Huggins & Scott have the Holy Grail
 

Just got this in the mail yesterday and thought I would share it. Can't wait to see the hammer price on this:)

Grading
 

I can't wait to see the grade. It looks like it might get a 6 or 7. Lots of edge wear.

Rick

They have it displayed on their homepage. It was graded a BGS 9 with the following subgrades:

centering 9.5
corners 8.5
edges 9
surface 9

autograph 10

I can't wait to read all the reasons why anyone bidding on this is a fool and how that money could be better spent on a myriad of other things.

How many different "1 of 1" Strasburg autographed cards are there? Boy the card company (Topps) must lean back in their chair and ask themselves if there is any limit to the market manipulation possibilities.

dammit..
that's not the Holy Grail..
that's the Holy CRAP! :eek:

gambling
 

It's really about the adrenaline rush of gambling. If we put it in perspective it's not as bad as saying it's collecting baseball cards. This is just my opinion from doing a bit of research. I don't collect new cards but there is more interest today than there has been in quite some time and that can't be bad for our segment. Hopefully, it gets younger collectors involved and eventually, they come to their senses :) and collect pre-war. best regards

There will be alot from various issues but they will not sell as well. If they produce "Topps Chrome" it will be the only comparable product.

The "Chrome" brand has been around long enough and is the highst regarded rookie card by modern card collectors.

If they produce "Topps Chrome"

The only real question @ this point is how many different colors of it they are going to produce. :D:D:D (my apologies Peter)

The funny thing...

if I were opening a pack of modern cards and saw that one, I'd see the name, think, "Okay" and keep on looking to see if I've gotten something that actually fills the empty slots in my binder.

This "1 of 1" BS really makes no impression upon me at all.

Me too, if I pulled this card I would be angry that I didn't pull another common for my binder. Haha (not that I collect this crap)

I agree with Leon though, This is good for all collectors. I'ts suprising to me how much more a card sells for with just one more collector intrested. I started a 34' Goudey set because I thought here's my chance to collect a set I have always wanted. Prices are low (never collected a complete set but love this one).

The cards that I bid on eBay sell for alot more than the ones I do not. Same condition, same card.

These modern card collectors have alot of money. I've seen collectors on youtube open 70,000 dollars worth of boxes in one sitting.

I just hope they stay on the modern side for awhile, let me finish my set dammit. I promise to go back to collecting random cards that I think look cool.

this is the one from ebay that reached a million then was pulled... i think it is anyways.. im glad FEE-bay is not making money off of it

Can't believe it!
 

I can't believe that BGS would grade this a 9. I'm looking at the photo on the large insert that came with the H&S catalog and I see nicks in 3 of the 4 corners, and light chipping on both vertical borders.

In my opinion this should be a 7 at best.

Rick

This is good for the hobby. People are interested in baseball cards again and that means younger and younger kids will get involved. No one starts out collecting pre-war cards. But everyone starts out collecting the cards of their day. So in my opinion, this card will garner a whole new group of young people who may or may not continue their collecting endeavors.

As far as manufactured rarity, it's nothing new to the hobby. Look at the Lajoie Goudey.

or George C. Miller Andrews or Butter Cream Ruth or U.S. Caramel Lindstrom or Maple Crispette Stengel or.......

Sure, but in each case those players were legitimate established stars. Plus I am not sure how manufactured and scarce high dollars cards that no average collector, young or old can acquire will be good for the hobby long term. It is very good that it has cards and the hobby in the news again in a positive fashion but I am not sure how this is going to correlate to legions of new hobbyists. I hope I am wrong and again I don't blame Topps a bit for doing this.

don't know about that....
 

These are chase cards to collecting a set....Were they short printed? Heck yes, but I don't think any were touted from the mfg'er as 1 of 1. Also, I don't think this new card is being collected to finish a set. It is being collected purely for speculative reasons (by most) and there isn't anything at all wrong with that. It's just not the same kind of collecting we do.

Absolutely, not really a relevant comparison at all.

