Michael Crabtree May Have Found A Home

Michael Crabtree has anxiously been sitting and waiting for a phone call from an interested team. Part of the problem is that Crabtree is requesting #1 WR contract while at best he is a #3 WR and teams were not willing to drop that kind of change on a guy who is averaging only 7 receptions and 54 yards per game and his attitude doesn’t help.

Since the beginning of the Free Agency period a collection of solid wide receivers like Jeremy Maclin, Andre Johnson, Dwayne Bowe and even Percy Harvin all signed with teams leaving Crabtree as one of the top players in FA that was unsigned.

Rumor now is the Crabtree will be signing with the Oakland Raiders where he will line up with James Jones (666 yards) and Rod Streater (84 yards). The deal has not been announced and is contingent on him passing a physical. There is also talk that the Raiders, who have the #4 Draft Pick in this month’s NFL Draft, may look to draft a wide receiver in either Amari Cooper or Kevin White.

In the last decade Oakland seemed quite excited to sign young players who were washed up before their career started (JaMarcus Russell) or players who were at the end of their careers (Justin Tuck) so you wonder how this may affect his play.

 

Does the change from 49ers scarlet and gold to Raiders silver and black help or hurt Crabtree’s collectability?

Goodbye And Thank You Lauren Hill

A little more than 2 weeks ago I wrote about Lauren Hill, a 19-year old fighting a rare form of brain cancer. Sadly this morning she lost her battle with cancer and passed away.

Since she was diagnosed in 2013 she took the challenge head on knowing the outcome was stacked against her she wanted to do everything she could to raise awareness. During one of her interviews she said “I’m spreading awareness and also teaching people how to live in the moment because the next moment’s not promised.” Pretty profound coming from someone that still in their teens.

As things got worse for her she became sensitive to light, sound and movement. She tired quickly and would need a wheelchair and sleep was becoming more difficult. Even then she was still remaining committed to her The Cure Starts Now Foundation until the end, with her family taking on a bigger role as she weakened. So far the nonprofit foundation has raised over $1.5 million for cancer research.

 

Does A Moving Van Make A Difference To Collectors?

The other day I started thinking about teams that have moved and noticed that team collectors seem more apt to continue collecting baseball teams through their moves as compared to teams from basketball, football and hockey that have moved.

It got my gears working and I am wondering if it has to do with the storied history of baseball and the long connection with cards. Collectors seem more willing to pick up players from each incarnation of the team especially Dodgers and Giants collectors.

Consider baseball teams that have moved:

 

Philadelphia> Kansas City> Oakland A’s
Boston> Milwaukee> Atlanta Braves
Brooklyn> Los Angeles Dodgers
New York> San Francisco Giants

Now look at other sports teams with a long history that have moved and to me it seems like the original locations do not get much attention from collectors outside of maybe the Lakers and Raiders.

NBA:

Milwaukee> St. Louis> Atlanta Hawks
Minneapolis> Los Angeles Lakers
Rochester Royals> Cincinnati Royals> Kansas City-Omaha Kings> Sacramento Kings

NFL:

Cleveland> Los Angeles> St. Louis Rams
Chicago> St. Louis> Arizona Cardinals
Oakland> Los Angeles> Oakland Raiders
 
NHL:
Kansas City Scouts> Colorado Rockies> New Jersey Devils
Quebec Nordiques> Colorado Avalanche

 

This may be just my observation but I would love some input from team collectors.
Do you collect any teams that have moved and if so do you collect from before/after the move?

Lets Go Mojo...

I picked up this 2012 Leaf Metal Draft Mike Zunino autograph in February as the second piece of my Zunino trifecta, I still need to pick up a relic card, but I felt that now would be a good time to post up something about the Mariners catcher because he needs some major mojo going in to tonight’s game against the Angels. In the first two games he is currently 0-6 with a strike out, not a great start especially after last year’s mundane season where he had a .199 batting average and had more strike outs (158) than hits (87).

