My 2011 Card Purchasing Priorities

As you can see from reading my blog I mainly collect baseball prospects. I'm not much for cards from other sports, although I do dabble in hockey from time to time. I've thought about the cards that I want to purchase in the new year and I break them up into two categories, prospects and Hall of Famers.

I'm not much for vintage cards, but the thought of diversifying my collection is appealing. The problem I have with prospecting is the wait for return on investment. Granted, a player doesn't have to make the majors in order for you to turn a profit. I've sold plenty of prospect cards at a profit when a players moves from AA to AAA. The issue I have is that prospects are kind of like taking out a 2-year CD at the bank, the money is tied up and can't be touched. What if I come across a really great deal and need to come up with some cash quickly? I'd be selling off prospects at the expense of future earnings to purchase more prospect cards that are going to sit and wait for future earnings.

Vintage Cards

My 2011 collecting/investing goals now include vintage cards. I really think there are some deals to be had on vintage right now, especially with some of the bigger names. I'm doing this as an investment and a way to get that quick cash that I spoke of before if a great deal comes along.

1955 Topps Roberto Clemente - I had a chance to purchase one of these when I was a kid and didn't do it. For Pirates fans, this is the holy grail of baseball cards. A PSA 3.5 recently sold for $400.

1954 Topps Hank Aaron - The true home king. Did you know that you can pick up a PSA 3 of his rookie for around $400? Absolutely crazy.

1963 Topps Pete Rose - The hit king, another record that will probably never be broken. You can pick up a PSA 5 in the $400 range.

1980 Topps Rickey Henderson PSA 9 - The PSA 10 is a little to rich for me right now. The PSA 9 hangs out between $175-$200. That's a bargain in my eyes considering he owns a record that will never be broken.

Prospects

There are too many cards available to list individual cards. I'll go the route of just naming players, in no particular order, that I'll be prospecting in the next few months before prices really start to rise.

Jesus Montero
Dustin Ackley
Jarrod Parker
Grant Green
Aaron Hicks
Brett Jackson
Nick Castellanos
Tony Sanchez
Julio Teheran
Kyle Gibson
Mike Moustakas
Martin Perez

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 2

I know, here we go again with the Pirates. I told you when this all started that it would be obvious who my favorite team is by the end of this countdown. I can also reveal that Andrew McCutchen is my favorite Pirate. He plays the game hard and with a smile on his face. There's nothing to not like about this guy.

The Pirates selected McCutchen with the 11th pick in the first round of the 2005 MLB Draft. McCutchen finally joined the Bucs in 2009 and immediately made a huge impact. He finished fourth in the ROY voting, too low if you ask me. He's batted .286 each of his two seasons. Last year he eclipsed 30 stolen bases (33) and continued to be one of the best centerfielders in baseball.

The card pictured is his 2005 Bowman Sterling Autographed Jersey rookie graded BGS 9.5 gem mint. This card will the void in my McCutchen collection until I get one of his 2005 Topps Chrome Update Autographs.

The nice thing about collecting Pirates prospects is that their cards are always cheap. If McCutchen played for the Yankees or Red Sox you'd never be able to pick up his cards at their current levels. The bad thing about being a Pirates fan is that McCutchen could end up on the Yankees or Red Sox when he becomes a free agent. Such is life.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 8

Well how do you like that? Another Aflac card. Like I said yesterday, I love these cards because it's the very first card produced of every player in the set and the regular versions are limited to 250 copies. These cards are handed out at the Aflac All-American game so it can be challenging to find nice mint copies.

I picked up this Matt Purke BGS 9.5 on eBay early on in the 2010 college baseball season. I'm not quite sure what this card would go for today as you never see them. I just know that I was really excited to find this card, let alone graded BGS 9.5 gem mint.

TCU will enter the 2011 NCAA Baseball season ranked #1 in the country. Purke will look to build on his incredible 2010 freshman season where he went 16-0 with a 3.02 ERA and 142 strikeouts with just 34 walks. Two of those wins came in the College World Series where he went 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA.

Purke was drafted 14th overall by the Texas Rangers in the 2009 MLB Draft, but Texas failed to sign him. You can be sure that he'll go higher than 14th if he decides to enter the 2011 MLB Draft in June.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 9

It's funny, the first two cards I'm posting are of prospects in the Minnesota Twins organization, but that's not my favorite team.

This is a card that I searched almost two years for. Topps/Bowman puts out their Aflac All-American set every year, only producing 250 of each card. More common promotional versions were released in 2006 and 2007 and I already had one of those. Landing the regular version at a reasonable price always eluded me. It wasn't until Hicks had a slow start to his 2010 that I was able to pick one up.

