First Look: 2009 Donruss Certified Football

Ok, big preview day today thanks to the boys over at Freedom Card Board. Either way, looks like Donini decided the only change to the LCM set from last year would be a name change. Im not kidding, the rest of the cards (minus FOTG) looks exactly the same as last year. This is such a fucking cop out from the way the previews look, that I am surprised they can even submit these mock ups without leaving them on someone’s doorstep and running away to hide. The stamps havent changed, the frosh fabrics havent changed, and the whole set looks AS ridiculous as it did last year. Fuck them. Seriously. They have to think we are fucking mental to buy into their laziness and lack of work ethic.

On the other hand, this specific Fabric of the Game card looks fucking great. AS IT SHOULD. These cards are the flagship collector set of every Donini card year, and I think there may be a mutiny if the preview for FOTG sucked as much as the rest of the preview. I do see a problem for the rest of this set fitting in for the lower parallels with single swatches, as this particular card will probably be the one /5. I hope they dont fuck the rest of it up. Im not holding my breath.

I loved 2007 LCM, I fucking detested 2008 LCM, and now 2009 looks like someone just changed the gradients on the foilboard and said they were done. Message to Donini: Hire some fucking professionals rather than letting the idiots who produced the early 2009 sets continue.

I cant fucking believe I have to make these posts. They shouldnt be necessary.

Some People Deserve It…

Today I was reading on FCB about a guy who bought this 1952 Mantle “PSA 6” for 8 thousand before realizing it was a fake. A few months ago, I posted on the fake slabs and was talking about how hard it could be to spot one, this is one of those instances. To the trained eye, there are lots of things wrong with this auction, but for some people, they come out firing without doing any reasearch WHAT-SO-EVER.

Now, if you are buying a card like a 1952 Mantle, you need to know your shit. There is no way around that, especially when you are buying from a seller with single digit feedback. Then you see the auction title, and you feel your face slowly moving towards your palm. Yet, even with all of those red flags about this auction, there still happens to be one rule that should never….

…EEEEEEEVVVARRR…

…be broken. This card SCREAMS too good to be true, especially at 8k for a fucking PSA 6. Does anyone in their right mind think that this card is worth as little as 8k? PSA 4s go for more than that, though a good example hasnt come around in a while. Obviously, this idiot had no idea about anything before dropping the price of a compact car on this card, and really after all of these things I have mentioned, you gotta go the other direction instead of bidding.

The last part is the funniest, by far. On the thread on FCB, the OP also posted the seller’s feedback profile. This guy LEFT POSITIVE FEEDBACK. I have no idea why, but he did. He then spoke with PSA after getting that little voice in his head that said he is a huge mark and found out the card wasnt real. Really? Wow, I had no idea.

Most of the time, I feel bad for people who get taken, I really do. However, when you dont see the signs right in front of your fucking face, I gotta put most of the blame on you.

Oh, and for the record, the PSA profile from this slab does read Mantle 52 PSA 6. Duh, of course it would, thats the point.

Superdouche Afternoon Theatre

Its been a while since I have posted my hatred for people who act like 13 year olds around the net, and today I experienced an interaction on a message board that made me think things are hopeless for informed people. I got an email that someone I didn’t know had PMed me and asked if Topps Triple Turds was a good buy now that the price has dropped from an astronomical MSRP down to something like 120. His words were, “Dude, I have a place to get Trip Threads for 120, and I am thinking of buying in. I mean the MOJO potential is huge and the price is really low. What do you think?” I almost set my monitor ablaze to dance naked around its smoldering remains.

For those who are unfamiliar with my feelings, people who say “MOJO” when not referring to Homer Simpson’s helper monkey, Austin Powers’ libido, or the channel on TV, are by far the scummiest of the scum. Whenever I see someone refer to any card as “MOJO” I literally puke a little in my mouth. It lowers my low respect level even more when someone uses it for every fucking video for their channel on Youtube. The term sucks, I want to punch people when I hear it in person, and if I even hear the words “last pack MOJO” come out of someone’s mouth in consecutive order, I will go get my flamethrower out of my trunk.

