Edwin Jackson

I finally got everything from Cubs Lot #2 scanned and cropped but ran out of steam to do any kind of write up about them. Instead, I'm falling back on some autographed cards from my draft folder.

Edwin Jackson came to the Cubs as a big free agent signing following a disastrous 101-loss season in 2012. Despite doing slightly better as a team in 2013, Jackson managed to lead the Major Leagues in Losses with 18. While losses aren't the be all, end all they used to be with pitchers on bad teams, having a nearly 5.00 ERA doesn't bode well either. The Cubs just haven't been able to match that offense.

This season, Jackson has a 1-2 record while the team is 1-4 in his starts. But the run differential is just -3. Scoring four runs is a decent total that'll win you some ballgames. You just can't give up five! 

These three Edwin Jackson cards were autographed last season with a little help from an SCN member. His signature is not much more than EJ but I'm glad to knock the two customs cards off my list.

This 2013 Topps card is actually form the factory team set and is Photoshopped. Jackson's Series 1 card still showed him in a Nationals uniform and didn't show up as a Cub until the Update Series where they used a different photo.

Asking for trouble

This guys feels my pain.

This gif comes from yesterday's broadcast while the Cubs were in the midst of blowing a 3-run, 9th inning lead during the 100th anniversary/birthday of Wrigley Field celebration. It's not easy being a Cubs fan, but as luck would have it, that's usually the worst thing I've got going for me right now.

I should have knocked on wood I guess.

I decided to take a little break on the Cubs lots and poke around in the Craiglists lot I picked up last weekend. I haven't really looked at the big boxes yet, but tried tackling some of the smaller ones.

I was kind of excited to pick up some junk wax in hopes of putting together some sets that would cost more to ship than buy. But I'll admit, these first couple of boxes were a little frustrating.

The 1988 Score factory set was missing about 60 cards. All of the lenticular cards were there which is cool, though. But who cherry picks 1988 Score? It'll probably cost me more to pick up the missing cards than just buy another set out right.

The same goes for the 1990 Topps set, although this one was missing 70 cards. I forgot that factory sets weren't sorted numerically when you first open them up so to add to the frustration, I had to sort them all to figure out if and what I was missing.

And finally, I have 1990 Bowman. This looks to be an attempt at a hand collated set since the box is one of the generic white ones. And there are 50 cards missing from that one, too.

I never thought I'd ask for non-Cubs junk wax, but I'll put up want lists sometime this weekend if anybody thinks they can help. So yeah, I'm probably asking for trouble. I have the numbers of the cards I need but I'm going to match them up with names and see if I find them amongst my repack spoils before I ask though.

There was a nice little surprise at the end of the Bowman box that might interest some Yankees fans, but it'll get its own post one of these days. Nothing valuable (I don't think), just interesting.

Cubs Lot #2, Part 2: The Autographs

Last week's first Cubs lot was a pretty manageable 217 cards. So much so, I was able to fit the scans and breakdown into one post. My second lot was nearly six times that size at about 1300 cards. But don't worry I'm only going to split it into four posts. Relics. Autographs. Serial Numbered. Everything else and the breakdown.

Yesterday’s post on Cubs Lot #2 covered the two relics that were included. Next up are the autographs, coming in at a whopping 8 count. Some of these would have counted for the next part of the lot breakdown as they are serial numbered as well.

Like the Hee-Seop Choi relics, I doubt any of these would have been picked up individually unless they were relegated to a dollar bin. But none of them existed in my collection until now. That means I’m 10 for 10 with new additions to the collection in these first two posts!

Here they are alphabetically, without really a star in the bunch, with minimal comment.

Bobby 'Breu's Baby Brother, Denny Abreu played in the Cubs minor league system from 1996 until 2002 and topped out at Triple A Iowa in four games in 2001. This cards marks his introduction to my collection even though I'm pretty sure he has a regular base card from this set too.

Arguably the biggest name in the bunch is Sam Fuld, although he's had more success outside of Chicago. He made two postseason appearances in three seasons in Tampa Bay and currently is tied for the American League lead with two triples with the A's this season. In case you missed it, this card is numbered out of 400.

Nic Jackson is a guy I was rooting for since I first saw his cards in the early 2000's. He's a Virginia guy and even though I don't have any particular ties to the commonwealth as a military brat, its where I call home now. He was still playing independent ball as recently as last year and I'm sure once that season gets started, he'll find a place. Like Abreu, he topped out at Triple A with the Cubs.