I'm a big fan of the Aflac cards as they're always going to be the first card produced of any player featured in the set. Being that they're limited to 250 make them even more desirable in my mind. Also consider that many of them are given to the players and many are purchased back by Topps and released as buy-back autographs, or more recently cut autographs in 2010 Pro Debut Baseball. This makes the non-autographed versions one of the most rare cards you'll ever find for players featured in the sets.

Hicks is rated the #2 prospect in the Minnesota Twins organization by Baseball America, formerly #1. He's 21 years old and will begin his 2011 season in HiA at Fort Myers. He's projected to be a five tool center fielder with good power.

2011 Topps Baseball Packaging

I hope everyone had a nice holiday. I spent time with family and ate a lot of good food. Santa didn't bring me any cards so I've had to get my fix reading card news online today.

The thing that got me most excited was the first look on the Beckett Blog at the 2011 Topps Series 1 Baseball packaging. This is obviously a blaster box, but still gives us a look at the design and a small peek at the odds.

The odds that we're given are for the Diamond Giveaway code cards, 1 per blaster box.
If my memory serves, the odds may have been better in retail last year. I seem to recall pulling two code cards per blaster in 2010. The odds for Diamond Giveaway in hobby (1:6) and jumbo (1:1) remain the same as they were this year.

We can also see on the packaging that the manufactured commemorative patches are back and fall one per blaster box. I find that the patches sell very well in the first few weeks of release. It's nice to know that you can pay for your whole blaster if you hit a desirable patch.

The other thing to remember with Topps Series 1 is that there are usually hidden short printed cards. Last year it was Abe Lincoln hidden in a handful of Cubs cards. I wouldn't go selling sets or base cards until these short printed cards have been discovered. On the flip side, it would be a good time to buy up commons and complete sets before everyone figures out what those cards are.

I always get excited for the flagship Topps release. This year should be a blast considering it's the 60th year of Topps baseball cards. It really fills the void for me between the end of the NFL season and the start of spring training baseball.

Bowman Chrome Wrappers!

You guys have all seen the results of my Topps Chrome wrapper redemption packs. I redeemed enough wrappers for 24 packs. I was really happy with the results of those so I figured I should dive into the Bowman Chrome wrapper redemption program. I purchased a lot of 684 wrappers on eBay which will yield 38 redemption packs.

For the Topps wrappers I paid an average of $3.35 per box of wrappers. For the Bowman Chrome wrappers I paid an average of $6.75 per box of wrappers. I think the increase is price for the Bowman Chrome is very reasonable considering what these packs can yield.

Topps tweeted last week that the redemption packs will start shipping in January. I'll be sure to post the results of my packs as soon as they come. I can't wait!

Bowman Chrome Wrapper Redemption Program Details

For every 18 wrappers of the hobby version of 2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball set to the company, collectors will receive an exclusive 5-card pack of exclusive Black Bordered Parallels of 2010 Bowman Baseball cards. All 110 prospects from the Bowman checklist will be included.

In addition, Topps will randomly insert the following cards into 5-card redemption packs:

37-card USA Baseball Bowman Chrome Black Bordered Autographs numbered to 25 featuring the 2010 Collegiate National Team as well as the 2010 18 & Under National Team.

5-card Bowman Chrome Rookies & Prospects Autographs numbered to 100 featuring Buster Posey, Mike Stanton, Mike Moustakas, Miguel Sano and Dustin Ackley.

And due to a production error, the previously announced Autographed 2010 Bowman Chrome USA BUYBACK program will now be included as part of the wrapper redemption. Cards will be numbered to 100 and will include big names like Bryce Harper, Jameson Taillon, Yasmani Grandal, Drew Pomeranz, Michael Choice, Christian Colon, Manny Machado and Bryce Brentz.

Vacation Mail

I got quite the bundle of mail from Topps while I was on vacation. Most of it was Red Hot Rookie redemptions finally rolling in, the rest were autograph redemptions from 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball. Here's the funny thing, all of these cards came regular mail except one, the Stephen Strasburg RHR was sent certified mail. I guess Topps is making sure that they have proof of receipt for those. I think it would have been cheaper for them to send those first class with delivery confirmation than certified, but whatever.

The Red Hot Rookie redemptions look great and they're on chrome stock. I wasn't expecting them to be chrome stock, but I've never had any of these cards from previous years to know if they always are. Topps has sent me #'s 1-8, I'm just waiting on #9 Mike Minor and #10 Brett Wallace. I hope that I get at least one Brett Wallace autograph as I sent in three for redemption. I'll keep you posted on those.

