Fan Authentics Card Show 2015 1030-1031 Oaks PA

I was in a crazy mood for this years Fan Authentics show. I picked up lots of stuff but wasn't looking for anything special. Most of my time was spent in Dime Boxes but I also dedicated a fair chunk of my trip to BuyBacks - which I think were mostly from 2015T Update.

Here are some highlights, If time permits I may come back at a later time and give some of these cards more analysis.

1958 Topps Pancho Herrera

Buybacks made up a big part of my day1 finds. I handn't picked up many Phillies Buy Backs and I believe this Pancho Herrera is my earliest. This card went for 50 cents or a Dollar.

Collecting goal may be to pick up a Phillies BuyBack from each year of Topps.

1974 Topps Steve Carlton BuyBack
1978 Topps World Series Highlight Reggie Jackson

Even found Buybacks of Hall of Famers. Each of the above 70s era cards went for $2.


1959 Topps Buybacks Walt Moryn, Morrie Martin, Murray Wall

Found 3 buybacks from one of my favorite early sets. 50 cents or a Dollar on each.

1975 Topps Jim Kaat

Found lots of 1975T buybacks. Most are destined for Night Owl territory, but Kaat is likely staying in the Phungo collection.

 

1975 Topps Buybacks

These are the 1975T BuyBacks, Twitchell will stay local, the rest are destined to travel.

1974 Topps Fred Kendall Buyback

I bypassed the Padres Kendall initially, until I saw the one with the Phillies flags. Will definitely return to this one at a future date. (.50 each)

Vintage

1958 Topps Kluszewski/Williams

Picked up the Ted's card for $9.

1967 Topps Checker w/ Jim Kaat

Focusing a bit on 1967T a bit getting ready for 2016 Heritage. Curious if the Checklists which have been left out of recent editions of Heritage will return in the upcoming release. The presents of a player on the card may factor in Topps decision.

1973 Topps Dick Allen

This is a Stamp Card as well, but it is of the 75th anniversary variety. ($1)


World Series

1973 Topps World Series Highlights Johnny Bench

And there were buybacks of WS HL cards that included Hall of Famers. ($1-$2)

1967 Topps WS HL Brooks Robinson

More 1967 Topps, This is the Vanilla no stamp variety.  ($1)

 

Special Collections

2010 Topps Ring of Honor Brad Lidge

Another more modern WS Highlight Card. This is one that reps a game that Team Phungo was very happy to have attended. (Dime Box)

Nolan Ryan No-Hitter Number Six

Added to my Nolan Ryan No-Hitter Collection with this one. Will probably be a future posting on this one at some point. (dimebox)

Len Dykstra, Ken Griffey Jr

As part of Our 2016 HoF Ballot feature we discuss this card (DimeBox)

Dom Brown RC Auto

I am not sure that I was supposed to get this but, they were handing out free autographed Dom Brown RCs when I entered the Show on Friday.



 

Sunday Night Baseball: 1959 Topps #439 Brooks Robinson

With the Orioles looking to sweep the New York Yankees tonight we take a look at Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson.

1959 Topps #439 Brooks Robinson

Brooks played his entire 23 year career with the O's. He debuted in 1955, the teams second year in Baltimore. Five of Robinson's Orioles teams made the postseason including the World Championship squads of 1966 and 1970. Robinson was selected for 18 All-Star squads (across 15 different seasons) and won the 1964 AL MVP award.  The first ballot Hall of Famer (1983) totalled 2848 hits with 268 Homers, but is perhaps best known for is fielding - He owns 16 Gold Gloves at Third Base, most by any non-pitcher at any position.

Along with Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson is the symbol of Baltimore Baseball. It is pretty amazing that the team has two players of such stature who never played for another team.



For The Collector
The Brooks Robinson card above which is is in well loved condition went for $5 in September of 2008. His rookie card is 1957 Topps #328.

Ebay listings of the RC went as low as $28 for a card described as in "ratty" condition. $70 for also rough condtion. For around $100 cards were in much more acceptable condition. $130 will land you a BVG 3 (VG) condition card. On the High End of the spectrum The Brooks Robinson RC in PSA 8 (NM-MT) condition sold as high as $1,258.

The Brooks Robinson 3rd year card 959 Topps #439 featured above had a high auction, PSA MINT 9 condition, conclude at a healthy $636. Ungraded cards came in as low as $3.75 with 9 auctions finishing at $7 or under.           

