OT: Paul Skenes Rookie Card Search

[samosa4u]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/sport...ntl/index.html

CNN
—
Are the Pittsburgh Pirates turning into the Willy Wonka of Major League Baseball?

Like Wonka’s famous golden ticket, the MLB team is offering a scrumdiddlyumptious prize in exchange for a rare, one-of-a-kind baseball card of their star pitcher Paul Skenes. Whoever finds the card will be tempted by a mouth-watering proposition.


The team’s outrageous offer is highlighted by the winner, aka the “Charlie Bucket” of the sweepstakes, getting access to coveted seats behind home plate at PNC Park for the next 30 years!

The lucky recipient also gets an exclusive meet-and-greet with Skenes and two autographed Skenes jerseys, plus the ability to host a softball game with 30 of the winner’s favorite people at PNC Park.

Baseball fans around the world will be hunting for an autographed Topps Chrome card featuring an MLB debut patch on the jersey Skenes wore in his first big league game on May 11, 2024.


In addition to the eye-popping offer from the Pirates, Skenes’ girlfriend, Livvy Dunne, has upped the ante with an offer of her own. The social media superstar posted Friday that she would host the winner for a game in her suite.


Topps says it goes through a painstaking authentication process that follows the MLB debut patch from the playing field to the baseball card.

The card features a clear plastic window that allows collectors to see the MLB’s hologram, ensuring the patch’s authenticity.

For those feeling lucky, the Skenes card in question is hidden in a pack of 2024 Topps Chrome Update, available in stores now.

[BobbyStrawberry]

I'm going to straight to auction with it if I'm the card holder

[h2oya311]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

I'm going to straight to auction with it if I'm the card holder

Good plan. I’m not sure what I’d do with 30 years of season tix in Pitt since I live in AZ. That’s a hard “pass” for me.

[Lucas00]

I'd take the million dollar Auction sale or whatever insane amount it will be. Paul can just win it himself, very easily.

[Exhibitman]

Look on the bright side, if you sit through 30 years of Pirates games you will feel like you've lived 900 years.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I wish him all the best for a storied career, but playing the prospect lottery is of no interest to most of us who already lived through the junk wax era.

Anyone want to buy 1000 Gregg Jefferies RCs?

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

I wish him all the best for a storied career, but playing the prospect lottery is of no interest to most of us who already lived through the junk wax era.

Anyone want to buy 1000 Gregg Jefferies RCs?

Modern cards are typically expensive lottery tickets.

[Yoda]

What kind of game will Livy be hosting in her suite?

[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by Eric72

Modern cards are typically expensive lottery tickets.

We passed the point where you could buy a couple hobby boxes for a decent price and put together a complete set minus a few dozen cards 10-15 years ago at best.

Since the Fanatics takeover the odds have gotten worse and the price to buy-in has gone up. It wasn't reasonable before then. The additional harm is barely worth mentioning.

Some people opening modern don't even bother keeping base cards and toss them straight into the trash.

I just can't deal with the modern card market. Others can have it and it seems there's no shortage of them given how quickly new releases sell out.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Look on the bright side, if you sit through 30 years of Pirates games you will feel like you've lived 900 years.

Lol !

[Gorditadogg]

Anybody have any extra Chrome Update boxes available?

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

[doug.goodman]

Mark Fidrych.

Just saying.

No ill will meant or implied.

[doug.goodman]

Also, lost in the story is the fact that his debut jersey has been cut into at least two pieces (the patch and the rest of the jersey).

[Rich Klein]

"We" on this board are not the target audience for this. The wider community is and that is whom this is intended to be marketed to.

This offer has already generated a ton of positive publicity for the hobby and if only a few of those people end up going into this world that becomes a net plus for this board.

"We" can object but trust me on this, as pointed out, this generates store business and maybe someone new to the hobby going into one of those stores has a hidden type collection or accumulation which we would like or be able to acquire either whole or in a piece for our collections.

