I first heard about the Sportlots website from reading the Squeeze Play Cards blog. I checked it out and was soon using the site to fill my wantlists. I had a bunch of cards that looked like they might sell on there, but weren’t really worth listing on eBay and so I took the plunge and began listing items on Sportlots.
I soon found out that the fees are pretty ridiculous unless you sell more than $25 a month worth of cards, but since these were mostly cards that wouldn’t sell any other way I overlooked that. It seemed like some of the sellers on Sportlots padded the shipping costs that they charged to recoup these fees, but I’m not a fan of shady practices like that.
I didn’t list a ton of items on Sportlots and was only getting 3 or 4 orders to fill a month, but I sold some of my Yankee Stadium inserts and other inserts that I have no desire to add to my collection. I placed a couple of orders here and there because you could get a lot of cards on there for eighteen cents that would cost you more elsewhere.
I had placed one order and it had been over a week since the seller said that it had been filled so I should have gotten it even with the slowest shipping method available. I went to check on the status of the order and got a strange error message upon trying to enter the site. I got the same error when I tried to search for cards.
Upon contacting Sportlots customer support, I was told that due to not filling an order my account had been closed, all of my inventory had been removed from the site and basically I had been banned from the site. It isn’t even possible to purchase from the site anymore because my account has been restricted from accessing any page on the site.
My first thought was that maybe an order that I shipped got lost in the mail, but I couldn’t even check which order it was because I couldn’t access the site. Customer support got me the information and it was an order that I hadn’t seen before. I checked my e-mail and I hadn’t gotten one e-mail notification for this order even though the site supposedly sent them for a week. I had e-mails letting me know that Sportlots had sent me my payment for the past month of sales and I had e-mails notifying me of the status of my purchases, but strangely I didn’t have any e-mails notifying me of the order that I had to fill. Strange since they are all coming from the same place. I don’t have any kind of Spam filters on the web interface of my e-mail so that rules out that option. The e-mails just didn’t get sent to me. I also never got any kind of notification that my account was getting shut down.
Sportlots took the stance that sellers shouldn’t rely on the e-mail notifications and rather should check into the site regularly. That’s fine for people who might get orders frequently, but I’m not going to check in every day when I may get 3 or 4 orders a month for something like one Heritage SP that I happened to pull from a pack. It’s a very lame way to position things and is very poor customer service in my eyes given the exorbitant fees that they charge. Don’t even get me started on how poor the search engine is there. The fact that there’s no secondary search by seller is ridiculous and makes it a chore to minimize shipping costs.
So, Sportlots customer service made it sound like they’d be doing me this huge favor by reinstating my account to fix an error due to e-mails never sent. I told them to please go ahead and do so in order to allow me to shop and check on my orders, but to not bother reloading my inventory into the system (and damn it takes a long time to load that stuff in) because I was no longer interested in selling on their site. We’ll see what happens. No big loss if they don’t reopen my account. It’s easy enough to delete my cookie and create a new account for shopping. Imagine what eBay would be like if they deleted every seller’s account after their first bad transaction. I’ve had a stellar history on eBay, but there are plenty of idiots out there and eBay doesn’t always do the most thorough of investigations. Even though I’ve only ever had one negative feedback on eBay in over ten years of buying and selling on the site, if they had the same rules as Sportlots then I would be banned from the site. Just a heads up to those of you out there selling on Sportlots.
UPDATE: I’ve exchanged e-mails with the person who runs the SportLots site and have a better understanding of the site. There is a search by seller option if you click on the details link for a card. I’m still not a fan of the way that things were handled originally, but I’m happy with the resolution. So much so that I placed two orders the day that my account was reopened.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
A Cautionary Tale: Sportlots.com
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
2007-08 NBA SP Rookie Edition box break
I really enjoyed the first box of 2007 MLB SP Rookie Edition that I opened and so I ripped open another box. I also ordered a box of 2007-08 NBA SP Rookie Edition because it was a similar set that brought back old designs. For similar sets, they couldn’t be more different.
The baseball set brought back 4 designs and each design had the same 50 rookies with a few exceptions. Two of the designs were short printed and two were not, but you got a good number of them in a box. It made for a very fun box to break. I’d break a third at some point, but I’m down to just short prints that I need for my set and there are too many dud autographs in the set to go chasing those.