Brooks Robinson HoF index
2009 Obak #A48 (autograph)
Orioles Retired Number Garden

References 
Old Cardboard
Baseball-Ref.com 
ebay.com
Baseball Card Database

Nachos Grande Survey - Autographs

Recently Nachos Grande posted a survey related to Autograph collecting.  I collect Autographed cards of all types of players. Most of the players are noteworthy to me for some reason, usually something insignificant, as I generally try and find the $5 an under cards - a lot of those I use for Spot the Sig! fodder.  Others are favorite players and Hall of Famers. 

 

The Phungo Auto collection likely stands at a few hundred cards and I think I can provide some interesting insights into autograph collecting. 

 

1.  What is the best autograph you own?

    Today, Joe Frazier - More on that Later

    otherwise Mike Schmidt on a book.  My best card Auto is probably Steve Carlton Leather Cuts.  
2.  What is the best autograph that you've ever pulled from a pack of cards?

    Paul Molitor (Goudey Graphs 2008), Brooks Robinson 09 OBAK. 

2009 Obak #A48 Brooks Robinson (#59/200)

3.  What is the worst autograph you've ever pulled from a pack of cards?

    07 Sweet Spot Chirs Capuano - The box was only $45 and I still felt stiffed - althought the RC Auto was of Hunter Pence.  

    Brad somebody from the Astros in Donruss 08 Product.  See the card at shows for $2 all the time.

4.  Do you try to get autographs through the mail?  If so, what sort of success (or failure) stories do you have?    No - this facet of the hobby has not capture my attention yet.  

5.  Who was the subject of your first ever autograph?

    It was either Scott Fitzkee (TE w/ the Eagles) or Greg Manning(Collegiate Hoop star w/ the Maryland Terrapins - I think he may now be a radio broadcaster w/ the team)

    As an  adult, I think Jay Bell may be the first auto I got at the ballpark - it is all faded now.       
6.  Do you actively collect any autographs (certain players, teams, brands, etc)?

    I have an affection for certain brands but no aspirations for a set.  Among my favs are Sweet Spot, A&G, UD Goodwin Champs, SI Greats of the Games, 1996 Leaf, UD Goudey

7.  Which is better:  Autographs or Relics?

    Autographs - I for the most part dismiss relics
8.  What do you think of cut autos?

    I don't have any yet - would like to add one to my Type collection but that is about it right now.       
9.  What is your favorite autograph design (say in the last 5 years)?

    In general Sweet Spot.  A&G, and I like the Goodwin Champs design in general. 

10.  If you could get the autograph of any five people (dead or alive) who would you want a signature from (and why)?

    Couple names off the top of my head without much thought - Richie Ashburn, Martin Scorcese, Jim Morrison, Fran Tarkenton, Dali - Ashburn would probably be on that list any day the rest of those folks would likely change depending on my mood.

 

I dashed this off the top of my head, so some of the set/yr names may be a lil off, but I am in the general area.  It is a solid survey that asks some interesting questions.  I sort of fell into Autograph collecting and it is one of the areas of the hobby I really don't have much of a checklist - perhaps that helps keep it enjoyable.

2009 Obak Hobby Box Break

While everyone else is going nuts over 2011 AnG, we are checking out a different retro product from way back in 2009.  The 2 releases of Obak are somewhat similar to Allen & GInter in that they are both based off of Tobacco Card products and they both contain cards of a historic nature.  Both also have a bunch of minis.


Here are the stats on the Hobby Box:


Damage  - $34.00 @ Oaks, PA Card Show in April of 2011

Base Cards 92/100 = 92%

2009 Obak #A48 Brooks Robinson (#59/200)

2 Autos

    Brooks Robison

    1 Lower Level Active player not worth getting excited about but coild be potential STS fodder

   

2 Parallels/Variations

    #28 Verdette

    #64 Jeffries

3 Serial Numbered

    Alvarez, Moustakas, Ted Williams

3 SPs

    Taft, Obama, Crosby

1 Strip card 

1 Mini SP

    Crosby

19 Minis in addtion to the Crosby SP parallel.

8 base cards needed

14 Bumgarner

31 Wallace

35 Brooks

42 Arnett

47 Hauser

65 Kittle

69 Skowron

75 Chadwick

I was very happy with the Obak Box.  I love the historical nature of the cards.  There are 100 different subjects that have many different backgrounds - most of them somewhat baseball related.  Overall the cards look nice, but the card stock isn't as good as I would like.  My other complaint is that the Serial Numbered cards are basically similar to the base cards and that the serial numbers are done via print rather than stamped - using these to inflate the number of "Hits" in the box is a bit of a misnomer. 

