2009 Topps Heritage Blaster Break

My post from yesterday inspired me to go buy another Topps Heritage blaster from Target. I think this is the fifth one I've opened. Here we go pack by pack...

Pack 1
Khalil Greene
Brandon Lyon
Jim Leyland
Luis Cruz
Alex Gordon
Chase Headley
Jeff Mathis
A.J. Burnett

Pack 2
Chad Tracy
Ramon Ramirez
Jesse Litsch
Washington Nationals
Coco Crisp
2008 World Series Game #2
Mark DeRosa
Troy Glaus

Pack 3
Scott Lewis
Nick Blackburn
Chris Perez
Cardinals Coaches SP (have it)
B.J. Ryan
Yuniesky Betancourt
Kurt Suzuki
Javier Vasquez

Pack 4
Jeremy Guthrie
Raul Ibanez
Rickie Weeks
Shaun Marcum
Ryan Doumit
Jake Peavy
Ichiro
Randy Wolf

Pack 5
Ross Gload
Vernon Wells
Carlos Pena
Kevin Kouzmanoff
Aramis
Mike Lowell
Phil Coke
John Maine

Pack 6
Gaby Sanchez
Yunel Escobar
Charlie Manuel
Joe Blanton
Mike Pelfrey
Gavin Floyd
Ryan Howard
Miguel Cabrera

Pack 7
Matt Harrison
Miguel Tejada
Jeremy Sowers
Grady Sizemore
John Smoltz SP (Braves logo. have it)
Brian McCann
Manny Acta
Matt Joyce

Pack 8
Juan Pierre
Cole Hamels
Evan Longoria
Adam Jones
Red Sox Coaches SP (have it)
2008 World Series Game #4
Adam Dunn
Kila Ka'aihue

Well, this was a bust for me. I already have the three SP cards. This is the third Smoltz Braves SP that I've pulled from blasters. This is also the second blaster I've opened in a row that didn't have any chrome cards. All the previous blasters I had opened had a regular chrome and a chrome refractor.

Hopefully any of you out there that became inspired like me had better luck than I did. I'll stick to filling my Chrome and SP sets through purchases of singles instead of blaster purchases.

Collector Hits Topps Heritage SP Jackpot

Have you been wondering like I have how you could have opened so many 2009 Topps Heritage blasters and not pulled one SP variation card? Well, the Beckett Blog has a story about a guy that we can blame for that. Todd Neuman hit the jackpot by pulling 51 Heritage SP variations in a single blaster he purchased in Mayfield, KY.

This is one of those once in a lifetime boxes that every collector dreams of but few experience. I remember my brother and I combining to get around 20 Jose Mesa cards in 1989 when opened two or three boxes of cards one day. Sadly, that was not the collecting jackpot and we realized it at the time. My brother coined the phrase "a mess of Mesa's" that day.

I did however experience a true collectors jackpot years later by watching a friend of mine open a box of 1989 Pro Set Series 1 Football. I believe it was 1991 at the time the box was opened. He ended up with 27 William Perry cards. I could be wrong but I believe that card wasn't supposed to be released in the product and was replaced by another card. That's what made it so rare and valuable. At the time the card booked around $100 and he sold most of them for $50 each. It was crazy. A quick search of eBay just now showed that you can easily pick one up now for less than $5. The rareness of the card was most likely overstated.

I doubt that the rareness of the 2009 Heritage SP's is overstated. I think that Todd Neuman just had a really lucky day.

Marketing Your Items On eBay

I'm always curious to see what the new marketing and sales trends are on eBay. Sellers come up with all sorts of innovative ideas to sell items. eBay also does their share by improving functionality and offering great features like Buy It Now and Make An Offer.

One of the newer trends I've noticed in the trading cards area is the "You Choose" sales style. The seller will offer up a large list of cards, usually from the same set, and allows you to choose a pre-determined number of cards from the list. I've noticed these more and more as I've been working on my 2009 Topps Heritage SP set. The most common type of auction is for the seller to allow you to choose 10 SP cards from their list. Here is an example auction.

The great thing for the seller is that this style of auction tends to yield more money per card than selling them individually or even as a lot of 10. I've picked up SP singles for $1 and picked up a lot of 10 for just over $12. The auction that I linked to above is about to end and it's at just over $36. I've chosen not to go this route as a buyer as my cost per card would be more than I want to pay. But it got me thinking about the possibilities as a seller.

I posted yesterday about CheckOutMyCards.com. I think that's a great site to sell cards that that book for anything over $4 per card in Beckett. The reason I set the $4 minimum book value is because I'm figuring I can get at least $1 for it. It's really not cost effective to sell any cards for less than $1 because of the selling fees.

