Book Club - Mint Condition by Dave Jamieson

One of the great things about having a daughter who works at the library is that I often hear about new acquisitions by the library long before the book hits the shelf. Knowing my obsession, my daughter sent me a text message when she finished cataloging this book asking if I would like her to put it on hold for me. "Of course", I said.Overall, I think that this book is must reading for any baseball card collector who collects for pleasure. If you're just in it for the money (if there in fact is any money in this), the history of card collecting may not be of interest.

Jamieson covers the past 100 or so years of baseball card collecting. The history is pretty light on the years 1920 through 1950 but not a lot was going on then. Parts of the book are duplicative of "The Card" by Michael O'Keeffee and Teri Thompson but Jamieson nas a broader focus. I particularly liked the chapters on the history of Bowman and long-time Topps card designer, Woody Gelman. Because of this book I bought on-line a card from Bowman's 1938 "Horrors of War" set and one of Topps "Civil War News" cards from the 1960s. I'll feature them in a later post.

I got into collecting in 1985, just as the 'baseball cards as an investment' craze got started. Since I never believed that baseball cards were a good investment, I kept at it through the bust of the mid-1990s (although my love of baseball, and collecting, was really tested in the 1994 strike). My collecting peaked in 1994 and I've not purchased as many cards in any year since that I did in 1994.

The investing craze chapter is another good one in the book. Jamieson describes a guy who bought $75,000 worth of cards in the early 1990s thinking the return on this investment would pay for his daughter's college. I guess this can be called the 'baseball card bubble'. Not as destructive as the housing bubble of a few years ago but maybe the same mentality. Cards are worth more this year than they were last year and this trend will continue forever.

Jamieson paints a grim picture of the future of the baseball card market. Unlike me, most collectors got into this as a kid. They may have stopped collecting for awhile, but something reconnects them and they start again. This is what happened to Jamieson. His mother was threatening to throw out his cards from the 1980s. He picked them up and got interested again. Interested enough to write this book.

The problem today is that kids aren't buying baseball cards. The secondary market for vintage cards is still strong, but one dealer confided in Jamieson that when the current generation of adult collector's (in their 40s to 60s) passes on, the next generation will be much smaller. And there may not be a generation behind that.

Song of the Week - California Girls by The Beach Boys

One of the local TV stations runs a Top 5 feature every week. This week it was the Top 5 Summertime Songs. I don't agree with this list but here it is:

#5 - "Summer Wind" by Frank Sinatra
#4 - "Schools Out" by Alice Cooper
#3 - "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan
#2 - "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
#1 - "California Girls" by The Beach Boys

So here's their #1 pick:

Thursday Night at the Movies - The Sorcerer's Apprentice

This movie was a light bit of fluff that my wife, daughter and I enjoyed. Nicolas Cage, pretty much as himself, plays a 1,000 year old wizard, Balthazar who's been locking up evil wizards in something looking like a stack of nesting Russian dolls. The thing is called a Grimhold, I guess because it holds grim contents.In the deepest level of the Grimhold, is Morgana, a witch so tough she was able to kill Merlin himself. In addition to locking up wizards he doesn't agree with, he's also been searching for Merlin's successor, the Prime Merlinian, the one to become the Sorcerer's Apprentice. The Prime Merlinian turns out to be geeky physics student, Dave, played by Jay Beruchel. In an event that could only happen in the movies, Dave has just accidentally bumped into Becky (Theresa Palmer) the beautiful blond he's been in love with since the 4th grade but hasn't seen in 10 years.

Through a series of plot devices, Balthazar's enemy, Horvath, escapes from the Grimhold with plans to release Morgana so together they can raise an army of evil dead wizards and, well, it's not clear what for except it can't be good.

So Balthazar has to get poor old Dave, who's more interested in mooning over Becky, trained up so he can defeat Morgana.

The movie was fun with pretty decent special effects. It doesn't pay to look too closely at what is going on however. We think the movie was poorly edited. For example, there is a scene in the trailers, where Dave shows Becky that he can throw plasma balls (apparently a prime wizardly weapon). That would be sufficient enough to convince me that Dave had otherworldly powers, but this scene does not actually appear in the movie. Becky's acceptance of Dave's powers, based pretty much on incoherent mumblings on his part, really doesn't make sense. This is important because Becky actually plays an important roll in defeating Morgana and she seems to have zero motivation to do the crazy stunt that Dave asks of her.

There is also a dog in this movie for no apparent reason. We think that the dog played some important role based on dialogue which went nowhere but the dog just vanishes with no explaination.

If you haven't already seen it, it's probably too late to catch it. It would make a good choice for a rental or just wait until it shows up on cable. If you like Nicolas Cage you're in for a treat. For reasons known only to the director, Jay Beruchel does a Nicolas Cage impression through most of the movie.

Woody Gelman

I'm in the process of reading Mint Condition by Dave Jamieson, which is a book about baseball card collecting. I plan to do a full post on this later but since I just finished the chapter on Woody Gelman, I wanted to mention it.Gelman helped design the 1952 Topps baseball card and was the chief designer for Topps until the late 1970s. He passed away on February 2, 1978. Even before coming to Topps, he was a great collector of paper ephemera. He collected everything, baseball cards, postcards, greeting cards, matchbooks, magazine advertising. He was a great cataloger. The book describes him as a 'type collector', meaning he tried to obtain at least one card from every set made. Long time readers of this blog may remember that my collecting goal is to obtain at least one card from every set made. I didn't know that I was a 'type collector'.

