Card of the Day: 1999 Original Hand-Painted Baseball Art by Monty Sheldon – Sandy Koufax #20

Card of the Day: Cliff Lee 2010 Topps National Chicle Monty Sheldon Artist’s Proof Auto

Card of the Day: Monty Sheldon Artball Painter 2015 Topps Custom Promo Card

Monty Sheldon & Piece of the Game’s Baseball Authenticated Masterpieces Are Coming This Spring

All good things are worth waiting for.  Originally scheduled to be released last November, Piece of the Game and Monty Sheldon’s Baseball Authenticated Masterpieces is now planned to go live near the end of March.

This is truly a unique product.  Only (15) cases will be produced.  Housed inside each case are (10) game-used, autographed, and hand-painted baseballs.  Monty Sheldon is the artistic genius behind all of the original artwork.  He’s been using baseballs as a medium for over twenty years.  You probably recognize his name from the various projects he’s worked on for Topps.  Some of his baseballs were even included in 2017 Topps Transcandent.

They went all out on the packaging too.  Every baseball comes packaged in an LED lit maple or ash wooden box.  Very high-end stuff.

(150) baseballs make up the entire set.  When it comes to the main player set, each player will have (6) baseballs – (3) portrait shots and (3) action shots.  There are also rookie balls, and dual signed hand-painted balls as well.

Somewhere within the (15) cases there will be a Babe Ruth authentic autographed, and hand-painted baseball.  We have yet to see this one, but I bet it will be really cool looking.

Wondering about documentation?  They’ve got you covered.  Each baseball comes with a hologram and serial number which will allow you to look-up in their database to see that specific baseball’s identity.  MLB Debut Balls, Triples, Doubles, Singles, RBI’s, Fouls, Pitch In Dirt, Record Breaking Hits, Playoff Hits, and Defense Play baseballs are all in here.

Cases have been allocated to Steel City Collectibles, Blowout Cards, Layton Sports Cards, GTS Distribution, and Ripping Wax.  A single case will run about $36,000.  Group break spots have been selling for about $3,600.  I’m really interested to see how these perform on the secondary market.

Updated Sales Sheet – Page 1, Page 2.

Win This Mickey Mantle Hand-Painted Autographed Baseball

If you have Twitter, this is a contest that you need to get in on.  Piece of the Game is giving away the Mickey Mantle ball from their Baseball Authenticated Masterpieces product.  Authenticated by JSA, this autographed baseball also features the artwork of renowned sports artist Monty Sheldon.  In order to be eligible for the contest, all you need to do is follow Piece of the Game on Twitter and retweet this tweet.  You can get (50) additional entries if you purchase a spot in a break of this product from any of the qualifying retailers too.  The contest ends 1/21/19.  Good luck!

Expected to be released near the end of March, Piece of the Game’s Baseball Authenticated Masterpieces features actual game-used baseballs, autographed, authenticated, and hand-painted by one of the greatest modern day sports artists Monty Sheldon.  It truly is a unique product that we haven’t seen before.

On a side note, don’t forget to take the 2018 Sports & Entertainment Collectibles Hobby Awards Survey.  When you get to the section “Favorite Collector Blog” be sure to vote for Sports Card Info.  Thanks!

Piece of the Game & Monty Sheldon Prepare Baseball Authenticated Masterpieces

Update

• This product has been pushed back until March, 2019.

Alright you high-end baseball collectors.  Mark your calendars.  On Black Friday, 11/23/18, a new product will be hitting the market.  Sports artist Monty Sheldon has teamed-up with Piece of the Game to bring you Baseball Authenticated Masterpieces.

Only (15) boxes of this product will be produced.  Housed inside each individually numbered, maple and ash box, will be (10) autographed, game-used, and hand-painted baseballs.  These just aren’t foul balls and wild pitch game-used baseballs either.  They’ve included MLB debut balls, triples, doubles, singles, RBI’s, record breaking hits, playoff hits and defensive play baseballs from current MLB superstars, rookies, and Hall of Famers.  Every baseball comes with a MLB hologram certifying that the ball was in fact game-used by that specific player.  Authentication holograms for the autographs and artwork will also be included.  All baseballs are #’ed 1/1.  An example of a historic baseball would be Ronald Acuña Jr.’s first MLB double ball.  That’s in here.  Painted and already autographed.

