Bryce Harper RC first Impression

Is it me or does this guy lead the league in eye-black? 

Scan stolen from Cardboard Connection

Is this more appalling than a Death bump

As collectors we are familiar with the death bump phenomenon where a card or piece of memorabilia experince a bump in price (typically temporary) follwoing the death of the person on the card/magazine cover/bobblehead etc.

2011 Second Mile Joe Paterno (Image swiped from the - bay)

Apparently the charity, Second Mile, founded/associated wtih disgraced former PSU coach Jerry Sandusky,  issued sets of Penn State Football trading cards.  The Cards were distributed at many Pennsylvania schools.  Related Patriot News Story here.

As of Phungo Press time the search "Second Mile Cards" on a certain auction site returns 90 Items!  At least 4 of the items have bids - one item has a dozen bids. 

Is this worse then a death bump, or is it just fans wanting to hold on to a piece of something that is really pretty much gone?
  

Phungo Question: Death of the Autograph?

Will there be an end to the autograph?

 

The amount of communication we do via the keyboard/keypad medium has increased rapidly over recent years.  With this decreased use of the written word schools are struggling with the value of teaching cursive writing - From what I understand, today when it is taught, cursive writing is not a skill that is really focused upon.

 

I am not really interested in debating the merits of teach handwriting here - that is for the educators to discuss.  But I would like to discuss the impact on the hobby of collecting signatures.

2008 Topps #54 Victor Martinez - Image Swiped from Baseball Card Database

Let me first note that Mr Martinez's signature is not always printed as on the 2008 Topps card above.  In fact if you want to check on ebay you will find that for the most part his signed cards look pretty good.  But this card does provide a fairly noticeable autograph that is really not a signature as we commonly think of them.

My Questions are: 

- If autographed cards are still considered hits 20 years form now, will half of them be of a hand printed signature?

  

- If your one per box hit were of a printed "signature" would you be disappointed?

 

- If your a kid an can barely write your own signature, would you place any value in getting a ball signed by a ballplayer?

Baseball and iPad/Smart Phone Question

Philadelphia entertainment site Philebrity just mentioned a new iPad app Pennant which appears like Baseball-Reference for a Phone or iPad.

Can somebody that is more tech savvy tell me if this is actually a step above Baseball-Ref? 

Couldn't I just access Baseball-ref from an smart phone?

Of course Pennant has all the pretty graphics that I don't understand. 

Spoiler Alert/Warning:  In the video portion of the site the user accesses the Joe Carter game - ugh..

Phungo Question for Black Friday

We are through the bulk of the year and most of the baseball products have already been released.  Since it is the Big Shopping Day of Black Friday I have the following card shopping related question. 

For the year of 2010 you can make 1 card purchase from each of these types of packaging:


1) Hobby Box
2) Blaster
3) Hobby Pack
4) Retail Pack
5) Random other packaging (Rack Pack, Cereal Box, etc)

And all 5 purchases have to be from different products - for example if you get a Hobby Box of A&G then your blaster has to be from some other product. 

And what would be your reasoning for picking out the different cards and package types.

I doubt many other folks would go this direction, but I think my Hobby Box purchase would be Topps Flagship - I liked the card design and many of the inserts.  I suspect Hobby will go to either A&G or Heritage.