Posts

LA Clippers in Oceanside

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 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...

Two New Soccer Adds

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 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...

Road Trip Rippin'

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 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...

Recent Retail Hits

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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...

Recent Adds

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 I'm going to start this post with a soccer legend auto, former Arsenal great Ian Wright. Some of these soccer legends still have insanely good value from a buying perspective as the US market is still slowly coming around to the sport. I do fully believe that someday in the not-too-distant future that soccer cards will be more valuable than they are, and they are already going up because of the Asian market as is. When the World Cup hits in 2026 there will be a lot of buy in. This Wright auto is a gold /50. Check out this cool little YouTube video from a few years back about Ian Wright and his former school teacher Mr. Pigden. I highly encourage you to look up the story behind it, especially in these crazy times we live in.  A couple more random autos I've pulled out of retail recently. I pulled an Anthony Gould rookie Select auto and a Mike Miller Mosaic auto. Each of these is worth about $5 tops but it's always fun to pull autos from retail when they aren't guarantee...

Through the Mail-Dawn Staley

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 One of the last few pending through the mail autograph requests I had sent out came back yesterday for about a five week turnaround time. This time, the success came from former WNBA legend and current South Carolina women's basketball head coach Dawn Staley. Dawn is a deserved member of the Naismith Hall of Fame as she was a multi time gold medal winner for team USA, she was a 6x WNBA all-star and a member of the all-decade team and is now a championship winning head coach. That is quite the resume. I sent her a rookie Skybox WNBA card back at the end of July and was happy to see it come back in my mailbox on Saturday afternoon. Always remember you can check my  through the mail tracker  to keep up to date with my current and former requests to see which athletes send back and how long it takes. It can be an extremely useful tool. 

Jerome Bettis Signing

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 Another one of the signings that took place during last month's National Sports Collector's convention was with Hall of Fame NFL running back Jerome Bettis. It was one of a few signings I participated in by sending to third parties via Sportscollectors.net. I sent in a 1993 Topps draft picks card that I pulled as a kid and somehow still had laying around. I think the result was good.