As we know, there are a lot of cards that book below $4 each. What do we do with all of those? Well, I figured since buyers are responding well to the "You Choose" format for cards from the same set, why not try auctions with cards from different sets?

I've had cards sorted by player and stored away for a while. I picked out all the cards with $4 and higher book value out of those boxes and sent them off to COMC some time ago. So, I started some player auctions today that list all of my cards from a certain player and allow the buyer to choose 10 cards from the list.

I started out with Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr. and Nolan Ryan. I set the Buy It Now price at $7.99 and the minimum bid at .99 cents. I'll keep you posted on the results. I put them up for a week so they'll end next Sunday. Hopefully the results will be good and I'll have a viable option for getting rid of a bunch of cards from my childhood that I'd rather not have in my closet. I'd then have more money to buy cards that I do want want to have in my closet.

I'm curious to see what any of you reading think of this format and whether you'd use the same idea. What about the Buy It Now price? Too high? Just right? Click here to view my Ripken auction.

CheckOutMyCards.com is worth a look

Earlier this week, Mario over at Wax Heaven posted about purchasing some cards for his Canseco collection from CheckOutMyCards.com. I joined the site about three months ago and have been meaning to post about it. Mario's post inspired me to do that.

I've purchased and sold cards on CheckOutMyCards.com. I actually started out selling cards on the site before I ever made a purchase. I'd been thinking about it for a while and initially tested it out by sending 10 vintage baseball star cards that weren't in great shape. I was quite pleased when they all sold within a week of being posted on the site. I set the prices a bit higher than what I could get on eBay and had no trouble getting it.

Since then, I have sent over 1,000 cards to be added to my account. I've sold 45% of those cards to date. I price my cards anywhere from 50% - 95% off of Beckett book value.

The beauty of CheckOutMyCards.com is the process of adding your cards to the site. You package up your cards and send them off. That's it. They scan the front and back of your card, look up the book values, add credit to your account when they sell and ship them out. It's so easy. They charge anywhere from 15 cents to 50 cents per card to add them to the site, depending how fast you want them added. Once your cards sell, you can use your credit to purchase other cards or cash out. You can request a check or a Paypal payment. They take 20% off your payout if you choose to cash out. When you consider eBay fees + Paypal fees + your time, this is not a bad deal.

The great part about this site is that you can sell cards that don't traditionally sell on eBay. True collectors seem to be a large part of the purchasers. I've noticed that I'll sell multiples of the same player to the same buyer or multiple cards from the same set. The best part is that there's no rush to sell your cards, they can just sit there until they sell.

I'm thrilled with the site so far and will continue to use it for selling and purchasing cards. In fact, I'm sending off another shipment of 150 cards tomorrow morning. I've also made a couple purchases in the past two weeks. I found some 2009 Topps Heritage SP singles that I needed and I got some 1960 Topps Pittsburgh Pirates cards for my autograph project.

Shameless plug: my cards on checkoutmycards.com

The site has a "make an offer" feature, just like eBay. Feel free to make me offers on any of my cards. The prices are low but can always go lower.

I'm Obsessed With 2009 Heritage

The 1960 Topps design has always been one of my favorites. I starting building a set as a kid and slowly work on it to this day. I was so excited when Topps announced that they were using the 1960 design for 2009 Heritage.

I recently started building the 2009 Heritage set. I've purchased a few blasters here and there when I've been able to find them. I figured the easiest thing to start on would be the SP portion of the set. Although expensive, it's only 75 cards so I figured I'd try to knock that out first. I have 35 of the 75 cards so far. I have six doubles so I was wondering if any readers had extras to trade or sell.

Drop me a note in the comments if you have extras and maybe we can work something out. I'll get my wantlist up this week to make it easier. For now, here are my doubles:

426 Scott Rolen
428 Jermaine Dye
445 John Smoltz - 2
448 Kevin Millar
492 Kosuke Fukudome

Mike Mussina Really Likes My Cards

Date sent: 3/13/09
Date returned: 4/8/09

I will start this post off by saying that Mike Mussina is one of the best TTM signers out there. You rarely find a modern day player of Mussina's stardom that signs so reliably. I've sent requests to him on three different occasions and each time received cards back signed in under 5 weeks. You can see from the picture that he has a very nice signature.

I thought it would be cool to get a couple cheap jersey cards and have Mussina sign those. As I've said before, I'm willing to send some nicer cards to players that charge for autographs, or in Mussina's case, are very reliable. So, I purchased two 2008 Topps Heritage jersey cards off eBay and sent them off. The cards only cost me a total of $10 with shipping included.

