Thursday, August 6, 2009

Supply and Demand


I am going to try to post here as often as possible, but I am feeling lazy tonight after my road trip, and do not want to expend to much power from the grey matter, so I am going to do another pack break. This is going to be an actual WAX pack. Back in the late 1980's when the baseball card boom was happening, my mother decided to put a few boxes of wax away as an investment. In hindsight, this was really silly. You see this was before I knew about the laws of supply and demand. In the late 1980's millions of the same cards printed on cheap wonderful cardboard, and hundreds of thousands of people were slipping them into protective sheets it was EXCESS SUPPLY. In the late 80's and early 90's we loved it. Beckett and all of us collectors artificially inflated the prices of all of those Jose Canseco, Mike Greenwell, and Gregg Jefferies cards. I consider myself one of the guilty ones. I wanted to have three of every card, one for my collection, one to trade, and one to sell at some point in the way off future. The only problem is when there are that many collectors saving that many cards the supply far outweighs the demand, making most of the cards from this era pretty much worthless. You see, card prices are directly related to the number of cards produced and the number of people who want the card. Many many cards were produced, and not to many people want them any more. Well anyway, tonight I am going to break into one of these near worthless packs. Hopefully I will remember a time in my life that I really enjoyed. When nothing was better then getting a Don Mattingly, or a Rickey Henderson to complete my set of three of every card. I present to you a Wax break from the famous 1988 Fleer Baseball Set.


Here is the extremely valuable back that I have been carrying with me for the last 21 years. You can see back then each pack cost $.40 plus tax. In the 1988 Fleer you received 15 cards and 1 Sticker.

One to the cards. Here are the first six cards:


Paul Assenmacher, Glenn Braggs, Leon Durham, Ron Hassey, Dave Smith, and CRUNCH TIME w/ Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis back in August of '88 I would have been pretty happy with this start. In '88 my friends and I could not get enough of Eric Davis, this guy was a STUD! In '87 this guy hit .293, had 37 HR, 100 RBIs and stole 50 bases making him a 30-30 club member. Straw was no slouch either, hitting 39 HR, driving in 104 runs and swiping 36 bases.

Here are the next 6 cards:


Buddy Bell, Cory Snyder, Todd Frohwirth, Joe Niekro, Randy Myers, and Rick Cerone so the pack has cooled off a little, it is really amazing to me when I open a pack and one of the cards has a player that has passed away. We lost Joe Niekro back in Oct. of 2006. The thing I remember most about him besides the knuckle ball was when he got caught scuffing baseballs with the emery board. It was classic the way he tossed it to the side and gave a "what me?" kind of pose. He of course was suspended for 10 games because of it.

Here are the last three cards and the sticker, please let there be a Henderson......


Kevin McReynolds, Mike Greenwell, and Eric Nolte no Hall of Famers in this pack, but back in '88 I probably could have gotten a couple of bucks for the Greenwell, so I cannot complain. As always if you see something here you need, which I highly doubt, shoot me an email or leave a comment. Maybe we can work a deal.

The Card Addict

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

2009 Allen & Ginter's

This is my first post so I feel it is important to tell you a little about myself. First and foremost I am a husband and father. I used to be an elementary school teacher, and now am in sales. I hope to educate, entertain, and inform with this blog. I am going to be doing a number of different types of postings on this blog. This post is going to be a standard pack bust. I am traveling this week, Russellville AL to be exact. I went to the Wal Mart here in town and picked up a pack of 2009 Allen & Ginter's, my first this year. I love this product! I enjoy the variety of the cards, and the vintage feel. I am not sure I received $4.97 worth of cards here, but I love ripping so hopefully the wife won't check the debit card statement. Here is what I found when the cellophane was cracked.

1st Card
Dan Uggla #62 Nice card, gotta love a power hitting second baseman



2nd Card
David Ortiz #300 Recently tested positive for ?????? Shame, shame Big Pappi. You gotta love the facial hair though. I really like the blue background on this card.


3rd Card
Jeff Francis #313 A pitcher from north of the border A! Lousy pose, very plain bland card.


4th Card
Kenshin Kawakami "Rookie" I know nothing about this guy other then he is from Japan.


5th Card
George Kottaras #285 "Rookie" My second Canadian in this pack A! I do like these Bosox cards with the blue background.


6th Card Half way through, nothing great yet.
Lastings Milledge #252 This guy has the perfect name for this set, it sounds like a name for the 30's or 40's


7th Card
Trevor Cahill #241 "Rookie" 6 wins and 10 losses with a 5.01 era at the time of this post......Rookie of the year, probably not.


8th Card
Edinson Volquez #102 Right elbow surgery, out the rest of this year and maybe half of next? I hope this guy can come back, he has amazing stuff.....


9th Card
Rickey Romero "Rookie" 10 wins and 4 Losses as of this post. 3.53 era and 109.2 innings pitched, not bad for a first year guy.


10th Card
New York Yankees AGHS12 Yankee Stadium Farewell. I really like this card, a college buddy and I made our baseball road trip last year to Yankee Stadium and the second to last game. We were bleacher creatures for a day, and it was awesome. Here is the card:


11th Card
Michael Cuddyer MINI #86 I have always liked the way this guy plays the game. I have a couple cards signed by him from a spring training game a few years ago. The Twins are always great signers and class acts during Spring Training.


12th and Last Card
Akinori Iwamura Japan NP20 Aki is one of my favorite players, he was an amazing 3rd baseman before Longoria, and became an outstanding 2nd baseman last year. He has outstanding footwork and is very quick. As a hitter he has what I call the slap and run approach to hitting which is very popular with Japanese hitters. I am always amazed at how those guys can be moving around so much in the batters box and still make contact.


Well that was my first retail Allen & Ginter's pack in 2009. Not great, but not the worst pack either. If you need any of these cards for a set, or personal collection, email me and we can work a deal.

Go Rays, and Happy Birthday to Carl Crawford.

The Card Addict