Category Archives: Game-Used - Page 3

Curse of the Pinstripes

Posted by on 16 December 2012 Comments Off on Curse of the Pinstripes

Was R.A. Dickey’s departure foretold in cardboard?

One of R.A. Dickey’s final Dickeyfaces as a Met at Citi Field

R.A. Dickey’s career has been quite the roller coaster ride so far, hasn’t it?  A lot of us have been along for the ride for the last three years, but the latest development has us in free fall.  Like half of the Marlins just a few weeks ago, Dickey is headed north to the Blue Jays.  In return, the Mets get a legitimate catching prospect, something the organization has been in dire need of for a while.  Josh Thole has done an admirable job, but the team needs to get better and this is a step toward doing that.  Dickey may no longer be a Met (once the deal becomes official anyway), but he has meant a lot to an organization that hasn’t had much to cheer for lately.  I’m glad to have been able to see him pitch at Citi Field in what turned out to be his last game there as a Met.  No matter what he does in Toronto, he’ll always have a special place with the Mets.

How did it come to this?  Why would the Mets, after doing almost nothing to improve the team in the offseason, trade away their best pitcher, a 20 game winner and Cy Young Award recipient?  Have things really gotten so bad that a New York team has to wring every last penny of value out of its assets just to remain viable?  Starting pitching is one of the team’s strengths, but depth is still a concern.  Will Santana be able to hold down a spot in the rotation for the whole season?  Will Wheeler be ready?  Can Mejia, Hefner, McHugh, or whoever else gets called on to fill in be effective enough?  In a twist of irony, Omar Minaya, the very man who signed Dickey, is also the one most responsible for depleting the farm system to the point that it was necessary to trade him for prospects.  Yet another Minaya victory has been negated by his failures.

But what about the crackpot conspiracy theories?  What completely unrelated event could have somehow prevented Dickey from putting on a Mets uniform in 2013?  He wasn’t on any video game boxes, so what could it be?  Well, you’ve come to the right place, because I’ve got the answer you won’t find anywhere else.  Dickey’s pinstripe game-used memorabilia cards in 2012 ensured that he would not appear in a game as a Met in 2013.

Dickey’s pants from his second one-hitter of 2012 sure seemed lucky when Topps got a hold of them and chopped them up for 2012 Topps Triple Threads.  This was a big deal because it was the only time an active player’s pinstriped Mets uniform made it into cards in 2012 and was the first baseball card appearance of a uniform from the cream-ivory period (2010-present).  For a Mets game-used collector, these cards were a dream come true.  But dig a little deeper and a nightmare unfolds.

The only active player with a Mets pinstripe jersey card in 2011 was Carlos Beltran.  Beltran was traded during the 2011 season before this card was released.  The trade brought back Zack Wheeler, so it is seen as a big win for the Mets.  Still, Beltran signed with the Cardinals after the season and has been doing well while the Mets are in desperate need of some outfield help.  So was Beltran retroactively the curse’s first victim?

No, that honor goes to Johan Santana in the ill-fated 2010 Upper Deck Series 1.  Santana is known to prefer the white home uniforms because he believes that they hide the ball better, so pinstripes are unusual for him.  But wait, Santana is still with the Mets, so how could the curse apply?  As it turns out, Santana missed all of 2011 due to injury.  Is this the fate that would have been in store for Dickey had he not been traded?  We may never know.  What we do know is that, starting in 2010, any active Met with a Mets pinstripe memorabilia card has not appeared in a game as a Met the following year.  Is this curse a bit far-fetched?  Maybe, maybe not.  Only time and baseball cards will tell.

Mets Game-Used History: The Fall of Upper Deck

Posted by on 22 November 2012 Comments Off on Mets Game-Used History: The Fall of Upper Deck

Milestones and the end of the road

Remember when I started this blog with the first entry in this series?  Probably not, that was almost a year ago…  I’m going out of sequence with the second part because the second part chronologically (1998-1999) is pretty boring.  Instead, I’m going straight to 2010 with a card from an insert set that started in 1999 featuring a player whose first game-used cards appeared in 1998.  So yeah, we’re still kinda in 1998-1999 for this piece.