I agree it's completely different, but let's not embrace the faulty notion that manufactured scarcity started within the last couple of decades. It's part of this hobby....albeit for different reasons.

Collecting for a set or not, it's still a manufactured rarity. If you were collecting a Butter Cream set back in the day and knew a kid who had a Ruth, you probably would have traded your whole set for the one card. I'm not saying it was the 1/1 that they are today, but if you were serious about cards you would have known it was rare. And it was only rare because Butter Cream decided it would be.

Average collectors, young or old aquire these cards through luck. Some do not sell them. The hobby shops near where I live do have legions of kids in there buying packs of cards.

By the time this card hits auction there will be less intrest and there will already be a new chase card out there.

I like this one:

http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...cut_crf_ss.jpg

Some random collector has it

The initial acquiree is by happenstance perhaps but not so much on down the line. Besides the math is not good that you are going to attract a lot of new collectors for chances at a card numbered to 1. If you do I am not sure they are going to be in it for the long haul.

Hey we all started collecting for some reason or another. I guess the speculative gambling angle is a good a reason as any.

If only those folks at Butter Cream and Goudey would have had the foresight to short print a card of a player with no major league track record yet, imagine what those would be worth. ;)

BTW, Matthew nice card! Would love to own, but would never buy packs trying to pull it.

Another contrived collectible. I wonder how all those 1 of 1 rare Michael Jordan cards are doing.

They're actually doing very well.

Cards like the Andrews, Ruth, Lajoie, and Lindstrom had no monetary value at the time of issue, even though they were nearly impossible to find. A complete set of U.S. Caramels got you a prize of something like a baseball, so if someone had the chance to buy a Lindstrom back then it might have been worth a quarter or so to him.

But the Strasburg is worth a ton right out of the gate (and unlike the aforementioned classics will only lose value in the coming years). I don't think you can compare this modern 1 of 1 to the older cards.

Got to agree with this

I thought this thread was about the Stanley Cup.
Bummer.

Leon is correct and i would say modern cards haven't been as popular as they are right now, since the very early 1990's. There are a lot of high rollers in the modern market that is mainly (some very rich) men in their 20's to 50's and "busting" modern wax is a form of gambling for them that directly involves their favorite sport. Like a few mentioned already, having a strong modern market is definitely beneficial for the vintage market as eventually many of these new modern collectors at least will dabble a bit in the pre war market, if not becoming a hardcore vintage collector.

All card collecting is good, whatever it takes to get the youth of the US and Canada collecting any type of cards will eventually be beneficial to all the card markets, Pre-War, Vintage and Modern. I just don't understand why so many of the vintage/pre war guys have such a hatred against modern cards/collectors? You never see Modern collectors bashing vintage or pre war cards/collectors, they have nothing but respect for the history of card collecting. There are a lot of guys who do like pre war and modern as well, many on this very board i bet.

EDIT- Thought id bring to the attention of the board another very high profile modern auction. The Bryce Harper (Nats #1 pick overall this year) Superfractor. This is another modern card that i wouldn't be surprised to see hit $10K+ and get some national media attention. The card was pulled by your "average Joe" collector, which makes it even better if it sells really high, IMO.

http://cgi.ebay.com/2010-Bowman-Chro...#ht_500wt_1063

If these guys are busting open cases as a form of gambling, it's pretty unlikely they are going to stay in the hobby and develop into serious collectors. When they get bored looking for chase cards they will move on to something else.

Weren't the same things said in another thread before about the Chrome Superfricker or whatever? Seems to me like a lot of repetition here.

Chase cards are designed to move product. Topps is going to sell more Bowman 2010 boxes and packs because people want the Strasburg. The same was true for pre-war sets. The chase cards were intended to be money makers. You were going to buy as many Goudey packs as you could get your hands on looking for that Lajoie, except the difference is you can actually get the Strasburg. The modern chase card game is a lot more honest than the pre-war one.

