Good point; I've seen WAY uglier 8s!

Stunning Clemente and Rose RCs there. The pickups on this board always amaze me. Great stuff. Makes me want to buy cards...damn it!

Torre looks like a mess. I still remember his sporting good store on 13th Ave in Brooklyn. They had a Torre RC on display there. MattyC and I got our first aluminum bat there.

I had forgotten that store! They even sold cards there; a small selection. Grandma bought me a 1987 Topps Traded Set there.

1987 Topps Traded Kevin Seitzer. Does it get any better than that card?!

Bravo!

Oh man...I was 17 in 87...and your comment brought me back to the hey day of tracking rookies and hoarding all those great card names! Seitzer was hot there for a bit for sure! How many 88 Donruss Jefferies did you have? I had like 20...I was king of the block for a year...haha...



GREAT Clemente card...I am in the market and seeing that makes me VERY jealous...VERY. I have been so fricken picky and wussy about it...that I gave myself a 3/1 deadnet date. If I don't have one in hand by 3/1, I told my wife to fine me out of my card budget...and she will....hahaha...its the last card I need for the set for crying out loud!

John,

Finding a centered Clemente RC is no small task. I can't count how many I've seen over the years, and none-- unless it was an astronomically priced 8 or 9, and even those were occasional-- compelled me to pull the trigger. Only when I found my baby, pictured way above in this thread (or was it December pickups? Ah, whatever, I will post a pic again at bottom of this post) did I just know I had to pull the trigger. And it seems that we all "overpay" when we find our chosen Clemente RCs. Which makes me realize and believe it is not overpaying at all, but rather paying a deserved premium for an example of a card that is ROUTINELY found with eye appeal problems. So do not fret. It will happen.

Now, as to those rookies... I was bullish on:

Gary Thurman 88D Rated Rookie
Matt Williams 88F (I guess that one turned out well)
Gregg Jefferies OF COURSE. His 88D and F were huge cards.
Mike Greenwell.
Kevin Maas.
Danny Tartabull 1985D Rated Rookie
Ted Higuera
Chris Brown
Rob Deer
RICKY JORDAN!!!!

The list goes on.

Like Chris did, here's the one I "overpaid" for! Look forward to you joining the club soon!

http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...emente-psa-6.5

... Matt Nolkes, Pete Incaviglia, Bobby and Barry Bo, Al Leiter (2x '88 Topps variations), McGwires/Cansecos and Walt Weiss, Will the Thrill... and still it goes on

Ah, Nokes. Remember that season he had? Like .290 with 30+ HR? Seemed he could no go wrong.

Olereud seemed scorching hot and he did become awesome, but maybe not fast enough for the hobby.

Steve with the Maris RC, Bob with the sharp Hodges, Chris with the Roberrrrrrto! and Matt with the sweet Rose... closing out January about as good as it started! Nice!

Looking forward to the new arrival, Matt. Nice teaser....

As promised...
 

Well, I warmed up the scanner by taking a proper one of the Ruth Goudey. Here it is. Those of you who know my degree of borderline OCD know I could not let the crooked scan stand...

http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...y-babe-ruth-53

And at long, long last, here's what I feel is a true whale. I have to agree with that Top 250 Sportscards book on this one, which placed this card high (#11) and dubbed it, "arguably the toughest Post War card in the hobby." This baby does not surface often, let alone with even a modicum of eye appeal.

I had long lusted after this exact specimen, which had both freakish centering AND registration. That's a combination I did not see, even on examples that sold for five-digits. For me, this was another one of those classic cases of buying the card and not the holder.

I have felt this way a couple times, where you scour all other copies, even on VCP, and keep thinking to yourself, "I know what the stupid stickers say, but damn if this low grade specimen doesn't look the best to me!"

There are certain cards we will always remember adding to our collections. This, for a hardcore baseball card enthusiast like me, is one of them.

Let's end the month with a BANG!

http://www.collectorfocus.com/images...short-print-rc

Congrats Matt, that's a sweet pickup! I don't subscribe to VCP, but for fun, just googled it to check out some prior sales.. Only one card so far has even comparable registration (those Leafs seem ALL OVER the place color and registration wise). Great score.

Adding: I gotta get me one of those at some point

Thanks, Ian. You're seeing exactly what I saw when I looked at so many others. With some cards we collectors just gotta throw technical sticker grade out the window and trust our good old eyeballs. As I researched this card, I could not believe how poorly registered they were. The T205 Cobb comes to mind as another notoriously challenged card with focus and color registration. It can utterly destroy eye appeal. And then what are we really looking at for enjoyment, if the central image is busted up?

As a side note, this card put my Satchel Registry Set at Current #1. I will never take All Time as that belongs to a retired hobby legend/whale set. But it's kinda cool because it's the only active set with a Leaf SP in it.

Great "Leroy"!! The Ruth is amazing too...man, you are simply KILLING the big guns here lately...awesome cards...

Love it Matt. Glad you were able to get it. And, glad you finally posted it. I've been checking all day waiting for the pickup.

Agree completely... the hobby is already beautiful thing and becomes even better the more you listen to yourself. My personal standards allow for more wiggle room on centering than you and many others here.. but I love nice color/clean registration and really really love clean corners/edges when I can find it. At the end of the day, it's all about what you like. The numerical grade often times is almost more distracting than helpful and it's ridiculous how little it means once you get into sub 5 grades... there are just so many amazing looking 1/2/3s out there... and conversely lots of nasty ones that actually look like 1s and 2s. In these cases, the number couldn't mean less.

Great pickup Matt, that Paige is a nice addition to your collection!

Wow Matt a real sweet 1.5 indeed!

Ricky Y

Awesome p/ups ...I woulda hopped on that like sweet molashes, if i had seen that.
Theres another good auction coming up and some sweet items in it, plenty of eye-candy for ALL.
Just hope we dont battle each other at H&S

Man what an amazing start to the year for you all. That Leaf Paige is a thing of sheer beauty. Matt, I love looking at your collection - so many amazing pieces that I can only one day hope to add to mine.

Been on a modern kick lately as my son and I have been working on an autographed 2013 Topps Heritage set - hope to add a Pre-War or Post-War card come March. For now, I will keep watching and drooling at all of your pickups.

Fantastic closeout card for January, Matt!

Fantastic pickup Matt. That's a beautiful card! Where did you find that?

Congrats to you.

So glad you fellas were vibing the card. Much appreciated.

MBM,

It was a BIN I saw on ebay, that I negotiated with the seller via his own webstore. One of the few cards that (much like my wife, lol) I knew I had to have at first sight.

Its a great card. I am not sure how I missed that one. Wish I hadn't :)