When you use “MOJO” in any fashion, worse if you say a player’s name in conjunction with it (i.e OMG PETERSON-JO!!!!), I cannot respect you as an equal. You are the definition of a Joe Collector. You are the person who posts maildays on youtube. You are the person who buys Triple Threads. You are the person who looks up every card in your beckett to see how much it is worth. You are the person who will only trade cards when book value is exactly even. You post a steal with every auction purchase. You have 1,000 comments posted on Beckett’s blog. You buy blasters for hits. You buy manufactured letters with sticker autos. You are captain doucheface.

Then, to have the nerve to ask me if Triple Turds is a good buy at 120 dollars only adds fuel to the fire. Triple Threads wouldn’t be a good buy at 10 dollars a pack. I am 100% dead serious. You get 2 hits per box, which most of the time will have a crap RC auto with three nonsense diecut windows, and a jersey card of some mid level guy. For 170 dollars. Bring it down to 120 and you are still 100 dollars above a good buy. First off, the stickers on these cards look stupid as hell with carved out windows for them. Second, the design hasn’t changed in 3 years, they just added some of the most ugly cards ever with the fold outs. Third, it breaks the topps high end rule, and for 2 hits at that price, I stand by it. Fourth, the price has dropped over 30% since release, that should show you how bad this shit really is. Lastly, the actual ‘good’ cards you can pull still don’t break box price. Go ahead, check it out.

So, let me reiterate, Triple Threads is the worst recurring product of the year until Topps Sterling hits the market, and MOJO should never be used in reference to cards unless you enjoy me reaching through your computer and mouse whipping you until you cry.

When Stupidity Attacks

I am putting the scam pulled by MelbourneBrokebackCowboy at the same level as this ridiculous auction. This seller is selling his “UNCIRCULATED” Jonathan Stewart UD heroes auto, and I almost want to shoot anyone who even thinks of bidding on this card.

Here are his words:

08 UD FOOTBALL HEROES- JONATHAN STEWART UNCIRCULATED AUTO RC SP# 158/250! PANTHERS! PERFECT TO GRADE![…]DO YOU REMEMBER A FEW YEARS BACK, TO COLLECT YOUR FAVORITE STAR ATHLETES WAS REALLY FUN? YOU WOULD COLLECT, AND HAVE AS MANY DUPLICATE CARDS AS YOU COULD HANDLE. BUT, IN THE SAME TIME IT WOULDNT PUT A DENT IN YOUR WALLET! (OH YES, THE GOOD OL’ DAYS!) WELL, I AM BRINGING THOSE DAYS BACK HERE AGAIN! WITH ALL NEW AUCTIONS BY TRUBLUE87! ALL OF MY AUCTIONS WILL START OUT AT $0.55! AND I WILL COMBINE ALL SHIPPING COSTS!!!!!! ALL CARDS ARE IN NM-MT CONDITION (UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED!)”

Good story. Compelling, and rich. Despite all the caps, the stupid concept, and the ridiculous description, there is one simple problem with this auction that most people would spot in a second…

…the card is a UD card in a Topps uncirculated holder.

Good call there chief, really top notch work. On top of all this, the person brings forth a follow up to my post from yesterday, or more importantly brings forth the fucking stupid ass idea of grading an uncirculated card. Why in god’s name would you de-case an already encased card, just so that you can get it into ANOTHER ugly holder with an obvious grade. Stupidity at its finest, I really love these.

A Comment On Grading and Idiots

I just want to write a comment on grading, again. See, Im not sure people really get the concept of when to grade cards, especially cards that would have no reason to be compared in terms of condition. Besides the fact that grading is completely subjective and arbitrary, sometimes problematic ethically, and generally a crook’s business, there are still a few reasons why you should and shouldn’t grade a card.