Gary Sheffield has been a personal favorite of mine (as much as I was ever able to have favorites before R.A. Dickey came along) for a long time now, dating back to the day I pulled his error rookie card out of a pack of 1989 Upper Deck.  It is fitting then that Sheffield is also the player that I associate with 2010 Upper Deck Series 1, the final major baseball card product from what was once the most innovative sports card manufacturer on the planet.  I was thrilled when Sheff was picked up by the Mets in 2009 after being released by the Tigers, not because he was a superstar player (his best days were long behind him), but because of the wealth of game-used cards he had amassed over his career.  Between countless teams and several All-Star games, Sheffield had been one of the most prolific game-used subjects over the previous decade.  It didn’t hurt that he was Dwight Gooden’s nephew either.

Oh, right, he was also on the verge of hitting his 500th home run.  No Met had ever hit a 500th home run, so that would be a first.  The baseball card connection here is Upper Deck’s A Piece of History 500 Club game-used bat insert set, the longest-running game-used insert set in history.  Started in 1999 with cards spread out over several products over the next few years until the present club was complete, with new cards showing up as new players hit the 500 home run milestone, the 500 Club bat card set would finish in 2010 with Sheffield as the final member to be recognized.  As you can see, he appeared in a Mets uniform, the only member of the club so attired.  And that’s kind of the problem.

You see, MLB Properties has a soft spot for monopolies and thought it would be swell to have just one officially licensed baseball card manufacturer starting in 2010.  With two manufacturers still licensed by the MLB Players Association in 2009, the finalists were the old standard Topps and the brash 20 year old upstart Upper Deck.  MLB Properties went with Topps and forced Upper Deck into the unlicensed card market formerly occupied by Donruss.  The loss of the MLB license meant that Upper Deck would no longer be able to use MLB team logos and names.  Most companies in this position take extreme measures to airbrush/photoshop out anything and everything that could be considered a logo or property of MLB Properties.  As you can see above, Upper Deck went with angles and cropping that obscures the logos but doesn’t hide them completely.  While that’s pushing the limits of legality, they should still be safe, right?  Well, only if MLB doesn’t look on the back of the card.

And right there are the Mets sleeve and helmet logos in plain view, with no attempt made to get rid of them.  To its credit, UD did include the statement “NOT authorized by Major League Baseball or its Member Teams,” but I don’t think a capital NOT is going to pass legal muster.  For a second opinion, let’s consult with Johan Santana.

It’s almost like they were trying to put as much of the logos on the card as possible without being overt about it.  Between the two cards, we’ve also got the complete Citi Field Inaugural Season sleeve and hat logos in full view, which probably isn’t helping matters any.  That’s just asking to get your pants sued off, which is precisely what MLB Properties did.  As is the norm these days, they agreed on a settlement in lieu of an actual trial.  The terms included some cash (which UD was late paying) and an agreement that Upper Deck would not use any MLB Properties logos in the future (which they shouldn’t have been doing anyway) and would not use photographs that had been altered to remove or obscure any MLB Properties logos (which they clearly had no interest or ability in doing in the first place).  In exchange, Upper Deck wouldn’t have to recall any infringing products that had already been shipped.  Everybody wins!

This all but spelled the end of Upper Deck as a baseball card manufacturer.  Losing the MLB Properties license was a big blow, but other companies like Playoff/Donruss, Panini/Donruss, and Razor/Leaf have gone on without licenses.  In the event that MLB Properties reconsiders granting an exclusive license, there would be a chance of being reinstated.  Well, except for the whole snubbing their nose at MLB Properties and the law and napalming that bridge.  There’s no coming back from that kind of mess.

But at least we have this snazzy un-photoshopped Gary Sheffield bat card.

Product Spotlight: 2012 Topps Museum Collection

Posted by on 18 November 2012 2 comments

Pretty and loaded, but not very deep

If the name Museum Collection sounds familiar, you might be remembering last years amazing framed autograph cards from 2011 Topps Marquee.  This year, Museum Collection is the name of the product, with more framed autos and a few interesting changes.  This time around, multi-player cards and booklets are plentiful, as are 1/1s and Jumbo Lumber bat cards (in addition to the occasional bat card in the regular jumbo relic set).  The cards look better than ever, which may not mean much in a product with only one prior release, but it is still worth noting.  Marquee looked good, Museum Collection looks great.

Base Set

Wait, there’s a base set?  Oh, right, here’s something an eBay seller threw in as a freebie with one of the Primary Pieces Four Player Relics:

Nice try, but wrong team.  Oh well.  I’m sure if I take long enough to get this review out I’ll get a hold of a proper Met to use here.

