SoCal Autograph Odysses

 Anyone that denies that opening cards is essentially gambling is wrong.  It is gambling.  Most unopened cards cost quite a bit of money, and even if you're guaranteed one autographed card, there is a good chance it will be a player that hardly covers the cost of one pack.  My mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas a few weeks back so I told her I wanted a Hobby Box of the 2019 Panini Diamond Kings.  She gave me a budget to spend so I couldn't go picking Bowman and cards at that level.  Plus, as I have mentioned before I do kind of like the DK cards since I'm a fan of the artwork.  A DK Hobby Box guarantees one auto card and one memorabilia card per box.  A few packs into the opening, I found my auto "hit".  Luis Ortiz of the Baltimore Orioles?  I literally had no idea who this guy was and he actually came up as the second Luis Ortiz listed when I Googled him.  It is very, very rare for me not to know the name of a player.  M...

 My son was given three different boxes of baseball cards for Christmas.  Two of the three boxes guaranteed an auto and the other was 2020 Bowman Chrome, which was a blaster box.  The blaster box did not provide any hits, and the Panini Contenders was a bit of a dud as well, with Austin Shenton the auto hit.  He's a prospect I had never heard of.  The most expensive box was the hobby box of 2020 Panini Diamond Kings, and this box had a couple cool pulls.  The first pack had a Dale Murphy DK Originals autograph numbered to 50. Dale has a nice auto and as always I enjoy the artwork on the DK cards.  The second hit in the hobby box was a quad relic (four pieces of game used jerseys) Buster Posey hit.  Memorabilia cards are rarely worth anything but it's still cool to pull a future hall of famer when you can.  Overall, a bit of an underwhelming day of pack opening but the whole thing is about enjoying time with my son and getting him into the hob...

 The second of my most recent through the mail requests came back today.  NBA Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens, who made the hall both as a coach and a player.  He was kind enough to sign the card with the HOF '89 inscription.  I sent three cards out a couple weeks ago and a few days ago received the first hit, HOF NFL lineman Bob Lilly.  Two successes in a three day span is a good omen for perhaps being three for three on this go around, though the third is definitely the least likely to get back.

 In the last couple weeks I sent three more through the mail requests to Hall of Fame athletes.  The first one came back in about ten days, and it is former Cowboys defensive lineman and member of the all time NFL 100 greatest players, Bob Lilly.  Mr. Lilly was kind enough to add the HOF 80 inscription that I requested as well.  This one will be going in my displayed cards case.

 It was Black Friday a couple of weeks ago.  In the past, that would mean a good chance of adding a few items to my collection, but since I have added so many players both through Ebay and through the mail, as well as some high ticket items in Trout, Mantle, and Hank Aaron, I went the cheap rout this year. As such, I only bought a photo of my favorite player on my favorite team, Anze Kopitar of the La Kings.  Fanatics was having an up to 70% off sale, so I pulled the trigger on this beauty.  This will go nicely with my Kopitar signed puck and Upper Deck card.

I found what I thought was a good price on this Eloy Jimenez Topps Museum Collection Archival Rookie Card auto.  Jimenez seems undervalued right now, and I got this card for around $25. Other comparable cards I am seeing are closer to $45-50.  Jimenez was a bit forgotten since the White Sox have so much young talent, but I think he has the talent to be a perennial all star and push this card to a higher valuation. 

 A few weeks ago I saw that Steve Martin was going to be joining a Zoom conference call to market and discuss a new cartoon book he released with former New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss called "A Wealth of Pigeons".  As this is an autograph blog, it wont surprise you to find out that as part of joining the Zoom call, I received a free autographed copy of the book.  The autographs were dual signed by both Martin and Bliss, and were actually on signed stickers they put in the book.  I should mention that Henry Winkler actually hosted the event and asked all of the questions.  It was done in almost the exact way as the Jim Carrey one I attended and got his signed book from.  My plan is to cut the Martin auto and combine it with my Martin Short auto and make an ensemble similar to the Tom Hanks and Carrey autos I now have. Thank you for reading.