Most Prized Card
ugaskidawg
Posts: 882 ✭✭✭
So as I have collected over the years, I have had a number of cards come through my hands. May I've kept, others I have let go of. I started to think about my most prized card or two. Not necessarily the most valuable one--although it might be for some--but the one that no matter what, you will likely hold onto forever.
I have three cards that are uber meaningful. I've said this on other threads, but two of them are a 1980 Topps Bench and a 1983 Topps Yaz. These two cards are the first cards I ever bought out of the case at my childhood card shop. It was probably 1985-86, or somewhere around there. I still have them. They have never been graded, nor will I probably ever submit them for grading. I like to pull them out and just feel them in my hand. It makes me remember some great things about my childhood.
My third card is more like a set of cards. it is a group of about 250 low series 1970 Topps cards. These were my uncle's before he passed away. He bought one box of 1970 Topps--his only BB purchase ever--and saved them throughout his life. I actually remember finding them in my grandparent's gardening shed in a grocery bag. This was probably mid 80s as well. I pulled them out and he thought he had lost them. He was happy to have them again. Some great cards were in there...Munson RC, Clemente, Yaz, Jackson, etc. I will likely never get rid of all of these either.
What's yours?
I have three cards that are uber meaningful. I've said this on other threads, but two of them are a 1980 Topps Bench and a 1983 Topps Yaz. These two cards are the first cards I ever bought out of the case at my childhood card shop. It was probably 1985-86, or somewhere around there. I still have them. They have never been graded, nor will I probably ever submit them for grading. I like to pull them out and just feel them in my hand. It makes me remember some great things about my childhood.
My third card is more like a set of cards. it is a group of about 250 low series 1970 Topps cards. These were my uncle's before he passed away. He bought one box of 1970 Topps--his only BB purchase ever--and saved them throughout his life. I actually remember finding them in my grandparent's gardening shed in a grocery bag. This was probably mid 80s as well. I pulled them out and he thought he had lost them. He was happy to have them again. Some great cards were in there...Munson RC, Clemente, Yaz, Jackson, etc. I will likely never get rid of all of these either.
What's yours?
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My favorite cards I can boil down to about two
1977 Topps Mike Schmidt I bought as a kid from my lcs. Schmidt is my fave as I played third a lot coming up. That card is NFS and hopefully never will be
1953 Bowman Color Yogi Berra. Bought this card recently and just love it. Great picture from what I think is a top 3 set ever.
1968 Topps Nolan Ryan - I've always wanted this card since I started collecting as a young boy. Fast forward 25 years and I was finally able to afford it in a higher grade.
1990 Score Bo Jackson Football/Baseball - Grandmother took me to the local card shop on my birthday when I was a kid and I picked out that card for $10. HUGE card back then for me (I was 8). Now it is essentially worthless, but the nostalgia and sentimental value attached to my late Grandmother will make it one I won't part with.
When I got back into collecting last year one of the first cards I bought off e-Bay was a NM 1970 Bart Starr. I remember opening up the package and seeing the thing for the first time and thinking...wow this is a beautiful card when it is not covered with creases and tape.
Many collectors have said this copy of his RC has eye appeal that far exceeds the technical grade. This is true and my family did well in picking out this specific card. But it is all the more special to me because it came from them, and at a time when it wasn't really practical. It means the world to me. When I joined PSA in Jan 2014, this card was part of my first sub.
I have one other special card in my collection, also with its own story and ties to my family history:
In 1967 my father, 16 at the time, peeled a bunch of Topps test issue Red Sox stickers and stuck them to the door between his parents' garage and dining room. I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house in the 80's and the stickers were still there. I remember Reggie smith, petrocelli, Lonborg, a few others, but the one that stood out was Yaz.
Years later, I became a serious Yaz collector. Given the nostalgia factor and the scarcity, an intact copy of that sticker became my holy grail. As I said earlier, I had a meager budget for many years and knew there was no way I could afford one.
Then in 2014 I was contacted on CU by a rabid Carlton Fisk collector. He had seen a rare Fisk proof I had posted and offered to buy it. I had been watching the sticker above on eBay, wishing I could afford it. I told the Fisk guy that if he could get the Yaz sticker, we could trade. He accepted and a (long) week later the sticker was in my hands.
It's a scarce issue of my favorite player, in a much nicer grade than I dreamed about, but more than that it's a reclaimed part of my father's childhood and a reminder of happy times with my grandparents. I would never part with this card.