Procrastination has its rewards

Even though these are base cards, they are still as thick as everything else in this product.  Player selection is limited though; only David Wright and Nolan Ryan made the cut.  Tom Seaver would have made more sense, but he only shows up in the Canvas Collection art card set (which are his only individual cards in this entire product, all others are with three other players).

All base cards have a version with no serial number and four serial numbered variants with print runs of 299, 199, 99, and 1, while Canvas Collection cards also have parallel versions numbered to 10.  Not bad for what is essentially filler in this product.

Game-Used and Autographs

This is what people are really after in Museum Collection.  Last year, 2011 Topps Marquee set the bar pretty high, getting my award for 2011 Mets Game-Used Product of the Year.  So is 2012 Topps Museum Collection up to the challenge?  Yes and no.

Yes, the variety of Mets cards is much improved from last year’s product, which lacked any Mets triple relic cards and had several other Metsless variant sets.  Museum Collection has a Met in every major insert category except, sadly, Framed Autographs (Archival Autographs Dual and Cut Autographs are also without Mets, but those are fairly minor in comparison).  This year’s product features Mets with autographs, large jerseys and bats (both alone and in two-player booklets), autographed single, double, triple, and quad memorabilia cards, and quad relics (featuring one or four players).  And that’s just for David Wright.

No, the player selection is extremely limited, with David Wright representing the Mets in every game-used set and single Archival Autographs, Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden (plus Tom Seaver on the quad player relics and Nolan Ryan on his Archival Autographs cards) representing retired Mets, and Dillon Gee representing the young players.  Jose Reyes is also featured as a Met on a lot of cards, while Ike Davis makes his 2012 game-used debut on a dual Jumbo Lumber relic booklet card with Wright.  Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran, and Heath Bell round out the roster with former Mets shown in other uniforms (plus a Warren Spahn Cut Autograph 1/1).  It’s not a terrible list, but it is a bit light on players who are actually, you know, on the team.  This is likely a consequence of moving it from a fall release to a spring release, but that really only explains Reyes.  Is there nobody else on the Mets worth including?  For comparison, there are 14 Yankees in the Momentous Material Jumbo Relic set alone; even the Pirates have four in that set compared to three for the Mets and eight total players shown as Mets in all of Museum Collection.

Overall, it’s not a bad mix.  Between all of the different insert sets and parallels, it adds up to over 100 autographed and/or game-used cards of current or former Mets players.  David Wright accounts for all or part of 28 of those and Jose Reyes adds 14 more.  Once you remove the cards of players not shown as Mets, that leaves you with just 26 other Mets cards to split between Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Gooden, and Gee.  The field thins out very fast in this product.

On the positive side, the few players we do get bring a lot of new material.  Reyes, superfluous as he may be at this point, has his first blue jerseys in Museum Collection.  I’m hoping for some large orange jerseys in next year’s product; blue and orange (even if it is from the Marlins) would look great side-by-side.  Reyes’s quad jerseys also include swatches with orange or blue piping, another first (piping has become more common in recent years after apparently being stripped off prior to cutting in the early days of game-used).  Dillon Gee also has his first blue jersey cards, with patch and piping variants, and David Wright got in on the piping party with a few variants of his quad jersey cards.  Carter’s pinstripe jerseys are the first I’ve seen of the narrow variant of the printed zigzag stripe, calling into question everything I thought I knew about that stripe’s history, and Gooden has some great-looking dual pinstripe jersey cards.  Finally, Carlos Beltran’s large jerseys were all a very off-white, indicating that they are from his Giants uniform.  I would have preferred the orange swatches that some other Giants players got, but this is still good enough to call it a confirmed Giants colored jersey, the first in my collection.

Here’s the full list of Mets-related items you can pull from boxes of 2012 Topps Museum Collection (each box contains one autograph, one autographed relic, one jumbo relic, and one quad relic):

Archival Autographs

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Nolan Ryan
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

These are the base autographs in this product but are all limited-production on-card autographs of star players.

Archival Autographs Dual

Numbered to 15

Non-Mets: Willie Mays (with Hank Aaron)

Talk about a holy grail.  This may be one of the best dual autographs since the Mickey Mantle / Ken Griffey Jr. card back in the ’90s.  Expect to pay just shy of $1,000 if you want to pick one up.