The lower 30 cards in the set are part of either the "Pro Debut" or the "History in the Making" series with rookies and prospects - The Healthy checklist includes Pedro Alvarez, Eric Hosmer, Brian Matusz, Lars Anderson, Gordon Beckham, Neftali Feliz, Tommy Hanson, Heyward, Austin Jackson, Andrew McCutcheon, Jesus Montero, Moustakas, Buster Posey, Carlos Santana, Mike Stanton, and Brett Wallace. 

Overall, For $34/Box with a bunch of interesting subjects (and 2 autos) it is hard to beat the enjoyment/$$ of 09 Obak.  I am thinking of looking at a box of 2010 Obak in the future.

Card Show Report - 2010 05 14 Exton Mall, Exton PA

I mainly scoured cheapo bins in the 2-3 hours I spent at the Exton card Show. I was able to knock out about a dozen cards from my Phillies Want list and another dozen cards from my other want lists.

There were some minor surprises. In one of the dime bins I was perusing I found 3 Chicle cards and picked out all of them. I spent a good deal of time in a nickle bin which actually had a number of 2010 Topps Cards, and 2010 UD - including a good chunk of the Biography set. There were several Bowman Chrome cards in there as well.

My biggest surprise was finding a couple 2007 Topps XFractors in the dime bin.

The Pictures:

2010 Topps National Chicle Lou Brock
Later in the year I may have skipped the other Chicles (Zambrano, Braun). I was a bit of a Brock fan when I was a kid, and I will always at least consider any retro card of his when thumbing through a budget bin.

The Phils


I am pretty sure all of these came from my Phils vendor. I am good for finding a bunch of Phils cards in his bin at every show, I picked up these and a bunch of 2010 Topps Phils Commons all for $5. Someday I will get around to cataloging my haves and wants for the Phils Carlton collection, but I haven't as of today.

Set Building
These cards are all from different sets I am building:

2007 Bowman Heritage
2007 UD Masterpieces
2008 UD Spectrum
2008 Topps All-Star Rookies


The Retro
I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. The Brooksie is from the 2006 Topps Rookie of the Week promotion. I picked up maybe a dozen of these. The Action Packed card is of Roberto Clemente.

Shiny
As always there were lots of Bowman Chrome in the nickel box, not as many Topps, but I did find the above Ibanez card in there.


Other Nickles



There is one woman who often has a nickel box at the show - this week she had a lot of 2010 Topps commons (no phils) and 2010 UD cards including gobs of the Biography cards. She also had the above Soriano card - which was homaged in the 2010 Topps Yo Momma Set. Who needs the reprint when you can get the original for a nickle??

I am not a football guy nor a Giants fan, but I could not let this 08 Masterpieces Football cards sit in the nickle bin.

All told I went through $28.50 at the show in about 3 hours. $5 in Phils card, $7 in the nickle bin, $6 in a dime box, $1.50 on a Grab Bag, and $5 on a six pack off oddball packs to open over at A Pack To Be Named Later.

2008 Topps Heritage Double Box Break

I picked up two boxes of 2008 Topps Heritage at the Philly Show earlier this month.

I have been working on the original 1959 Topps Set and thought building the companion Heritage set would be an interesting project. The two boxes went for $90.00 combined and these are the results:

Each box is composed of 24 packs of 8 cards each. Within each box there are 3 rows of 8 packs. Within each of the rows, I think 7 of he 8 packs contained either a chrome card, short print or insert. And one of the special cards per box is a relic or auto - usually relic - I think the odds of pulling and auto are about 1:10 Boxes. There is also a 1:2 box chance of pulling a buyback of an original 1959 Topps Card.

Buyback
1959 Topps #161 Frank Baumann
1959 Topps #161 Frank Bamann (2008 Heritage 50th Anniversary Buyback)

Unfortunately the #161 card of The Red Sox Frank Baumann was not one that I needed for my 1959 collection,but I will keep it as part of the 1959 Topps Auxiliary Collection. For even more detail on the opening of this Buyback please check this entry over at A Pack to Be Named Later. This card came from box 1.

