SoCal Autograph Odysses

 I recently talked about Topps not having the license for the NFL, and the same holds true for the NBA as well. That didn't stop people from buying up products and trying to hit a Victor Wembanyama rookie auto since Topps is the only company that had his autos in it. I'm not much of a basketball fan so don't buy a whole lot of the product but on a recent trip to Target I did see they had a mega box, which is rare to find locally. I tried my luck and ended up pulling a rookie auto of Brooklyn Nets forward Jalen Wilson. I heard it's hard to pull autos from this product, so I am happy to have had luck this time around. I don't know much about the player, so here's hoping he has a good career.

 Some more soccer autographs came through the pipeline recently, all colored autos, two of which also happen to be numbered. The first is another legend auto from the really nice Copa America set. It is another Green Wave auto. This is Javier Mascherano, Argentine midfielder who spent a good amount of time playing for Liverpool and Barcelona. The second auto is /199 from the new Topps Chrome set of former Liverpool forward Michael Owen. He was considered among the very elite goal scorers for a short period of time and still talked about often by Liverpool supporters. Lastly, I made a trip down to my local card store over the weekend and tried my hand at a hobby box of Topps Chrome. It was a dud of a box overall and my auto wasn't a huge hit, though Jarrod Bowen is someone I'm very familiar with in that he plays for West Ham in the Premier League and is actually a good player. This auto is numbered /199 as well, same as the Owen above. 

 Collectors of sports cards tend to have arguments over whether or not they think unlicensed products are worthy of purchasing or adding to collections. Some say yes and don't care that there are no team logos or names, others are steadfast in their belief that you need both team logos and team names on the cards to make them worthy of collecting. For me, I don't lean too hard one way or the other as long as I think the card looks good and I personally think this new set by Topps called Topps Composite looks great and has an insane hit rate in retail products.  Some background first; Topps is now owned by Fanatics. Fanatics has the contract for a lot of the huge athletes in terms of autographs, however Panini has the NFL license. Using 2023 as an example, the rookie QB class of CJ Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young, etc only had Richrdson signing Panini products. That means if you bought Panini Prizm or Mosiac or anything under Panini's umbrella at all, you would not b...

 I've really enjoyed Prizm Copa America, and pulling the Rivaldo auto a couple of weeks ago got me into the mode where I wanted to try a few more boxes. Any time I go to Target I'll buy a box or two of the stuff, and it paid off again with this Cafu auto. This is another Brazilian legend on a green wave auto and as I mentioned in the Rivaldo post, the green looks good with the Brazil kit. Topps has recently released a football product called "Topps Composite" in their first foray back into the NFL game in a number of years. If you look closely, it's unlicensed so the below card doesn't have team logos or names though it's kind of hard to tell. I found one mega box of this stuff on the shelf and was able to pull this Doug Williams on card auto. Not a huge hit but he made NFL history by being the first black QB to both play in and win the Super Bowl and that's a cool distinction to have.  For the first time ever I bought one box of a tennis product. Topp...

 Another cheap eBay auto was added to my collection, as I decided to pull the trigger and purchase a Prizm blue shimmer autograph of NBA Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd.  With Kidd wearing the Dallas Mavericks jersey in this card, it really makes the blue shimmer pop. I could have paid $99 to send a rookie card in for a signing with Kidd for less than half of that after tax and shipping. This auto (although a sticker) is a much prettier card than a rookie would have been as well. I've mentioned many times previously that if I can get a signed card off eBay (Panini, Topps, Upper Deck, etc) at a cheaper cost than sending in for a signing, I'll do that more often than not.