Here's where it gets a little odd... I had read some posts in the past on the sportscollectors.net forums that Mussina is a collector and tends to keep jersey cards that are sent to him. I'd read the same thing enough times to make me purchase two '08 Heritage jersey cards. Otherwise, I would have just sent one. I figured if I sent two that he wouldn't possibly keep both of them, I'd at least end up with one. I even said in the letter that I wrote him that he could keep one and to please sign one for me.

Well, on April 8th I opened my mailbox and there was an envelope with my handwriting and a return address of Montoursville, PA. I knew that it was my Mussina jersey cards. The minute I picked up the envelope I knew something was wrong, it just wasn't thick enough. I tore it open and found a 2006 Bowman Chrome and a 2001 Bowman Heritage.

I posted to the sportscollectors.net forums later that night asking if anyone had received my cards. I listed the cards that I had received and stated that I'd like to switch them out if anyone got mine. The only replies that came back were members that had sent jersey cards and received others in return, just like me. The rumors were true. Mike Mussina keeps jersey cards.

Am I upset? Not at all. I knew the risk and I'm thrilled to get back beautifully signed cards from Mussina each time I send a request to him. The signed Upper Deck rookie pictured above was a recent return from him. I'll just know not to send jersey cards to him in any future requests.

2009 Topps Heritage Blaster Break

I've waited far too long to open my first packs of 2009 Topps Heritage Baseball. It wasn't by choice, I just couldn't find any blasters locally. I was really excited when I found them at my local Target the other night. The design of this product is fantastic. The 1960 Topps set is my favorite card design of all time. I started putting together a set of it around the age of 12. I still haven't finished it but it's about 75% complete. The 2009 Topps Heritage set will be far easier and cheaper to complete than my 1960 Topps set.

I've read reviews of breaks on other blogs and one of the common complaints was the lack of "hits" in this set. I'd have to say that I have the same opinion. I did get two chrome cards, one was a refractor. I also ended up with three short-print cards. There were a few insert cards in the box as well (not pictured). The lack of "hits" comment doesn't relate to my specific box, just the set in general. I don't think the possible "hits" are all that impressive. That said, I think the fantastic design more than makes up for this.

Would I purchase another blaster? Possibly. I'm debating whether I should purchase boxes and blasters until I complete a set or just purchase a set outright on eBay. Purchasing it on eBay would be cheaper than putting it together myself but far less fun.

2008 Topps Series 1 Blaster Break

I stopped at Target on the way home tonight searching for the elusive 2009 Topps Heritage blasters. All my friends are able to find these easily but my local Target and Wal-Mart never have them, until today. I saw them on the bottom shelf and quickly snatched one up. I've been waiting to open one for so long. I love the design!

Anyway, as I'm looking at the rest of their stuff I noticed quite a few blasters that were 50% off. They had a bunch of 2008 Topps Series 1 which were the Target exclusives with the T205 inserts. They had 10-pack $19.99 blasters but also had one 5-pack $9.99 blaster. It was only $4.99 after the discount. How could I pass that up?

I wasn't expecting much out of a $4.99 blaster but as you can see from the picture I did pretty well. The Obama card isn't near as popular as it used to be but it's still cool. Any Mickey Mantle card is good in my opinion. I also got the Isringhausen gold card and the Manny All-Rookie. The T205's aren't pictured but I got Albert Pujols, Joey Votto and Chin-Lung Hu.

I don't think I'll have time to open the Heritage blaster and post the results tonight so check back tomorrow for that.

Lenny Wilkens TTM Success

Date sent: 3/17/09
Date returned: 3/25/09

I decided to send off an item to Lenny Wilkens because he holds the all-time mark for coaching victories in the NBA and he's a great TTM signer. Knowing how reliable he is, I decided to purchase his rookie card on ebay to have signed. I think I only had to pay $3 for it. It does have a crease across the top left corner of the card but that doesn't really bother me. I like to get vintage rookies signed, the condition isn't a large concern for me.

I think Lenny's autograph looks great on this card. This card in particular is also a great looking card with plenty of room for a nice autograph.

I'll pass up sending a rookie card from time to time if the card isn't attractive. Some cards just won't look good autographed. I haven't been able to find any Topps Heritage blasters locally. As soon as I do I'm going to get a couple. Those cards are perfect for TTM autographs. I love that 1960 Topps design.

I'm wondering how much thought other TTM collectors put into the cards that they send off. Leave a comment and let me know.