I also have an interest in old paper. In addition to baseball cards I also collect old post cards. Here I focus on specific cards, those from Cliff Walk RI (my namesake) , and from Drexel University (my old school). I'm also interested in old magazines and some day I'm going to make a post on advertising in the old mags I own.

I'm also a cataloger. In fact, part of the enjoyment of collecting for me is the cataloging of my collection. I spend a lot of time putting cards into my database and I'm also forever tinkering with the database to understand my collection better.

I'd heard of Woody Gelman before, you can hardly be a serious baseball card collector and not have heard of him, but didn't know much about him. Although I never had the mania that Gelman had, he sounds like a guy I could understand.

I am declaring him to be the patron saint of Capewood's Collections.

Bat across the shoulders

After getting several 2010 Allen & Ginter cards featuring players in the classic bat-across-the-shoulders pose, I decided to make a post of the cards I had scanned of this pose. Turns out I had 18 cards with this pose going back to the 1980s and featuring a number of players and card brands. So here we go.


2010 Allen & Ginter Matt Kemp #62For the pose to work the best, I think the player has to look sort of like Kemp looks here. Sort of dangerous, sort of "You lookin' at me?'. You also have to have the batting stats and Kemp does.

2010 Allen & Ginter Manny Ramirez #220
Manny manages "the look" but hair... He's got the chops, however.

2010 Allen & Ginter Miguel Tejada #8
Tejada looks like he's amused that he was asked to pose this way.

2009 Topps 206 Dexter Fowler #153
Dexter isn't taking this too seriously either. This pose works well on a horizontal card, but this design doesn't.

2009 Topps 206 Greg Golson #74
I'm not sure that Golson has the right attitude, which maybe he doesn't considering he's a former #1 draft pick who's managed 12 at-bats (hitting .167) over the past 3 years.

2009 Topps Turkey Red Albert Pujols #71
Albert's got the 'tude. Looks like he could break that bat over his neck if he wanted to.

2008 Upper Deck Ryan Howard #604
Like Pujols, Ryan has it, and like Albert, he's got the stats to back him up.

2008 Topps Michael Bourn #368
I like Bourn but he's not a power hitter. Speed is his style. He looks like a trickster here, which he should, as a base stealer.

2006 Ultra Carlos Delgado #88
Delgado has the power but he looks pretty disinterested in this shot. I think this design works well in horizontal.

1999 Upper Deck MVP Alex Rodriguez # 191
Alex, from two teams ago. He's got the power but he looks too friendly for the pose.

1994 Collector's Choice Silver Signature
No power, no average. What's he doing in this pose?

1994 Upper Deck Pete Incaviglia #491
Don't mess with Inky, or his 'stach.

1993 Upper Deck Manny Ramirez #433
Who is this baby-faced guy? Manny? Really?

1992 Studio Royce Clayton #115
111 home runs over a 17 year career doesn't add up to a power hitter. But you don't manage to stay in the big leagues without some talent. Speed and defense made Clayton.

1991 Fleer Pro Visions Mark McGwire #4
Pre-enhanced Mark McGwire.

1990 Score Bo Jackson #697
You knew him, you loved him. All this card says on the back is BO.

1988 Fleer Baseball All Stars Wade Boggs #2
Not a great amount of power but the guy could hit. In 1988 his average was .366.

1987 Fleer Record Setters Ben Oglivie #26
Olgivie had the power, 235 home runs and 901 RBIs. Doesn't look too frightening however.

Song of the Week - Do You Believe in Magic? by The Lovin's Spoonful

I was 14 years old when this song came out in 1965 and I believed in magic. I still do.

2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Part 3

Part 1 dealt with the base cards and Part 2 with the inserts and minis. This part deals with the hits. The box promises an N43 card with every box and any 3 of the following:

Autograph Cards
Relic Cards
Printing Plates
Rip Cards
Cut Signatures

So what did I get?

Last year's box got me the first N43 card I ever had and it was Ryan Howard. This year, I'll settle for A-Rod.

A game-used bat card of Aramis Ramirez. I went and bought the Shane Victorino card on eBay.
And look at this! a Rip Card. I'd never seen one of these. The back said that, if I should dare and rip the card I would get:

An exclusive mini parallel
- or -
An authentic 1887 Allen & Ginter Original
- or -
A one-of-one exclusive mini wood parallel
- or -
An Allen & Ginger Originals Sketch Card

Since Elijah Dukes means nothing to me, I ripped it. Here's what I got:

This is one of the mini cards nunbered above 350. As I mentioned in Part 2, I've never seen one of these. Chris Young appears on card #260, with a mini of the same number. This card is #382 and has a different image than the #260 card. I guess that makes it an "Exclusive mini parallel" card. It also has a different finish than the regular cards, being smoother and a bit glossy.

And finally, I got this. Gaze in wonder:
That's right, a Lords of Olympus Relic of Poseidon. The card is as thick as 4 regular relic cards. Inside the little window is a square of some hard material. A piece of Poseidon's trident (a game-used trident, perhaps)? A game-worn scale? Here's what it says on the back:
That gave me a pretty good laugh. There is one of these up on eBay with an opening bid of $999.99. I hope he gets that, I'll have this on eBay the next day. I had a bid on the Persephone relic card for much a much lower price but it sold for $187. Too rich for me. Her relic contains pomegranate seeds. If you don't know your mythology, your assignment is to look it up and report back in the comments.