The two autographs I received from Topps Chrome were Brian Matusz and Brandon Hicks.

Vacation Breaks

I've been on vacation for the last five days in sunny Phoenix, AZ. That's the reason for the lack of updates to the blog. Reality punched me in the face last night when I returned to temperatures in the 20's in Washington DC.

While I was in Phoenix I couldn't resist the urge to check out a Target and Wal-Mart to see what they had. I ended up buying a blaster of 2010 Bowman Platinum Baseball and a 2010 Best of Chrome value pack.

Bowman Platinum Blaster These come with 8 packs for $19.99. I've been seeing some great breaks in the various forums and figured I would give one a try. I really don't like the base cards. They're not chrome stock, just regular cardboard. The cards are flat silver but come off cheap looking to me. The nice thing is that these packs are loaded with prospects and rookies. It gives you a good shot at getting a base rookie or prospect card of many different players. I did end of getting an autographed refractor in my blaster, like many others that I've seen. Mine was Justin Marks of the Oakland A's. You'll see the card design below. I included a base rookie, base USA and the autographed refractor. The scan made the base cards look really dark, sorry for that.




Best of Chrome Value Pack These come with a nice looking 5-card refractor set of Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward, Starlin Castro, Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle. You also get 2 Million Card Giveaway Redemption code cards, 5 packs of 2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball retail packs, 5 Topps Chrome Baseball retail packs and 1 2010 Bowman Platinum Baseball hobby pack. All of this will set you back $29.99. I like this assortment. Kudos to Topps for putting a great Christmas gift out there for a young collector at a reasonable price. I would much rather open one of these than a blaster.

I didn't fair so well from these packs. The hobby pack of Bowman Platinum yielded all base cards. The best card from Topps Chrome packs was a Roy Oswalt National Chicle refractor. The Bowman Chrome packs did yield an orange refractor but it was Ryan Dempster. Still pretty nice to hit a refractor that rare from retail.

Topps Chrome Baseball Wrapper Redemption Mail Day!

I sure was happy to see these arrive in the mail today. I kept seeing results of breaks on all the bulletin boards and was starting to get impatient. I sent two cases worth of wrappers, so I received 24 packs.

Topps sends them in a large manila envelope with a smaller padded envelope inside that contains the packs. They're definitely packaged to prevent damage. The cards overall are in great shape. There are some flaws, but nothing major. The really nice thing about these cards is that they're flat! The chrome curl doesn't exist on these. The centering is nice for the most part as well.

24 packs should yield 4 complete sets, 2 green refractor packs and two other random packs. Well, that's exactly what I received. The bonus for me was that the two random packs both were the packs that contain Buster Posey. As you can see from the picture, I also received Buster Posey as one of my green refractors. I'm really happy with the results.

4 - Babe Ruth
4 - Lou Gehrig
4 - Jackie Robinson
4 - Ty Cobb
1 - Ty Cobb Green Refractor
6 - Mickey Mantle
1 - Mickey Mantle Green Refractor
6 - Buster Posey
1 - Buster Posey Green Refractor
6 - Ike Davis
1 - Ike Davis Green Refractor
4 - Stephen Strasburg
4 - Mike Stanton
4 - Jason Heyward
4 - Carlos Santana
4 - Mike Leake
1 - Mike Leake Green Refractor
4 - Austin Jackson
1 - Austin Jackson Green Refractor
4 - Tyler Colvin
4 - Starlin Castro

I feel like I've sorted cards for days...

I literally just finished putting together sets from my 2010 Topps Update jumbo case. Everyone said you'd 5-6 base sets and that was exactly right. I was 16 cards short of the sixth base set, I'll pick those up on sportlots.com. The master set was a different story, I was way short of that. I had to pick up somewhere between 40 and 50 insert cards to complete that. I was able to pick all of those up on sportlots.com for just under $30.

All in all, I'd say it took me between 6 and 7 hours to put these sets together. I think the next time I buy a case like this I'll put cards in order as I open them, as lame as that sounds. I just can't stand sitting down at a table for hours on end sorting cards. Anyway, the picture below shows the aftermath of the sorting.

Awesome Mail Day!

I came home from work today and was greeted by a mailbox full of padded envelopes. I got a few orders from Sportlots.com filled with 2010 Topps Update inserts to complete my master set. The rest were full of prospects that I'm collecting. Here is the list followed by the pictures.

BGS 9.5 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Status Signatures Stetson Allie 29/50
2009 Bowman Sterling WBC Game Jersey Gold Refractor Liam Hendriks 07/50
2010 Bowman Chrome Refractor Autographs Liam Hendriks 277/500
2009 Upper Deck USA 18U Autographs Nick Castellanos - Lot of 11

Interesting note about the Castellanos lot, you'll notice he added his number to two of his signatures. I'm not sure if that would command a premium or not down the road.