The basketball set is ridiculous. It starts off the same way with a base set of established stars. This is followed by a subset of the rookies. After that is a Premier Prospects subset. Everything is alright up to this point, but from here things get really stupid, really quickly. There are three set designs that are brought back as short printed sections of the set, but you only get one card from each set per box. You get most of the first 120 cards in your box, but you only get 3 cards from 121 – 210. The average collector isn’t going to open more than one box because you just get more of the base cards and just 3 more SP cards to show for it. The first two short printed subsets consist of rookies while the third is made up of veterans and legends. Even with the low price that these boxes have dropped to, you’d have to drop a small fortune to put this set together. It’s no wonder that this stuff continues to sit on shelves. At the very least, I’ve got some Celtics cards that I didn’t have before including Paul Pierce and Glen Davis to go into my collections. What did I get for hits? Not too bad.
Morris Almond Rookie Auto – I’m a basketball fan and I didn’t even know who this guy was. I looked him up on NBA.com and now I wish I didn’t know who he was.
Spencer Hawes – The 10th pick in the draft.
Al Horford – This is more like it. The short printed Horford rookie is a good pull.
Keyon Dooling – Really? Seriously? What is he even doing in this section of the set? Instead of LeBron, Wade, Jordan or Bird I get this bum? This is why buying wax for the hits is a fool’s quest. Card companies continue to put shit hits like this in packs and make them one per box so that you pay five bucks for a common in order to finish your set.
Tony Parker Auto – This is a great looking card. The only thing that could have improved it would have been an on-card auto. Parker’s a star, but not a superstar outside of Spurs fans.
When it comes down to it, you’re paying $36 - $46 for 5 cards. For that price, you might be better off plopping down your cash for 2007-08 Fleer Ultra SE. I guess it depends on whether you want your hits to be short printed cards and a couple of autos or jersey cards and one auto.
I do love the look of these cards. I didn’t collect any of the SP sets that are reprinted here so it’s all new to me. The collation was good and I didn’t get any doubles. I just wish that Upper Deck hadn’t made the decision to make the short printed cards in the set so ridiculously short printer.
All things considered, I would give this set a D-. The only things saving it from getting an F are the Parker auto and Horford SP card. If the set could be purchased in a factory set, I would give it an A.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Picture Pages: Mike Piazza
It’s going to take a while, but I’ve started the process of scanning all of the cards in my Piazza collection. I’ve taken a couple of hiatuses from the hobby and haven’t had the cash lately to track down some of the higher priced cards, but I’ve still got a monster shoe box (3 rows) full of top loaders along with half of a regular shoe box (2 rows).
There's a link right under the header or you can click here to check it out. So far I've got 2000 and 2001 up there. I’ll switch it up and get some of the cooler cards in my collection up before heading back to the base cards.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Clay Buchholz
The way that the game started, you never would have guessed that there would be a no-hitter thrown that evening. Buchholz hit a batter and had three walks total with two coming in the 5th when the Orioles got a runner to third before Jay Payton flied out to end the inning.
I finally figured out what was going on after the third out in the top of the 8th inning. At that point my friend and I were hoping that the Red Sox just swung at the first 9 pitches they saw so that Clay could get back out there and finish the deal. Buchholz was on a pitch count that he had already exceeded and each passing moment was another that could have seen the phone ring in the bullpen.
The Sox didn’t go down in order in the bottom of the 8th, but that wasn’t a bad thing because we got to see newly called up Jacoby Ellsbury hit a two run double. Seeing Ellsbury was what we were most excited about heading into the game.
When the 9th inning started, I started filming with my digital camera. That’s the video that you see in the upper left corner of the site. The video actually had 15 minutes of fame when I sent the link to Bill Simmons and he posted the link in his daily links section.
There’s usually a key defensive play in a no-hitter that you can point to and say that it saved the no-no. In this game it was a spectacular defensive play by Dustin Pedroia on a hard grounder up the middle by Miguel Tejada. Pedroia made a diving, backhanded play on the ball to retire Tejada.
