topps is artificially creating the scarcity of high numbers for their pre-1974 sets.  As you likely know, Topps used to release their cards by set, as they do now.  Only back in the day, there was no strongly organized hobby store industry and cards were available in grocery and newspaper stores.  As the year went on, some people naturally lost interest in the cards and with each passing set, it seems less cards were sold and therefore less cards were printed. 

In many cases, trying to complete a Topps set in this era can be challenging, due to the "enhanced" prices which dealers charge for these cards, as they are believed to be "scarce".  I suspect, few cards are actually legitimately scarce and instead the demand for rookie cards, more likely to be in a later release after their debut, really created the market for far greater prices on later releases.  By doing this, Topps has recreated the charm of making a set difficult to complete without making an investment with Topps. 

The Economics

What I find strange is that Topps has capped their revenue on the set at $100,000, given that 1,000 sets at $100 only brings in this much money.  And even here, they will likely take less as a decent number of their customers will have $10 coupons from the Golden Giveaway which could be used towards the set.  In fact, those very coupons probably eliminated any chance of the set being reasonably priced.  Still, I suspect that there are more than 5,000 people interested in the set at $25 sans autograph. which would likely create similar sales, with the thought being you don't need to limit production on the sets at a lower price point. 

What I find really surprising is how Topps is going about cutting out the hobby shops and online dealers.  For many, if not most of us, this is how we are able to obtain our yearly Topps cards.  By taking high-profile items, such as this and Topps Mini, they are preventing dealers from getting hot items.  This takes customers out of the store and direct margin profit from these stores.  If you asked me, I think Topps is starting to take steps towards vertical integration.  With vertical integration, Topps would basically stop selling to hobby shops and instead sell directly to the consumer.

If Topps feels that orders are generally soft from hobby shops and more are likely to go under, then this is an optimal strategy.  Without a strong hobby store base, which we all know is rapidly disappearing, then Topps loses their primary distribution network.  This new set is a way to see what a new sports card order would look like, with the companies themselves becoming both a creator and a seller on the terms of a Blowout Cards. 

We the consumer would be still be able to purchase our hobby boxes directly from Topps. Topps would be able to keep costs down in the short term by converting profit previously going to the hobby shop into savings.  If Topps sold us $60 boxes of 2013 Series 1, they would likely get a steep, short-term increase on profit margin.  Of course, without competition, we would likely see prices rise fairly dramatically a few years later as the company needs to keep adding profit at the expense of the consumer, but we would likely see that anyway, as I would expect there to be half as many hobby shops in ten years as there are today without any intervention.

Summary

In closure, I think this set is a short term attempt by Topps to gauge the market for direct delivery, as was Topps Mini.  From the fact that it is a week and they've been unable to move 1,000 units, I suspect this set will be a flop, especially in light of the Chris Getz autographs which could be your "hit" in a $100 product.  However, we as buyers, should get used to these types of products, as they are unlikely to go away in the long term, especially as our supply of hobby shops continues to shrink.

Group Breaks: Including One from the Daily Dimwit

Group breaks are great if you are a fan of a specific team.  You know, the life-long affiliation with one team that makes you care about the utility infielder from 1967 and reliever from 1985 as much as your home town superstar.  I lack that commitment to any baseball team.  In fact, the only team I possess any kind of life-long loyalty to is the Pittsburgh Penguins, not that I've ever lived in Pittsburgh, I just like flightless birds.

When it comes to baseball, I am nominally a Braves fan, due to the Superstation and getting cable around the same time the Houston Astros ditched orange from their uniforms and relegating Mike Scott to a secondary role.  I also have a strong affinity for the New York Giants of the Christy Mathewson/John McGraw era.  My fandom for this team and era in general led me to collecting tobacco cards.  In fact, here is a T205 McGraw I bought on a whim a few months ago. The portrait portion of the card managed to survive for many years unscathed, something the name portion of the card cannot claim.



Nonetheless, my lack of a team for life makes it harder to participate in group breaks, as it isn't like, "Oh, there is a group break, let me go claim the Royals."  I always need to break out checklists and research.  Half the time, once I've finished my research, any team that I wanted is usually claimed.  However, I joined my second group break over at the Daily Dimwit, selecting the Giants after much internal debate.  The boxes included in the break were 2012 Topps Triple Threads, 2001 Playoff Memorabilia and 2002 Fleer Legends of the Game.

Let's see what I managed to pull in the break starting with 2001 Playoff Memorabilia



And we're done.  I had low expectations for this box and they were met.  The Bonds was the only supershiny card in my package. 

And on to the 2002 Fleer Legends of the Game.  It was these cards which led me to choose the Giants, who are well represented in the set.  Out of 100 cards in the base set, there are nine Giants, all of which ended up in my pile, including a second of the Wilhelm below.  I included the highlights, since to be quite honest, no one needs to see a picture of Bill Terry, unless it is some kind of technicolor, art deco masterpiece. 



Finally, we are on to Triple Threads.  As we all know, the element of the gamble exists in every group break, as there are some winners and some losers in every deal.  On the good news side of the ledger, I beat the odds and ended up with a card from the box.  Even better, the card was numbered and contained Willie Mays.  The downside is that it is a base card numbered to 625. 



It's a pretty great card in its own right, but not the hit everyone hopes for, since aspires gives the wrong impression that there was work involved.  So, there is the results of the group break with the Daily Dimwit. Thanks again for running this break!

