Thursday, May 31, 2018

My Graded Cards Part 2

A couple of months ago, right before I attended my first Mansfield card show, I did a post showing all of the graded cards in my collection. It must've been fate or something because that post became outdated the next day when I purchased 3 graded Red Sox cards at that show to bring the total up.

A few months later, I discovered another few graded Red Sox cards that I had no idea were part of my collection. My guess is my dad got them at a card show that I wasn't able to attend since we get so few graded cards I would've definitely recognized them.

Given all the cards, both new and newly discovered along with another graded card I have yet to show off from the card show before last, I've decided to do a part 2 to my graded cards post. I assume this will need to be updated in another 5 months just as it is being updated now. I may never have gotten one of my cards personally graded, but I have bought a decent number of graded cards in my lifetime.


I'll start off by showing the graded cards Red Sox players unbeknownst to me were part of my collection. Specifically, I'll begin with Nomar Garciaparra. I have no clue why my dad would buy a card of Nomar Garciaparra considering that neither he nor I, or many Red Sox fans like him all too much. Topps just thinks that we like him and therefore, they take every opportunity they can get to put him into combo cards with other Red Sox Legends.

The graded card I have of Nomar is from the 1994 Four Sport set. It's actually a gold parallel which I assume is why his name on the card has a gold border around it. It's not too bad of a card when you get a good look at it. However, I said before that Nomar is not my favorite player so it's hard to get too excited about a card when you don't like the guy on the card in the first place. Still, I can't imagine my Dad paid too much for this card. So for that, I think it was worth getting.

The next couple of graded cards are of a guy who still isn't super popular as a player, but my dad and I are actually huge fans of his. That player is Manny Ramirez, and the two cards we found of him are both from 90’s Bowman sets. The first of which is from 1992 Bowman and is a base card showing Manny in street clothes instead of in his jersey. Bowman did this a few times in their 1990’s sets and while it isn't my favorite thing I have to say that they do give off a rather good charm that could only be pulled off in the 90’s.

The second of the two graded Manny Ramirez cards is actually quite similar to the first one. It too is from 1992 Bowman, however, it’s card number is different from that of the first one. Furthermore it's not just a base card but in fact a gold foil parallel. The value of 90s cards is not my forte, so I'm not too sure what this card is worth compared to the base card. Still, it's pretty cool looking even showing Manny in the same clothes that he wore in the first graded card I showed of him from ‘92 Bowman.

Now, back to the topic of the Mansfield show since I said that I bought a few graded Red Sox cards at that show just a day or two after I did my first graded baseball cards blog photos. I was originally only going to get one great chart and that was to be of Jackie Bradley Jr. 1 Bradley card quickly became 2 which later became 3 total graded cards as I soon found myself buying one of Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts which I’ve shown above. The card that I got of Xander was his 2014 Topps Allen & Ginter rookie card which I got for a very good deal, nearly half off the original $10 price.


The other two Red Sox cards I bought at that Mansfield show we're both of Jackie Bradley Jr. The first of them being a prospect card from 2012 Bowman while the second one is a rookie refractor card from 2013 Topps Finest. I decided to go after Bradley's cards because even though his offense hasn't been too great this year and wasn't that great in 2017, his defense is the best in baseball almost without a doubt. just look at the catch that he made a couple days ago while approaching the triangle at Fenway Park. If that's not enough look at his robbing of Aaron Judge’s home run last year on Sunday Night Baseball. He brings something defensively that nearly no other player in baseball is able to do. therefore if you can only hit around .230 or .240, so be it.

The final graded card I have to show is also a prospect card. I mentioned earlier that I bought a graded card to card shows ago that I have yet to show off. I was originally going to save it for top five cards post but I decided that now is as good a time as any.

The card itself is pretty awesome. A 2012 Bowman Prospect card of superstar shortstop Carlos Correa. However, the price that I got it for is almost better than getting the card in the first place. That's because I paid just $5 for this card when the dealer had it priced at $10. I can only assume he gave me such a hefty discount because I had bought over $20 worth of dime cards from him that exact same show. Even so, a discount like that is something that doesn't come along too often and while I may not be someone who chases graded cards all that often I can certainly appreciate a good deal when it comes along.








2 comments:

  1. Those are nice! Topps should get Manny (and all the other players) to recreate those casual dress cards and make a "Then and Now" type insert!

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    1. That would be an awesome new edition of the 2017 Topps Bowman Then & Now insert set. I think recreating those classic 1992 dress cards would be an awesome take on the Then & Now concept.

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