Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Corey Seager Base Autograph Refractor Parallel BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

A card I already had in my collection and 1 I did not expect to get a duplicate of but situations change as the world can throw curve balls and you just have to roll and adjust to it. We all have our own issues to deal with and while me acquiring this card is not because of a situation going on with me I had empathy with the seller of this card as I could relate to his situation.

An Instagram friend reached out to me one evening asking if I would be interested in this card and the moment I saw it I mentally was already passing on it as I had my own copy. Following the initial contact of the IG friend he told me about his hard luck at the present moment and was looking to gather up some funds to help him along and it got me to thinking about what I am dealing with. Thankfully I don't need to sell off my collection (knock on wood) but knowing we all need help at various times in our lives I wanted to help out my friend. We came to an amount that we were both comfortable with and shortly after I had this card in hand and now have 2 of them to call my own.

To fund this transaction I sold off my Seager Perfect Game/AFLAC autograph card. Normally I do not swap out a card that I only have 1 of to pick up another copy of 1 I do have but knowing I was helping someone and that this card is key piece in anyone's Seager collection it was the smart and helpful thing to do. It doesn't hurt to have 2 of these as maybe somewhere down the road I can swap 1 out for something I really want but for now I will hold on to both.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

September 2016 BGS Submission Result Number FIFTY-FOUR - 2012 Bowman Chrome/2016 Topps Chrome : Corey Seager Base 8x10 Autograph Purple Refractor Parallel (10/10) Now BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

2012 Bowman Chrome/2016 Topps Chrome Corey Seager 8x10 Autograph Purple Parallel (10/10)

Unlike other cards that went through the raw card review process this one HAD to go through before going to Dallas to get slabbed. Why? Because of its size which if you want encased is an extra charge which I did not want to spend if I wasn't guaranteed a gem mint return. Hopes of pristine return were dashed but I just love that instead of the traditional sealed label they attach to cards this one earned a sticky instead. Ha Ha. I expect when this comes back that the corners will be lowest of the sub grades but either way I have the only (at this moment) graded jumbo of the Dodgers budding superstar.

This 8x10 even looks more impressive now that is has been encased. Of course with it being purple the wife has already reclaimed it and asked how much can she get for it? Yeah, not going anywhere hon.

When I submitted this for a RCR I expected it to gem and gem it did. I also thought it would have 1 sub grade come back as a 9 which at the time I believed it would be the corners to earn that. I find out now that corners were good enough for BGS to give them a 9.5 but it was surface that earned a 9. Very close to not earning a gold banner but thankfully it did. This is a very unique piece and now that it is safely stored in a thick case I can rest easy that it won't get damaged. 

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Raw Card Review Recap Number Six From Submission Batch On Saturday September 10th, 2013 (2012 Bowman Chrome/2016 Topps Chrome Corey Seager 8x10 Autograph Purple Parallel)

Now for a raw card review in the hopes that this will be in the big batch that is heading to Dallas but due to it's size I wanted to make sure it earns a 9.5 first. Why does size matter? That's a loaded question isn't it? Beckett charges an extra $8 $12 for anything that is bigger than a traditional sized baseball card and this Purple Seager far exceeds those. Also there is a slight "whitening" on the top left hand corner. While I don't think that will affect the overall grade as I expect this to earn a 9.5 I want to make sure because I would be very irritated if I spent extra money and this came back as a 9. Better safe than sorry.

What...A...Glare.

I guess I forgot what they taught me in Photography 101 but I was in a rush as I needed to get this bad boy into my BGS batch headed to Dallas for slabbing treatment. This "card" is a first for me in many ways but what I found the most interesting is note the label on it stated what grade it received from the raw grading review. While it did earn a 9.5 notice that it is written on a sticky note! What? They stated they had not stickers that fit items this big. What was even funnier is that the grade it earned, 9.5, was only valid at that very moment (hence the rushed picture) as if I left the store how would Beckett know I didn't grade it and say it was gem mint. I had to package it up promptly to ensure this got fully slabbed.

If this would have received a 9 or 10 I would have sold it off but of course it comes back as a 9.5 so I will be keeping it. I assume that the slight issue on the top corner was not bad enough to earn less than a 9 but it did hinder it from earning a pristine grade. This will look great in a gold banner.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Corey Seager 8x10 Topps.com Exclusive Base Autograph Purple Refractor Parallel (10/10)

An itch and a glitch lands me this very big card of the Dodgers budding star at shortstop aka Corey Seager.

I had a couple of Corey cards that I had decided I no longer wanted but I didn't want to lower my Seager collection count so the intention was to always buy another autograph of the young man. I looked on eBay to see what might be enticing but nothing stroked my interest. A friend of mine from Instagram who is a big Corey fan had informed me of these big 8x10's of Corey (other players as well) as he had purchased one for himself. I went to the Topps site to see what they might have that I would like. All of the cards are 2012 Bowman Chrome designed and have colored parallels just like their regular sized brethren. My friend bought the base but I wanted a colored parallel. My favorite color, blue, had already sold out and that card's print run was 99. The other colors were too high priced but this purple one with its print run of just 10 caught my eye and I decided if I was going to pick one up this would be the color I would acquire. So I decide to just check in daily to see if the price would go down as what they were asking for was too steep for me to cover from the sales of the others cards. Then one morning the price moved and did it ever.

Ten

of

Ten

I checked in a few days later and saw that the price literally went down 50%!!! There was no announcement of a sale and I couldn't pass it up and with that I sent over the funds from my eBay sales of the other Corey cards and purchased this purple beauty. I decided to check in all day with Topps and the price of all the Corey cards kept going up and down. The following day they finally reset back to their original price. There was obviously a glitch in the system because there is no way that they would have fluctuated that many times in a day. Topps computer problem was my gain and man is this thing massive in my hands. I checked with Beckett and they actually grade items this big so you know where this is going. Obviously I would love a gem mint return (I think there is more of a chance than not that it does) but the main thing is to have this in a case for safety and storage purposes.