Framed Autographs

Gold: Numbered to 15
Silver: Numbered to 10
Black: Numbered to 5

Non-Mets: Willie Mays

This year’s Framed Autographs get a three-tier parallel that brings their total production run even with the lesser Archival Autographs.  I’ll assume that these look just as good as last year’s, but you really need to see them in person to fully appreciate them.

Cut Autographs

Numbered to 1

Non-Mets: Warren Spahn

Cut signature, 1/1, Hall of Famer not known for his time with the Mets.

Momentous Material Jumbo Relics

Silver: Numbered to 50
Gold: Numbered to 35
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 10
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Carlos Beltran, Duke Snider

I have to say, I really like the changes they made from last year’s Titanic Threads.  While the size of the material is down a bit, the big square piece has much better presence and allows for a big player photo next to it.  Pinstripe and colored swatches look great, too bad Wright is stuck with an old gray piece.  We don’t get enough large jerseys these days, so get these while you can.

Momentous Material Jumbo Patch Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Only Wright and Reyes get the patch treatment, but they are some really outstanding patches.  At 5 apiece, don’t expect to have an easy time finding them.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright (with Evan Longoria), Jose Reyes (with Jimmy Rollins)
Non-Mets: Duke Snider (with Matt Kemp)

I don’t mind the inclusion of Longoria because a. prior to his injury, he was one of the best players in the game and b. he plays in a completely different division.  The Reyes-Rollins booklet on the other hand features the shortstops of two NL East division rivals.  And Ruben Tejada isn’t given a single game-used card anywhere.  Otherwise, I love the idea of booklet cards as long as they don’t go nuts with it like Panini did with their infinie booklet cards.  Two is plenty.

Momentous Material Jumbo Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Nolan Ryan, Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

These have to be some of the most beautiful cards in this product.  Not only is there an autograph and a nice big piece of patch (or, in some unfortunate cases, tag), but most patches are of the premium variety – round sleeve logos or, for Carter, the 25th Anniversary patch.

Momentous Material Jumbo Lumber Relics

Silver: Numbered to 30
Gold: Numbered to 20
Silver Rainbow: Numbered to 5
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 1

Mets: David Wright
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield

These are just like the regular Momentous Materials Jumbo Relics, only with a round piece of bat instead of a square piece of jersey or bat.  Large bat cards are even harder to find than large jersey cards, so these are a real treat.

Momentous Material Dual Jumbo Lumber Relics

Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Ike Davis, David Wright (with Alex Rodriguez)
Non-Mets: Eddie Murray (with Harmon Killebrew)

If one is good, two must be better, right?  Wright is once more paired with a third baseman from the AL East (not a bad choice), but the real draw here is the Ike/Wright booklet – this is Ike Davis’s first game-used card in 2012 after a breakout 2011 with lots of jerseys and bats in Topps Marquee and Topps Triple Threads.  Injury and regression hit Davis hard on the field and in the hobby.  It’s still a great card though.

Signature Swatches Dual Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Dillon Gee, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield

With these, you get an autograph (sticker of course) and either two swatches of jersey or bat or a jersey swatch and a piece of patch/piping/multicolor jersey.  The variants numbered to 5 include two pieces of patch (if applicable).  David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Signature Swatches Triple Autographed Relics

Silver: Numbering Varies
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

Same as the duals only with three swatches and an autograph.  As in the dual version, David Wright does not appear to have a silver version in this set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright, Jose Reyes

Sadly, this year’s quad relic cards are not an improvement over last year’s.  While having the jersey swatches split to the four corners of the card looks a bit better, there is very little variation between the silver, red, and gold versions.  Every card has three jersey swatches (blue for Reyes, gray or white for Wright) and one swatch with a piece of patch or piping.  As usual, the variants numbered to 5 are all patch swatches.  With a four-tier parallel and four swatches to work with, you would think there could be a bit more variety (some of last year’s went nuts with variations, including what appeared to be a piece of Phillies patch for Beltran, which makes no sense whatsoever).

Primary Pieces Quad Autographed Relics

Numbered to 10

Mets: David Wright, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden
Non-Mets: Duke Snider

The quad relic cards left no room for autographs, so the autographed version is in booklet form.  These are hard to find and highly sought after, but that goes for most of the cards numbered to 10 or less.

