Another Spx Autograph, another charger

Here's the next card that I've got stored away from my many box breaks over the last couple of years. I broke this last year a month or so after 2012 spx came out. The photography on these cards is stunning. The design I like pretty well. I think these cards would be better with serial numbering but I guess I'm just one of those guys that likes EVERY card to be serial numbered so I know how many there are. Some might say this is pointless but I think serial numbers are the best thing to come out in sports cards. With patch cards it allows collectors to "track" the card. For some of the hard core guys they will document highly faked patch autographs and if it comes up again later altered buyers can be warned, or at the very least, serious collectors can check to see if it's authentic. It's too bad that major card companies don't have this system in place, something like an online database and photograph of every jersey card produced. While this might be daunting what it could do for the industry is make jersey cards more expensive to make and more rare, thereby increasing their value in the hobby once again. Honestly, how many jersey cards of Leon Washington does this hobby need anyway?

Panini Black Rookie Autograph Patch next on the list

Now this design I really like. I's got a few more of these cards and what's cool about them is that they are a subset of Panini Black. This set is about 30 cards which was typical for SPx SP authentic and similar brands but once you have the 30 rookies, that's the set. No base cards, no base RCs or anything like that. Because it's not part of a base set these cards are not actually considered Rookie cards by collectors. They are 1st year cards of players at the Rookie premier and they have autographs and jersey pieces. I'm not going to splice through the semantics of what makes a rookie card. They look great to me! The card I got from Mike's Stadium Sports cards looks very similar to this one that's currently on Ebay.

Newest Challenge for my card collection~

I've finally logged in all 10 vikings police cards in the set. Here's the next card I'm chasing. This is sort of when sports cards started to get interesting. This duflex technology is something they don't really do any more. Doesn't hurt that it's a Hall of Famer. I did not bid on the card right away because it looks like something that can be had for pretty cheap. Maybe even the whole set can be found for a good price. I'll take a look on Ebay and the Beckett marketplace and see what I can find out about it.

It looks like this card was mislabeled in the auction on further research. It was labeled "Live" but is actually the hobby parallel called "Limited". This is a base set. The difference between the two is that the retail version has "Live" printed several times along the left-hand side of the card. The Limited version has the team name only as you see here.

Football Challenge card Time~

My 1990 Vikings Police set came in. Here's a photo of the whole lot that I purchased from Ebay. The history on these cards isn't readily available on the internet. The back of the Chris Doleman card says: "You can get your Vikings cards only from peace officers. There will be lots of chances to get your cards, but don't ask the officers when they are busy. Only ask when it is safe." No kidding right? What moron would ask for cards when the officer is on scene at an accident or a murder? Might have been kind of funny to ask for these cards when you got pulled over for something. I don't know if they came as a full set when handed out? This seems likely but this has to be the closest thing to an oddball set I've ever owned. My 13 year old Becket says this set is worth 5.00, I paid about 8.00 with shipping for this set. Cards are very thin stock and seem cheaply produced, this is to be expected with this type of issue and the era.

The best card from 2 boxes of 2012 Limited is this Awesome Prime Jersey Autograph of Nick Foles!

The guy might have a veteran in Micheal Vick in front of him on the depth chart. He might also have a young stud in Matt Barkley behind him. In watching some of his games I think he has potential and could end up on some other team if the stables get too full in Philadelphia. The card is numbered to 25 copies and I was super stoked to pull it. This card was by far my best pull out of my two box breaks of this product. I was tempted to sell it but as I have some other Foles autographs I'm hanging on to this one will just stay in my personal collection. And why not? I think part of the draw of collecting is the feeling you get when you pull a really nice card from a box. This one definitely qualifies.

Ponder Jersey card, pretty sweet~

The next and next to last card from my 2012 Limited break is this card. Overall I've broken 2 boxes of this product this year and must say it's a pretty good set. Tomorrow's card is VERY sweet, I promise. Anyway this one's numbered to 99 copies and I've always liked the Vikings so this is a pretty cool card. There are numerous parallels of this particular card, one on Ebay I saw was numbered to 20 copies and was a dual color swatch. The fact that it's card # 64 in the set alerts me to the fact that there are a TON of jersey cards like this for many different players.

Blue Chips Jersey

Here's another Jersey card. Remember in 1996 when the first jersey cards were made by Upper Deck? They came at astronomical odds and are still pretty valuable. Now as people complain about, recent jersey cards are not worth very much due to over-saturation. Still, the alternative is to have endless insert cards that don't mean anything like in 1995. Guess we can't go back now. Pead isn't looking as weird on his card as Robert Turbin.

Update to the Challenge!

Update: The next card that ended soonest on eBay was.... a set! The 1990 Vikings Police set certainly would never have been on my radar before this challenge but the BIN was reasonable enough. I decided against trying to find a cheaper price and just went for it. My feeling is that these don't come up for sale very often. It's a local issue, oddball type set that you would not find at a card shop here in Denver. Once I get the set in I'll post a card day by day. There's 10 cards in the set and this might be of interest to some of you newer collectors that only focus on the "hits" and autographs of 2010 and later. Checking some of the message boards I see people calling 2009 cards "vintage" which is crazy. With a new set coming out nearly every week though 2009 certainly can feel vintage. I think vintage is anything 30 years older or more. Since a generation is considered 30 years it makes sense that any cards produced a generation ago would be considered old wax. That makes vintage under this definition 1983 cards and earlier. Elway's rookie is still considered modern, till next year that is.

