SoCal Autograph Odysses

 Bowman Chrome was released at the end of September, and it's an update to the main set released in May. As you may recall I hit some decent stuff out of the flagship Bowman this year. The other day I was at the store and decided to try one Bowman Chrome mega box, and I ended up hitting an auto of whom many consider the potential number one overall prospect on this release's checklist, Cardinals prospect Rainiel Rodriguez. Who is he? Check out this blurb; Bowman Chrome 2025 Prospect Rankings This list has him at number one. As always, the on-card signature is a major positive of Bowman, and the cards always look so clean. I simply cannot complain about my Bowman luck as I always hit some good autos and numbered cards.  One interesting tidbit about mojo autographs like the one above. It is technically a 1st Bowman autograph even though the mojo refractors don't have the 1st Bowman logo for some reason. If this kid hits the ceiling of his hype, this card will be worth some go...

 Sometimes it takes me a while to pull the trigger on getting an autograph from a player I've been eyeing to add to my collection. This can be for any number of reasons, for example, cost is too high, I don't like the cards currently on sale, etc. I have been looking into Robert Carlos auto cards for probably six months (maybe more) before I finally found one I liked at a price point I could live with. I need to point out, it's not like I am breaking the bank to get a Roberto Carlos card, but sometimes I just want to find a fair price on a player rather than just splurging. I found a happy medium recently and went with a 2024-25 Select FIFA red auto.  One curious sidenote to the Roberto Carlos autograph hunt. Most of the cards he signs are sticker autos, and as such, he went off the sticker on most of his autographs due to the size of his signature. That's another thing to keep an eye on when trying to get autographs via eBay. Some athletes sign so large that they use u...

 As you can probably tell by the name of this blog, I am located in Southern California. I live in Oceanside, to be precise. Last year, we opened a new arena locally which hosts some cool events that we would not otherwise have access to unless we travelled to San Diego (45 minutes) or Orange County (1 hour). My family and I became season ticket holders for the professional indoor soccer league team the San Diego Sockers. One of the perks was that we got a good discount for the LA Clippers game that the arena hosted last night, October 9th. The NBA's G League has a team that plays in the arena, the San Diego Clippers, and in conjunction with their parent team, a preseason game between the real Clippers and a Chinese team was hosted. I've only been to one NBA game and it was also a preseason game about ten years ago in San Diego. My son and I went to this game because we got tickets so cheap, and we brought some cards for my son to try and get signed. This blog's roots actua...

 It has been ten days or so since I last posted and that's because it has been mostly quiet on the autograph front. I do have a few autograph requests out via private signings happening in October but those are still later this month or keep getting postponed. I'd love to update the blog with some of those as well since we are talking about some big names but unfortunately, we are still in a holding pattern for those. I did, however, recently add two really nice legends soccer autographs from a newly released Prizm set, 2025 Panini Prizm Club World Cup soccer. I'd like to start off by saying I really like blue shimmer parallels. Blue shimmer autographs come only in what is termed '1st off the Line" boxes, or the very first batch of a new product being shipped out. Therefore, blue shimmer autographs are SP, or short printed automatically even if they aren't technically numbered.  As you can see, both of the players I added are Serie A legends. Gianluigi Buffon i...

 I make a point to stop at any local Walmarts or Targets whenever the family and I take a trip anywhere. I do so in the hope of finding some sealed retail cards that we don't get access to as frequently here in Southern California due to the sheer number of people that collect cards. To be honest, I've had pretty good luck pulling autographs from random places across the country, the most notable being the Julio Rodriguez prospect /99 auto you can read about again  here .  The family and I had to make an unfortunate trip to wetern Arizona due to a death in the family recently but during some down time I did still try a couple Walmarts and a Target. The Target had nothing that appealed to me and just one of the Walmarts did. I bought two Panini soccer boxes, one premier League Prizm and one Premier League Select. I hit nothing crazy and no numbered cards to speak of. However, I did hit a pretty good auto of former Manchester United defender Wes Brown. I checked with my bud...

There is nothing extremely special to share about any of the following three hits but as this is an autograph blog, I wanted to post them on here. I'll start by saying 2024-25 Mosaic basketball mega boxes have been absolutely loaded. I've bought five boxes and in those five boxes I've pulled three autographs. I've also pulled ten numbered cards and a couple Genesis short prints as well. You definitely get a lot of value out of these megas. I posted about the Mike Miller auto on my last post so the other two are Detlef Shrempf and a rookie auto of Cam Spencer. Shrempf in particular is a cool one for me because he is a 3x All Star that played when I was growing up. The Spencer is a rookie auto so you never really know what can happen with those. Either way, a 60% autograph pull rate is pretty high end for retail. Throwing in two numbered cards per box plus a high SP hit rate makes them slam dunk buys. If I see more, I'll probably indulge a bit more. I already sold one...