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The Steroid Era – It’s Almost Here

If you've been following me for a while, you know I've been teasing something. The black bag. The biohazard sticker. The "something big is coming" posts. Time to pull back the curtain - a little. This October, I'm launching The Steroid Era - a 30-card Jose Canseco set unlike anything that exists in the hobby. Five waves. Six cards per wave. One wave per month from October through February.  This isn't a Topps product. This isn't Panini. This is one collector who's spent years obsessively documenting everything Jose Canseco, working directly with Jose himself to create something from scratch. So

Baseball’s 1st Home Run King – In Color

Baseball's 1st Home Run King - In Color   This is an 1889 Goodwin A35 Round. The lithographic piece is circular and is about 8". I designed and created an acrylic holder with a pullout tray for easy access to it. The holder serves as a way to both display the awkwardly round piece and hide damage near the hole on the left where it was strung together as an album.   Featuring the finest in 19th century baseball color lithography, this piece is drenched in baseball history. Depicting some members of the team, the New York Giants were fresh

A Jose Canseco Topps artifact from…1982???

I recently picked up the original Topps Vault internal file/contract record for Jose Canseco, and underneath a later sheet stapled over the top is something very intriguing. The earliest entry appears to read: SIGNED: 10/14/82TERM: 5 YRS. PYMTCHECK #: 23072AMOUNT: $5.00 There’s also a 9-29 date associated with the payment, all recorded via typewriter. Canseco had only turned 18 years old on July 2, 1982, meaning this paperwork appears to date from just a few months after his 18th birthday - years before he became a household name. And then there’s that $5. If I’m interpreting the notation correctly, Topps

Jose Canseco Fine-Ish Superfractor to Finest Superfractor

How much do you dislike sticker autos?I don’t necessarily hate them - especially when they’re done well - but there’s just something more special about an autograph being directly on the card.When I saw 2026 Topps Finest, I instantly fell in love with the design. Topps somehow fused ’90s mall food court / skating rink energy with a genuinely beautiful high-end look.A quick eBay search showed that the set has a mix of on-card autos and sticker autos. My friend Jon and I decided that if it had a sticker, maybe it should really be called 2026 Topps Fine...or perhaps

Is the 1911 Turkey Red Ty Cobb the Most Beautiful Baseball Card Ever Made?

Yesterday marked the 121st anniversary of Ty Cobb’s debut as an 18-year-old. He doubled in his first major-league at-bat and would spend the years that followed building a resume worthy of a man many still consider the greatest player in baseball history.   In 1911, Turkey Red produced what many consider the most beautiful baseball card ever made. Its rich colors, ornate border, and atmospheric ballpark backdrop give Cobb the mythic presence he deserves. This wasn’t a card made decades later to celebrate a legend - it was produced at the height of his fame.   There’s no foil, no

Will the Real Honus Wagner Rookie Please Stand Up?

Let's take a break from the multi-million dollar bounties placed on social media for cards that were produced two minutes ago, shall we?  One hundred and twenty-seven years ago today, (August 19th, 1899) on a hot Thursday in the summer of 1899, a young third baseman named John Wagner stared out from the pages of The Sporting News. Not Honus. Not Hans. John. "JOHN WAGNER, Third Baseman. LOUISVILLE, 1899."  He would end up becoming arguably the best shortstop in baseball history. The supplement - cataloged today as the M101-1, was tucked inside the August 19th edition of The Sporting News

11 Years Later: From Cupcakes at Canseco’s House to the Steroid Collection Series Two Reveal

Talk about a full-circle moment!   Eleven years ago tomorrow, I was embarking upon easily the craziest moment of my baseball card journey. I was pulling up to Jose Canseco's house with my family. We ended up spending the afternoon with him - we played cards (with cards I made him,) ate cupcakes they made us, played with his animals, and even traded gloves. Oh, and yes, he signed a mountain of stuff for me. I wrote about the experience, which got picked up by Beckett Magazine, and they put my childhood hero and me doing the bash on the cover!

Creating Cards WITH Jose Canseco!

*Phone rings* Hello?  Hey, Tanner? This is Jose Canseco! How are you? *Nearly chokes ====================== If you've been following me for a while, you know that the two things I love most in this hobby are creating custom cards, and collecting Canseco cards.   When the opportunity came to where both of these things could possibly intersect, I was beside myself, and worked hard to make it happen.  Being able to collaborate with my favorite player and create a special set of his cards to become a part of the Jose Canseco collecting ecosphere that I love so much - a

Body Parts in Baseball Cards

How far is too far when it comes to relics in baseball cards?  I've seen and done pretty much everything under the sun over the past few years of creating custom cards, but the following message I'm about to share with you just about blew everything else out of the water ... "Hey Tanner, Jose just allowed me to buy his teeth that he had pulled.  What do you think about making some cards with them?"  Welp, I didn't have that on my bingo card for the year!   The proposition was for me to take three of Jose's teeth, and

Grail-Matched: The Investigation of a Game-Used Jersey and the Secrets it Holds

Over the past several years, I've been fortunate to have acquired a significant number of grail cards of Jose Canseco - most of them in multiples.  The one thing that has always escaped me was a game-used jersey.  They never seem to pop up, and when they do, they typically tend to not be the real-deal, or have super weak provenance. Jose Canseco game-used photo-matched jerseys are exceptionally rare. In fact, the last photo-match jersey I can remember of Jose coming up for auction was nearly a decade ago - a 1993 Texas Rangers gamer that ended up highly likely