Scott Moore is a former first round pick (8th overall) in 2002. He made a few appearances at first and third for the 2006-2007 Cubs but was mostly used in a pinch hitter role. What I remember most about him though was that he was sent to Baltimore in a trade that brought Steve Trachsel back to the Cubs.

P-Town Tom might be one of the few Cubs fan to to know of Mark Pawelek as he never made it past Single A Peoria. If I hadn't heard of him (only because I have a Bowman card of him, too) I would have thought this was a Mets card with all that orange and blue. This one is slightly scarcer than the Fuld with only 399 issued.

Felix Pie will give Fuld a run for his money for biggest name of this group. He's definitely the most represented in my collection. Not only do I have about 20 Pie cards, but this isn't even my first Pie hit. I also have another autograph card and a jersey card.

Maybe a Marlins fan knows of Renyel Pinto but I've barely heard of him. He never got passed Iowa but played in parts of five seasons for the Marlins after the Cubs traded him and two others for Juan Pierre.

Carlos Vazquez spent four seasons in the Cubs minor league system and got as high as Double A, although he did make Triple A appearances while with the White Sox and Marlins affiliates later in his career. This card is numbered to 675 copies.

While there weren't any steals here in the autograph department, I'm almost happier to get these obscure guys that I wouldn't normally have picked up if not for the lot. I don't know if I'll get to the serial numbered cards tomorrow but they will be the next part of this lot breakdown. I may need a filler post while I continue to scan and crop.

Cubs Lot #2, Part 1: The Relics

Last week's first Cubs lot was a pretty manageable 217 cards. So much so, I was able to fit the scans and breakdown into one post. My second lot was nearly six times that size at about 1300 cards. But don't worry I'm only going to split it into four posts. Relics. Autographs. Serial Numbered. Everything else and the breakdown.

I decided to start with relics, because there were only two. (Again, buying time for scanning and cropping.)

2005 Donruss Champions Imprressions Jersey Hee-Seop Choi

Maybe it's just me, but I always wished they matched the photo to the type of jersey they used. Here, Choi is wearing the home pinstripes while the swatch is road jersey grey. But then again, the authenticity of all these game used jersey cards are in question anyway.

2005 Donruss Champions Imprressions Jersey Hee-Seop Choi back

This card looked really familiar to me but I knew I didn't have it. As it turns out, I had picked up the non-relic version at the card show a couple of weekends ago.

The other relic in the lot also happened to be Hee-Seop Choi.

2003 Fleer Box Score Wave of the Future Hee-Seop Choi Jersey

This swatch matches the uniform although it appears I have the one square inch of the jersey without a pinstripe.

2003 Fleer Box Score Wave of the Future Hee-Seop Choi Jersey back

This has to go down as one of the worst card backs in the history of baseball cards. Look at all that empty space! Maybe I have some printing error because that looks like where the congratulatory notification of authenticity should go.

I was out of the hobby when these two cards came out but I would guess they were probably $5-10 cards in their heyday. At least in the Chicago area. Hindsight is 20/20, but I probably wouldn't have picked them up unless they were in a $2-3 bin at a card show. I definitely wouldn't have sought them out individually on eBay so I'm glad they showed up in this lot.

Hector Rondon

While I'm scanning a bunch of cards from my recent lot pickups, I'm dipping into my draft folder. 

Hector Rondon was selected by the Cubs away from the Cleveland Indians in the 2012 Rule V draft. He made his Cubs/MLB debut on April 3, 2013 with a shutout inning of work against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite a 9-36 team record in 45 appearances last season, Rondon himself was 2-1 with a pair of holds.

This season, the Cubs are 4-4 in Rondon's appearances in which he has not yet earned a decision. However, he has a 0.93 ERA and a Save in 9.2 innings of work.

These cards were signed last season with a little help from a member on SCN.

Slippery Slope

I consider myself a pretty frugal person even if I don't go out of my way to shop at yard sales. But since I joined the blogosphere, I've heard tales of wondrous yard sale and flea market finds. About two or three weekends ago, when the weather started turning nice, yard sales started popping up. Last weekend, we had snow flurries. In April. And I'm not up north, I'm in Virginia.