 

The card is the metal foil background that Leaf likes to use so it doesn’t scan very well, it actually reflects back everything during the scan and looks all scratched up but the card is beautiful in hand. I took a picture so you can see how it truly looks.

R.I.P. James Best AKA Sheriff Rosco P. Coultrane

Last night James Best passed away at the age of 88 due to complications from pneumonia. To many people the name may not mean anything but if you grew up in the early 80s you may know him better as Sheriff Rosco P. Coultrane, the bane of the Duke boy’s existence. From 1979 through 1985 every boy sat in front of the television waiting to see what kind of hornet’s nest the Duke family was going to get in to that night.

Best was actually an accomplished actor long before the Dukes of Hazzard was even an idea on a TV execs desk with appearance dating back to the origination of television including some of the most famous shows to grace the black and white screen. His list includes The Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Death Valley Days, Bonanza and Gunsmoke. Following his Dukes of Hazzard success he made appearances in two Dukes of Hazard spinoffs “The Dukes” and “Enos” plus two Dukes of Hazzard TV movies and two video games.

For collectors the options are extremely limited. Donruss released Dukes of Hazzard sets in 1980, 1981 & 1983 and that is it. Best did appear on the autograph checklist for the 2000 Rittenhouse Twilight Zone Series 2 release. Additional options include 8x10 photos, action figures and you can never go wrong with his 1981 Ertl Hazzard County Police car die cast car (or any of the Johnny Lighting re-releases).

When I was a kid I had the Duke’s General Lee and Roscoe’s police car die cast cars and I think I recreated every single jump, spin out and crash that I saw on the show before completely destroying the cars from all the crashes in to curbs.

 

His "Kew-kew-kew" catch phrase will always put a smile on Hazzard fans.

Happy Opening Day!

Today is the most anticipated day for baseball fans, Opening Day! Of course this is ignoring yesterday’s Cardinals-Cubs game. And after today’s 4-1 win over the Angels the Mariners are in sole ownership of the AL West, which is probably the last time I can say that this season.

Wallet Card Visits The Arizona Dragon Boat Festival

Last weekend was the 12^th Annual Arizona Dragon Boat Festival at Tempe Town Lake. My wife is a board member of the Arizona Dragon Boat Association and was an organizer of the festival so she was at the lake each day early before any of the teams or volunteers showed up so it gave me and my son time to get some early morning wallet card pictures before things got crazy.

Some early morning shots of Tempe Town Lake as the sun was rising.

These are the Dragon Boats, each boat carries 10 paddlers, a drummer and a coxswain. The drummer sits at the front of the boat facing backwards towards the paddlers on the tiny seat seen near the dragon head and yes, drummers do occasionally fall in to the water if the boat gets off balance.

Sadly once people started showing up it became a mad house and I don't have any pictures from the races or the pre-race events which include waking up the boats and a Buddhist monk blessing the boats

Can On-Card Autos And Acetate Carry A Set?

It has been a week since the release of Topps online-exclusive acetate product 2014 Topps Translucent Football. Each $99 (add $6+ shipping) contains 2 rookie on-card autographs from the 43-card checklist. The only parallel is a Sepia version limited to #/5.

Topps considers the release as a “Test issue” to see how collectors respond to the product and singles are showing up slowly on eBay. There are currently 16 singles plus 2 boxes up for auction. The highest bid is a Derek Carr base autograph at $28.00 with 12 bids and 4 days left.

It is too early to tell how the set will do and there seems to be interest but the question is will collectors jump on board. The 43-card checklist is made up entirely of rookies and because of the late release Topps was able to build the checklist around solid rookies but do people want to pay $99 for two rookie autographs when you have a chance of pulling Lorenzo Taliaferro and Jarvis Landry?

I like the set, the design is simple but very cool and I am a big fan of acetate cards and you can never argue an on-card autograph but there is no way that I am willing to take a $100 gamble. I will look in to picking up the two Seahawks (Paul Richardson and Kevin Norwood) and that is about it. I am disappointed in Topps selection for the Cardinals, they definitely selected the wrong rookie. They went with QB Logan Thomas who got in to only 2 games instead of WR John Brown.