Trade with ARPSmith and a Bowman Chrome Update

At today's show, I was able to valiantly resist purchasing an entire box of Bowman Chrome at the show today.  Seventy two cards in a box is not sufficient for my opening needs, even at reduced show prices.  I did break down and purchase one pack.  My one thought on the base cards in the pack were "Wasn't this the same design as last year and the year before?"  I'm sure there is a difference, but I would be hard pressed to know what it is.  I also ended up pulling the following Nolan Arenado insert, which is super-shiny, but otherwise a card destined to sit in my boxes until it ends up somewhere else.



A few weeks ago, I worked a primarily "vintage" for new, glossy cards deal with Adam over at ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession.  As I was leaving for a short vacation last week, a hefty box arrived filled with cards from Adam.  The cards put a significant dent in my want lists towards completing sets, while the 1973 Topps cards heading west are unlikely to be missed.



There was a strong showing for all three 2012 Topps sets, though Series 1 and 2 dominated, as I purchased a box of neither this year.  The Willis and Ramirez cards showcase the players with teams you will never remember ten years from now.  In fact, I had already forgotten Dontrelle spent time with the Cincinnati Reds and this doesn't even cover the Diamondback, Phillie or Oriole portions of his career.



There was also a fairly large amount of 2012 Topps Archives in the box as well, somewhere in the neighborhood of half a set.  As you can might have guessed, my favorite design is the 1984 Topps, which I grew up with.  Yogi barely edged out the Babe for scanning.  I also have come very close to finishing the 2011 Topps Lineage set as well.  The Wagner is a nice addition to any set, since I am such a sucker for pre-war players on post-war cards.



Finally, we have the above.  My almost certainly misguided attempt to complete the 2010 Topps T206 Mini set was greatly aided by the box, knocking 30 or so cards off my list.  Kendrick's card has one of my favorite backgrounds from the original set, which is found on Hall of Famer George Davis's card.  The Diamond Stars Foxx is from CMG reprints set.  Given my new focus on the set, we may see Mr. Foxx appear again quite soon.  Finally, there is Tris Speaker on a 2000 Topps card.  Having went 15 years without thinking about baseball cards, I was almost surprised that there was no original 2000 Topps Tris Speaker card as some kind of shortprint.

Well, I hope Adam is as happy with his haul, as I am with mine.

2012 Bowman Chrome at KMart

No purty pictures of cards today.  Just a story of what could have been. 

I was out earlier today and for the first time saw 2012 Bowman Chrome for sale.  I'm always a sucker for a new product, even if it is full of prospects that for the most part I don't care about.  So, with nothing else in the store calling to me, I pick up a blaster of 2012 Bowman Chrome and wait at the register.

I was well aware each pack contained three cards for a box with a grand total of 24 cards inside.  Even so, I thought, what the heck, let's get the blaster.  I turned the blaster over and see it has a tiny, white price tag.  The price tag read $21.99.  So, with tax, each card in the box would cost $1.  $1 for each chrome card in the box.  I thought, that is ridiculous. 

So, I hit the wall on purchase price and said, I can do better.  I couldn't bring myself to buy 8 packs of cards with three cards in a pack for a dollar a card.  I didn't see the value or the joy in the product.  So, I left and drove home empty-handed.  Normally, I would be saddened by not getting anything, but I came home and inadvertently found something far better, for slightly less than the cost of a blaster.  In fact, it is a real piece of history for my favorite team of all-time.  Once it arrives, the item will be properly lionized with flowery prose and accompanying pictures.  In the interim, I will wait for my piece of history to arrive and not look at a bunch of shiny cards, which would like end up in a dark box, seldom to be seen again.

Of course, I'm going to a show tomorrow morning and silly me will probably end up with a hobby box.  If so, I'll just delete this little old post and we'll pretend it didn't happen.   

Vacation Cards

Perhaps the best thing about a vacation is a chance to explore new environs.  There, you might see a new sight or gain a new experience while getting away from your life.  Or you might know every store in another area which could potentially sell sports cards and memorabilia and go there instead.  So, my time away led to an area I knew well filled with antique stores.

Try as I might, I was unable to find anything in the first store I went to.  I nearly purchased a box of 1993-94 Parkhurst cards, but the box had seen better years and was at best, slightly opened and worst, horribly mutilated.  I also saw an interesting baseball game from turn of the century, but it was quite large and would neither fit in my car nor store easily in my apartment. 

From there, we went to another antique store, where I had some luck in the past, adding a few T206 Cubs to my collection, including a Harry Steinfeldt.  Arriving, I took the slow walk around the store, stopping to look a the baseball memorabilia and the Statis Pro: Boxing game I never buy.  I arrive at the case containing the pre-war cards and get the store worker to open the case. 

Flipping through the stacks, I realize that I need none of these cards to complete my set.  There is a Rube Kroh with an overprint on the front (the Piedmont reverse from another card or strike was visible on the front) and there was a strange mass of color on the back.  You could make out a shape in the card, but I could not readily tell the player or if there was a highly collectable ghost image in the back.  I dither and think about it, before putting the card back, because it was either a great steal as a ghost image or a horrible overpay as a regular, low grade T206.

I also found an Orval Overall Hands Face Level.  It was the cheapest T206 card in the store, less than I pay for lunch most days and as one of my favorite players, I have a soft spot for all of his cards.  Even though I own a slightly better version of the card already in my collection, I picked up the below card, because I hate leaving the store without something.



Sadly, I found nothing else on my vacation, but had many a card waiting for me at my front door when I came home.