Since the game, I’ve been collecting all of the cards that have been produced commemorating the no-hitter. I went to a card show today with the specific goal on my mind of picking up as many of those cards that I could find since all I had prior to that was the 2008 Upper Deck Season Highlights card. Today I found 5 new cards to add to the collection:
- 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes #29
- 2008 Topps Heritage #369
- 2008 Topps Year in Review #YR151
- 2008 Topps Red Sox Set #2
- 2008 Finest Moments #FM-CB
One thing that I noticed is that Topps got a little lazy on three of the cards that I had. They used the exact same picture for the card from the Red Sox box set, 2008 Heritage and the 2008 Finest insert card. Something like this is a little more understandable since there’s a limited number of pictures to choose from, but was this the only picture Topps could get their hands on?
I’m not sure exactly how many cards there are out there in celebration of Buchholz’s no-hitter. I’m sure there’s got to be a card in Documentary, but it probably has David Ortiz pictured on it. As long as I keep discovering new ones, I’ll keep adding them to my collection.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Finishing Move – 2007-08 Topps Bill Russell Missing Years
Last year, I purchased a box of 2007-08 Topps Basketball HTA jumbos. I’ve always had good luck with Topps and Stadium Club Basketball jumbos. This box yielded my first ever Rip Card. Since the card had Camby, Okafor and Jermaine O’Neal on it, it was an easy decision to rip it. Inside was a Josh Howard red ink autograph card. Sometimes you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The box also yielded 5 out of the 11 cards in the Bill Russell The Missing Years insert set. I had set them aside and forgotten about them until recently. Upon discovering them, I made my way over to SportLots, dropped a few bucks and now I’ve got the complete set. Topps also did a Larry Bird insert set similar to this, but people aren’t giving those cards away for next to nothing like the Russell cards. These cards remind me of the Topps Basketball Archives set that Topps did in the early 90s. The set was all “rookie” cards of players in the design of that year’s baseball set to give you an idea of what might have been if Topps never stopped making basketball cards. That set is still one of my all-time favorites.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Gotta Go To Mo’s
During the two Celtics basketball games last week they had an announcement of an upcoming autograph appearance by a quartet of C’s to promote the launch of the new Reebok Ubuntu line of apparel. I love events like this and so I made plans to leave work early and head on down to Modell’s to pick up some autographs. I forgot to pack my digital camera so there aren’t any pictures to go with the post. I bought a disposable camera so once I finish the roll and get it developed I may eventually have pictures to share.
The event was scheduled to begin at 4:30. When I arrived around 3:20, the line was already winding around half of the perimeter of the store. There was a requirement of an Ubuntu t-shirt purchase, but paying $20 for a t-shirt and four autographs isn’t too bad. The main thing that made it bearable was the fact that a portion of the proceeds was going to the Shamrock Foundation and they do a lot of good things in the community.
While waiting in line I got to say hi to Celtics announcer Willie Maye who didn’t seem to be as popular with the crowd as his NBA Championship ring was. They do some amazing work with those rings. The wait wasn’t too bad. The bad weather delayed the players a little bit, but they arrived and started signing right around 5.
First up was Kendrick Perkins. I’m not a huge fan of Perk. He’s got too many bad habits that keep him from even becoming an average player. He turns down way too many open shots and almost always pulls the ball down after catching a pass instead of going right up with it which gives the defender time to react. He just doesn’t have the natural basketball IQ that you see in guys like Rajon Rondo, Ryan Gomes and Glen Davis. These guys always seem to find the open teammate and know how to sneak in there for rebounds they have no business getting. I only had glossy cards of Perk and even though I spent a while erasing away the gloss, the Sharpie still streaked a little.
The next player in the line was Brian Scalabrine. This is a player that I’ve always liked even though the majority of fans disliked him when he first came to Boston. The main reason for the dislike was a contract that many thought was too big. It’s not their money and it wasn’t a crippling contract like the one the Celtics gave Vin Baker years ago so I didn’t understand what all of the fuss was about. Scal always plays full out. He’s a big guy who can hit the three and stretch out defenses. He can play tough down in the post and doesn’t often make stupid mistakes. Now that the Celtics are winning, many of the new fans have hopped on the Scalabrine bandwagon and he has become a fan favorite. He’s currently on the injured list because of post concussion syndrome which isn’t something you often see in the NBA.
