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A stunning statistic about my 2011 Bowman Chrome pulls

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , , on January 27, 2012 by Cardboard Icons

Some time late last season, 2011 Bowman Chrome baseball was released.  And as usual, I bought a fair share.  I failed to pull any of the super high dollar cards, but I did get a few cards I liked, like the green XFractor Brett Lawrie and the 2001 Bowman Chrome Throwbacks Bryce Harper.

Well, when I pulled the cards from the packs, they looked absolutely perfect.  The Harper was pulled the same day that a major case buster pulled one and posted a picture of it.  His copy was horribly miscut.  I decided that day to have mine graded.

And so I did … along with my Brett Lawrie and nine other random cards.

Well, both the Lawrie and Harper came back Gem Mint 9.5.  I was stoked about the Lawrie because traditionally XFractors are tough to get in top shape.  The sub grades on both are stunning.

But this was like three months ago.

I haven’t written about this grading batch, so the other night I prepared to write about them and decided to do a quick population on both.

Here is the “stunning” statistic:

As of Jan. 20, 2012, I had the ONLY cop of these cards that have been graded Gem Mint.  And to that point, these are the ONLY copies to even have been submitted for grading by Beckett Grading Services.

Really?

Wonder why this is the case.

Lawrie is a top prospect who has a pretty decent following in the hobby.  This is a version of his first Bowman Chrome card.

And Bryce Harper is still a top draw in this hobby.  It would see that ANY of his cards would be submitted for grading.

**Note, there has been one additional Harper graded gem mint.

– Jan 27, 2012.

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My latest BGS order is a bag of mixed emotions

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , on October 10, 2011 by Cardboard Icons

About a month ago I sent a batch of cards to Beckett Grading for slabbing purposes.  Say what you want about grading, but I still rather enjoy having some of my cards encased in thick plastic and assigned a grade. Keyword: Some.

First off, let me say that I was disappointed that Beckett did not grade three of my cards — 1948 Bowman Bob Feller rookie, 1948 Bowman Yogi Berra rookie and my 1938 Goudey Heads Up Joe DiMaggio XRC.

The Feller and Berra have writing on the front, not unlike my 1939 PlayBall Ted Williams that Beckett Grading slabbed earlier this summer.  I placed a note on each card asking that the card itself be graded and that I knew the “signatures” on the front were not real.  This was a reasonable request based on my return on the Ted Williams rookie.  Both cards were returned just as I submitted them with a note stating that “Service Unavailable.”

Head scratcher for sure.

And the DiMaggio? Check it out:

Doh!  Really?  We’re going to flag this one for restoration?  If you look at the card in hand, you can see someone traced DiMaggio’s head with a dried-out pen.  The markings make the card look worse than before.  Couldn’t we just slab this one a “1″ and call it a day?  That’s all I want. The card is clearly authentic.

Now that the bad news is out of the way, let’s have a look at the en-tombed items.

Yes, this card graded a 1, but if you’ve ever held this card in hand, you’d enjoy it’s true beauty.  Aside from the obvious paper loss, this is a beautiful example of Phil Rizzuto’s 1948 Bowman Rookie Card.  Love that I can now display it in my graded card case.

You might think that 6.5 grade is ugly … not I.  Do you know what I paid for this card? Yeah.  The key here is that this 1985 Nike Michael Jordan “rookie” is authentic.  The only real flaw are the corners, which show some white.  This is a nice win for my collection.

This is a straight cross over from a PSA slab.  I prefer BGS slabs.  I have said this many times.  I got this 2008 Bowman Chrome Draft Buster Posey on CheckOutMyCards.com.  Probably  a bit pricey, but it was a must-own for my collection. Proud to have it in a BGS case. Straight 9′s, homey.

Speaking of COMC, here is a duo of 2002 Upper Deck Premire XRCs that I snagged off the site in raw condition.  How excited do you think I was when I saw that the Prince Fielder and Zack Greinke graded Gem Mint.  Not a rare grade for these cards, but clearly they display well.

And finally …

These are solid copies of some of 1994′s rarest error cards.  These are 1994 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice Silver Signature “White Letter Variation” cards of Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, the two best in the set.  As I’ve documented here before, these cards are much rarer than the basic silver signature cards that were offered one per pack.

