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!

Two Hall of Famers, Two Relics, Two Dollars (Plus Shipping)

Carry on!



I can't leave all this fine space unspilled upon.  While searching for more Mike Scott Leading Indicators cards, I found these two cards, sitting on eBay with a lowly $0.99 opening bid and reasonable shipping.  With only a few hours left, I tossed out bids for the opening price and no more.  But a few hours later, I received word that these fine cards were mine for the low, low price of $0.99 each.

Reflecting on this, it seems strange that I paid more for Mike Scott Leading Indicator relics than these relics of Hall of Fame players.  I suspect in part, my willingness to buy as many as I can find for under my set price has led to an increase in their overall price.  And I suspect in part, over-saturation of the relic market has led to the price decreases.  As relics became more commonplace, prices adjust downward, downward to the point that a piece of cloth from a Hall of Famer's jersey becomes worth only a dollar.  If these are in fact, the right values, it leads me to wonder how box prices can remain so high, given that the content once opened becomes so quickly devalued. 

Having missed the better part of 15 years of card collecting, I imagine there was a time getting a relic was great, followed by a time where getting a relic was less than great, followed by a time people thought that not all relics were authentic because some people are less than scrupulous. 

Fortunately for me, I am in the first stage, while the market is in the second to third stage, allowing me to post ridiculous headlines, like "TWO HALL OF FAMERS, TWO RELICS, TWO DOLLARS (plus shipping), because I still enjoy adding relics to my collection.  Plus, there is a pinstripe on the Gwynn card and we all know how cool pinstripes are.