Rich

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

"We" on this board are not the target audience for this. The wider community is and that is whom this is intended to be marketed to.

This offer has already generated a ton of positive publicity for the hobby
Rich

That is Rich.... 99 newcomers won't get anything and will never return to the hobby. Same happened during the pump of the 90s. The bottom fell out before anyone knew it, and max exodus occurred.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

Also, lost in the story is the fact that his debut jersey has been cut into at least two pieces (the patch and the rest of the jersey).

The debut patches are stuck on like stickers. They peel them off after the game. The jersey remains intact.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5ovW...RpdHZzMngzaw==

[Kutcher55]

Does anyone know how many boxes of ‘24 Topps Chrome Update exist? I see they are selling for ~200 on eBay this morning. Going to LCS shortly. Curious to see if there’s a buzz there about this whole deal.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

The debut patches are stuck on like stickers. They peel them off after the game. The jersey remains intact.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5ovW...RpdHZzMngzaw==

Ok. Not as bad, but now more dumb.

[mq711]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

Mark Fidrych.

Just saying.

No ill will meant or implied.

You can add Strasburg, Gooden, Wood, David Clyde to that list!

[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by mq711

You can add Strasburg, Gooden, Wood, David Clyde to that list!

Tim Lincecum had 2 CY awards by age 25, on a steep decline by age 28, and out of the game at age 32.

15.2 bWAR in his 2 CY seasons...19.9 bWAR in his career.

[Yoda]

Let's see, if I found the card and took the Pirates offer, I would be about 110 years old when, behind home plate somewhere, the Pirates finished their 30th season. I'm in pretty good health but that's a stretch.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by BillyCoxDodgers3B

The more pertinent question is how much is it going to be worth a year from now? 5 years? 10 years?

The statistical odds that this guy is just in the thick of his 15 minutes of fame vs. becoming some sort of legendary pitcher are ridiculous. Happens time and again. And again. And again. And people foolishly keep wasting large chunks of money on items that will be garbage the next time they blink. Any one of them deserves to be the one left holding the bag at the end of the story. Not sorry to say that.

Ever notice how legendary players just have a certain look about them? It's all over their faces in photos. Call it an extra special dose of confidence and/or determination mixed with something indescribable. Naturally, that's easy to say with the unmistakable bonus of retrospect, but if you go back and take a gander at any of the hallowed players, none of them look like a high school janitor.

SELL, SELL, SELL!!!

Putting aside your scientific evaluation on his "look," if you've watched him pitch and know anything about baseball, you'd see what the fuss is about. The only thing likely to keep him from legendary status will be injury. Which I acknowledge is a major risk that more likely than not will derail his career. But let's not pretend this isn't a generational (multi-generational) arm.

[Rich Klein]

Curt Schilling, who does know something about pitching, has predicted that he will need TJ surgery within his first 400 innings as a major league pitcher. Skipping political talk, I do value his opinions on baseball.

The Patch card has not yet been pulled that we know of and nor has the 1/1 autograph of LeBron, Steph and KD from the Topps Now Olympic set.

Both had large bounties and both are still not yet been pulled from packs (or the sealed bag of the Topps now product.

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Curt Schilling, who does know something about pitching, has predicted that he will need TJ surgery within his first 400 innings as a major league pitcher. Skipping political talk, I do value his opinions on baseball.

The Patch card has not yet been pulled that we know of and nor has the 1/1 autograph of LeBron, Steph and KD from the Topps Now Olympic set.

Both had large bounties and both are still not yet been pulled from packs (or the sealed bag of the Topps now product.

https://goldin.co/item/2024-topps-ch...JkSW5kZXgiOjB9

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

https://goldin.co/item/2024-topps-ch...JkSW5kZXgiOjB9

That is NOT the card with tbe bounty. The card with the bounty is the debut game patch card (or whatever the formal name is)

Rich

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

That is NOT the card with tbe bounty. The card with the bounty is the debut game patch card (or whatever the formal name is)

Rich

Yes, this is not the patch. That's pretty clear. I thought it was pretty comparable to the superfractor card posted in the thread.

