Maple Leafs Printing Plate Contest! – NOW CLOSED

This contest is for a 2016 Leaf Lumber Kings Hockey 50 Goal Club – Rick Vaive – Magenta Plate #’ed 1/1.  Good luck!!!

Contest Details:

• This contest will end Friday, January 26, 2018 @ 8:00 p.m. EST.
• To enter, please leave a comment in this post.
• You can enter once per day.
• The winner will be selected at random.
• Please provide a valid e-mail address when entering.
• The winner will receive an e-mail when the contest is over.
• The winner has one week to send me their contact information or the contest will be held again.
• Once the contest is over, I will need the winner’s mailing address so I can ship them this card for FREE!!!

Harry Kalas Sportkings Cut Signature Mailday

Some collectors add new cards to their collection every single day.  For many, the bubble mailers just don’t seem to stop.  I’m very picky about what I collect.  The Steelers, Eagles, Penn State, and the Phillies are the main teams that I follow.  I probably follow the Phillies more than anything.  Years ago I was looking for someone from the Phillies to collect, but I didn’t want it to be too easy.  Players for the most part have tons of cards.  Broadcasters on the other hand do not.  So I settled on former Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas.  Good old HK only has a handful of cards, and none of them are simple to find.

One of the last things I do at the end of the day is an eBay search for “Harry Kalas”.  Most of the time what pops up doesn’t grab my interest.  Mainly because I either already have it or its junk.  My search last weekend turned up a card I’ve been looking for since 2012.  It was the Harry Kalas 2012 Sportkings Series E Top 50 Broadcasters Cut Signature #’ed 1/1.  The seller was from Massachusetts, and they accepted my first offer.  It was up for sale for less than a day.  The card has arrived, and has been added to my collection.  I believe this is the only cut signature of Harry Kalas to feature a picture of him.

This was the first Harry Kalas card I’ve added to my collection since last summer.  Its not something I get to do very often.  Other cards of his I’m looking for include:

• Mike Schmidt/Harry Kalas 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game – Announcing Greats Dual Auto #’ed/25
• Harry Kalas 2005 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Signatures Black Stitch Auto #’ed 1/1
• Harry Kalas 2012 Sportkings Premium Back Redemption Sketch #’ed 1/1
• Harry Kalas 2015 Topps Five Star Cut Signature #’ed 1/1

Card of the Day: Harry Caray 2012 Sportkings Series E Top 50 Broadcasters Cut Signature

“Pin-Up” of the Week: New Era Super Bowl 50 18k Gold Pin

New Era has created quite the expensive hat for Super Bowl 50.  This hat is made of black lambskin leather and comes with an 18k gold pin.  They only made 50 of them, and cost $2,500 per hat.

There are a lot of pins made for Super Bowl 50.  Many of them feature just the logo.  Someone could easily try and pass off a cheap widely produced pin for this one made of 18k gold.  Especially if you’re not buying it in person.

$2,500 for a hat is nuts.  The brim is completely flat too.  I hate hats with flat brims.

“Pin-Up” of the Week: Levi’s Stadium Super Bowl 50 Employee Pin

Super Bowl 50 merchandise has been out since the last Super Bowl.  There is no hiding the fact that the NFL is going to market the crap out of this one.  Probably more than any other Super Bowl in history.  Certain Super Bowl 50 merchandise has been bringing in lots of money, such as pins.

From what I’ve found, there are (4) different Super Bowl 50 pins you can find right now:

• WinCraft Super Bowl 50 “On the Fifty”
• WinCraft Super Bowl 50
• Super Bowl 50 CBS
• Levi’s Stadium Super Bowl 50 Employee

All of these pins look very similar, but come with a wide range of prices.  The Levi’s Stadium pin comes in at the highest.  The last one sold for $230.00.  I believe that these were given to employees, staff, and other high ranking people who work for the 49ers.  It has a 3D look to it, and isn’t flat on the surface.  The CBS pin has a similar 3D look, but isn’t worth near as much.  Those other two pins are what you’ll find for sale the most.

“Pin-Up” of the Week: Super Bowl 50 Logo Pin

Exactly one year from today, Super Bowl 50 will be taking place.  Super Bowl XLIX may have just ended, but its never too late to start thinking about the next one.  WinCraft sold and gave away a lot of specially made pins last week to those lucky people that attended the game.  One of those pins sets you up for next year’s Super Bowl already.  This is the only Super Bowl 50 pin I’ve seen surface and collectors jumped all over it.  With 35 bids this pin sold for $35.00.  They decided to go with the standard number 50 instead of using the Roman numeral “L”.  Their marketing people decided that the “L” wasn’t aesthetically pleasing.  The Roman numerals will return for Super Bowl LI.  I can’t imagine what they have in store for the 50th Super Bowl.  More pins for sure!

Blog Bat Around: My $50,000 eBay Loot

Fifty-thousand dollars is a lot of money.  It could easily be spent on one card or a ton of cards.  If I had 50k to spend on eBay and only 15 minutes to use it I would make a few purchases, but I probably wouldn’t even come close to spending it all.  Instead I would use a portion to help better The Hobby by removing fake cards from circulation.

Lets begin with what I would purchase for my personal collection.  I would amass the most complete Harry Kalas collection anyone could ever obtain.  The first cards I would go after would be his 2004 & 2005 Upper Deck Sweet Spot autographs.  The base versions sell for around $90.00 a piece.  These would then be followed by all the various ink/stitch color variations Upper Deck came up with between the two Sweet Spot sets.  Kalas has a total of about 11 cards for collectors to find.  Besides some of the Sweet Spot autographs, his most rare autograph comes from 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game.  It would be the dual autograph of Schmidt and Kalas which is limited to only 25 copies.  I have never seen one up for sale, but if one did surface I’m sure it would hit $400.00+.  In addition to the Harry Kalas cards, I’d like to throw in an Alexander Cartwright cut signature too.  Specifically the one found in 2007 Donruss/Playoff National Treasures.

I’m not that big of a vintage collector.  I usually prefer some of the more modern stuff.  With that being said, I would purchase some vintage cards.  I would like to add a Connie Mack 1887-90 Old Judge card to my collection.  Old Judge tobacco cards were some of the first mass produced baseball cards in history.  Being able to own any Old Judge card can be a cornerstone to a collection, but finding one of a HOF player is even better.  Depending on the condition, they can easily reach into the thousands.  Some of the other rare vintage cards I would add to my collection include a Cap Anson 1888 Goodwin Champions #2 and a Mike “King” Kelly 1887 Allen & Ginter tobacco insert.

If I had the 50k today, I’d probably just stick with baseball stuff.  I might pick up a Jake Scott 2002 Topps Ring of Honor autograph though.  All in all, I’m estimating my loot would cost around $30,000 to $35,0000.  That means I could possibly have $15,000 to $20,000 let over.  Do you want to know what I’d do with that money?  I would purchase as many counterfeit cards I could find on eBay just to take them out of circulation.  I know handing money over to a forger sounds terrible, but at least the cards would be destroyed where no other uneducated collector find out down the road that great card they bought isn’t real.  It would even be better if an organization could be formed after this to help remove all fakes from the marketplace.  Perhaps after obtaining each counterfeit card, that seller could be banned from eBay for life.