Primary Pieces Four-Player Quad Relics

Silver: Numbered to 99
Red: Numbered to 75
Gold: Numbered to 25
Gold Rainbow: Numbered to 5

Mets: David Wright and Jose Reyes (with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez), Jose Reyes (with Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, and Elvis Andrus), Tom Seaver (with Nolan Ryan, Roy Halladay, and C.C. Sabathia)
Non-Mets: Heath Bell (with Brian Wilson, Craig Kimbrel, and Mariano Rivera), Nolan Ryan (listed above)

The four-player version of the Primary Pieces insert set includes some interesting player combinations.  Wright and Reyes appear together with their Yankees counterparts, Seaver makes his only game-used appearance with Nolan Ryan (Seaver’s material is from a Reds jersey while Ryan is shown as an Astros uniform), and Reyes appears again with his future (and now former) teammate Hanley Ramirez.  Heath Bell also has his only game-used cards in this insert set.

Primary Pieces Quad Relics Legends

Silver: Numbered to 25
Gold: Numbered to 5

Mets: Gary Carter
Non-Mets: Willie Mays

The final Primary Pieces insert set featured some of the game’s all-time greats on a slightly different card design.  Carter’s cards contained pieces from a pinstripe jersey (though many pieces did not have stripes) and Mays had a couple of quad bat cards.

And there you have it, the defending Mets Game-Used Product of the Year champion.  Once again, this is clearly the bastard child of 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade and 2005 SP Legendary Cuts raised by Topps.  With a few more players, this could have been something truly special, instead it’s just pretty damn good.  As with most premium releases, value for the money is a bit of a crap shoot, with some cards selling for less than $10 and others selling for $1000 or more.  I’ll stick with singles on the secondary market over boxes/packs.  Compared to the premium products that followed it in 2012, Museum Collection looks pretty strong.  The variety of players and material is much better than the offerings in Tier One and Five Star and Triple Threads, despite having a better player selection, can’t compete with the quality and availability of the game-used in Museum Collection.  All have their strong points, but I think Museum Collection comes out on top.

Pieces of Shea

Posted by on 19 October 2012 2 comments

How the hobby remembers 45 years of Mets history

On April 17, 1964, the New York Mets finally had a home to call their own.  After spending two years at the Polo Grounds, the Mets began their 45-year stay at Shea Stadium.  It may not have been the fanciest stadium around, but it hosted one All-Star game, four World Series, and a fair number of Hall of Famers.  Unlike the stadium celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Shea’s era couldn’t go on forever.  In 2008, fans said a final goodbye to the only Mets home many of them had ever known.

A bittersweet part of any stadium demolition (or sometimes even renovation) is the selloff of anything that can be unbolted or torn off.  In the old days, wooden stadium seats would find their way into museums and private collections (and later baseball cards, as seen in this year’s Heritage and Gypsy Queen).  Until its demise, Shea had never been cut up and stuck into cards.  This changed with 2009 Topps Heritage, which featured Shea Stadium memorabilia in its American Heritage Relics insert set.  For the first time ever, fans would be able to buy a tiny piece of their home stadium (if they thought that $100 or more for a plastic seat back was a bit too steep).

The stadium memorabilia of choice in this case was padding from the outfield wall.  The big question though would be who to put on the cards with tiny pieces of blue wall embedded in them.  Mike Piazza had previously appeared on game-used wall cards, but for other stadiums; this of course made no sense because Piazza was a catcher, but that didn’t really matter for these cards.  For Shea though, it wouldn’t do to put the faces of players from other teams alongside the last remnants of the Mets’ former home.  So who would make sense?

Lenny Dykstra immediately comes to mind.  His crashes into the outfield wall earned him the nickname “Nails” (and probably a bit of brain damage), so how could you go wrong with Lenny on an outfield wall card?  Dykstra was flying high as a financial genius at the time, right before filing for bankruptcy and landing in jail on every kind of non-violent felony charge you could imagine (and maybe a few not so non-violent ones).  OK, so we dodged a bullet there

How about the 2000 World Series starting outfield of Benny Agbayani, Jay Payton, and Timo Perez?  Could there be a more unlikely starting outfield in the World Series?  This story would probably play out better if they won that one, but it’s still worth a thought.

You could just go with a big star who played in the outfield at Shea and Willie Mays is about as big as they come.  Despite spending only the very end of his career with the Mets, he is still featured on plenty of cards in blue pinstripes.