Or the pre-war "chase" cards could be looked at the opposite way as well. They were short printed to be money savers, thus allowing the company to give away less baseballs, bikes or whatever. In that case I think they served two purposes, move product and prevent redemption.

On the modern card blogs they are doing the same thing people are doing here. Posting pickups, bst, etc. If you look on youtube you will see people busting boxes, they get excited when they get good cards they want to add to the pc, when they don't, they will offer them up for trade in the video. Then other collectors comment that they want to trade for the card. I think it's a legitimate hobby :)

[QUOTE=HRBAKER;822381]

If only those folks at Butter Cream and Goudey would have had the foresight to short print a card of a player with no major league track record yet, imagine what those would be worth. ;)
QUOTE]


Like they did in the T207 set? :D

[QUOTE=tbob;822559]
"Well played Mauer."

What is a Stanley Cup? ;)
JimB

Or when the bottom drops out of the value.

This relates to something a couple people have stated in this thread - to the effect that any attention or drawing in of new collectors is a good thing.

Not true if they become disillusioned or feel cheated by the hobby.

In the late 1980s to early 90s, people were diving into the hobby...only to evacuate later and mostly never return. These people felt (rightly so) that the card companies had played them for fools. The promise or implied promise of profits was a lie. For a lot of these people, even the mention of baseball card collecting will cause a shudder and a bitter taste. Many of them don't even differentiate between the 80s/90s junk and the pre-war stuff that has always had good value and interest.

I think the inevitable collapse in value of an item like this which has grabbed the attention of the public is bound to be bad for the hobby.

Just my opinion...

Cheers,
Blair

Blair,
Well stated. I think we all know the long term prognosis for these cards' value. Maybe I will be wrong but I am not willing to play and find out.

Jeff

I wouldn't compare this to the 80's 90's stuff.
These cards are legitimately scarce. If there were machine stamped 1/1 rookie card color variations from 80's topps sets, They'd probably be worth money.

I happened onto Beckett's website a few weeks ago to check the show calender and one of the headlines was about the Bowman Chrome Strasburg 1/1, that had recently sold on Ebay for $16K, being graded by Beckett. I believe it had received an overall grade of 9.5. The board members on Beckett's message boards were ripping Beckett for clearly overgrading the card. After looking at a scan of the graded version myself, I had to agree with the board members. I know grading is subjective, but according to Beckett's grading standards on their website, the card was definitately overgraded. I felt like they gave it a 9.5 just so they could ride the publicity train that this card was generating.

Jantz

Jantz, Beckett has a video on youtube explaining how a flawed card can still be gem mint. It's actually kinda funny to watch them hold that card and explain how an off center card can be gem.

I'm confused here...does Topps own Bowman? And if so...is topps producing both topps/topps...and bowman...made by topps cards?

Topps has owned Bowman since 1956.

thnks Jim...just call me rip van winkle!

I seen something from Beckett where they explained their grade.

" The Strasburg was given a 9.5 due to the significance of the card! " or some BS like that

Everyone here knows that a gem card must be 50/50 on centering, even Beckett clearly states that, they just made "a little exception" for exposure

hmmm
 

As much as I consider BVG almost as good as, if not as good as SGC, I think that if anyone there made the statement of "a little exception for exposure" then that is a mistake. It reminds me of a certain Wagner card....

That being said I think the grading of a unique card is almost secondary to it's scarcity. If I were buying it, it wouldn't matter if it were a 7,8,9, 9.5 or whatever.....it's unique and that, to me, says it all. This last part is my own view and I am sure it's contrary to how many other folks feel. regards

They should have just said.........."none graded higher". ;)

Bgs
 

I think it was a monthly special, submit any Strasburg and receive a 9.5.

BGS graded the card mid ebay auction and sent the seller a scan to post in his description. There's nothing wrong with that, right?

I think this was bad publicity for BGS. They built there reputation being impossibly tough on modern cards. I think because thie card was already mid auction, they didn't have time to weigh the pros and cons of what they were doing.

They should've graded (and authenticated) the card like they do with every other card they grade. Consistency is key.