[PhillyFan1883]

I don’t blame the kid for auctioning the card.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

The Patch card has not yet been pulled that we know of and nor has the 1/1 autograph of LeBron, Steph and KD from the Topps Now Olympic set.

I don’t think Topps sat on the triple signed because it was a Topps Now release. I am positive it’s out there but has either privately sold or someone is keeping it quiet and waiting for the right time. Unless USPS really lost a big one this time, lol.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by JustinD

I don’t think Topps sat on the triple signed because it was a Topps Now release. I am positive it’s out there but has either privately sold or someone is keeping it quiet and waiting for the right time. Unless USPS really lost a big one this time, lol.

That is NOT an implication, just a statement of fact the triple auto has either not been pulled yet or it has and is kept quiet. Same for the Skenes card in question.

Rich

[JustinD]

This one double posted.

[Schlesinj]

Was pulled today by an 11 year old in LA.

I think that is good news all around.

[packs]

I wonder what kind of product it was hit out of. Hobby or retail. A surprising amount of big cards end up being hit in retail boxes and packs.

[samosa4u]

Originally Posted by Schlesinj

Was pulled today by an 11 year old in LA.

I think that is good news all around.

Yep! Congrats to him!!

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Yep! Congrats to him!!

The young man just got handed a nice cushion for his college years. And, I think about a week ago or so, I heard that less than 30 percent of the debut patches had been pulled. Someone keeps track of those things so that is where the percent number came from.

I hope this puts the conspiracy theories to bed for a while.

Rich

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by Schlesinj

Was pulled today by an 11 year old in LA.

I think that is good news all around.

Not necessarily. Just announced that the Dodgers have bought the card for $18 million, with $15 million deferred for 10 years.

[BioCRN]

Last I saw they were running around $15/pack (4 cards)...$500+ for a hobby box.

We got some high rolling 11 year olds out there.

[packs]

Like I said a lot of big cards come out of retail. Some huge hits on the NBA side have come from cello packs at Walmart that are like $10.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by packs

Like I said a lot of big cards come out of retail. Some huge hits on the NBA side have come from cello packs at Walmart that are like $10.

That makes sense to me. If retail product didn't occasionally yield high-dollar cards, people wouldn't pursue it so...aggressively.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by ASF123

Not necessarily. Just announced that the Dodgers have bought the card for $18 million, with $15 million deferred for 10 years.

Funny.

But, don't hate the player, hate the game.

[z28jd]

This whole offer from the Pirates has led to the dumbest reactions from people over the last few days. When the Pirates made the offer, it was getting shared everywhere. I had numerous family members who don't even follow baseball write me and ask me about it. I couldn't avoid it for the first two weeks because I search for Pirates news twice daily. I used to cover the team, mostly the minor league system, for 15 years. I still do occasionally for a friend's site, so I still search news daily.

Anyway, ever since the news came that the kid turned down the Pirates offer, I have seen over 1,000 (literally, not just throwing out a high number) responses that say something like "why would they offer that to an 11-year-old from LA?".

This was a huge story in November that apparently 99% of baseball fans missed. These people really think that the Pirates heard an 11-year-old in LA won it and THEN offered him 30 years of season tickets.

If I somehow didn't hear the original story, I would spend a few minutes searching the internet before I asked a stupid question for all to see. Common sense would say that can't be right, but these people are just all in on group asking a dumb question over and over and over...

[Snapolit1]

No one can tell me that Topps didn't knowingly sit on this card for months and release it into the market at a particular time. The hysteria around this chase card leds to tens (hundreds?) of millions of sales for them. These boxes were going to $800 to $1500. Had this card been "discovered" a few days after they went on sale it would have cost them boku bucks and been a marketing disaster.