Many collectors have said this copy of his RC has eye appeal that far exceeds the technical grade. This is true and my family did well in picking out this specific card.
Hey Dan - I agree with this. Why is this card not at least a 3 or 4? Looking on your registry, I don't see the back of the card. Is there something going on there? I see the small crease in the upper left corner. Is that it?
On a side note, I love this card. As a fellow Yaz collector, I truly think this is one of my favorite rookie cards of any year, for any player. It is iconic. From this same set are the AS cards that I think are incredible as well. I have the Mantle and Matthews AS cards and they are great to just sit and look at. Now that I say all this, I think the whole 1960 set is fantastic.
Currently collecting 1934 Butterfinger, 1969 Nabisco, 1991 Topps Desert Shield (in PSA 9 or 10), and 1990 Donruss Learning Series (in PSA 10).
Currently collecting 1934 Butterfinger, 1969 Nabisco, 1991 Topps Desert Shield (in PSA 9 or 10), and 1990 Donruss Learning Series (in PSA 10).
1986 Donruss Canseco: Canseco was my favorite in grade school. I remember getting this card for Christmas when it was the holy grail of modern at the time. There is no way that particular card was worth grading, though I was planning on doing so as a keepsake. Unfortunately my house was broken into and a small stack of raw cards were stolen out of my office (they did not find my good cards). The Canseco was in there along with a few other key 80's rookies. I eventually bought one graded in a 9 and have a signed version as well.
1989 Upper Deck Griffey: This is now possibly THEE card to have from all of the 80's. Just classic. In middle school if you had this card, you were somebody in the collectors world amongst your friends. I still have my 89 complete set, but I bought a lot of about 15 KGJ rookie cards a few years ago. I went through em pulled 6 and flipped the rest. The ones I have graded came back as 9, 8.5, 8.5, 8, 6, and 3. Getting 10's on these are tougher than you'd think. I still would like to get a 10 someday.
1954 Topps Aaron: I pretty much exclusively collect the Milwaukee Braves run, and have been working on team sets for awhile now. The Aaron is the obviously the most valuable in that entire run. I bought this card from the National last summer, I had saved my tip money from my side job all summer for it. It was a card I had been hunting for a few years. I was ecstatic when I found a very well centered one in a 6. It's easily the centerpiece of my collection.
Couple Bossy rookies I had signed at Chantilly
Sakic PSA 10
Here is a custom cut Jeff made for me. Being a Gatsby fan and a book collector, these cuts are my favorite cards in my collection. I would like to pickup a Fitzgerald t206 eventually. There's one on eBay right now for $200 but I think they sell in the $100 range if your patient, so I'll wait.
Found this in an old scrapbook. I think the scrapbook was about $5. It's an Edith Piaf handwritten invitation to event at The Versailles Nightclub on September 22, 1948 celebrating her boyfriend, Marcel Cerdan's, Boxing Middleweight Championship victory over Tony Zale just the night before on September 21, 1948.
And here's a photo from the actual event. Piaf is on the right and Cerdan in the middle.
Need help with an upload. Have pic in photbucket; can copy the URL, can paste the URL in my reply; get no pic only the URL "verbage" - //http.vvvvvvv,nnnnn (etc.). Driving me nuts
You can also type [ I M G ]http://www......jpg[ / I M G ] no spaces in between the IMG and brackets though. I can't type it with no spaces without it trying to show a pic like this...
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Hope this wasn't too confusing...
Early in my collecting days, I knew that I wanted a Jackie Robinson card one day. Over time, I have had different Robinson cards/memorabilia, but once I got into my quest for completing the 1948-49 Leaf set, the Robinson RC became a focus of mine. I don't have a ton of money, so going for a high grade card was not realistic.
I eventually found one that was beat up, but it caught my eye for some reason. The edges weren't horrible and the centering was better than some other Leaf cards out there. At one point it had been folded multiple times, so there are creases galore, but I didn't care. The colors on the card too were good. Some of the Leafs had offset printing issues that caused the image to almost appear like a 3D picture composite...this one not so much. It is an iconic card, from an iconic set, and it will be a card I will never get rid of. It was the first high-profile 48 Leaf card I acquired. I will not let this one go, even if I upgrade my set with a higher graded version down the line.
collecting RAW Topps baseball cards 1952 Highs to 1972. looking for collector grade (somewhere between psa 4-7 condition). let me know what you have, I'll take it, I want to finish sets, I must have something you can use for trade.
looking for Topps 71-72 hi's-62-53-54-55-59, I have these sets started