There’s always Darryl Strawberry, who still holds several team records (at least until David Wright breaks them).  Or maybe Carlos Beltran, one of the best Mets from the 2008 team.  There are countless stars and fan favorites who could have worked..

Forget all that, there’s only one Mets player who should be on a card with a piece of Shea Stadium’s outfield wall.  The Catch.  For most baseball fans, that phrase is associated with Willie Mays.  To Mets fans though, The Catch is synonymous with Endy Chavez and his picture-perfect home run-robbing catch in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS at Shea, right in the middle of an AIG ad that said “The strength to be there.”  The Catch was such a significant baseball moment that it was even featured in 1 and 1/3 of a second of Fox’s two hour 25th anniversary special this year.  It was just meant to be.

Which is why it never happened.  So who would be deemed worthy of this honor?  Not Mays or Chavez.  Not Dykstra or Strawberry.  Not Benny or Timo.  Not even Beltran.  The winners were Joe Namath, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, President Bill Clinton, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Namath actually played at Shea for most of his career, but what the heck do popes and politicians have to do with the outfield wall at Shea?  Apparently the criteria for selection ended somewhere around “visited the stadium at least once.”  And I guess they couldn’t get the rights to The Beatles.  Worse though is that Endy’s catch, while widely covered in photos, went unrecognized in baseball cards.  Until now (or a few months ago to be precise).

And we finally get to the point of this piece, the 2012 Topps Gypsy Queen Glove Stories card that commemorates The Catch at long last.  It took almost six years, but we finally have a cardboard reminder of one of the best postseason plays in recent history.  If only this could have been combined with the Shea outfield wall cards…

CTM Mailbag – July 2012

Posted by on 8 July 2012 Comments Off on CTM Mailbag – July 2012

Time for a break

The All-Star break is just hours away, the Mets are sitting in Wild Card position (well, tied for the second one at least), and the hobby is in full swing with new product releases almost every week.  It’s a good time to be collecting, until you see the credit card bill (Yikes!).  With so much out there to cover, I’m off on a trip and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.  Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the Museum Collection review, the text has been done for over a month…

juliana-herron  wrote:

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Gary Carter is a special case in the hobby, one that I expect we’ll see more of as time robs us of our heroes one by one.  Carter has the unfortunate honor of being the first major hobby fixture to die in the era of widespread autograph and memorabilia cards.  Since 1999, Carter’s autograph has been found on countless thousands of baseball cards.  His last on-card autographs were released last year, but he continues to have sticker autograph cards released, the most recent being in Museum Collection, Archives, and Topps Series 2.  It’s anyone’s guess how many sticker autographs Topps has stockpiled and I’m sure Topps isn’t going to reveal that information.  There is no precedent here, but Carter’s condition was known for long enough to allow Topps to load up on autographs, possibly by the thousand.  We’ll just have to wait and see how Topps handles this going forward; this could set a precedent for how recently-deceased player autographs are treated.

Bigas wrote:

Value the particular democratic tactic but the conclusive solution should be open sooner or later. Nevertheless several essential stepping blocks had been established directly into location.

Aside from Wright getting beaten out for the starting role by San Francisco’s ballot stuffing efforts, the Mets did well with their All-Star selections.  Wright is back in top form and Dickey has been dominating, so those were a given.  Santana would have been nice to see, but there are a lot of deserving pitchers in the NL that didn’t make the cut and he is kind of rehabbing from major shoulder surgery.  On the Ex-Met front, Carlos Beltran managed to hold on to his starting spot while Chris Capuano joins Santana on list of not quite All-Stars.  The AL is once more devoid of former Mets.  Three current/former Mets is the norm for the All-Star Game, but having first-timer Dickey on the list is what makes this year special.  This should guarantee that Dickey gets a jersey card this year, though his pinstriped pants are also in the mix.  If you don’t want to wait for some game-used Dickey jersey, you can buy your own Dickey All-Star jersey and have people behind you wondering why there’s Dickey on your back.  Shop via the link given here and you’ll be helping out another Mets blog (I, um, forgot about this when I ordered mine, then I found out that the link doesn’t load in my browser…).  Speaking of Dickey…

Mister Mandarin wrote:

the govt secret black budget ELF towers and 02 towers are radiating the planet and beaming microwaves into peoples heads (causing deaf people to hear sounds or voices in their heads) its actually sick when you think JAPAN FUKISHIMA tsunami was 100% man-made caused by an underwater nuke, google it and research if you don’t believe me…… don’t expect to hear it on the BBC though ;)

