What Sets Have Jumped The Shark?

Forty years ago on September 20, 1977 during the 5^th season of Happy Days in the episode Hollywood: Part 3, Fonzie jumped a shark during a water skiing competition. The episode did extremely well but many years later during a discussion of television shows on the decline, some college students at the University of Michigan, including John Hein, brought up this specific episode as the one where Happy Days was no longer original and fresh.

The term “jump the shark” was born as a description of when something popular begins to no longer be popular. Typically, the expression is used for television or movie sequels but can be used in describing almost anything in pop culture, among other things collecting too. 

I know today is not a normal question day but what sets would you say jumped the shark? This isn’t limited to modern sets but any set/series/product ever made. 

I know there are more, but the only one coming to mind is 2011 Topps Triple Threads when they created manufactured relics for John Henry, Leif Ericson and Pecos Bill. Not only did that bring attention to Topps rehashing Triple Threads designs over and over but unleashed manufactured relics as a “hit” in products.

Is Winning A Genetic Gene?

I started thinking about father and sons who have played professional sports and how they compared to each other. I think that it is almost always more difficult for the son because they will be compared to their father until they over take their father, anything less and they are a failure.

There is the question of success too, is winning a team championship equal to winning individual awards and does a Hall of Fame career trump everything else? 

If you were to pick a dominant family for each sport which would you pick? Here are mine:

MLB:

Ken Griffey Sr. & Ken Griffey Jr.

NBA:

Jellybean Bryant & Kobe Bryant (OK, no comparison but I wanted to write jellybean)

I would actually go with the Barry family for basketball

NFL:

Archie Manning & Peyton and Eli Manning (Based solely on Peyton and Eli's success)

NHL:

Bobby Hull & Brett Hull

NASCAR:

Dale Earnhardt Sr. & Dale Earnhardt Jr. but just slightly over the Lee family

Anymore Ideas Of What I Can Do So You Don't Have To?

The list that I have put together for my “So you don’t have to” posts is up to 14 items, including the three from this past weekend. I am excited about this because there are things I have wanted to do to cards and now I have a reason to do them. I am setting parameters for each experiment because I want them to be easily replicated if anyone else wants to give it a try.

Most will take minutes or maybe a day to accomplish but there is one that will take time, that is Fuji’s suggestion about finding out if junk wax can be turned in to worm compost. I have begun the process setting up this experiment, I plan to make this a one year project which I will be starting next week.

If anyone has any more suggestions just let me know, I would love to add more items to the list. The list may be altered a bit here and there, some are nearly the same so I may just include them in one experiment. Here is what I have so far:

Burn a chrome card
Create sketch card
Create a collage

Create a custom card

Create multi-layer card/3D

Place a card in bike spokes

Place a card out in the environment for 1 year

Remove auto sticker

Place removed sticker

Remove a card from graded case

Remove a manufactured patch from a card

Remove a medallion from a card
Separate base cards (split layers)

Separate a jersey card

Separate a patch card

Skin a chrome card

Skin a Prizm
Submerge base cards in bleach
Submerge graded cards in water

What Can I Do So You Don't Have To?

The other day I did something to a card I had never considered before just to see what would happen, more on this in a future post, and it got me wondering if there was anything else that I could do that I had never considered doing before.

I have come up with a short list of things I plan on doing so you don’t have to do it but I would like some input to add to the list. A couple of things on the list include skinning certain types of cards and removing an autograph sticker. 

Question: What is something you would like to see done to a card but have never done?

Is It Up To The Buyer Or Seller?

About two weeks ago I purchased a Griffey card from a dealer on eBay. He messaged me to let me know he was going to be putting up additional Griffey cards and asked if I would like first crack before they get listed. Interested I ask for a list, which he sends and I find a couple of cards that I needed and we worked out a nice deal. I paid through Paypal and he sent all of the cards together with my eBay order so I didn’t have to pay an additional shipping fee.

Everything was good until I got the cards and realized one of the cards was not what he had listed, but was actually a similar but different card which I already had. Now I am not angry, I don’t think he intended to rip me off because the price we agreed on was very fair I just think that he was mistaken when he listed the card.

The cards in question are the 1992 Classic Best Griffey card. There are three versions not counting the Atlanta NSCC or autographed versions which are based on the base card; the base version (Left), the Red Foil version (Center) and the Blue Foil version (Right). I have since picked up the Red Foil, Blue Foil and Atlanta NSCC versions so my collection 4/5 done, I just need the autographed version.

 

The seller listed “Red version” which led me to believe it was the Red Foil but the card I received was the base card. These cards are similar except the base has a white border and white back while the Foil versions are grey. Here are the backs, as you can see the Red Foil and Blue Foil backs are the same (#2 and #3 below)

 

This led me to wonder, if a deal is worked out is it the seller’s responsibility if they are mistaken or is it the buyers responsibility for verifying the card?

I didn’t think to ask for an image so I take responsibility for not getting the details in this case but I was wondering how others feel about a similar situation.

What Should I Do Puig?

Last week I ended up bidding on a Yasiel Puig Leaf Matrix Blue Refractor card, it was posted with a starting bid at 99 cents and I tossed up a bid of $3.78 and figured it would sell for well over that considering that there were copies sitting at prices ranging from $20 to $50 and some had bids. As the time wound down I was bid up a bit and was waiting for the “You have been outbid” message to show up on my screen, but it never showed up. At the close of the auction my winning bid was $3.64, toss in another $3 shipping and the card was mine.

 

I am a fan of many of Leaf’s products and I really dig the Matrix cards, I guess I jumped on this one because it was so cheap and I can’t argue against grabbing up a Puig Matrix card.

 

My question now is should I crack it out of the case?

 

I do not plan on displaying the card, I would rather store the card in my baseball binder and I am not big on grading modern cards. Maybe if it was a 10 and I planned on selling it I would not question leaving it graded but that is not the case, this card was graded lower due to an 8 subgrade on the corners. The top left corner on the back of the card has a small ding (about 1/3 cm) probably done before the card was even packed out.

 

If I do crack the case, what is the best way to go about it? I have never removed a card that was encased before.