I'm going to be doing some yard work in the coming weeks that required some tools I didn't have. Before heading to Home Depot to buy them new, I decided to check Craigslist first. One of the first yard sales advertisements I came across was actually an estate sale. In the fine print of the listing, they mentioned sports collectibles.

Huh.

I didn't follow up on this one but I quickly became sidetracked and started searching for other people selling baseball cards. Slippery slope.

There were quite a few former collectors with overvalued junk wax or $100 "hits" that could be found in the $2 bin of the last card show.

I did stumble upon one that I thought was too good to be true that was listed two days before I saw it. There's no way this could be still be there, right?

Approximately 35,000 sports cards - baseball, football, basketball, hockey. Cash only - $50 OBO.

This is like an instant dime box starter kit. Times twelve. Yes, it is probably all junk wax, but to be honest, I've been looking at going back to put together runs of complete base sets anyway. As long as the cards were in good shape, this sounded like a steal for 35,000 cards, no matter the sets.

As you may know, I've been on a lot buying kick recently so I shot off an email asking if it was still available, assuming it had been snapped up already. But to my surprise, I got an almost instant reply saying they were still there.

Slippery slope.

I made arrangements to stop by on Saturday morning to take a look. I took the lids off a couple and confirmed they were all in decent condition and mostly full like the pictures showed. And the boxes themselves are in great shape too. There were also a couple of 800 count boxes that weren't pictured so I didn't bother trying to haggle the price down any further. If the 35,000 count is close to accurate, that's like 7 cards per penny.

I have a feeling these are pretty picked through as far as rookies and stars go but I will probably look at how close I am to completing some of the sets and break up the rest of the stuff into team lots. I haven't had the chance to go through any of them yet but I can tell you I have no interest in the football, basketball or hockey cards. Hopefully, they don't make up too much of the lot.

The other Cubs boxes are taking priority but I needed to throw this post out there to buy me some scanning and cropping time between posts. I might be able to get through the summer on these posts alone. I hope so anyway, because my hobby budget is now officially tapping out.

Cubs Lot #1: Scans and Breakdown

This first lot was also the smallest of my recent pickups coming in at an advertised 217 Cubs cards.

I've been on both sides of the transaction as a buyer and seller so when I buy cards online, I look at the overall price and try not to worry about whether the money is going towards the card(s) or towards shipping. In this case, the starting (and final price) was a mere $0.99 but shipping was a bit ridiculous at $7.99. The box it arrived in was one of the small VHS sized Priority Mail boxes with a $5.90 automated stamp on it.

Six team bags inside

I could rail on about how I overpaid $2 on shipping for something he sent in a free box, but in reality, I got over 200 cards from my favorite team for less than $9 total. That's less than a nickel a card. On the contrary, I almost feel bad for the seller because when you take out what he paid for shipping, eBay and Paypal fees, he's lucky to have cleared $2. So I may have paid just under a nickel per card, but he only cleared about a penny each. And that doesn't even account for his time to sort, list and pack them up.

This listing didn't mention any particular years and the picture included with the listing included just nine cards. Before I got organized, I would have been hesitant to pick up such a small lot, working under the assumption I had most of them already. But like I mentioned yesterday, I found quite a few large gaps in my collection. Vintage is a given, but my time out of the hobby, mid 90’s to 2010-ish, presented a ton of card options. There were still multiple card companies, the birth of parallels and all kinds of inserts. It didn't hurt (or help depending on your perspective) that during that time frame the Cubs had several "collectible" players such as Mark Grace, Sammy Sosa, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. Those guys were seemingly in everything!

Of the nine cards showed in the auction, I only had three. So I knew, at the very least, I would be getting six new-to-me cards and they were all from that time period I missed. That gave me enough confidence to place the minimum bid (but no more) and I still came away the winner.

I turned on the TV and started cracking open the team bags. I was quite impressed on the first pass through. There was a lot of variety among the players, years and brands and there were hardly any dupes within the lot itself. I pulled out a bunch that I knew right off the bat were new to me to scan. I’ll show some and then get to the statistics at the end for those interested.

First up are a pair of cards that are not only new to my collection, but the players are new as well.

1998 Pacific #260 Ramon Tatis

Ramon Tatis was drafted away from the Mets in the 1996 Rule V draft. He went 1-1 with a 5.34 ERA in 56 relief appearances for the 1997 Cubs before being taken by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 1997 expansion draft.

