Day 21 of the
30 Day Baseball Card Challenge is a baseball card of a rookie that you thought you were " investing " in.
Now this isn't easy, because I've never really been a investor of any one players baseball cards, as I've always collected baseball cards as if I was that boy of 8 years old opening up baseball cards looking for
Detroit Tigers players.
That said, I've acquired quite a few cards of many ballplayers, but I only have them because they were either in packs that I opened, or they were cards that I traded for...I never purchased hundreds of cards because I though that player was going to make me a ton of money.
I was in the Navy in the late 1980s, and cards of
Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire of the Oakland Athletics were the "big" names in the card hobby.
We bought packs and boxes of 1986/87/88/89
Topps cards hoping to get a Canseco or McGwire card, along with cards of
Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, Ozzie Smith and Dale Murphy.
We had no idea at the time that the so called "junk" era of baseball cards was in full swing, and that any cards we would get in those packs were going to be worth pretty much nothing because all of the companies... Topps, Fleer, Donruss, and Upper Deck, were mass producing cards at an alarming rate.
If we found that special card, yes, we went right to the
Beckett Card Guide, but we needed, or I did, to know the value of a card in order to trade it back to the card shop owner for another card you wanted, or you knew another collector who would trade a card that he had to you for the card you just got in that pack.
With all that said, I decided to use my
1987 Topps #620 Jose Canseco card as today's challenge card.
Just in case you were wondering, here's a '87 Topps Canseco for sale... for a
whopping .... .18 cents!
I still have an entire box of 1987 Topps cards that I opened and put right back in the box...30 years...that's a long time ago for sure.
I have many great 1980s and 1990s cards, cards of terrific ballplayers like
brand new HOFer Rock Raines, Alan Trammell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Gary Carter, and Kirby Puckett.
I've never collected baseball cards purely for the money, although I have sold cards in the past out of pure economic need...It still hurts that I had to do that instead of trading for other cards that I needed to complete a set, or just wanted because I liked the card or the player.
Today the hobby is much different, and yes, I hope that Ill pull that next great card....mostly know because I hope that I'll be able to trade it for a
Miguel Cabrera or Justin Verlander card.
Up next in the challenge is a card of a " common " player that always seemed to elude you.
Play Ball!
