Mail Day: Part 1 - Baseball

I tend to go through phases in my collecting preferences.  There are times when I want to bust open a bunch of boxes and then there are times when I get sick of pulling cards that I don’t want to add from my collection from boxes where you have no chance of putting a set together.

Lately, I’ve been shying away from wax boxes and have been picking up a lot of singles on eBay.  I’ve been keeping a decent stream of money coming in from card sales and have been turning that right around by picking up cards of players that I collect.  To lead things off, here’s a card that is already one of my favorites.  2007 Sweet Spot Classic Dwight Evans autographed leather numbered 5/50.

Dwight Evans was my favorite player growing up and I love that he’s included in some of these modern sets.  Topps, Upper Deck and Donruss have all done autograph and relic cards of Dewey in modern day sets.  Evans has a great autograph and it looks beautiful on this card.

I didn’t stop there though.  I also picked up the regular Dwight Evans autograph from 2007 Sweet Spot Classic numbered 7/125.  Another beautiful card with a nice design that includes images of historic Fenway Park.  In my opinion, you can never go wrong with putting Fenway Park on a baseball card.

As far as autographs go, this is the other end of the spectrum.  Clay Buchholz has a horrendous autograph.  I’ve been picking up Buchholz cards ever since I saw his no-hitter in person.  I’d love to get an autograph in person, but the prices that they are charging are absolutely ridiculous.  For now, I’ll settle for this card that I won for $5.50.

After struggling in the majors last season, Buchholz is off to a great start in AAA Pawtucket this season.  The only problem is that he’s got Justin Masterson who is currently replacing Dice-K in the rotation and John Smoltz ahead of him on the depth chart.  I’m hoping that he’ll be up pitching in the majors again soon.

After I purchased my one pack of 2008 Sweet Spot and pulled a Griffey auto bat barrel, I looked online to see what other cards could be pulled from the packs.  I saw a bunch of David Ortiz jersey cards selling for $.99 and thought about getting one, but hesitated.  Then I saw this lot for two of the card.  One of them either has a stitch or snag from production.

Thanks to a post by I am Joe Collector, I decided to look for the 2007 Finest rookie redemption cards of Red Sox hurlers Hideki Okajima and Diasuke Matsuzaka.  I won this Okajima for a whopping $.99.  Card of middle relievers don’t usually command a lot of money, but Okajima is the most popular one that I’ve seen in Boston probably since Rich Garces.  He has exceeded everyone’s expectations since he originally looked to just be a signing to keep Dice-K happy and didn’t come highly touted.  The Sox also didn’t have to pay $51 Million in order to have the right to sign him.  He’s been an incredible bargain so far.

I also picked up the combo card of Dice-K and Okajima for $1.34.  I don’t see how you can beat that.  You definitely can’t pick up either of these cards anywhere in Boston for these prices.  It does make me worry a little about the 2009 Finest redemption cards that I have.  Will those cards be worth a buck two years from now?  Should I sell them for $10 on eBay now while the selling is good?  Will the Nationals rush Strasberg to the majors making some lucky redemption card holders very happy?  Card #10 in both SPx and Finest might end up being very good cards.

From the same seller as the combo card, I won an Old Judge David Ortiz from 2005 Origins Baseball numbered 63/99 for $.99.  I think this card would have turned out a lot nicer if it were done in a framed version similar to Allen & Ginter, Mayo and Murad’s autographed and relic cards.  I like the middle of this card a lot, but I’m not crazy about the border at all.

Here’s another retro themed card that I love.  It’s a 2005 Donruss Throwback Threads Mike Piazza Polo Grounds.  This one is the Strike – Long Fly parallel that is numbered 22/60.  I also have the Strike – Short 3 Base Hit numbered 04/65 and the Hit – Short 2 base hit numbered 31/35.  Jersey number M0J0!!!!!!111!!  These are sharp looking cards that are one of the many reasons why I missed Donruss having a baseball license and hope that they’ll be making baseball cards next season.






Pinnacle put out some very nice small sets using the Dufex technology which I loved.  For some reason, I had never picked up this set which was strange since it included Mike Piazza who I still collect and Juan Gonzalez who I collected when the set was released.  I won the set for a little over $3 which was great.  There are a lot of other great players in the set so if any player collectors out there are reading this and don’t have the card from this set, let me know and we’ll work something out.  I’m always looking to trade.

I forget which card this came with, but I picked up this card for $.99 from a seller that I had already won another card from.  It’s an Atomic Refractor whose design I think is now used on Xfractors.  This card isn’t nearly as rare as Xfractors are, but it’s a nice looking card and it can go with my neglected Juan Gonzalez collection.

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