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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

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TOP CUSTOM CARDS OF 2025

2025 was an incredible year for creating special pieces for people's collections. Shown below are a handful of pieces I created that I had quick access to photos of. If you have commissioned me, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for allowing my art to be in your collection. I hope it is seen as a centerpiece that you'll never want to let go of! For those who have simply commented on my work - I'm truly grateful for you as well! Stay tuned, folks! I've got some huge things lined up, and I'm super excited to share

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Jose Canseco Baseball Cards – Defining the Timeline Framework and Eras

A Production-Driven Framework for Career, Legacy, and Modern Collecting Jose Canseco’s baseball card timeline is unlike many other stars of his generation. His cardboard presence didn’t simply rise and fall with his playing career—it surged, fragmented, disappeared, and then re-emerged in a completely different hobby ecosystem. Because of that, lumping all Canseco cards into one pile misses what actually happened. This framework breaks Canseco’s card history into clearly defined eras based on production behavior, not nostalgia or arbitrary dates. Each era reflects how the hobby viewed him at the time—and how collectors should think about the cards today. Career Era

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Why 90s/00s Inserts Still Matter in Today’s Ultra-Premium Hobby (and why they may be the best)

If you really want to keep me busy for hours, just ask me to rank my top 10 favorite cards. I’ll agonize over it endlessly - mostly because my '90s-'00s playing-era gems and the ultra-modern monsters are constantly duking it out for those top spots. And sure, scrolling through the photos might make this feel like yet another love letter to Canseco collecting - which, in fairness, it absolutely is. But my hope is that this deeply resonates with anyone who collects across these two eras. Since Canseco is my collecting focus, his cards just happen to be the examples

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Sixty Years for One Pack Hit? The Wild Odds of 1991 Donruss Elite

Let's talk about 1991 Donruss! Mediocre. Lackluster.  Predictable.  That's what some collectors said about Donruss' first two series release.  It has been said that the production run was at its highest with the brand in '91, allegedly having printed 3,000,000 of each base card.   To make matters worse, the set was pretty much a barren wasteland.  But to me, they were spectacular. You would find this 10 year old boy in the back of mom and dad's car at a Christmas tree farm Christmas time of 1990, excited beyond belief, for he had with him, a few unopened packs of

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Capturing the True Essence of a Baseball Card

Capturing the true essence of a card through photographs can elevate certain cards from want list to grail status. For me, this is the ultimate example: 1998 E-X2001 Essential Credentials NOW & FUTURE parallels. These two had been on my want list for forever. The scanned pics at the bottom were on a collector's website, and I didn't think much of them. Until I saw a Ripken that was properly photographed. My jaw DROPPED. They went from my want list straight to my dream list. Seeing a properly photographed exemplar instantly elevated them in my mind to some of the

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A Grail of Grails – the 1998 Bowman Chrome Golden Anniversary Refractor

I know you've felt this before, too.   You secure a big card for your collection, and you wait. and wait. and wait.  You check the tracking more times than you care to admit. If the card seems stuck somewhere in transit, and there is finally movement again, it feels like a small victory.  But then you wonder ... if/when the card does come in, what if there is a problem with it?   All of that describes me perfectly this past week.  When the package finally arrived all the way from Tokyo via the original owner's grandson who pulled this from

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If you had a chance to sell your entire collection, and start over, what would you shoot for?

"If you had a chance to sell your entire collection, and start over, what would you shoot for?"  This question would pop up in my head from time to time.  Whenever it would, I would start to place a value on my collection, and start to daydream about what I would build the next go 'round.   You may have done this before, too.  Maybe it sounded something like this in your head:  "If I sold these 100 cards for $25 each, I'd have $2,500.  What card (or cards) with a high WOW factor would I get?"   After my sell off

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What are the most coveted grail cards of the 90s?

"What are the most coveted grail cards of the 90s?" I've been asked this quite a bit recently, and I decided to put together a "Fabulous Five" list of top 90s cards for my guy Canseco - this list is subjective, of course, but is based upon my personal tracking, and countless interactions with other collectors over the past several years. These cards all possess a perfect storm of desirability, beauty, and rarity, while being hunted by: - player collectors - 90s collectors - Set collectors They were created during the playing days of Canseco, and in a time when

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Second Wave Nostalgia?

  It's no wonder why many of us collect cards today: Nostalgia! We may have collected as kids, and have come back to the hobby years later.   Let me explain. I walked away from collecting back in 1993-94ish, and came back about a decade later. It's like I had left right when the magic was starting. By that time, everything had changed. There were shiny cards, serial numbered cards (lower than 10,000...gasp!), autographed cards you could pull straight from packs, and even cards with pieces of game-used relics. Jeesh!   Over the past several years, I've found great joy

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