SoCal Autograph Odysses

 As I've shifted to doing breaks, I've moved away from doing much in the way of sealed products. I have learned that if you buy correctly in breaks, the hit potential versus value spent is much higher overall than opening packs of cards yourself. That being said, every now and then I'll find a product I want to buy and see what happens. I was at Target the other day and came across a 2025 Panini Rookies and Stars "Preferred" box, which is a retail exclusive. If you recall back to when I pulled the Patrick Mahomes , that was out of a Revolution Premier retail box direct from Walmart online. These products are interesting because they are technically retail products only, but they are just like hobby boxes used to be. In my opinion, these now fit that gap of boxes that used to be $100-150 in which you can get guaranteed hits and which used to be the standard hobby box price. As hobby boxes have moved to $400+, these preferred boxes are what Panini has slid into that...

 With a new job and a lot of stuff going on, I have only really had time to post some of the bigger hits I've recently gotten. I am going to use this post as a catch up for everything else I've acquired recently that has not yet been posted.   Three Juventus autos from a break, the above being Francisco Conceicao /10 and the next two being base autos of Lois Openda and Fabio Miretti. This ended up being a very good break for me as I also pulled a Kenan Yildiz super short-printed case hit numbered /5. If you notice the autograph of Openda below, and compare it to the /25 autograph I got of his from Topps Chrome about six weeks ago , you'll notice a big difference. It's always interesting when a signature changes so much. Could be nothing to it and the athlete got tired of signing by the end so shortened the auto, or it could be something more nefarious at play like he didn't sign one of them himself. Who knows? The next two autographs are of AS Roma player Evan Fergu...

 Another beautiful card was hit for me in a break a couple of weeks ago, this time in the form of Francesco Totti on another Marks of Excellence on card autograph. I mentioned I'd had insane luck recently, to the point where I hit two MOE in a six day span plus other great hits like the Fernando Torres /5 and Kenny Dalglish. This particular card was the card I wanted in the AS Roma spot, so to actually then hit the exact card was a great feeling. Totti is one of the all time Italian greats, and played his entire career with Roma. He's a national hero and this card is just really cool. 

 I've discussed at length already about my infatuation with on card soccer autographs and where I think the long-term value will be in collecting them. To recap quickly, they are essentially scarce in the soccer market since it's harder to coordinate in person signings with athletes overseas and logistically more of a pain to ship cards back and forth in these scenarios. It's much easier for Topps and Panini to ship the player a sheet of stockers that they sign and then place signed stickers onto cards. In the other major sports, sticker autos take a bit of a hit in the value game whereas in soccer they take less of a hit due to the acknowledgement that sticker autos have to be more prevalent due to the aforementioned logistics involved. However, that means that the rare cards that do  actually have hard signed autographs on them, like the Marks of Excellence subset that Topps has been inserting into various soccer products, have a very high premium placed on them. I also j...

 The last ten days is probably the best luck I've had yet in terms of hitting really good autographs multiple times and without spending ridiculous sums of money. While celebrating my wife and I's anniversary, we were having really good luck at a casino and I wanted to see if that would translate into my breaks luck. Spoiler alert: It did. I hit a Marks of Excellence on card autograph of Andriy Shevchecnko /50 in one break where I took AC Milan for like $35. I don't have that card in hand yet so will post it whyen I do. I also took Liverpool in a break where they were auctioned off and I got them for $47. I hit two massive autographs for my collection, one a red refractor autograph numbered 4/5 of Liverpool legend Fernando Torres. This card is worth likely over $800. In that same break, I hit long time chase and top three Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish in an orange /25. Dalglish is a rare autograph to hit and I don't think I've ever seen his autograph come out of a...

 One of the Premier League greats that I had yet to add to my autograph collection was former England and Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes. Scholes' autograph itself is all over the place, so believe it or not, the below example is one of the better ones I have seen on Topps Chrome products. 

 Topps Merlin Premier League ended up being okay for me though not as lucrative as Topps Chrome Premier League was.  There were a few breaks where I got completely skunked and just ended up with a solitary numbered card or two. There was also a break or two where I got a bunch of stuff. My last batch of autograph hits from the product were delivered and are listed as below. Funny enough, all three players are guys I've already got autographs of in the past, so will likely be posted up on eBay to recoup some of the money spent on the breaks. The first two cards were Newcastle midfielder Bruno Guimaraes. For those of you watching the World Cup, he also starts for Brazil. The gold is numbered 36/50 and the green is 56/99. I hit a pretty cool color match(ish) purple refractor of West Ham forward Jarrod Bowen. Unfortunately for Jarrod, West Ham got relegated this season so we will see if he stays and tried to help West Ham get back to the Premier League or leaves for a better team....

 My fifth autograph from Topps Marks of Excellence set just arrived in my mailbox yesterday, in the form of former Chelsea legend and England international Frank Lampard. As a reminder, what makes this set so coveted is that the autographs are all on card, which is rare in the soccer world as most of the athletes are overseas and therefore more difficult to make signing arrangements with. The below card is the gold version numbered 48/50. I have mentioned it before, but I think these on card soccer autographs hold a lot of potential long-term value as the soccer market grows.

 The inaugural set of Topps Merlin Premier League dropped last week, and as has been my norm, I jumped into some breaks on release day. I ended up hitting six autos, all listed below. The biggest autograph was a Carlos Tevez Merlin's Ink gold autograph /50. The funny thing about getting this card from a break was that I just purchased a dual autograph with Tevez on it last week since I didn't have any of his autographs yet. Well, now I have two and the one below is quite cool looking in person. As I tend to do, I also took Burnley in a few breaks because I got them for $10 in one case, plus free in two other cases since I had store credit. I ended up getting two Kyle Walker gold autographs /50, which brings my Walker autograph haul to five over the last couple of months. I will likely sell a few off to recoup some money to put towards something else.  I also took Liverpool in one case and ended up hitting two Conor Bradley autographs to throw into my Liverpool collection. The ...

 I wanted to do a quick overview and show some of the recent additions to my collection that have been coming in, as it has been pretty consistent lately.  The above card is a dual Prizm scope autograph of two former Argentine legends Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. Since it's a Premier League Prizm set, they are in their West Ham kit, which is a bit weird. Nonetheless, I really like this card as it's a dual and they are hard to come by.  The below card is a Panini Select purple Prizm /49 of AC Milan and Dutch legend Marco Van Basten. I picked this exact card because the signature is as clean as one could ask for. This card really pops in person. I've mentioned before that I really like to add the Topps 'Marks of Excellence' autograph set to my PC when I get the opportunity to, as these are low printed and feature signatures that are actually on card and not on stickers. I think long term as the soccer card market grows and catches up to the other sports (as is ...

 I hit six autographs in a recent player break of Topps Finest Premier League, though for some reason my shipment was missing two of them. I took some retired legends for cheap, and three of them ending up hitting autographs in the break, including the two autographs that didn't get sent to me. I hit these two nice Gary Neville autographs, one of which is /25 and the green which is /75. Those were both excellent hits and paid for the whole break for me.  I also took Tom Watson in the break since he's a lower key rookie and seems to hit autographs a lot, which he did in this break with a blue /99 auto.  Lastly, I took two former Liverpool studs, Jonh Arne Riise and Dirk Kuyt. I took Riise because he seems to come out of this product and sure did this time, with the blue /99 auto. I also got a base autograph of his that did not ship. The Dirk Kuyt auto was the other autograph I did not receive.  I also found a cheap Alessandro Nesta auto /49 on eBay, which I wanted to ...