Chosen by YOU!  That's right, I'm tired of posting new blog entries and receiving zero comments.  It's time for my readers to dictate what I release next in terms of displaying my Personal Collection.

Here are your options:

My "work in progress" 1952 Bowman Boston Red Sox Team Set (PSA graded)

My Ken Griffey Jr. collection

My Evan Longoria collection

My Topps Allen & Ginter collection

The polling will close on Friday June 22nd at 11:59pm.  Each of the collections is pretty cool in it's own right, so I'm interested to see what you decide.  Best of luck to all of my collections, and be sure to leave your comment by the time the polls close.

Also, I'd love to hear some feedback on the site, trade offers, blog topic suggestions or just say hello!  Until next time...

1) Potential BGS 9.5s.  Historically, the cards grade very well.  I'm hoping to get a few quality base, mini, relic and autographed cards to submit to Beckett for grading.

2) Hotties!!  I mean, who wouldn't be excited about Kate Upton and Erin Andrews being added to the checklist?

3) Globe Trotters.  The Curly Neal and Meadowlark Lemon cards should be really cool.  I'm picturing red, white and blue relics from their uniforms.  Awesome!

4) Yaz-Tastic!  I'm glad that Topps has added Carl Yastrzemski to the set again.  Can someone explain what happened to Ted Williams though?  Topps adds the same retired players to all of their sets but the lack of Ted Williams is disturbing.

5) Man's Best Friend.  As a dog owner, I'm actually looking forward to the Man's Best Friend Mini set.  While I typically don't collect the mini insert sets, I think I'll make an exception this year for this one.

6) The Pictures.  I'm always in awe of the drawings used in the Topps Allen & Ginter set.  I posted a picture of the Manny Pacquiao card from last year, as I found the picture to be stunning.  A great picture of a champion who just prevailed after a hard fought battle.  I'm sure Topps won't disappoint with this year's pictures as they are usually one of the best pieces of the release.

7) TTM Autographs.  After making a Master Set (only the regular sized cards), I love to use my extra cards to request through the mail (TTM) autographs.  The card stock is perfect and the vintage look makes the autographs look stunning.

8) Sweater or No Sweater?  The Bob Knight relic has been piquing my interest ever since I heard that he would be included.  Topps dropped the ball last year on the Shawn Michaels relic (camo, really?!?) and I'm hoping that the Knight relic will include a piece of one of his legendary Indiana University sweaters.

9) Historical Turning Points.  The Historical Turning Points set should be interesting and I'm glad that it's a normal sized insert set.  I'm curious to see if they include baseball related "turning points" (like Dave Roberts "The Steal") or if it will be strictly historical dates in time.

10) EVERYTHING!!!  I am excited for the 2012 release more than in past years.  I love the addition of the retired players, the non-baseball checklist and am DYING to see what I pull from my case.  Is it July 10th yet???

I wanted to update everyone on some recent TTM returns and a devastating blow to my record keeping.

First, the good news: I recently received returns from the following people: Juan Pierre, Ryan Dempster, Herb Simpson and Alan Trammell.  Pretty solid returns, one of the Dempster autos runs off the card and Trammell only signed 1 of the 4 cards that I sent him.  I was hoping to get him to sign one of each of the 2 cards and I offered him to keep the double copies of the two cards that I sent.  Overall, it's always exciting to see my return envelopes arrive in the mail.  I'd highly recommend this part of the hobby to those of you who have doubles/triples sitting around collecting dust.

The bad news: my Mac got fried over the weekend when I accidentally spilled some coffee on it.  The worse news: my hard drive was also fried and all of my documents were lost.  One of those documents was a detailed excel spreadsheet that tracked the TTMs that I sent, date sent, return dates and details.  I'll continue to update my TTM results but won't have sent dates for some of them as I lost that information.  Not only was it a big financial loss (buying a new laptop) but a gut punch as well, because I kept pretty detailed inventories of my collection.  Oh well, time to start from scratch.

Thanks for reading!

When taking a look at the baseball card products available each year in the market, it is hard to find a more unique product line than Topps Allen & Ginter.  As a result of their interesting checklist of cards and painted-portrait theme, it’s natural that their base cards would be considered a good choice to submit for grading with BGS.  If you look closer at the numbers, it might be hard to find a better product to submit in the hopes of receiving a top-level grade.

By looking at the BGS Population Reports (as of 4/21/11), the Allen & Ginter submissions have historically graded very high throughout their five-year history.  With a decent sample size of 1,118 base cards submitted, 80% of the base cards have been returned to their owner with a 9.5 or 10.0 overall grade.  The largest sample sizes were in 2006 and 2007, and those years measured at a 79% and 85% rate, respectively.  With a relatively weak base set compared to other years, it’s no surprise that the 2009 set has the lowest level of submission (72) and the lowest level of BGS 9.5/10 return rate (63%).

The bulk of the base cards don’t command a high value, so the set provides you with the opportunity to add some unique graded rookie cards to your collection at a manageable cost.  The 2007 set included rookie cards of Tim Lincecum and Daisuke Matsuzaka, and both cards carry a low ungraded book cost with very high return rates (93% and 84%, respectively).  The most recent release of Allen & Ginter contained rookie cards for two NL studs in Jason Heyward and Buster Posey, who have put up staggering numbers on the field and in the BGS grading rates (87% and 98%, respectively).

As a collector of BGS graded cards, I know that it often helps to look at the numbers to determine what non-graded cards to purchase in the hope of getting them graded at a high level.  Based on my analysis, it’d be difficult to find a more consistent and unique product set to add to your BGS graded collection than the Topps Allen & Ginter cards.