Saturday, April 4, 2009

The Kid is a Hit

Had a bit of a rough week and so I thought that I’d make a Friday trip to Kenmore Collectibles on my lunch break.  When I got there, nothing really caught my eye.  2009 SPx Baseball was still there and it was still $8 a pack.  I’m not big on paying $2 a card when you’re pulling crap like Ubuntium cards and since I already pulled a rookie redemption card, everything else was downhill from there.  SPx Hockey was new, but I haven’t jumped on the Bruins bandwagon like the rest of the city.  I thought about getting a 2009 Topps Cereal Box, but I’d be buying it just for one card and that’s not worth it.  One thing that kept catching my eye was 2008 Sweet Spot Baseball.  Totally not my cup of tea.  Maybe it was because I knew that Stephen Strasbourg had an auto in there and if I was lucky enough to pull it I could finance my collecting for the rest of the year.

I decided to get a pack.  There were 4 packs remaining in the box and I decided to take pack #3 because everyone knows that 3 is a magic number.  Yes it is, it’s a magic number.

I rip off the shrink wrap, pop open the box and open the foil pack inside to be greeted by a Bernie Williams Yankee Stadium card.  If I’m going to get a Yankee card, it may as well be Bernie.  My wife is a big fan of his and the card can go to her.  I flip around to the front of the pack and see Francoeur, Markakis, Webb, Manny…  Here comes the one-per-pack-hit…

GriffeyBatAuto


Ken Griffey Jr. autographed bat barrel card numbered 243/243.  This is KG5 one of the vanilla versions of this card.  From looking on eBay there are different versions of this card with different numbering and some with inscriptions.  The versions without inscriptions are selling for around $50 which means that the card probably books in Beckett for $250.  I had thoughts about selling the card, but for now have decided against it.  When it comes down to it, the only thing better than this that I could add to my collection would be a Piazza auto that has eluded me to this point due to the prices of them.  I’d love a Piazza Sweet Spot auto.

A post by Gellman resonated with me as well.  Griffey’s career pretty much spans the time frame that I’ve been a serious collector.  Sure, I bought packs here and there of stuff in the 80s, but it was mostly singles and my beloved specialty box sets that you found in places such as Woolworths and KB Toys.  I pulled a Griffey rookie out of some packs of 89 Upper Deck at the corner store down the street from my grade school and it was the first really valuable card in my collection.  A couple of years after that I was in high school and working in a baseball card store and my collection really took off.  So, I think this is the perfect card to give a home in my collection.

4 comments:

Captain Canuck said...

cool. Griffey is one of those guys, don't ask me why, will always be popular with collectors.
If you did want to sell it, you'd probably get more for it in 5 years, after retirement, etc..

Offy said...

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that is perceived to be the last great player who did it without aid of the juice. He's also a nice guy who was never involved in a scandal. He hasn't done anything to drive the collectors away like Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, etc.

Captain Canuck said...

You sir, are incorrect sir. The last great player not on juice is Chipper Jones.

That's Mr Jones to you.

Offy said...

Chipper is great. He came into the league just a couple of years after Griffey, avoided the injury bug that was always hanging over Griffey's head and is still putting up big numbers while Griffey is on his farewell tour.

I always wondered why there wasn't more attention paid to Chipper in the hobby. I was always happy to see his cards when ripping open packs, but his cards never seemed to be in high demand.