I have been in the restructuring mode pertaining to my collecting habits and I am purging my collection of anything that is not Kershaw, Trout, Corey Seager, Vintaage graded or Koufax related with a few exceptions here and there. Well that meant Harper here was not long for my collection but unlike most of the other cards I was debating when to let this one go. Bryce is a very good player and is only 22 and the sky is the limit but I have never warmed to him. I acquired this card in raw form when it was going for a lot less than it is now and it earned a 10 from BGS a few months after that. Now it was time to sell high on him. Yes, the card probably and will go up in the years to come but IF I really want another Harper autograph I will pick it up then. Now it was time to trade this 1 MVP for 2 MVPs
Jeffrey aka JMBCards saw my post about wanting to unload this card among others and inquired about a possible trade. If it would happen it would be yet another high end aka high dollar trade for me in the past month. Jeffrey and I agreed on an amount that this Harper was worth (as I factored in the money it would cost to sell on eBay) and then we had to figure out what he would give me for it. I turned down his Koufax autograph as I just hate silver autographs on gold metal bordered cards. To me it just doesn't look right. Instead of that Koufax card I picked another but more on that later. First up was this bad boy from last year's Topps Dynasty release :
That's right, yet another Kershaw autograph for the collection. I hate the black ink that Topps is going with for the 2015 release which means I won't be picking any of those up but I still have wanted a 2014 one of Kershaw but I could never land one at a decent cost. Well I can finally check this off my want list as this card looks perfect in hand. As everyone knows by now any Kershaw I acquire I intend to send to Beckett to get it graded and this card looks like a lock for a gem mint 9.5. Corners are good and autograph looks great. Hopefully I can add yet another gem to my every growing Kershaw collection.
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Now for the card that I chose over Mr. Koufax which I have no regret doing even though some people might not have done it :
Another autograph in my ever slowly growing Trout collection. It's slow because Mike's cards are higher priced not because I haven't tried. His autograph cards are even more pricey so picking this up now without a penny leaving my pocket is a good thing in my eyes.
Unlike Clayton I have only a handful of Trout autographs and Topps Five Star is one of my favorite brands so this was an easy choice for me. As with Clayton I always intend to send Trout's cards in for grading and this one is no different. Five Star is notorious for conditioning issues and this one I believe has a little better than 50/50 chance of earning a gem mint 9.5. One of the corners is not perfect under the loop but if they hold to a 9 I might just eek out a 9.5 overall. What gives me more concern is the autograph and it will depend on what grader I get that day to what it earns. I have seen worse examples earn a 10 but some graders might say its streaks so it should be a 9. We shall see.
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Thank you again to Jeffrey for reaching out and completing this high end trade in the matter of half a hour. It was easy and smooth and I look forward to our next one.
Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.
-Penguin
Awesome Kershaw, grats !
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