Relics

Fortunately these Game Used Relic Cards found the right collector. I don't open a lot of boxes, and I doubt I have ever pulled a Phils auto or relic. I usually just pick them up via trade or auction. Still it is neat to actually get one in a box I have opened. I fall in the camp of Phillies Fans that appreciated Bobby Abreu - He had his shortcomings but I always thought he was a strong contributor and he was fun to watch. The Howard Relic is nice with a stripe on the jersey and is from the most common Relic Group D. The Abreu bat card came from Relic Group C (1:90).

Both relic cards were pulled from a pack in the leftmost row of the box - Howard was the 7th or 8th pack in the row from Box 1. Abreu was the relic from box 2, column 1, 2nd pack. Bollocks for me as I typically pull my Packs from the Right Hand side of the box.

Parallels - Chrome

Box 1 yielded 4 Chrome Cards one of which was a refractor parallel - Unfortunately the Ubaldo Jiminez card has a slight scar on the Right Hand side.

Box 2 yielded 5 Chrome Cards. Pudge is a Refractor. Box 2 also feature a 2nd Refractor of Ryan Braun which I did not feature here as his regular chrome card is above. The Refractor Chrome cards are numbered to 559 while the regular chrome are numbered to 1959.

Flashbacks




Between the 2 boxes there were 9 Flashback cards 4 News FBs and 5 Baseball Flashbacks. The Brooks Robinson Card was present in both boxes. The Top set of 4 cards above is from Box 1, while the latter set is from Box 2.

New Age PerformersGood and Bad here - The Good is that one of the New Age Performers Card was of Ryan Howard. The Bad is that both boxes contained Mr Lackey. Between the two boxes I got duped on both the NAPs and on the BB FBs. The Howard Card was contained in box 2.

Then and Now

No Dupes here. Only observation from here is that both of the "Then" halves of these cards are higher Cache players. Johnny Podres was the pitching coach of the 93 Phils and will forever be the Yoda Like Zen master for that staff. And of course Eddie Mathews is far to cool to be paired up with Diva Rodriguez. Mathews and A-Rod were from Box 1, Podres and Bedard Box 2.

I placed the Short Printed Ichiro All-Star card here as well. Box 1 yielded 9 SPs while Box 2 had 8, although 2 of the Shorts in Box 2 were from Box 1. Between the two boxes I received 15 unique short prints.

The Numbers

Box 1
Base = 165/420 (39%)
Shorts = 9 (11, 315, 381, 427, 430, 431, 457, 464, 493)
Chrome #d1959 = 3 (24, 40, 43) Chrome #d559 = 1 (77 Jiminez)
Baseball FBs = 3 (1, 7, 10)
News FBs = 2 (4, 6)
New Age Performers = 1 (8 Lackey)
Then and Now = 1 (Matthews/DivARod)
Relic = 1 #CC-RH Ryan Howard
Buyback = 1 #161 Frank Baumann

Box 2 Base 169/420 (40%) - numbers in red below are dupes from box 1.
Shorts = 7 (11, 433, 437, 454, 464, 479, 490, 492)
Chrome #d1959 = 3 (37, 57, 90 ) Chrome #d559 = 2 (24 Braun, 28 Ivan Rodriguez)
Baseball FBs = 2 (5, 7)
News FBs = 2 (3, 8)
New Age Performers = 2 (8 Lackey, 10 Ryan Howard)
Then and Now = 1 (Podres/Bedard)
Relic = 1 #CC-BA Bobby Abreu
Combined Set Building Stats
Base 276/420 (65%)
Shorts 15/80 (18%)
Dupes 58

Ok, I made up my own rules for set building. The first thing I did was throw out differentiating between the Green and Black Back Parallels. If I had one of the two cards for that card number, I crossed the number off my list - I will not let Topps control my set building - It's my hobby and I will collect as I see fit!

Secondly I have decided to build the base set threw #425. There are 5 Short Prints in there (11, 231, 315, 381, and 409). Above 425 is mostly short prints with a few base thrown in the mix. Perhaps at some point in the future I will verify that I have all the "Hi" Base cards but not right now.

Overall I came up with just under 2/3 of the base set, which is about what I expected. The Cards that I already had in the Phungo Collection that did not overlap the box break numbered about 40(including short prints). I still need 127 cards to complete the base set.

The only disappointment was having FOUR duplicates (5 if you include the Braun Chrome) in the insert cards. That is a bit high I think, I purposely picked two boxes next to each other in hopes that would minimize collation issues.