Scal enjoyed the card that I brought for him to sign and joked with Perk that it was “a rare card of me dunking.” Basketball cards are usually dark if the background isn’t the floor and that can make it tough to see black Sharpie on them. Scal signed it in a good place though and it came out nicely on this non-glossy Bazooka card.
Third in line was Leon Powe. Powe and Davis were relatively unknown last season and due to that many “pundits” picked the Lakers over the Celtics. Once people saw the bench of Powe, Davis, P.J. Brown and James Posey completely dominate and overpower the Lakers bench, it was clear that the Lakers didn’t stand a chance. After a bit of a rough start to the season, Powe has picked up his game as of late and the timing couldn’t be better since Garnett has been out with an injury. All I had for Powe to sign was a glossy card from the same Upper Deck team set that the Perkins card came from.
Last, and definitely not least, was the main reason that I went to the signing. “Big Baby” Glen Davis was there complete with his big goofy grin. I took a liking to Davis during his rookie season and have been a fan ever since. He’s the kind of guy that always seems to pop up on championship teams. He dives for loose balls, makes perfect passes to open teammates, gets offensive rebounds with four opponents surrounding him and always busts his ass out there. He’s been the biggest beneficiary of minutes with both Garnett and Scalabrine injured and he hasn’t disappointed. Unfortunately, it looks like he might miss a few games after spraining his ankle again the Magic in a game the Celtics lost due to an already depleted roster.
I knew right away that I wanted Big Baby to sign my new Topps Murad card. I love the set and his card is a great one. His eyes lit up when I placed the card in front of him. He asked me what it was and I told him what set it was from. He elbowed Powe and said, “Oh yeah, somebody’s getting backed down.” The autograph just pops off of the Murad card and looks great.
It was all a blur and it was over before I even realized it. I had a blast and I especially liked seeing the athletes appreciate the cards that I brought for them to sign. One thing that I noticed right away, which is related to something that Mario over at Wax Heaven had been talking about, is that Davis’ signature differed from what I had on cards that he had signed for Topps and Upper Deck. It’s not a huge difference and it’s not an illegible squiggle like Mario had encountered with some players, but it is different. Here are a couple of autographed cards for reference:
It might just be something that Davis changed as he started signing more autographs. The new signature isn’t bad at all. Sure, it’s just “GD 11",” but it’s not like his old signature was all that great to begin with. There’s even a good deal or variance between the Upper Deck and Topps cards. That could have something to do with the bumpy surface of the Upper Deck card though.
Panini/Donruss thoughts
The big news around the hobby right now is Panini's acquisition of Donruss. The majority of the reaction that I’ve read so far is from that of football card collectors who were buying Donruss product for the past few years. My perspective is a different one, that of a basketball card collector watching the whole trading card landscape change completely before his eyes.
I grew up watching the end of the Celtics dynasty of the 80s and they’ve always been my team of choice. I love the Red Sox and Patriots as well, but the Celtics will always be my true love. I enjoyed collecting basketball sets for various reasons including the fact that the sets were always a reasonable size and every year you had a batch of rookies who had a chance at being the next big star. This year I’m loving the Topps Murad set and am disappointed that it’ll only exist for one year.
I wasn’t too excited when I first heard the news that Panini was now the only company that held a license to produce NBA trading cards. All that most collectors know Panini for is their stickers and albums. I didn’t want NBA stickers unless they were a fourth or fifth set and something cheap and fun. It would definitely be interesting to see what Panini’s first crack at NBA trading cards would look like.
Now comes the news that Panini has acquired Donruss. That makes me feel a lot better about next year’s basketball sets. There are people at Donruss who can bring their experience of creating baseball and football cards to Panini. It’ll be interesting to see what trademarks of Donruss sets might carry over to Panini’s basketball sets. Will there be a ton of serial numbered cards inserted into packs? Will we see some high end product along the lines of National Treasures? Will we get one per pack sticker inserts? It’s early and the news is still fresh so no one knows exactly what next year will bring to both the basketball and football sets produced by Panini. I am happy to say that I am now a lot more excited to see that first sell sheet for 2009-2010 Panini Basketball.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
2008-09 Topps T-51 Murad Basketball box break/review
I’m going to take a bit of a break from my Dave and Adam’s Card World purchases to keep current and post the box of Murad that I opened on Monday. The card store near work, Kenmore Collectibles, was running a special promotion where they were buying back unwanted cards from certain years for a penny a piece with a limit of 3200 cards. So, I boxed up 2700 cards, brought them to work with me in middle of a snowstorm and made a visit to the card shop on my lunch break walking away with a highly desired box of Murad.