I picked up both of these at a local shop and they were priced as basic Silver Signature cards.  The Rodriguez was about $15, and the Jeter was $6.

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Vindicated: The story of a vintage rookie and a fake signature.

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , on January 8, 2011 by Cardboard Icons

So about a year and a half ago, I sent an order to Beckett Grading to have a bunch of rookie cards slabbed solely for authentication.  Among the group was a 1948 Bowman Yogi Berra which bore a wanna-be signature on the front.  It was clear that the hand-written addition to the card was not a true autograph. Hell, it may not have even been an attempt at an autograph.  It could have been some kid just writing Berra’s name on the front of the card.

I digress.  So when I got my order back from BGS, I noticed that the Berra was not encased.  Some grader decided that the card needed to be sent to JSA for authentication purposes. I was confused.  I was pissed. I wrote this piece.

For a while I forgot about the Berra and moved on.  That is until I was confronted with a similar situation earlier this year when I acquired this Bob Feller Rookie and then this Ted Williams Rookie.

Both of these cards bore hand-written names of the players on front.  The Feller was a child-like writing, almost like the Berra.  But the Williams could be mistaken for his autograph.  Knowing what I dealt with on the Berra card, I decided to e-mail Beckett Grading to see if they could just slab the Williams as authentic and add a line about the signature not being real.  I got no answer.  I waited nearly two months and got nothing. Crickets.

So I decided to send in the Williams anyway with a grouping of other cards I wanted crossed over from other grading companies to a BGS/BVG slab.  I was going to write a note asking only for authentication on the card only … I forgot to add it before sealing the package.

Well, lo and behold, BGS graded my Williams as a 2, which is awesome.  The card has crisp edges, corners and a smooth surface, save for the obvious.  But when the BGS order at my house on Saturday, I saw that BGS added a note to the slab’s label: “Not Williams’ Signature.”

Thank you.  That is all I wanted in the first place.  Knowing what they’ve done for the Williams slab, I’ll be re-submitting the Berra (and the Feller) so they can do the same.  I better not get referred to JSA.

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Forget 2009 Topps 206, let’s see the real thing!

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2009 by Cardboard Icons

I’ve been on a binge lately with 2009 Topps 206. The reason I love these cards so much is because they remind me of the real deal for 100 years ago.

Fortunately, I own two copies of the original cards, two of the biggest stars of the period, Christy Mathewson and Nap LaJoie. I received these cards back from Beckett Grading on Tuesday and they are even nicer than they were two weeks ago when I cracked them from their less-superior PSA and SGC cases. The Mathewson is a Sweet Caporal back while the LaJoie features the more common Piedmont back, a design Topps used for the common backs for its 2009 minis. I do have a question for Topps though: Is the company looking to produce this set again in 2010? The original T-206s were distributed in 1909 AND 1911.

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Seven vintage cards headed to Beckett for slabbing

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , , , on November 16, 2009 by Cardboard Icons

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’re already aware of this, but in case you missed it, I have decided to send some cards to Beckett for grading. Not exactly hot news in our industry, but Beckett is running a 50 percent off promo through the end of the month; this seemed like a good time for me to get a few things out of the way. I know some of you feel grading is a sham, and to a certain extent, I don’t care for it either. That is why I’ve been using Beckett Grading lately for slabbing and authentication purposes only. I’ve got some cool vintage cards that I wish were in Beckett slabs. So here is what is on the way to Dallas: 1909-1911 T206 Nap Lajoie (portrait); 1909-1911 T206 Christy Mathewson (dark cap), 1954 Topps Ernie Banks rookie; 1955 Topps Roberto Clemente rookie; 1956 Topps Jackie Robinson (white back); 1960 Topps Carl Yastrzemski rookie and my 1967 Topps Venezuelan Babe Ruth. I asked for authentication and slabbing only on the T206s, which are in horrible shape; the Banks rookie, which is a sweet card, but has a date stamped in ink on the reverse; and the Ruth, which is definitely Gem Mint as you can see from THIS PICTURE. And I actually want grades for the Yaz (probably a 2.5), Jackie (3-4?) and Clemente (2-2.5). None of these cards is going to net me a small fortune, but they’ll look much nicer now in my graded card display case, which is 99 percent BGS. Brand Loyalty, baby.

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