2010 Topps Baseball Update Jumbo Case Break

You really get a lot of of cards out these cases. Wow! I mean that in a good way as it's a really fun break and prices are incredibly reasonable on these right now. I picked up my case last week for $355.

Topps did a great job this year with their core baseball product. The insert sets were all really cool and the Million Card Giveaway was the best hobby promotion ever created. These jumbo cases are loaded with inserts and the really cool bat barrel cards. You also have the chance at the always popular SP veteran base variations that seem to run 3 to 4 per jumbo case. Of course, the black and gold parallel cards are there as well. One last bonus is the Topps Chrome Rookie Box Toppers.

I beat the odds on this case. You're supposed to receive one autograph and two memorabilia cards per box. I ended up with seven autographs, one being a redemption, so you could argue that I got six autographs. I also ended up with seven bat barrel cards which are supposed to fall one per box. The seventh bat barrel replaced one of my All-Star jersey cards, which I only got five of. I also got two silk cards and two black parallels. The case only yielded four of the original back CYMTO cards.

I've read that you can make six base sets out of a jumbo case. I'm assuming that's true as I got six of the #661 Stephen Strasburg rookies. I'm not so sure about completing a master set. I got a lot of doubles in the Turkey Red and CYMTO sets. I'll report back after I've had time to sort all of these cards. I don't know how I'd manage breaking multiple cases of this stuff.

2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball Retail Box Break

I know, you're already asking yourself before reading this, why did this guy get a retail box of 2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball? Well, I didn't just buy a box, I bought three cases. I pre-ordered these back in July for a really good price, well before Strasburg got hurt and the price plummeted. It was also long before I knew how bad the odds would be on the retail packs. I had faith that Topps would continue to release retail products with decent odds as they've been doing for a couple years. The odds are horrendous on retail this year. Pulling a prospect autograph, which are one per box in hobby, are 1:191 packs in retail. Even pulling a prospect or USA non-autographed refractor are 1:110 packs. Just insane!

I decided I'd open one box before I started selling these off a box a time. The first thing I noticed after opening a couple packs was that the top card in each pack was scratched. Scratched actually puts it mildly, more like gouged. They look like someone ran a nail down the front of each card. I have 24 like this, one for each pack in the box. I already sent them all back to Topps for replacement. The good news is that the other two cards in each pack were free of defects.



Enough of the bad news. As I started ripping packs I started getting good cards, defying the odds on the back of the packs. I first pulled Jason Heyward and Carlos Santana rookie refractors (1:6 packs). The next card that came was a Corban Joseph Autographed Prospect Blue Refractor (1:2,850 packs). I would have been happy at this point if nothing else came out of the box. Next came the A.J. Vanegas Team USA Autographed Refractor (1:1,620 packs) and an Andrew Cashner Gold Refractor rookie (1:837 packs). Amazing!

I figured this box was all a fluke but decided to open one more to be sure. I was right, nothing came out of the next box other than the four expected regular refractors and a couple purple refractors. The box did yield a Stephen Strasburg base rookie as well as a Jason Heyward and a Starlin Castro. I decided to stop at that point as I realized I had simply run into a hot retail box with that first one.

Hopefully this information is somewhat helpful to people reading. My advice - go with hobby boxes as they're down around $40 per box now and you're guaranteed an autograph per box. Don't count on being as lucky as I was with that first box of retail.

The Results Of My Latest BGS Submission

I took advantage of the great 10-10-10 deal Beckett Grading had last month. It was 10 cards for $10 each on 10-day service. I had just opened some 2007-08 and 2008-09 Upper Deck Hockey and a case of 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball. I also had a couple cards from recent eBay purchases that looked good enough to send. You'll see below that did really well evaluating my cards. I was hoping for at least one pristine but that didn't happen. I guess you can't complain when 9 out of 10 come back gem mint.

Missing Hit Replacement Has Arrived From Topps

I was happy to see an envelope in the mail from Topps today. It was too small to be my Red Hot Rookie Redemptions. It was way too small to be my Topps Chrome Redemption packs. The only thing left could be the replacement for my missing autograph hit in my 12th box from my 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball case.

I wasn't expecting much, even though a small part of me was holding out hope for a Strasburg. Well, as you can see, it ended up being Wilson Ramos. Ramos is a nice catching prospect that was blocked from making the bigs in Minnesota by Joe Mauer. The Twins traded Ramos to the Washington Nationals late last season. Ramos should get a chance to play in DC very soon.

