SoCal Autograph Odysses

 Another card from my favorite autograph insert set Marks of Excellence was delivered on Friday, and this time it was Roberto Carlos /10. I've said a lot about these cards already, but I think the aesthetic of the on card autograph plus the design of these cards makes these cards beautiful. I also think long term these will be more valuable due to the hard signed nature of the signature.

 It's been a couple of weeks or so since I've found time to post some new additions. A new product came out last week, 2026-27 Topps Premier League Flagship. These are affordable breaks to participate in since they aren't the premium chrome stock and there is some great hit potential. I took Manchester United in one break by taking four of ten serial spots and it paid off. A serial in a break is when the breaker can't get anyone to buy the full team so they break that team down into ten spots. Each spot is randomly assigned a number 0-9 and whomever has that number gets the corresponding hit on the card itself. For example, if you have serial number 4 for Man United and then an autograph numbered 34/50 comes up, or 4/10, or 184/250 etc, that card belongs to the 4 spot. You're essentially getting a piece of the pie rather than the whole pizza at 1/10th the cost. I had 4 of the 10 pieces and got four autographs from it. The Peter Schmeichel /25 was one I was particula...

 Cards have been coming and going thick and fast as I sell some cards to purchase others. Essentially, I am taking many of my non autographed cards and duplicate autographs and selling them to gain funds to get into more breaks, purchase product, or buy singles. This past week alone I traded two autographs for the below Lilian Thuram Select autograph. I also took part in a Serie A Select break by taking Calcio in a case. I took Calcio with the distinct intention of hitting one of the legends on their autograph checklist. It worked, as I hit the below Hristo Stoichkov auto. I also received a Patrick Cutrone autograph, which you can see below the Stoichkov. I'm not sure who that is really, but I'll never say no to hitting an autograph in any break. Lastly, I took a gamble on what's called a "filler" in a break. Essentially, what happens is a breaker will not be able to fill ALL the spots individually, so they take all the remaining spots and then charge X dollars pe...

 Clearly I've diverted my attention and resources predominantly to breaks since early January 2026. I feel that the return on investment is just so much higher than when I buy retail products or even my own hobby boxes. All that being said, I still partake once in awhile in retail or sealed hobby, especially when said hobby boxes are cheap. That case happened to me over the Labor Day weekend as I found 2024 Topps Chrome Women's Champions League hobby boxes for $70 a pop. For context, mega boxes in which you aren't guaranteed anything will often cost just about the same. I bought four boxes. All four had one autograph per box plus five numbered parallels. The four autographs and my favorite hit are all posted below. What I really appreciate about the women's sets is that they have big names on their autograph checklists. The Vivianne Miedema /25 auto is a great example. She's one of the best female players in the world and it's a low numbered auto. Dianni /35 is ...

 I wanted to get completely caught up on all my recent additions so am doing this one post to be as up to date as possible.  I recently bought another Rookies and Stars preferred box from Target. The first time I bought one, my autograph ended up being a Peyton Manning /50. This time, I got one of the best rookies in last year's class, Tetairoa McMillan of the Panthers. This rookie auto is numbered /349. I also took part in a couple of Premier League Merlin breaks where I took West Ham since they were lower end pricing. I got two autographs of the same player, Konstantinos Mavropanos, the Greek defender. One autograph was the black to /10, and the other was gold /50. Not bad! Lastly, I also bought a card off eBay of one my favorite Liverpool players Andy Robertson. This was from the Topps Pristine set and feature a jumbo cut of a match worn jersey from 2020. What makes that even cooler as a Liverpool supporter is that is the season Liverpool was the Premier League.

 One thing about the 2026 World Cup Prizm set is that Panini went way too hard, in my opinion at least, with how many different versions of the product they made. There are blasters and hangers and megas and preferred and hobby and on and on. Then, each one of those formats has its own version depending on what store it is available in, be it Target, Walmart, Dick's, etc. It's way too much Panini. That being said, of course I did purchase some retail versions of it so I could open my own stuff and see what I pulled. Over the last ten days or so, I have been lucky to pull three autographs, all of legends.  The first auto is Eric Cantona, the French icon who plied his trade for some time with Manchester United and then go into acting. The latter two autographs are from a set I find particularly attractive, the 2012 Prizm throwback autos. Oliver Kahn is one of the top 10 goalkeepers of all time and Benni McCarthy, while I did not know who it was until I looked him up, was arguabl...

 I don't need to spend much time going over my recent preference for on card soccer autographs, particularly of the Marks of Excellence variety, so instead I'll just post an update that I've added the tenth such card from this set into my collection over the last week. This time it was an eBay purchase of former Barcelona and Spain icon, Xavi. He was one of the elite players of his era. This autograph is also the gold /50 version of the card. When you search for Marks of Excellence, there typically is not a lot of each player available because it is a very short printed subset. 