Not Vintage....

2012 Limited Adrian Peterson

Another base card but hey, it's of the most popular football player on the planet right now. Adrian Peterson cards command a huge following from collectors. What's not to like about a guy that gets over 2K rushing after an ACL injury? I avoided him in last year's fantasy draft and wow, that was a bad choice. That being said, who would have predicted this? Certainly no analyst, pro scout or coach in the game today. There are 16 different cards in 2012 Limited featuring Adrian Peterson. There are only a handful of autographs released in this product. The gold version is numbered to 5, oddly enough, same amount of copies for the silver and the platinum.... 1. This means that there were only 11 total autographs of AP you could pull from this product so the odds of actually doing so would be nearly impossible. Guess I'll settle for this base card for the time being!

Limited Base card

Here's the next one in my break. Steve Bartkowski 2012 Limited. I really did not know too much about this player, but apparently even though he played for the Falcons he really was a legend:

"Bartkowski was chosen with the first overall pick in the 1975 NFL Draft, ahead of Walter Payton, by the Atlanta Falcons and was the NFL Rookie of the Year as well as The Sporting News NFC Rookie of the Year in 1975. He was the first client of sports agent Leigh Steinberg.

Bartkowski is one of only ten quarterbacks in NFL history who have achieved consecutive 30-touchdown passing seasons (1980 & 1981) at least one time in their career. The others are Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Brett Favre, Dan Fouts, Jeff Garcia, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Y.A. Tittle, and Aaron Rodgers. Bartkowski was selected to the Pro Bowl after both the 1980 and 1981 seasons and was selected 2nd Team All-NFC following the 1980 campaign. Bartkowski led the NFL in passing in 1983 with a passer rating of 97.6.[3][4]

Bartkowski still holds almost every Falcons passing record. He is the Falcons all time leader in passing yards and touchdowns. He was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame on May 19, 2007.[5]"

(Wikipedia)

Pretty sweet card then and definitely my first one of him as I'm not a big vintage collector.

Finally, Got the Justin Tucker Certified Auto, on to the next card!

It took me much longer to find and win this card than I thought it could possibly take. There were some redemption cards on Ebay that had BINS posted but I didn't want to wait months to get a card that was already live. I ended up paying more than I wanted to for it which was probably due to impatience but we've all done that right? Anyway, this is numbered to 290 copies and is fairly thick for an autographed card. It's about the thickness of a jersey card, probably 80 point or so. I'm curious to see what card is next on the agenda. Guess I'll go check it out right now!

Another Limited box break

Now I'm starting to log in the 2012 Limited cards that I pulled earlier this year. I have to say the last box was kind of a dud. My main hits were of a guy with 7 career receiving yards and a guy who's up on charges for murder. However, since I'm not trying to sell them I guess it doesn't matter. It's pretty hard to make money off of a box break any more. You have to get really lucky. I don't think any of the boxes I've broke in the last two years I've broke even. All you can hope for is to get some cool cards that you enjoy. Anyway, here's the next out of seven cards that I pulled earlier in the year. Victor Cruz is an awesome player; had him on my fantasy team last year and very rarely did he disappoint in terms of catches, yards or touchdowns. He was the best WR I had on my roster. I don't often pay much attention to this position and many times it hurts my fantasy team cause I'm using third option receivers that don't get many looks. I figured I had RG3 and Cam Newton as well as Ray Rice so I was set up on those fronts. My WR position other than Cruz was a mess though.

Biggest Jersey swatch in my card collection

This is by far the largest swatch of jersey I've ever seen inserted in any of my cards. Most of the time you get a little thumb-sized piece. This one has the stitching, mesh at the bottom and all the team colors. I like it. It's numbered to 49 copies which is pretty scarce, especially considering I used to be happy to pull any numbered card back in the late nineties. Joe Adams did not do too much last year, most people in the box break forums complain when the get Joe Adams, Micheal Egnew or Isaiah Pead. Hey they can't all be Robert Griffins can they?

Blue Chip Jersey cards are creepy.

Here's the next card from my 2012 Limited break. I broke 2 boxes of this so far this year. These blue chip cards are kind of weird as far as the photography they decided to put on here. Seriously this dude is pretty creepy. I son't always agree that helmets off is a bad thing on cards, but in this case, please don't give me  this look like you're going put something in my drink. Seriously bro, smile, something. This is not a good look for you Robert Turbin.

Overall the design is good. Mostly white cards are a welcome break from the base silver foil cards. I like the look of the gold foil in the monikers auto set but the silver looks cheap and overdone. All the lines in the background are pretty distracting as well.

Murder wuz the case that they gave me....

So I pulled this card. Kind of a cool one, or would have been had Hernandez not gotten arrested last month for murder. As more details are coming out it seem the Patriots knew about his questionable and violent behavior before all of this went down. If he really did do it you have to question the intelligence of dumping the body half a mile from your own mansion. All the evidence seems to point to him, otherwise there's no way he would have been arrested and then released from the Patriots shortly after. Will he ever play football again? We don't know. In the mean time his cards have not lost much if any value. Much like OJ Simpson's cards there are some that want to have the autograph of someone notorious, someone that used to be a star and now is the subject of national media. Oddly enough I'd have to count myself in that category. I've always been interested in criminal cases, forensics and how they catch the bad guys. The gold Monikers set has quite a few limited cards, the highest print run of any of these is 25, like this one and there are some that are 1/1's like the Willis McGahee and the Jerry Rice.