I was happy with this box before I opened my first pack due to the box topper that I received. I got none other than “The Truth” Paul Pierce. This will go right into my Paul Pierce collection. Well, once I get something to store it in that is.
I’ve always loved the retro sets that put today’s players in classic designs. I’ve got UD Authentics, Donruss Originals, Heritage, Ginter, Turkey Red and I can’t wait for the upcoming Upper Deck Lineage set. Nothing beats those classic Upper Deck designs.
Even though the pennant and seal are present on every card, there are a lot of different layouts and styles used throughout the set. This is most obvious when you compare different cards from the same team. Since I’m such a homer for the Celtics, I’ll use them as an example. There’s “Big Baby” Glen Davis over to the right. His pennant is white and green with white letters while Pierce’s was all green with yellow letters. The colors on the seal are reversed which works better on the light background of this card.
Another thing that I love about this set is that it isn’t glossy. If all goes as planned, I shall be posting a picture of this Glen Davis card again on Monday or Tuesday, but it will look a little different and I’ll have to erase one card from my checklist.
The biggest thing that bugs me about many of the sets out there today is all of the short prints and variations out there. I’d rather have totally different cards. This set isn’t too bad, but many of the big stars fall in the final 30 cards of the set which are all short prints. All the short prints do are take the fun out of collecting a set. I’ve all but given up on Allen & Ginter out of frustration of chasing down short prints historical figures and monuments and getting parallels of the same. I was relieved to see that the Murad set is all basketball. There aren’t any Ferris wheels. There aren’t any authors. You won’t find the Pac Man champion of the world in here. What you will find is a sweet subset of veterans that really add something special to the set.
Getting back to the parallels, they fall one in every six packs. The only problem is that you won’t know when you get them. Here are two cards of Nets rookie Brook Lopez. Which one is the base card and which one is the variant? I would guess that the one on the right is the variant, but I have no way of verifying that. I want to know what I’m getting when I’m opening my packs. I don’t want to have to refer to a list to know.
Which one is the variant? I thought that it was rather strange that I got three sets of rookie base cards and variants. That takes care of three of the four variants that I should have pulled out of my box. Which one is the fourth? I have no clue. As far as the above pairs go, I’m guessing that the horizontal cards are the variants.
Topps also did a good job with the thick decoy cards. It’s a 30 card set of regular photos with real backgrounds and everything. This card is relevant because last month Jesus Shuttlesworth broke the Celtics all-time record for consecutive free throws made. Larry Bird had the old record with 71 and now Ray Ray has the new record with 72. Watching this guy drain threes is a treat.
Similar to Allen & Ginter, you bust this stuff to build a set and any hits that you get are a bonus. You aren’t going to get rich like people think you can with the lottery packs out there. I pulled a Dirk Nowitzki relic card. The regular, un-numbered versions of the relic cards aren’t going for much. People would rather spend more for the versions numbered to 51, 25 and 10. I should leave a comment over on Mark Cuban's Blog and see if he is interested in the card.
I also pulled a one-in-every-other-box silk card. The silk cards have been a bit of a pain for collectors because the player names aren’t on the front of the Murad cards. The silk cards have no back and the frames never have the players name on it to help keep printing and production costs low. I had to go through the packs that I had opened to figure out that this was Rafer Alston since he’s not a player who I recognize. This here is the black parallel which is numbered to 25. My final hit from the box was a Mario Chalmers autograph redemption card. There’s no way I’m wasting my time scanning a redemption card. We can all use our imaginations and pretend that a slick looking card produced in time to be packed out is sitting right over there next to this paragraph. Wow, isn’t it amazing? Chalmers is having an alright rookie season averaging just under 10 points a game at the moment for the Heat. They’ve got a young team that’s getting better by the day and have been surprising a lot of people this season.