And one other complaint and a curiosity - I received very few of the hero numbered cards in this box. I didn't get any of the cards that ended in hundreds, and only 2 of the 4 '50' cards. I didn't pull #1 Vlad Guerrero either. Mathematically I would of expected to pull 6 of these 9 hero numbers but only came up with two. Could it be that some of the star cards were quietly short printed?

If you need even more 2008 Heritage info click here for the A Pack to be Named Later entry for a pack from box 1.

Or click here for a little bit more insight on the buyback.

Sources and Links
Ryan Howard PC Index
Bobby Abreu PC Index
Bob Gibson HoF Index
Eddie Mathews HoF Index
Minnie Minoso Index

Phungo 5 Pack - Topps 2009 Heritage Hi Numbers....

In lieu of getting a blaster I picked up 5 packs of the 09 Topps Heritage High Numbers at the Philly Card Show. If you want to read a specific pack break on the first pack check here for my post over at A Pack to be Named Later.

The five packs were as expected 30 heritage cards and 10 U&H cards. Every back broke down as 3 Heritage followed by 2 U&H then the insert and the final 2 heritage cards.

I got two Phils, The J A Happ card below and a John Mayberry card which is featured in the APtbNL post. Former Phil Jim Thome was also present.

This action shot of Thome may be picture 4 in the link.

The Inserts

Rookie Performers Tommy Hanson, Chrome Trevor Hoffman, and Then and Now featuring a player from my favorite AL team and my least favorite NL team. Hopefully Wright doesn't play long enough to be paired with Mike Schmidt in a future Heritage T&N. The other 2 inserts I picked up were short prints of Andrew McCutchen and Penn Alum Mark DeRosa.

Rookies

Picked up both versions of the Gerardo Parra card - he was the top of the rookies in the 5 packs other than McCutchen.

Etc
Photoshop anyone?? or did the Giants send Garko to spring training after picking him up on July 27th.

Phungo 5 Recap

Orioles Retired Number Garden - #5 Brooks Robinson

I just wanted to review the Phungo 5 scores from throughout the season. Thanks to everyone for participating. I hit up almost every team that the Phils played at least once, and hit some teams several teams (like the Braves).

It was fun and informative - I plan on bringing the feature back next season. I thought about a playoff edition but it is looking busy here in Phungoville right now.

Cardboard Junkie - Braves 5/5

Tulo Trader - Rockies 5/5

Trader Crack's - Braves 4/5

Padrographs - Padres 5/5

Thorzul Will Rule - Brewers 5/5

Wax Heaven - Marlins 5/5

Texas Rangers Cards - Rangers 5/5

Sports Locker - Mets 4/5

Cards on Cards - Cardinals 5/5

Nachos Grande - Reds 5/5

Thoughts and Sox - Red Sox - 5/5

Blue Jays Cards - Blue Jays 3/5

Beardy's Baseball Blog - Orioles 8/5 (got double points on several questions for blatant fawning)

Fielder's Choice - Rays 5/5

Capewood's Collection - Astros 5/5

30-Year Old Cardboard - Marlins 5/5

Sadly several of these blogs have retired or gone on hiatus since their Phungo 5s ran. Hopefully new bloggers will step in to fill the vacated spots.

There were a couple of bloggers I asked to prognosticate about various events involved in their series and their Phungo 5 scores had been left open till now...

Waxaholic - Braves 3/5 - I had two Qs for Waxaholic, he correctly guessed that Chipper would not homer but in a Hockey related Question Waxaholic picked the Caps to defeat the Penguins. Alas, Sidney Crosby and the Pens defeated the Capitals and eventually went on to win the Stanley Cup.

Night Owl Cards - Dodgers 5/5 - I asked Greg to name some players of the game and blobs for the Series, he struck out on the tough blobs, but he nailed down Randy Wolf as one of his Player of the Game selections. Wolf pitched a quality start in the middle game of the series and earned a win for the Dodgers.

A Cardboard Problem - Yankees - 5/5 - Sooz correctly surmised that the Phils and Yanks would go over the 10.5 Homers mark that I set as the combined barometer for the early season series. Sooz commented that I should give her the the over after game 1 in which the two teams combined for 7 dingers.

Outside of one of the Camden Yards gates in there is an area where the Orioles have saluted their players with retired numbers. Each of the players is represented by a statue of their number. The photo above is of HOF 3rd Baseman Brooks Robinson's number 5. Recently Cal Ripken Jr's number 8 was stolen. The statue was quickly recovered.