I’m surprised nobody called me on the omission of Dickey’s Team USA autograph card in the Player Spotlight I did for him.  Back then, that card was impossible to find, but now it’s insanely overpriced ($150 seems to be the going price on eBay).  While having his first certified autograph card would be nice, now is not the time to buy.  Phil Humber’s perfect game conveniently spurred sales on eBay by people hoping to cash in but couldn’t overcome the reality that he’s Phil Humber, which was enough for his performance and card prices to tank.  Dickey is no Humber, but prices should settle down a bit once the novelty of a 37 year old knuckleballer having the breakout pitching performance of the season wears off.  It could happen, right?  Eh, I think I’ll wait for a certified autograph card with Dickey in a Mets uniform.

jeremy butts wrote:

hi i was wondering if you where willing to sell the josh edgin red wave card

Unless specifically noted, cards shown on this site are not available for sale or trade.  If you wanted one of those cards, you should have gotten one when several were available for less than $10.  Timing is everything.

CTM Mailbag – June 2012

Posted by on 15 June 2012 1 comment

Jerseys, autographs, no-nos, and boxes overflowing with cards, oh my!

I’m sitting here with about half a dozen pieces about 90% finished, so of course I skip over all of those and crank out another mailbag feature! It’s been a big month or so in the hobby with new releases every week, so here’s an update on the important issues facing Mets collectors.

Tilly wrote:

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Don’t get too excited about the Matt Harvey jersey cards in Pro Debut, they aren’t from the Mets jersey Topps obtained in Spring Training. Remember last year’s Bowman Chrome Draft Picks & Prospects, which featured Futures Game jersey cards for Matt Harvey and Jefry Marte? Only the primary color of those three-color jerseys made it into the cards back then, so what happened to the rest? The good news is that you can now get all three colors for both Harvey and Marte in 2012 Pro Debut; the bad news is still no Mets jerseys for either of them. For Harvey, it’s clearly only a matter of time.

Segota wrote:

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Things have turned around a bit from last month in the Mets representation department. Archives and Pro Debut each featured eight players in their respective small base sets, plus several more in insert and parallel sets. Topps Series 2 increased the diversity of Mets featured in the insert sets, though most of them were still either retired players (Seaver, Ryan, Carter, Strawberry, and Gooden), former Mets (Pagan), or David Wright; the only others were Museum Collection holdovers Dillon Gee and Ike Davis, plus a few Jose Reyes 1/1 letter patches. While the base set situation seems to have sorted itself out and the inserts are getting there (some game-used from new players would be welcome…), the lone remaining area of concern is prospect autographs. Between Bowman and Pro Debut, two sets that focus heavily on prospects, only Jordany Valdespin and Brandon Nimmo have been featured on autograph cards. Adding in Panini’s “2011” products from this year gives you Chris Schwinden (playing for [insert team here] this week) and a few more 2011 draft picks. That leaves a huge gap between the 2011 draft class and the Buffalo-to-Flushing shuttle, or basically all the hope for success in 2014. While a lot of them had autographs last year, guys like Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Matt den Dekker, Jeurys Familia, Jefry Marte, Wilmer Flores, etc. are no-shows (no-signs?) so far this year; heck, Matt Harvey still hasn’t signed his cards from 2011 Bowman Platinum! I had to go to a game to get an autograph from Jefry Marte (many thanks, Jefry!) and that’s not practical for a lot of fans.

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Don’t expect much of a hobby reaction to Johan’s no-hitter. Between the lead time to produce cards, two perfect games so far this season, and Santana losing a bit of his luster with a couple of sub-par starts following the no-no and being outshined by a more dominant but imperfect R.A. Dickey, there’s not much hope for a big celebration of the Mets’ first no-hitter in this year’s products. If you want something to commemorate the occasion and don’t want to spend big bucks on reproduction tickets or whatever else the team is selling, I would recommend The7Line’s HI57ORY shirt.

SWLVguy wrote:

I might have a few of these….got any doubles of decent 90+ Gary Carters?

Oh, you have no idea… And, frankly, neither do I. I likely have a lot of base cards from Topps and Upper Deck, but I wouldn’t know where to even start looking. Too many old cards around here… I could always use some help thinning out the collection a bit, but even charities that give out cards to kids don’t want stuff as old as my excess commons. Anyone willing to give some old cards a good home?