 I've got some catching up to do on all of my recent additions since the two big names in Messi and Maradona. I've been real busy and in the midst of a new job so haven't quite gotten around to it yet. However, at the same time I added the Messi and Maradona autos with my Kobe Bryant sale funds, I also added a third all-time legend, Romario. This is a Topps Chrome auto /25. You probably have noticed that when I have the option, I've been focusing on adding lower numbered autos of the greats in addition to the names I am targeting in the first place. I like keeping the long-term scarcity low in my collection. These are all aspects of my collection that I've honed over the long time I have been in the hobby and, frankly, as I've gotten older and more established, I have the means to be able to be a bit more picky. 

 The other half of my acquisitions that stemmed from my Kobe Bryant sale was none other than the best player in soccer history, Lionel Messi. This auto is numbered  /99 from the Road To the World Cup Select set.  Being able to add both this Messi auto as well as the Diego Maradona auto for the price of one base Kobe autograph felt very worth it to me. In terms of financial values long term, it is yet to be determined whether I made a good choice or not but I'm happy with my PC which is really what matters. Plus, I'll likely add a different Kobe back to my collection in the future.

 I didn't plan on doing this because my intention is to add autographs of this magnitude to my collection, not sell them off. However, I recently sold my Kobe Bryant Autograph because I knew it would net me enough money to add two huge soccer all time GOATs for the price of one Kobe. My strategy worked, as I was able to get numbered autographs of both players plus have a bit left over to get something else. The first autograph I'm discussing is the Diego Maradona Mosaic autograph /25. I wanted a Maradona badly and I'm happy to get one.

 I was perusing eBay the other day and as I often do, found myself digging into the availability of the on card soccer autograph set, Marks of Excellence. I saw that Brazil legend Cafu was one of the listing ending soon, and that it was cheap so thought I would try and snipe it. It ended up being the cheapest MOE autograph I've added to my collection to this point as I ended up getting it for just a few bucks over $100. I've said it before but I'll say it again. To me, these on card soccer autographs will have a lot more value in the future than they do now. The scarcity level on these is very high. This autograph is the gold /50 version. I look forward to hunting down and acquiring more of these, because I love this set. 

 I finally hit something good out of a 2026 World Cup Prizm blaster, which up until this point, was just not happening. I've opened a dozen or so boxes of the stuff and only had four or five numbered cards to show for it. It has been an absolute brutal product for me even though I got some decent stuff in a couple breaks. For the most part, I've been avoiding the product even though I don't want to because I love soccer and went to a World Cup game, etc. However, over this past weekend I went to Walmart for something completely different and saw one lonesome blaster box sitting near the checkout. I didn't want to leave it hanging, so tried my luck. It ended up being easily my best box as I pulled a Daniel Passarella National Heroes Wave Prizm auto. Passarella is a World Cup champ for Argentina and considered one of the all time best center backs in soccer history, and I did not have him autograph yet so I was very happy to hit this card in my blaster. I also got a Zined...

 While on vacation in the Olympic Peninsula, I still took part in a few breaks here and there. I found a couple streamers on Fanatics Live that were running incredibly cheap spots in half cases of Panini Select Road to the World Cup, so I couldn't bypass the opportunity to try my luck with the product. In my opinion, it went very well. I ended up with five autographs, including three legend autos of guys I don't have in my collection which is exactly the type of thing I am chasing.  I got two Gerard Pique autographs, including the purple Prizm /49. I already sold the base one to recoup some of the money I spent towards these breaks. I got a base auto each of Argentina legend Gabriel Batistuta and Netherlands legend Dennis Bergkamp. I also got an auto of Spain World Cup winner Martin Zubimendi. When you consider that I got five autographs plus about twenty numbered cards, I feel like I did very well for a relatively low cost. For example, Spain costs about $400-500 in a case of...

 I've gone over breaks on this blog ad nauseum so if you follow along at all, you know that when looking to get into a break, the vast majority of the time I am looking for deals or smaller teams. This is because the Premier League teams like Everton, West Ham, Brentford, or smaller international teams on the global soccer scale like Ghana or Nigeria are always cheaper than the bigger teams. I like bundling multiple teams in a break that cost me the same or less than one big team does in the same break. I also usually know the checklist going into the breaks pretty well so that I know where some value can be mined. That isn't to say that I never  go with bigger clubs, it's just less often. For example, I like to take Liverpool every so often as they are the club I support so I will splurge on them at times.  However, for the first time ever,  I actually took one of the biggest clubs in the world in a break, Barcelona. I decided to grab them in a three case opening of...

 Lots of stuff happening over the last few weeks from a soccer card release standpoint. Now that I am back from our annual family road trip, I can catch up a bit with these posts. One new product that came out was Topps Pristine Premier League, which is a higher end set that includes three encased autographs per hobby box. I partook in a few case breaks of this stuff to some mixed reviews, including the five autographs below.  One of the really cool things about Pristine is that you can get match worn memorabilia. In the above example, I got this autograph of West Ham player Tomas Soucek, and if you pay attention to the jersey piece and look at the back of the card, it tells you that this is a piece of his kit from the match at Old Trafford against Manchester United on May 11 2025. What makes this even cooler is the fact that Soucek scored in this game which ended up being a 2-0 West Ham win, their first win at Old Trafford in 18 years. Being able to tie this to a specific gam...