When you look back at grading, it was created FOR eBay. Despite what the official tag line is, grading was created for people who were buying in a marketplace where direct examination of the item they were buying was usually impossible. What that similarly created was a marketplace of cards that competed for the highest grade, and on top of all that, sold for hundreds if not thousands more than a raw version of the card would go. Add in the fact that Beckett single handedly created a new genre of condition with “gem mint” and number grades, instead of going with the condition guides of mint, near mint, blah blah blah, and you can see where the conflict of interest starts.

Rather than going into that long discussion of Beckett and their ethics, or lack there of, I want to discuss which cards should be graded in this day and age. There is quite a short list of cards that are worth your time, actually, and here it is:

1. generally mass produced rookie cards with or without autos (note the mass produced lingo)
2. vintage cards
3. bowman chrome cards or other prospecting ventures
4. certain numbered cards that would normally not be in good condition

That is it. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but there are also cards that should never, ever, EEEEEVVVVER, be graded.

1. 1/1 cards
2. cards with extremely low print runs (excluding prospectors)
3. logo patch cards
4. printing plates
5. cards that would gain nothing from a high grade (junk)
6. cards that could never be replicated
7. condition sensitive cards that will SURELY get a horrible grade (IE sweet spot cards or absolute cards)

You may ask why this list is what it is, and well here is the basic explanation. If a card has a print run of 1, 10 or even 25, there is no reason to expect that grading would do anything for the card. Even if the card would get a good grade, the subjectivity of the process should discourage anyone. Usually if your card has a low print run, its worth a considerable amount of money. Also, cards with low print runs are not usually made with condition in mind for the sole reason that a gem mint grade would not do anything for them. This means that when you grade your card, you can only hurt it, not help it.

Ill give you an example:

You have a Tiger Woods patch auto from exquisite of this year. You inspect it, you look it over, and you decide to give it a shot with BGS. As far as we know, there are only 5 tigers, and this is one of those number two’s from the list above. Most likely, the Tiger would get a 9 or below, and you would be stuck with a card in a ridiculous holder, a bad grade, and no ability to take the risk in cracking it for fear of damaging the card. You have damaged the value of your card for sale, and there is no way around that. Granted, Beckett would probably be selling the card for you anyways, because if you were stupid enough to grade it, you are definitely stupid enough to give it to Beckett to sell.

On the flip side, lets say you get a 9.5 out of it. Was it really worth the risk of shipping it to the facility, having the card in someone else’s hands, sending the card back to you, and getting a bad grade, all for a few extra bucks? Probably not. Would it getting a good grade be that much of boost in price? Someone who wants this card, probably wouldn’t care about the grade, but may care about that awful holder. Since there are only 5 other tigers, is condition even that much of a factor? No, especially when Exqusites are more about the auto and the jersey than the condition of the card. In fact, the card stock is so thick, there are that many more places for dings to happen without being seen by the naked eye.

Here are a few eBay examples:

This card is a Tiger Woods buyback auto jersey /8. This card is worth a fuckload of money, and I am only using it to show what I mean from the above example. The person, unbeknownst to me, decided this card was worth grading. Im not sure why. That card is not worth the risk, for the sole reason that it came back the way it did. I know I would much rather have this card in a nice magnetic holder than in the holder it is in right now, most people would probably agree. Add in the fact that it came back a 9, and there is that much more reason to dislike this version of the card. If it had come back 9.5 would it have made that much of a difference? Probably not. Why take the risk, idiot?

The second card is a similar card in that it is a 1/1 that came back a 9. Why in the world would you expect a leaf limited card to come back with a good grade, let alone a grade that would help your sale? Total crap.

I encourage you to go on eBay and take a look around. Search for BGS 1/1 and see all the different idiots who graded their printing plates or other cards that are now ruined. You wont get any of the idiots who graded their sweet spot autos, or graded extremely rare cards, but you will get the point.