2010 Upper Deck Season Biography #SB-159 Jake Fox

I should note that this is my first official Jake Fox card. Last summer I had a little help getting my Fox ATCRCS card signed while Fox was playing in the independent Atlantic League.

The oldest card in the package was this Lee Smith card.

1982 Fleer #603 Lee Smith

I recognized it as one of his rookie cards that I already have, but it wasn't until I turned it over that I realized I didn't.

In case you missed it, take a closer look at that Cubs logo. Or should I say, that CnB2 logo. This is back when errors were cool and corrected.

These three sets were represented a couple of times among different players. They didn't look familiar but I can't say for sure whether they are the first of their kinds in my collection off the top of my head. From left to right, we have 1997 Circa (Terry Adams), 1998 Topps Finest (Jeremi Gonzalez) and 1999 Flair Showcase (Roosevelt Brown). The Flair Showcase seems to have a bunch of parallels (Rows?). This one is a Row 2, whatever that means.

A trio of prospects with varying degrees of success. Kevin Orie played in parts of three seasons with the Cubs in two stints. Robin Jennings also played in three seasons with the Cubs (1996, 1997 & 1999). Daniel Garibay went 2-8 in 30 appearances for the 2000 Cubs.

I've always liked the artwork on Diamond Kings. What I don't understand is why Fred McGriff was painted in a Cubs uniform but is credited with the Dodgers on this card? I mean, I get that after the Cubs, McGriff signed as a Free Agent with the Dodgers, but this is artwork. Was it that hard to change the jersey or leave him off the checklist?

How about a nice card of the last 20 game winner from the Cubs? Didn't think that was a guy named Jon Lieber, did you?

I'm always surprised to see a new Nomar Garciaparra Cubs card because I feel like he was only with the team for a minute. But then I remember he used to be mentioned in the same breath as Derek Jeter and A-Rod and was probably the Red Sox version of Sammy Sosa, Mark Grace and Mark Prior. Before they shipped him off to the Cubs and won a World Series. Or two. I won't say three because he wouldn't have still been around for last year's. 

And speaking of those guys, here are a couple of new additions. The Sosa is die cut and from 1996, which was two years before his historic home run season. I probably should have read the back before I posted to see what his "Claim to Fame" was back then.

This Karim Garcia card was one of the more interesting in the package. On the front, Sammy Sosa is faded into the background. At first, I didn't even notice him as my eyeline was drawn to the color photo of Garcia and his name. On the reverse, Pinnacle compares an up and coming Garcia to a younger Sosa. There's a Cubs logo and Sosa is named, which is why its kind of weird that he's not mentioned on the front and just has a picture. And that his photo is in black and white like he played decades before Garcia, not just a couple of years.

My favorit-est new card though is the above Mark Prior. It is part of a 30-card checklist, one player from each team. They were produced by Upper Deck, came in packs of three and were given away at the 2004 Little League World Series by the New Era Cap Company. I don't know how rare they are but I didn't see a single one from any other player on eBay.

Last and least, there are a couple of close, but no cigar cards.

While Mark Grudzielanek did play for the Cubs, the card above shows him on the Montreal Expos. Keenyn Walker was drafted out of high school by the Cubs in the 16th round of the 2009 draft. He decided to go to college instead and fell to the Phillies 38th round pick the following year. Sticking it out in college for one more year, Walker was then drafted in the 1st round, 47th overall (as noted on the front of the card) by the other Chicago team, the White Sox.

Jamie Moyer is another former Cub, but unfortunately, the card shows him as a member of the Phillies. However, it is a keeper for my horizontal niche collection. Nice!

These were just a handful of the cards that came in the package. There were many more new to me (or upgrades) but I only have so much time allotted to scanning and cropping. Plus, the next package has arrived! Let's take a look at some of the statistics of this box before I move on though.

Advertised Quantity: 217

Actual Quantity: 222

Damaged Cards: 0

Non-Cubs: 3

Different Cards: 197

Price Per Cubs Card: $8.98/219 = $.041

Price Per Different Card: $8.98/197 = $.046

New Cards (or upgrades): 132

Price Per New Card:  $8.98/132 = $.068

Number of Different Players: 106 + 3 team cards/multiple players

The next boxes are going to be much bigger. It might take a few days to get stuff sorted and scanned from them. I don't want to leave you hangin' but I want to do them justice. Hopefully, they deserve it!