Baseball Cards

I thought the thread might have been revived for this crazy story, what Canadian dreams are made of:

http://www.cp24.com/news/saskatchewan-collector-finds-rare-case-containing-coveted-wayne-gretzky-rookie-cards-1.6749401#:~:text=Heritage%20Auctions%20took%20the%20hockey,of%20%242%20million%20or%20more

Heard about that on the radio the other day--amazing. ($200,000 worth of baseball cards, too.)

Didn't know there was a baseball card thread so I want to repost this from the 'Rank Anything You Feel Like Ranking' thread just to see if anyone wanted to engage with it. I chose this period only because that's what I'm familiar with - I knew the '70s sets from growing up in that era but I also knew most of the '60s sets from older kids in my neighborhood who had hung on to their cards.

Topps baseball card sets 1960-1980 by aesthetic design:

1. 1975
2. 1965
3. 1964
4. 1971
5. 1972
6. 1974
7. 1960
8. 1976
9. 1970
10. 1967
11. 1961
12. 1977
13. 1966
14. 1973
15. 1963
16. 1968
17. 1969
18. 1980
19. 1962
20. 1978
21. 1979

― Josefa, Saturday, August 18, 2018 1:38 AM (five years ago)

I know the sets from the first half of the '90s much better; collected for about five years in there, mostly overproduced sets from the glut.

https://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20100809/the_30_worst_baseball_cards_of_all_time_24.jpg

Incredible stache

phwooar

the randiest randy

Has mustaches over his eyes too

https://i.imgur.com/PbRk0uT.jpg

look what came in the mail from user gyac!!!

Just to clarify, I did not deliberately purchase 3/4 of these cards.

What does that Ortíz say on the back

V underwhelming. No stats or anything. The others are great - little retro clip art, drawings, fun facts etc

Is the Seabold a rookie card as well

lol it is. Let's hope he gets the chance to lower his career ERA to something under 8.

Probably not in Colorado

Sends baseball cards very much in character...Thank you to gyac for some cool cards, including these two, which I think are both from heritage sets:

https://i.postimg.cc/sXVkq4zF/buster.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/C596hj3x/tim.jpg

Those were supposed to be smaller and side by side...

(they're side-by-side if you have a big enough screen!)

The Lincecum is supposed to look like an ‘85 Topps iirc. One of my favorite designs. The set with the legendary Gooden rookie.

I sent a few others, as clemenza alludes to, so here’s what I sent and why:

Lincecum: duh

Posey: the Posey/Lincecum battery of the 2010 postseason is my Roman Empire

Brandon Morrow: obviously he was a Jay but I kept reading about him when I started reading about Lincecum. He was a California kid who was drafted ahead of Lincecum, by the Mariners. Lincecum was a stud at UW and Mariners fans had been watching him carve up the pac12 for three years and Mariners fans, to this day, still bitch about (them drafting) Morrow. So you had a California kid go to Seattle and a Seattle kid go to California. Morrow was basically ruined by the Mariners messing him around but the Jays, I believe, helped him get back to what he started out as. The parallels are intense - their careers started and ended at very similar times.

Sergio Romo - my Immaculate Grid stud! And the story about him striking out Miggy with a slow fastball in 2012 remains classic.

I also sent a José Bautista by virtue of him being both a Blue Jays stud, baseball brawl and rule 5 legend?

This is all really cool

I was in the MLB flagship store last week and I bought a box of the new cards, some samples

https://i.postimg.cc/J7Yf69Sk/IMG-5664.jpg

They very thoughtfully chose photos of the Padres players in their City connect uniforms for the most part which appealed to my aesthetic sensibilities.

I gave my husband the Astros fan some Astros players and also Jordan Romano, who he loves “because he always blows the save when we watch him”.

The neon look is pretty cool IMO. This pack cost me $20 for 59 cards, when I was looking at the pack this man came up and was cursing about the price increase. (He asked “Do you collect?” and I said “no,” despite having a box of cards in my hand, he then went into a spiel about what cards you can get in which packs and their value which I forgot as I wasn’t interested.) Anyway I may send some of these on!

The era of speculation is back

Hey, you got Strider...I'd give those a 7/10 aesthetically; reasonably subdued by today's standards. And 30 cents a card doesn't seem too bad.

And old man Acuña just behind him!

Didn't even notice that--those two cards alone justify the cost.

Just for context, two sets I'd give 10/10 for their design: '91 Topps Stadium Club and '93 Upper Deck SP.

https://i.etsystatic.com/16316958/r/il/053774/2227109100/il_570xN.2227109100_qjz7.jpg

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ud-sp-griffey.jpg

Yeah I loved '93 Upper Deck.

