We live in an era of encapsulation.
If you ask the masses, the current mode of "enjoying" a card is sealing it up in a case and never holding it again. I've mentioned this many times on the blog before - I don't mean to keep beating a dead horse here - but I just don't understand grading, and never will. The money & flipping part is one thing, but I hear about people grading their own stuff all the time - to which I say, why pay someone to tell you what you already have? And worse, keep you from ever touching it again?
I move my cards within my binders a lot, and should probably do a little better job of preserving my cards than I do. I'm not endorsing a return to the time where we'd throw cardboard against brick walls and fold them into our pockets (though we could learn a lot from those days). But I've always needed to touch my cards to truly make them feel like they're mine. Without that, they're little more than images that exist in a world just beyond my reach.
Which is why I wasted no time in jailbreaking this encapsulated and "uncirculated" Sandy Alomar Jr. refractor I generously received from a reader named Xavier H. recently - to me, it seems like the only sane thing to do.
You can tell Xavier has good taste in cards, because who else would send me a stack of UD 40-Man singles, knowing the joy I'd get out of them?
This set is kind of the stepchild of Topps Total, but it was a bit more expensive and never really lasted in the way Total did - you've got a lot of star power in this scan, but 40-Man is great for those of us who want to see bench players and middle relievers more often.
I mean, has anyone ever graded an Upper Deck 40-Man card?
(He asks, not really wanting to know the answer.)
Me: I feel a little weird when someone sends me Dodger cards since I'm a long, long ways away from being the most prominent Dodger fan on the blogs.
Also me: Woo-hoo! Both guys I collect, and both needs!
A few of the other recent odds and ends Xavier sent along, including a new card for my growing Seiya Suzuki collection and a nifty skyline-themed Topps Chrome insert.
I live in willful ignorance of those late '80s Topps Big sets - I know there's stuff in them I need, but the originals are both taller and longer than standard cards ('89 Bowmans are just taller) and thus don't fit in a nine-pocket page.
If these Archives inserts are any indication, I like Topps Big a lot more when it's regular-sized and shiny (Nolan Ryan Mets sighting!).
Here's a few cards from fancier sets that you don't see in trade packages too often (and probably graded all time time) - Transparent Donruss is at least Kinda Interesting Donruss.
Xavier was also nice enough to send me my first jersey card of Tim Anderson, one of my favorite dudes in the game right now.
I'm not nuts about memorabilia-centric stuff - at this point I treat them like any other insert - but this was still fun to see fall out of a trade package. And yes, you know I had to run my thumb over the fabric the minute I saw it, because that, to me, is what collecting is all about. I'd never be able to do that if I just ran to get it graded, or put it in a one-touch, toploader, etc., etc.
Cards, like humans, need to live their best lives - and if you ask me, they can't do that in a plastic shell.
14 comments:
oh oh the turtles are going to be pissed, LOL! I can't stand slabbed cards either. My first prison break was actually a Mickey Mantle. I am looking at three slabs right now to the right side of my laptop that came in one of those "junk" lots. UGH.
Nick if you need any help with the 2002 40-Man lmk
Totally with you on touching! My record geek friends give me grief all the time because I refuse to put my records in those hated plastic sleeves,haha!
Like those 40 man!
Slabbed cards suck! Down with the flippers!!!
👍
I also have no interest in graded cards--I've even at least once passed up a card I would have bought at a good price BECAUSE it was graded. But, oddly, if a card comes sealed by Topps, then I keep it in its case. Maybe I should rethink that, but I supposed to me the case is then part of the card, like the "peel this" covering on old Finest cards.
I remember buying a complete set of 2002 40-Man about 10 years ago for around $100. Worth every cent!
Preaching to the choir here, but if you say stuff like this on Twitter you'll always get a "but" because, man, have people been brainwashed on grading.
What he ↑ said! Us old school guys do it for the love not the $ which is probably why no 3rd party needs to tell me she's a 10!
What a tease to post the blurry encased Sandy up top and not follow it up with a clear, freed scan in all its beauty! :)
I'm not big on graded cards, but when it comes to those "Uncirculated" Topps hard cases, I gotta have them on my Topps Retired autographs or else they just feel incomplete since they ONLY came that way. But then I'm also collecting the 2005 Pristine Legends refractors, which were packed out both "raw" and also among the "Uncirculated" cards that came one per pack or something. With those, I don't care if I get them in the hunk of plastic or not. I suppose I prefer them WITHOUT since they take up less space that way. But I typically won't "jailbreak" one out unless maybe the case isn't in great shape.
A. I used to feel the same way about graded cards. Things shifted for me when I bought vintage, because I wanted unaltered versions of specific cards. Then I found some great deals on COMC back in the early 2010's on some 90's rookies and inserts... that eventually opened the door for me to collect them. The way I look at it... there's a way for everyone to collect. Some like the plastic, other don't.
B. Xavier's care packages are like mini collections. They provide hours and hours of entertainment. I'm still sifting through stuff he sent in early 2022... and I just received another big box from him this past Thursday.
Good stuff!
Since the designs weren't bad, I suspect that the Larger Bowman and Topps Big sets from the late 80's would've been much more well regarded now had they just been made at the standard size.
I won't break out one of those 'uncirculated' ones like you show there, but I would crack any graded ones. In my case, that only included some T205s and a couple others that came with price guides.
I understand grading, I just don't understand why they're worth any more than a raw card in the same condition (plus the grading fee of course). If the point is to declare that it is a NrMt card, then the value should be locked at NrMt of a raw card. And don't say anything about population reports. They are irrelevant, especially to the number of cards like that one that exist.
At some point I'll do a fully detailed rant post on this...
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