I opened my missing autograph claim with Topps

For those of you that watched my box break #12 video the other day you'll know why I'm opening this claim with Topps. I sent the email this morning and got a claim number back less than an hour later. The email stated that I would receive a response within 2 business days. I'll keep you guys posted on any progress.

For those that don't know, Topps has made it very easy to report missing hits. You no longer have to mail anything to them, you can just email all the necessary items. It's all explained in the video below.

Demaryius Thomas Mail Day

I'm a Broncos fan. It's been a tough go since Josh McDaniels became head coach. Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler all were traded away after having differences with McDaniels. For that reason, the offense was entering the season with only two skill players to be excited about, in my opinion, Eddie Royal and Knowshon Moreno. The rest of the skill players are cast-off's from other teams.

Well, this is what I thought before seeing Demaryius Thomas play. In his first game against Seattle he had 8 catches for 97 yards and a touchdown. Last week against Indianapolis he only caught two balls but made the most of them going for 43 yards. He's a big, strong kid that looks to have all the skills needed to excel in the NFL.

I knew that I had to pick up at least a couple cards of his as soon as I watched the Seattle game. I opted to go for his 2010 Topps Rookie Variation and his 2010 Topps Platinum Autograph. Both cards only set me back just over $20 combined. I'm pretty happy with both deals.

On a side note, I love Topps Platinum Football. It was fun product to break last year and it remains as fun this year. The card design on the autographs is fantastic and some of the patches I've seen on eBay are amazing. I'd highly recommend breaking a box or a blaster of this stuff if you're looking to open up some football.

2010 Topps Red Hot Rookie Redemption #10 is Brett Wallace

Well, how's that for timing? Just last night I posted about this redemption and today it was announced. I swear that I didn't have any inside information. If I did, I wouldn't have purchased two additional #10 redemption cards the day before if I had known it was going to be Brett Wallace.

Don't get me wrong, I think Brett Wallace is going to to be a solid big league player. I lived in Phoenix, AZ for a couple years and saw Wallace play for Arizona State. I liked him then and I still do. He's had just over 100 at-bats with the Astros this year, hitting just .215 in that time.

The strange thing about Wallace is his path to the big leagues. He was drafted by the Cardinals 13th overall in the 2008 draft. He rose quickly through the ranks in the minors, by July 2009 he was already in AAA. This is just about the time the Cardinals decided they needed a bat for a playoff run and traded Wallace to the A's on July 24, 2009 as the key part of their package for Matt Holliday. He lasted just under five months in the A's organization before was traded to Toronto for prospect Michael Taylor. Strange enough yet? Wait, there's more. Just over one year after joining the Toronto organization, he was traded to Houston for prospect Anthony Gose. Wallace was assigned to AAA for one day and then was immediately called up to the Astros after Lance Berkman was traded to the Yankees.

Whew, back to the redemption cards. I have three #10 redemptions. Only 10% of the cards redeemed are going to be autographed. I'm hoping that at least one of my three will turn up autographed. I'm going to redeem a full set tonight so I'll report back with my results.

2010 Topps Red Hot Rookie Redemption #10

I've never participated in the Red Hot Rookie Redemption in past years. I've always just sold any redemption card that I had before the player was announced. This year is different. The rookie crop this season is so strong that I couldn't resist putting together a set of these.

The assumption is that the 10th card will be the autographed card. Last year had Gordon Beckham (only 10% signed), 2008 had Jay Bruce and Evan Longoria.

I purchased #1-9 on eBay and sportlots.com. I got my #10 from a hobby box of 2010 Topps Series 2 that I purchased. I really don't have much money in my set. That being said, the excitement of the pending announcement got the best of me today and I purchased two more #10's for $15 each on eBay.

Are you anxiously awaiting the announcement like I am? If so, who are you hoping for?

2 Wal-Mart Topps Value Box Break

I didn't specifically go to Wal-Mart for cards this morning but couldn't resist checking them out. I bought two of the $15 Topps Value Boxes. They had about six of them and none appeared searched. I've read on some of the forums that people will shake the boxes to expose the refractor card. You'll see from the picture below that this obviously hasn't happened at my Wal-Mart.

Each value box comes with one hobby pack of 2010 Allen & Ginter, six retail packs of Topps Series 2 Baseball, one Million Card Giveaway code card and a Topps Chrome Refractor of either Stephen Strasburg, Cal Ripken Jr. or Babe Ruth.

I did pretty well, the better cards pictured below. I got a lot of inserts from the Topps Series 2 packs but nothing really of note. I was surprised to get hits in both Ginter packs, as minor as they are. It was nice to get an extra code card from the 12 Topps packs as well.