I always had a soft spot for the wood grain '87 Topps.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71pOBCzaVDL.jpg

Clean af

agreed

mid-80s a very good time for ultra-clean designs i.e. ‘85 fleer

https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/onesourceauctions/05/667005/H4367-L201361811.jpg

The antichrist of card design, marginally less garish than Las Vegas:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3c/Topps_1993_refractor_card.jpg/170px-Topps_1993_refractor_card.jpg

See I love that but I love holographic anything (my nails have holographic glitter right now), spare a thought for those of us who are magpies please

They were definitely all the craze for a while--not sure if they've maintained their value.

my favorite card sets might be the 1971 and 1973 Topps, both vv aesthetically of their specific moment in time and in the case of the '71s, notoriously difficult to find in top condition (the black gets dinged more noticeably.)

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/yvcAAOSw0UNjfDml/s-l1600.png

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.iKKAV4Y29GFIv4z7dbJ6eQHaJ2?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain

Love that '71 design (don't have any myself). The '92 Bowman set is nice, with at least one famous rookie card:

https://i.postimg.cc/B6syzNnz/mariano.jpg

https://sportscardinfo.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/ss88f.jpg

Thanks again to gyac for more great cards. Can't picture them all, but highlights include my first Trout, Betts, and Arreaz cards, and I think my first Acuna too. Also: Adley Rutschman, Corey Seager, J-Rod, Adolis Garcia, Altuve, and Davis Schneider, cornerstone of any serious collection.

https://i.postimg.cc/Bbqc09z4/acuna.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/jd36G14Y/betts.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/q7y86vVp/davis.jpg

(Should have taken a photograph...postimages is very useful, but they don't always resize in a uniform manner like they say they will.)

Davis Schneider, cornerstone of any serious collection

On a whim yesterday I ordered a 2024 Topps hobby box. I haven't opened a pack of cards since I was in hs (c.1998), and for years I've rued the amount of money I pumped into what had become a form of gambling aimed at 10-year-olds. But I've recently become obsessed with videos of people opening junk wax. It's funny how many of those old cards I immediately recognize...

The modern sets seem pretty confusing (tons of parallels?), but I'm giddy about opening up some packs again.

Yes but what did you get? Show us!

Insert culture is kind of a drag (it thwarts my twitchy collectivitis - you literally cant get them all) and many of them are stupid looking! That said when they hit they hit

Are they still tearing off little jersey shards or have they moved on to DNA samples?

Yeah its wack

Are they still tearing off little jersey shards or have they moved on to DNA samples?

Going to buy a magnifying glass so can check that!

No no, it’s a special big card, yours is just a normal one sorry 😭 I’d keep a card with a piece of a base for myself, sorry

The worst are the ones where there is a “player worn” swatch, not even game used

Not baseball, but I think I'm going to buy my friend's son a basketball box for an upcoming birthday. There are a couple, Panini or Donruss, and both are $40 for 90 cards. I guess that's not bad.

https://www.mlb.com/news/fan-beau-thompson-collects-million-cubs-cards

Really? "ONE MILLION unique Chicago Cubs cards"--even with the glut, that doesn't sound right. For the first 70 years of baseball cards, you've basically got one or two companies producing them. 70 years x 30 cards x 2 companies = 4,200 unique cards. Double that to account for promotional cards locally produced: 8,400. Round that up to 10,000. Which leaves...another 990,000 cards since 1980.

Best rookie cards I own. I eliminated PED guys (A-Rod, Manny, etc...except one) and Alomar. None are authenticated, but I think they're all near-mint. Drives me up the wall that that matters.

https://i.postimg.cc/W3Ch8k4p/01.jpg

Arenado - 2013 Topps
Bagwell - 1991 Stadium Club
Beltre - 1997 Topps
Bonds - 1987 Donruss (seems to have retained some value)

https://i.postimg.cc/N00Fw49f/02.jpg

Freeman - 2011 Topps
Griffey - 1989 Donruss
Jeter - 1993 Topps
Jones - 1991 Bowman

https://i.postimg.cc/0yk2pfCd/03.jpg

Johnson - 1989 Topps
Kershaw - 2008 Topps
Maddux - 1987 Leaf
Pedro - 1991 Upper Deck

https://i.postimg.cc/fWCPVfJh/04.jpg

Piazza - 1993 Topps
Scherzer - 2008 Topps
Thomas - 1990 Topps
Verlander - 2006 Topps

Wish I'd bought a dozen Kershaws when I could have--$4 or $5 online.