I’m almost done reading Joe Orlando’s Collecting Sports Legends: The Ultimate Hobby Guide and decided to pick up Card Sharks: How Upper Deck Turned a Child’s Hobby into a High Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business. I know its not brand new, but it sounds like an interesting read about the hobby. I highly suggest that you take a look at Mr. Orlando’s book. It has a ton of beautiful photographs that any collector would love. I found it very interesting to learn about the athletes and their cards. Probably my favorite part of the book is the autograph section. This is the first time I ever saw what a “Shoeless” Joe Jackson signature looks like. Since Jackson was uneducated, he didn’t know how to sign his name very well and usually his wife would have to do it for him. He did sign a few stock certificates that remain in private collections. The section on the bats was also very good. Did you know there are only about 20 Lou Gehrig bats around? It really makes you think whether they should be cutting those up to include into trading cards. The book does not go into the whole story about the famous Honus Wagner 1909-11 T206 graded an 8, but I wouldn’t expect it to because Joe Orlando is part of PSA. This book fits many collectors and is must read, even for people that aren’t a fan of grading.
Has anyone else read Card Sharks? If so, what did you think?
Filed under: Pickups | Tagged: book, card, deck, sharks, sports, upper |
Sports Card Info 
I read it a few months ago. I guess none of it should surprise me, but it really seems to taint everything with the Upper Deck logo on it. Not long after reading it, I turned over a few Brewers game jersey cards I had from Upper Deck and saw that Richard McWilliam’s signature was on the back, certifying the swatches as authentic. I sold them off.
A bit dated, but still relevant. The first half of the book is perhaps the best history of The Hobby you’ll ever read.