Some Pickups For My Farscape Collection

This post is an amalgamation of multiple write ups that I started but never completed over the past few months. I figured it would be easier to keep it organized as one universal post that covers all of my Farscape additions.

The most recent Farscape pickup is an on-card autograph of Gigi Edgley, who plays my second favorite character Chiana. The card is from the Season 3 release, specifically the Losing Time episode. In the episode two energy creatures enter Moya, the ship, and one of the creatures takes over Chiana. At one point there is a small energy burst, which is where this scene comes from.

 

The character Chiana was actually supposed to die in the first season but the producers felt that Gigi Edgley worked so well with the actors and crew that they decided to keep her on full time as a primary character and re-wrote the episode (Durka Returns) so she didn’t die. With her character being a main character her autographs and relics were also includes in each of the releases but like Virginia Hey’s character Zhaan they cost more than the fringe and support actor’s cards. Here autographs usually run around $25 and her relics around $8-10. I picked up this IP autograph from a very reputable dealer for a little over $10 so I got a nice deal. Personally I like some of the aftermarket autographs when compared to the autographs in to packs.

Sticking with Chiana, I finally found one of her costume cards for a reasonable price ($8.95 shipped). I was able to add #CC9 from 2001 Rittenhouse Farscape Season 2 release to my growing Farscape collection. She still has three more costume cards I am looking to eventually add.

Also finally making it in to my Farscape collection is a Wayne Pygram  cards, an IP autograph from the same dealer that I bought the Gigi Edgley autograph from plus two Scorpius relics, the Scorpius variant Harvey relic card and the base Scorpius relic. The Harvey character came about after a chip was inserted in to John’s brain while he was in the Aurora Chair. After the chip was inserted John would hallucinate and see images of Scorpius, when he figured they were just hallucinations he called the character Harvey after the invisible rabbit in the James Stewart movie of the same name. The character often showed up wearing this shirt, among other odd costumes, so the variant relic cards are made up of relics from this shirt.

I am still looking to add the missing Zhaan relic card (#C10), Chiana’s three additional costume cards and any of the main characters official autographs. After that I want to hunt down the Revenging Angel Animation Cels (R1-18), a Pilot autograph and a Moya relic card. I guess you could say I am a bit of a Farscape fan, I loved the show.

An Interesting Take On Superheroes

Upper Deck released something unusual today that has brought a bit of a heated discussion among some collectors because of the odd pack out. The release, 2015 Marvel 3D Trading Card, is not a standard comic card product but instead is a mixture of comic cards and DBG (Deck Building Game) set. It was initially a 2014 product and set for a November 2014 release but was delayed until today and was re-designated as 2015 release.

The pack out consists of 20 packs per box with 6 cards per pack for $100. The set has a 100-card checklist but there is also a 40-card DBG checklist, which is what makes this release different. The base cards are 3D lenticular cards while the DBG cards are your standard trading card game design. Additionally each box contains 1 sketch card but the card is playable DBG card, a first in the sketch card world. A box break will give you 60 base cards, 40 playable Legendary DGB cards and a sketch card.

Initially when I read the information about the set I was questionable because all that I saw were the sketch cards but now that the cards are starting to show up on eBay I have to admit I dig both the 3D Lenticular base set as well as the Deck Building Game (DBG) cards and considering that there are only 100 base cards and 40 DBG cards I may end up working on this set. It is unique enough to keep my attention and small enough to not break the bank.

Here is a sample of base and DBG cards that are currently up for auction to get an idea of what Upper Deck is putting out.

 

The sketch cards that I have seen have some amazing artwork from artists like Rich Molinelli, Mike Thomas, Eric Ninaltowski and Carlos Cabaleiro. These are cards that I pulled off of artist's Facebook and DeviantArt pages.