One of the hottest products in the market this year has been the Topps Project 2020 on-demand set. Topps chose 2o of their most iconic cards and hired 20 artists to re-produce the cards based on their style of art. Two new cards are released every week day (Mon-Fri) and are available to order for 48 hours.

Similar to Topps Living Set, the first few releases had rather low print runs (1k - 2k) but the project has picked up steam and cards are now seeing average print runs of 6k-8k with some cards up to almost 35k. Based on conversations I've had with fellow collectors, some are collecting their favorite players, some their favorite artists and some are just picking and choosing which cards they like. 

I made my first Topps Project 2020 at card #51 - the Mike Trout card designed by Ben Baller. The card ended up being the highest print run so far - 34,950, but it was the first card that really appealed to me. While I'm not an art expert, his style of hiphop/bling caught my eye and I regret now buying his earlier cards at the time they were released. As expected, Mike Trout has been drawing the largest print runs so far.

I've already made one other purchase from the set - saving that information for another day, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Topps Project 2020 set. Have you purchased any? What are you buying from the set? Who is your favorite artist so far?

Who is this guy that is writing a lot of posts all of a sudden?  It's amazing what a global pandemic will do for creating capacity and time to write more.

Pretty sweet mail day yesterday. I had made two recent purchases and they both arrived on the same day, so I figured it was a good chance to share.

First up - I have always loved the 1953 Topps set, and although it doesn't fit with my HOF RC focus, it may be as close as I get to a Willie Mays rookie card. BBCE had this posted on eBay, and the price was closely aligned to recent sales (a rarity on eBay - BINs close to actual sale prices). For a PSA 2, it has great eye appeal, the centering is decent, no visible wrinkles and the color on Mays is really sharp - it presents better in person than a picture could show. Really proud to add this to my collection.

The second card is one that I've been trying to find for close to two years. 1975 is such a tough issue - centering, tilts, printer dots and Brett cards sometimes have a black ink line that runs down the right side of the card. I was able to find this Brett RC, fairly decent centering and the price of the auction closed pretty close to what PSA 7s have been going for (pre-recent bump/craziness). Really psyched to add Brett to my HOF RC collection.

I'm curious to hear from folks about what vintage cards they are chasing. Leave comments below, I'd love to see what folks have their eyes on.

Greetings fellow stay-at-home'ers! I haven't posted since February and I figured now was a good a time as any to write up a new post. I hope that everyone is safe and doing their part to stay home, stay distanced and taking into consideration those of us who may have underlying health concerns and susceptible to COVID.

The last few weeks of the hobby have been unlike anything I've ever seen before. Earlier this year, the passing of Kobe Bryant drove his card prices up to levels they had never been at before. Recently, there have been prices rising almost universally across the card collecting industry - 2020 Topps Series 2 pre-sale prices are higher than I can ever imagine, PSA graded cards from my childhood (80s/90s) are reaching prices that are beyond belief and ESPN's "The Last Dance" has substantially increased the price of any/all Michael Jordan cards.

A few examples I thought I would share:

I had purchased a PSA 10 1989 Donruss Curt Schilling RC back in 2015 for roughly $12-$15, as I was starting to gather some items from the Red Sox registries on the PSA site. Despite my hatred of him due to his political views and overall personality, he does have one of the most memorable moments in Red Sox history. While looking on COMC, I noticed that someone posted one for sale at $120. I figured it was a random person posting a card at a crazy high price, but a quick search of eBay showed that the card was selling for roughly that price. I couldn't believe my eyes and quickly posted mine for sale - there is no way this card could possibly be valued at that price. By comparison, the PSA 10 1989 Upper Deck John Smoltz has roughly the same population with PSA (so its not that the Schilling is rarer) and continues to sell for around $30-$35.

1987 Topps is a cherished set in the hobby, but there is no disagreement with the fact that it was MASS produced. Hobby boxes were as low as $15-$20 not too long ago, and if someone called a card shop asking if they'd be interested in 1987 Topps, the card shop owner would likely hang up on them or tell them the cards have almost no value. On February 17th, a PSA 10 1987 Topps Mark McGwire card (not his RC, that was in 1985 Topps) sold via auction (granted, it was PWCC) for $41. In addition to the recent card craze, supposedly ESPN announced that they were working on a McGwire/Sosa documentary similar to The Last Dance. If I look at the most recent PSA 10 sale for the McGwire card, the card has now sold for $242.50 on May 14th. Nearly a $200 increase on a card that is not his RC and from one of the most mass produced sets in history, in less than 3 months. 

