Patrick of www.Radicards.com recently sat down with me to discuss a bit of my hobby history. I had a lot of fun talking with him as always. Mayhaps a little too much fun, as it was over 1 hour and 20 minutes long! :) Check it out!
To say the first 24 hours after "going public" with the information has been a whirlwind would be an understatement. I ended up spending from Saturday evening all the way until late last night, fielding questions and taking orders. Here is one of my favorite requests: ThoseBackPages wrote me saying he wanted to purchase my 1986 Donruss Highlights PSA 10, but on one condition. I had to sign it directly on the case. On the front. In green. Here it is! Topps sketch artist Mike James reached out saying the following, which I got a kick out of: Out of
To say a lot has transpired over the past couple of weeks would be a vast understatement. To make a long story short, (trust me, the long story is below!) 1) I have decided to quit collecting Jose Canseco baseball cards (Video of the explanation is below). 2) I'm selling my collection. 3) I'm writing a book about my hobby experiences. Please let me know if you are interested in reading it! While I fully understand most of you will not care a lick about this, I also know some folks out there would like to know why. Plus, I feel
Today I turn 38. For those of you who are adults, you probably remember growing up thinking MAN! There are people my age playing major league baseball now! A decade further, you think DANG! This rookie crop is a DECADE younger than I am! 10 years later, you desperately look up and down the active rosters to see ANY familiar name from when you were younger. Thank you for still being around, Bartolo Colon. Ken Griffey Jr., Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Frank Thomas ... all are long gone. At 38, not only is that one step closer to 40; it
I had a TON of fun doing this and hope you all enjoy it as well. My friend asked how plates of only 4 colors could be used to create such beautiful full color cards, and I thought I'd run through it on photoshop. Check the video below! Basically, here are the cliff's notes: I took all the plates I picked up ... and scanned them into photoshop and set each layer to "darken". Merging them is a fun mess How can this ever create something cool? All lined up and flipped around! With a chrome border I really
In 1991, Topps ran the first (known to me) buyback program. To celebrate 40 years, they randomly inserted one of every card from 1957 to 1990 in packs of 1991 Topps. (The others were redemptions, if I recall correctly.) Kids and adults alike were VERY excited to get their hands on packs, boxes and cases to join the treasure hunt. The problem? It has been said that the buybacks fell about 1 per 24 cases, unbeknownst to us back when they came out. Imagine opening nearly 500 boxes of 1991 Topps, and your prize is this: (Note: Nick Esasky is my
As 2017 winds down, I wanted to do a review on my collection, customs created and events having to do with this hobby to document the entire year. 2017 was huge for my collection - over 600 cards have been added, over 45 articles have been written and several of my favorite customs have been created. When all is said and done, I am left with the following list of notable pickups, events & customs. I have swung and missed on a number of opportunities, but you miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at, right? This article isn't about
You may remember my animated gif tutorial on getting your high end cards to sparkle: https://tanmanbaseballfan.com/2017/03/making-high-end-cards-sparkle-online-animated-gif-tutorial.html That may be a lot of work for some folks, so here is what I consider the next best thing. Want to get beautiful scans of your card each and every time? Consider not scanning. Let's take a look at a few examples: 2017 Donruss Signature Series Autograph Blue #/99. Beautiful card, right? (As an aside, EVERY '17 Sig Series Canseco card I've seen looks like someone sneezed on the printing plates - what gives?!) Gorgeous card! It doesn't look like a uniform scan. Okay, no problem.
For this article, the neighborhood mechanic is my office, the waiting table is my desk and my phone serves as my typing apparatus. Pictured below, you can see the nose of my cardboard mobile through the door. I've had some time to think - about yesterday's mail, in particular. I was happy to get in a piece of mail that contained both a 1985 and 1986 Topps Achievement award brochures. Let me give you some history on them. From 1959 to 2004 (to my knowledge) Topps would hold a banquet for Topps all star rookie cup winners. These are neat, because
What lies below is the unveiling of some cards you have likely never seen before. In addition to this is the absolute craziest deal I have ever been a part of! If you ask seasoned hardcore collectors, they will tell you the 1990s inserts/parallels are where it's at. The best of the best? Across the board, you will likely hear about 1996 Select Certified Mirror Gold, 1997 Pinnacle Totally Certified Platinum Gold, 1998 Donruss Red Crusade, among others. These are *true* white whale cards for collectors. With only 25-30 of each having been printed, some of these cards have been dreamed about
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