The checklist features the best of the best.  Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Derek Jeter to just name a few.  Even Babe Ruth is in here.  That’s correct.  You did not misread.  One of these (15) boxes will have an authentic, hand-painted, and autographed Babe Ruth ball.

Main set players will each have (3) different portrait and action baseballs.  Rookie Balls and Dual Balls can also be found.  Rookies include Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, and Shohei Ohtani.  Dual Balls pair guys like Chipper Jones/John Smoltz, Craig Biggio/Jeff Bagwell, and Xander Boegarts/Mookie Betts.  All hand-painted, game-used, and autographed.

If you attended the 2018 National Sports Collectors Convention, you could’ve gotten an early glimpse of these amazing baseballs.  Monty Sheldon has been using baseballs as a medium for his artwork for over two decades.  You’ve probably seen his work in various Topps products.  Last year, (10) of his painted baseballs were used in Topps Transcendent.

Paul Goldschmidt

Card of the Day: Cy Young 2010 Topps National Chicle Artist’s Proof Cabinet Monty Sheldon Auto

Sheldon’s 2015 Topps MLS Mini Art Gallery

Monty Sheldon is an artistic machine!  As it turns out, he also worked on a 15-card mini “Basics of Soccer” set for 2015 Topps MLS.  Printed versions can be found throughout the product, but they also included the 1/1 mini hand-painted cards as well.  Congrats to anyone that pulls one of these from a pack.

Monty Sheldon Showcases His 2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Art

Monty Sheldon is at it again!  Check out some of the artwork he worked on for the 2015 edition of Topps Gypsy Queen.  This year he made (25) art/patch cards each numbered one-of-one.  These are some of the top tier cards to look for when breaking open your boxes.  Any one of these cards could easily be the centerpiece of your collection.

In addition to the art/patch cards, Monty Sheldon also worked on a (15) mini card set called “Basics of Base Ball”.  Each card in the set details a fundamental aspect of the game.  The printed versions should come 1:24 packs (one a box).  The original painted one-of-one “Basics of Base Ball” mini cards will also be inserted into packs of 2015 Topps Gypsy Queen.  Those can be seen below, and will be much harder to pull.

The 35th National: Day #3

Today was my last day for attending the 35th National Sports Collectors Convention.  The weekends can get quite crowded that’s why I usually stay for the first three days.  I had it set in my mind to get an autograph, open some more Topps and Upper Deck products, and get more promos today.  And I did just that.

I still have a sealed box of 2014 Topps Minis Baseball to break open.  Over the next several weeks I’ll be showing off what I pulled from the various packs and boxes that I purchased.

Here are the highlights from Day #3.

While checking out the autograph lineup for the day, I ran into sports artist Monty Sheldon.  He’s known for his really cool painted artballs and sketch cards.  Monty Sheldon is also responsible for many of those 1/1 art/patch cards you find in Gypsy Queen.  It was really great to finally meet him in person.

Jim Thome (far left) is one of 8 MLB players in history to hit over 600 career home runs.  I wanted to get his autograph on my bat ever since I saw he was coming.  TRISTAR was moving people through the line very fast.  He was already onto the next item when I tried to get a picture.

Kenny Lofton

Warren Sapp

Wade Boggs

At lunch time I opened one of my boxes of 2014 Allen & Ginter.  I still have to look through a lot before I show off the entire box break, but I did pull my first Rip Card.  Its of Freddie Freeman #’ed/75.  I haven’t ripped it… yet.

Upper Deck was doing their wrapper redemption program again this morning at 10:25 a.m.  Today’s promos were of Michael Jordan, Roberto Osuna, Frank Thomas, Teddy Bridgewater, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and my Amazon.com card was of Reggie Jackson.

To get my promo pack from Upper Deck today, I decided to open another pack of 2014 Upper Deck SP Game-Used Edition Golf.  Inside was a Michelle Wie Tour Gear Dual Shirt #’ed/35.  I also pulled a Victor Dubuisson First Tee Rookies Auto #’ed/199 redemption.