Custom Card Tutorial and Valentines Day Contest!

For YEARS, I've had people ask if I have a custom card making tutorial available, and I've always said "it's on the list".  Everytime someone asks for pointers, I try to answer questions, but it is difficult to write volumes to everyone that asks - I have loads of questions (and success stories) about baseball cards/collecting in general coming in every day!  This is not a complaint - in fact, I'm thankful.  I love talking cardboard and helping others out, but time can be scarce. With that said, I finally walked through a card I created on video.  Someone reached

My Jose Canseco Collection – Updated for 2021 Video Series

In this four part video series, I show off my entire Jose Canseco baseball card collection updated for 2021!  I have done a LOT of consolidating, and here is what I am left with.  It was a blast going through them all :)  Grab some popcorn, and snuggle up with a loved one for two hours of Jose Canseco cardboard goodness!         And, as a bonus, I did a TOP 50 video showing some of my favorites:  

I Captured the King, and Lost the Queen, But Got the Babe

Let me start off by saying, I'm going to try super hard not to turn this article into a book.  A lot has been going on!  To kick it all off, I did a MASSIVE trade involving a boatload of Jose Canseco cards.  The boxes on the right are Canseco cards.  The box on the left?  An 1888 Allen & Ginter N28 baseball card set. I know what you are thinking:  How very Tanner of me to trade my 1888 Allen & Ginter set for Canseco cards.  PLOT TWIST:  The Canseco cards actually left my collection! I packed up a

Christmas Cards – Showing off the Red & Green

I love the idea of pairing red & green cards together for Christmas, so I did just that with my two PCs: Canseco and Vintage. Here they are! Pictured below is an EXTREMELY rare card ... and the other one is the Red Crusade.  Obviously, the Red Crusade is a grail card, but the other is an Executive Prototype that is rumored to have only had 1-3 copies made of it. Plus, I lurve the green - it matches the Oakland green & gold! Next up are my Christmas Cobbs! The vibrant red and green backgrounds make me melt. One came

Bringing a $200,000 19th Century Advertisement To Life

I think I now understand why why I get so romantic over 19th century baseball cards and collectibles.  They give a rich and vivid voice to a time period that has been largely forgotten by yesterday's fans and collectors - and unknown to fans and collectors of the present. Baseball and baseball card collecting in the 1800s is fascinating - there is no shortage of fun stories and history that have come out of this time period.  In the pictures below, you will see the likenesses of hall of famers, baseball pioneers, and players who reached larger than life celebrity

1995 Upper Deck Electric Diamond Gold Rarity Mystery

Did you know that the Alan Trammell version of this sold for over $400 the other day? Heck, Kent Merker went for $22! 1995 Upper Deck Electric Diamond Gold - This set was sold in 2 series. Series 2 is harder to find, but series 1 isn't exactly a cakewalk.  Canseco is in series 1, and doesn't show up often, but isn't as tough as these series 2 cards. This is a card that I never thought much of until researching this set. The wild thing about it is the Electric Diamond Gold cards are stated to have fallen at

Remember when buybacks were rare?

Remember when buybacks were rare? Take for instance, this - Canseco's most famous Topps card, ever. In 2004, Topps gave collectors Jose's first ever buyback auto, and hand numbered it to 99. (Super rare, considering the they probably produced millions of them.  The 1991 Donruss Elite is numbered to 10,000, so this buyback is less than 1% of those!)   In 2015, they upped the ante and released one numbered to /14.   In 2016, they released it again, but numbered to /97. The only real on card difference being the stamp is on the other side. Oh, and several

1986 Donruss Jose Canseco Rated Rookie Fun Facts and my latest Pickup (It’s SUPER rare!)

For a time period growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, there wasn't a bigger card than the 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco Rated Rookie.  It was the grail of grails.  I have heard reports of it selling for over $150 back then. It didn't matter to me, because anything over $20 might as well have been a million dollars.  It was the card that was so hot and so big, that I don't even think it entered my dreams. 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco Rated Rookie - the face of the hobby While I was preoccupied with 1988 Donruss and 1989 Score,

Showing off Customs & Cards While our AC is Busted

Greetings from mission control - where the lights are off, and game 2 of the ALCS is blaring so I can hear it above the 2 fans pointed at me.  The ALDS nearly killed me.  When you spend the first 12 years of your life as an A's fan in California, but have 28 years of Houston life under your belt, it is confusing who to root for.  This totally describes me last week. I was sad the A's lost, but it was a REALLY entertaining series.  The sheer amount of bombs hit makes me wonder if the playoff balls

  • 2000 Venezuelan Sticker Jose Canseco

2000 Venezuelan Sticker Jose Canseco – Ultra Rare!

If you know, you know.  :) The 2000 Venezuelan Sticker.  On the outside, it looks like one of the countless Panini stickers they did decades ago. This, however, is different. It was created in Venezuela during a time when global commerce for things like this just wasn't a common thing, and was created during a time when card companies were creating some truly beautiful cards, so unless you know what it is, even if it popped up, most wouldn't look at it twice. For old school supercollectors and player collectors, however, this has been on many people's want lists since