On August 9th, Evan's Sports Cards and Collectibles (one of my LCS) held an autograph signing for former Philadelphia Phillies player Ricky Jordan.  The signing was great, Evan's had ROMLBs to sign and even had some of Ricky's cards to purchase.  They were offering a free autograph with any item purchased, so I bought the ROMLB and two of his rookie cards (1988 Score Traded & 1988 Fleer Update - $1 each) and got three autographs for under $20!  Can't beat that deal!

When I got to meet Mr. Jordan, he couldn't have been nicer.  He signed the baseball first with the inscription of his number and "Phillies".  Pretty cool.  When he signed the cards, he was excited to see the 1988 Fleer Update.  He said that it was the first card he was ever on, and how he asked them for a bunch of copies and carried one around in his wallet.  I thought it was cool to see the excitement he had when he saw the card, probably brought him back to the first time he saw it.  It was great to see the impact that a simple baseball card to make on a person.  

Anyways, if you're ever in Voorhees, NJ stop in to Evan's Sports Cards and Collectibles.  He's got great memorabilia, good singles, supplies and even a few dime boxes to look through!  Introduce yourself to Evan too, he's a nice guy and a great shop owner!

Let this sink in for a minute:

I sold a Topps Bunt card on eBay for $3.75 and purchased a Topps Gypsy Queen Allen Webster Autographed card on eBay for $3.24 (includes the S&H cost).

More Topps Bunt details:

Topps Bunt awards users with 1,000 free coins every day that you login.  If you wait enough days, you can buy packs of Topps Bunt cards.  Therefore, you can earn Topps Bunt cards at the low, low cost of NOTHING!  In some of these packs, you can earn cards that have been proven to sell on eBay for real money.  Thus, I have earned over $150 selling virtual / fake Topps Bunt cards on eBay and the cards that I sold cost me nothing.  That is pure profit.  Thank you to all of my repeat Customers, I'm glad that you truly enjoy Topps Bunt and have decided to spend your money on cards that interest you - whether they're real or fake.  It's not my thing, but glad you enjoy it and I'm happy that I can help you obtain cards that you may not have normally gotten.

Checklist Repetition:

I noticed one of my Twitter friends, @CollectTheMets, was disappointed with the 2014 Topps Chrome checklist as the Mets autographed rookie cards were the same two players that have been featured repeatedly in Topps products this year.  I've noticed this trend, where Topps has the same exact player autographs in multiple products each year.  Doesn't this dilute the "value" of some of the player autographs when they're overproduced in one product, then added and overproduced in future products throughout the year?  How else can you explain getting a 2014 Topps Gypsy Queen Allen Webster autographed card for less than $3.25 (including S&H!), and he isn't even one of the players I'd consider to be diluted.

#ThanksTopps:

In the end, "Thanks Topps!" because you've essentially given me $150 to spend on REAL cards and some of those cards have been released by Panini.  Let that one sink in too...

I have a copy of this issue of Sports Illustrated.  As a Red Sox fan, I feel like it is my duty to honor Tony C. by having a copy of this.

"What could have been?" is never more true than when you discuss Tony Conigliaro's career.  He was a hyped prospect who was putting up huge numbers when this happened.  He was the youngest home run champion in AL history - think about the great players who had come before him, and he held that title.  Youngest player in AL history to reach 100 career home runs.  Unreal talent.

It's sad to think about how his career was cut short, but he'll certainly never be forgotten by true Boston Red Sox fans.  Here's to you, Tony C.!

The East Coast National has come and gone, and I was fortunate enough to attend on Saturday.  I arrived shortly after the show opened, approximately 10:30am, paid my $8 entrance fee and entered the show.  There were two free autograph signers, and I was excited that Luis Tiant was one of them as I had a Fenway 100 Years ball that I wanted him to sign (already have Fred Lynn and Cecil Cooper on it!).  Come to find out later, the line to get free autographs was obscenely long and I honestly didn't feel like waiting for it.  Overall, the autograph signing process was terrible and the show promoters should be ashamed of the process.  Despite having ticket #37 for Dwight Gooden, I waited in line for over an hour as the show promoter didn't announce the numbers for any of the signers except Patrick Ewing and Dennis Rodman.  People were upset about having to stand in line for so long, no one knew which lines to stand it as they were very long and it was time that I could have spent walking the floor buying things so I can't imagine dealers would approve of this process.

Anyways...rant over...I decided to build my '80s collection and got autographs of Dwight Gooden and Jose Canseco ($25 each) on their signature rookie cards.  I'm psyched to have added these to my collection.  Gooden was super nice and was interacting with people.  Canseco was kind of disinterested in interacting with people, but I'll give him credit - he's still jacked and looks like he could still play (even though we know he can't).  I never made it to get Luis Tiant's autograph as the line was super long and I wanted to spend time walking the show.

I dug through a pretty good $.10 box and found a ton of cards that I needed for sets, almost completed my 2013 Panini Golden Age set.  The only other purchase I made were three autographed cards that were $10 each or three for $25.  Not a bad group of autographs for $25.  Overall, the show was ok.  The autograph process was horrible.  The selection of stuff was either vintage or new mojo rookies etc.  It's funny to see boxes set up with 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's (well, through 85T).  I wonder when the 90's cards will become popular again.  Definitely not enough of the $.10/$.25 boxes, most only had new stuff (2013-2014) for set builders.  I'd go again, especially if there were some decent, low-cost autograph guests.