There are a number of other examples available. Some news outlets have picked up on the sports card craze and theorized on what could be driving it (i.e. people stuck at home, The Last Dance, Topps 2020 project, etc.) but its clear that rational decision making is no longer a consideration for some folks.

This is a good reminder that you should collect what you like, research historical pricing to help inform your decisions and remember this hobby is supposed to be FUN. 

Until next time, stay at home and stay safe!

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Despite making only ONE post last year, I'm still here and alive. I'll give a brief recap of the end of 2019 to bring you up to speed - bought some cards, sold some cards.

Now it's 2020. It's been a slow year so far in terms of purchases for my personal collection. Investors are driving prices through the roof - from graded 80's cards to current products like Optic Basketball. I've also been focused on searching for a few items I want to add to my collection, rather than purchases that I may end up regretting.

What have I been focused on? Well, I made my annual list of cards to focus on this year, approximately 15 items at this point. Some are specific cards, some are more like categories (i.e. pick up at least one PSA Ted Williams card). My major purchase at the NSCC last year was a gorgeous PSA 3 1954 Topps Hank Aaron RC. It wasn’t on my “focus” list but it was too good of a deal to pass up so it was acceptable deviation from the list.

Next weekend I’ll be at The Philly Show with my good friend Matt (@MWalk66 on Twitter). Give me a shout out here if you’re headed to the show. Hopefully I’ll write again soon.

Until next time..,

(insert usual comments around "sorry for not posting in awhile" and "will try to be better")

Now that we have that out of the way, I am PSYCHED for the 2019 NSCC next week. My favorite part is seeing my friends, making new friends and getting some time hang out with everyone. I should probably figure out what I'm looking for at the show too, since that's another big part of the trip.

Since I'm flying to Chicago, my ability to buy bulk will be limited which is good as I'm trying to thin out my collection as much as possible. Quality > quantity right now. My time at the dime/dollar/etc. boxes will be mostly focused on finding Rookie Cards (top MLB/NBA/NFL rookies, etc.), interesting Red Sox cards and a few of the players I'm focusing on (Jim McMahon, Mitchell Trubisky, etc.).  

​The rest of my focus will be on adding to my PSA collection. I really didn't buy much last year as the prices were a bit too high, especially when compared with recent sales on eBay. I can justify a % increase as I'm able to see and examine the card in person, but some of the prices were far too high to even consider purchasing at the show. I hope dealers will improve on that this year, as there is money to spend ($ today vs. holding out for a higher price and risk holding onto the card for much longer).  I won't get my hopes up though, sadly I think it may be a light year again.

If you're headed to the show, leave me a comment and tell me what you're going to be looking for.  If you can't make the show this year, use that travel $ you saved and tell me what you're currently looking to add to your collection.

​Until next time...

Sadly, Upper Deck's ePack site has a message board that is filled with trolls. Users go about their business posting what they're looking to trade for, yet some users feel the need to troll them and mock what they are requesting.

Therefore - here is definitive proof that I have spent $0.00 on the site since I joined, and have successfully leveraged the daily free packs to get real cards that have real value that I've sold for real cash on COMC.

​Enjoy the read.

I was visitng my in-laws back in June and decided to make a few card shop stops on my drive home. I googled “baseball cards” and started looking along the route I was taking home. I found two shops to try so I hit the road with excitement to check out two new places.

My first stop was a good shop with a super nice guy. The place had a ton of reasonably priced wax and some good singles that were a bit overpriced in my point of view. None of the singles were priced to my liking but I found a box of 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes in the back of the shop for only $40.  I had been wanting to buy a box of this product for some time, but I thought the prices were a bit high.  $40 sounded fair given that you are guaranteed 3 autos per box (mine ended up having a 4th!) plus the base set had a bunch of players you don't see on cardboard too often anymore.

Great product, definitely a fun rip if you can find it at a decent price.
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