I had a lot of fun busting open this box. I give the set an A. The only thing keeping it from an A+ is the unnecessary short prints and the confusion over the variations.
As far as my box goes, I’ll go ahead and give it an A-. I beat the odds on the silk card and it is a numbered version. I got a box loader that I wanted and a good assortment of Celtics. I didn’t get any doubles which would have been inexcusable within one box. I don’t even have half of the set at this point, but I’ll buy some lots and singles once they pop up on SportLots. Maybe I’ll be able to pick up a blaster or two to help complete the set.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
2006 UD Future Stars Baseball box break
The next box that I purchased from Dave and Adam’s Card World was 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars Baseball. As I wrote previously, I’m not one to chase autographs, but for some reason this set appealed to me. It might have been the fact that the autograph set is filled with Red Sox (Papelbon and Lester) and former Sox that I either watched play in the bigs or followed in the minors (Hansen, Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez). It might be that a large percentage of the autographs are good ones as opposed to most sets where 95% of the autographs are bums even if you are paying $35 a pack. This box cost just as much as one of those packs and you get five autographs. There’s also a shot at a Dice-K pre-rookie insert card. All in all, it’s not a bad box to bust open especially for a Red Sox fan.
I’m a set builder at heart. I started collecting during a time when sets were still fairly easy to put together. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to put this whole set together with the large number of autographs in the set, but I figured that I would at least get close to the 75 card base set since you get around 60 of those cards in packs. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I got 27 cards for the set and 32 doubles. Actually, I got 19 doubles and 13 triples. That’s ridiculous. It’s a shame because I like the look of the cards, but after seeing that collation I just wanted to take what I had and chuck it in the trash. Screw the set collectors, this product was all about the hit chaser and no one else.
Now onto the moment that everyone is waiting for, the autograph pulls.
Josh Rupe – Texas Rangers. Relief pitcher with career stats of a 4-2 record, 4.57 ERA, 0 saves and 3 holds.
Anderson Hernandez – Then Mets, now Nationals. Career .232 hitter. Has only appeared in 63 games over 4 seasons.
Anibal Sanchez – Florida Marlins. Anibal was obtained by the Marlins along with Hanley Ramirez in the blockbuster trade that sent Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell to Boston. After a spectacular rookie season where he went 10-3 2.83 ERA and threw a no-hitter, injuries have gotten in the way of Sanchez joining the ranks of elite pitchers in the league. If healthy, I think that’s exactly where he’ll end up.
Russell Martin – Los Angeles Dodgers. Martin is a rarity in baseball. A catcher that isn’t an offensive liability. He hits for average with a little bit of pop and good speed. Playing for the Dodgers brings about the obvious comparisons to Mike Piazza. While Martin isn’t on par when it comes to things like power numbers, he does have a few tools that Piazza didn’t like speed and the ability to throw out baserunners.
Ryan Zimmerman – Washington Nationals. Zimmerman missed a big chunk of time in 2008 due to injury, but he’s one of the top young stars in baseball at the moment. He hits at a .282 clip for his career and should produce around 20 HR and 100 RBI for the Nationals. He’s also got a pretty cool signature.
My feelings about this set are mixed. I really like the look of all of the cards from the base set to the autographs. I did pretty well when it comes to my autograph pulls, but I can’t get over the horrible collation of this box.
I give this set an A, but I have to give this particular box a B-.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
2007 UD Elements pack break
Dave and Adam’s Card World has been running a very popular promotion where you get free packs based on how much you spend on your order. I decided to take a shot on two packs of 2007 Upper Deck Elements. I almost pulled the trigger on a box and figured that I could use these two packs to gauge my interest in the set.
The first pack didn’t result in anything special, but when I picked up the second pack I could tell that something special was in there. I opened the pack and got a Jason Bay Gold Clear-Cut Elements autographed game-used card numbered 114/199.
I already was a fan of Jason Bay. He’s someone I’ve targeted in fantasy baseball drafts. This card is an even better pull now that he’s a member of the Boston Red Sox. Now that he’s had part of last season to adjust to hitting in Fenway Park, I think his power numbers are going to increase. He should be able to easily pepper balls off of the Green Monster and put a few over it.