Matched up with a regular sized card for scale purposes

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Corey Seager Base Autograph Refractor Parallel BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

Considering the cost of Seager autographs are going way up across the board this card's acquisition completes one project that had to end as if I was to go after other parallels I would need a lot more funds which I do not.

I have a few ongoing rainbow projects pertaining to Urias and Seager but when it comes to the autograph portion there are less cards to pursue do to it being cost prohibitive. I picked up the blue parallel of this card over a year ago and was lucky to pick up the base a little while ago when I had extra comic code funds but I knew this base refractor would be the last of the rainbow I could or would acquire. There is a gold parallel but that price is over $1000 and I will not be going after that so I wanted to get this card before the price went up anymore.

This happens to be an unnumbered parallel but it still holds a higher demand than the base non refractor and I really didn't want to go the raw route and then cross my fingers its grades out to a gem mint. These refractors don't seem to pop up as much on eBay so when this one did I had to make some funds appear. I picked out a few cards and one paperback that I could sell so that would cover the cost of the card which happened to be on a BIN auction. By the time the sales of the other cards were confirmed this Seager card had 15 watchers so I knew its time of being available to me was dwindling. Made sure the funds cleared from the sales and got back to this card's auction and thankfully it was still available. Clicked the button, sent the funds and had card in hand within a week.

The 2012 Bowman Chrome BGS 9.5 autograph rainbow project is officially finished.

Gold banner for a golden kid

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Corey Seager Base Autograph BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

So this is a card post so why is there a phone as the lead photo in it? That kind of looks like my phone. Actually that is my old phone and I am no longer in possession of it and for it I received this spiffy card in return. Now I am trading phones for cards? Not technically but close.

Couple weeks ago I upgraded my phone from the Samsung S5 to the new S6 model and what usually happens is that I offset the cost of the new phone with the sale of the old phone when I sell it on eBay. Well Sprint is now doing a leasing option which since I have an old grandfathered plan comes out to nothing more out of pocket with the new phone. So I get a new phone, no cost and I still have my old phone to sell off. The only bad thing with the leasing option is that I do not own the S6 so this is the last time I can sell a phone but I wanted to make sure when I did I would pick up something nice for myself. Why not reacquire a card that I let go last year that I would love to have again. So that's what I did.

I had this card in my collection but I sold it to acquire it's blue parallel brother as seen HERE but since I have decided to do various rainbow parallel collections of Seager and Urias why not pick this bad boy up once again and if it was nothing out of pocket more power to me.

First things first as I had to complete the phone sale on eBay which I did. Second I made sure to take the wife out to dinner. Check. Now with what was left over I would search for a copy of this card. I scanned auctions and didn't want to do a bidding war but late one day I saw this pop up from a seller that had two copies on a BIN auction. Clean signature and a gem mint grade. Couldn't ask for more so I went and "purchased" the card. Nothing out of pocket and I welcomed back an old friend that I didn't want to see leave the 1st time around. Another Seager autograph added to the collection and on the hunt for more.

Thank you Sprint for the assistance on the purchase. Keep the good programs coming.

Gold banner day

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

BGS Submission Update One - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Joc Pederson Base Blue Refractor Autograph Parallel ( 62 / 150 ) Now Graded and Slabbed a Gem Mint 9.5 BUT....

So.... This is the first update post from my most recent BGS submission which had a total of 6 cards in the batch. I went so far and thought I was pretty brazen when I said that I expected that 5 of the 6 should grade out to a gem mint 9.5. I was confident once again in my pre-grading techniques but still crossed my fingers and wished for the best.

With that said and this being the first post of the week and it received the gem mint grade and I always post worst to best that would seem that I had a pretty good return on the cards. I did BUT this is the card that was the most important and even though it received a gem mint grade it is the most disappointing of the 6 hence why it's result is posted first. Why am I disappointed ?

= (

Sigh....

Yeah, that's why. A 9? Really? What did his autograph do to deserve a 9? I have heard from other people that have stated that BGS hates incomplete signatures on cards. Uh, this is his signature and its complete. Then there is the faded pen excuse as why an autograph earns a lower grade. Well nothing like that here as well. So now I have a gem mint card with a mint autograph. Sigh. Its better than the BGS graded refractor card I had of Joc but its not the grade I think it deserved.

Beautiful card of hopefully soon to be center fielder

Overall gem mint

Again....

What is wrong with the autograph?

Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Corey Seager Base Blue Refractor Autograph Parallel ( 4 / 150 ) BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

I got an eBay itch that just needed to be scratched. I had the above BGS 9.5 Seager autograph card already in my possession but I am always looking to upgrade to the blue parallel of any Bowman Chrome autograph that I might have. Seager is tearing up the California League and is getting hotter and hotter in the hobby as each day goes by. Still, he is a prospect and he could flame out or never make it to the majors. But if I could acquire the blue parallel I would be very happy with that. I just had to figure a way to get it without spending much, if any money out of pocket. Most sellers on eBay are/were asking at least $400 but each one did have a best offer option attached to the auction. A little back and forth with a couple of them yielded nothing of note. One seller and I though came to an agreement without me committing to it just yet. I told him I wanted to have funds in hand prior to completing the transaction and he understood that just as I understood if someone else came along and bought it I would left empty handed.

So what should I sell to get the necessary funds to buy my new Seager card? Obviously with a blue parallel I wouldn't need the base refractor so that was the first one in the sale pile for eBay. I decided to reach out to some fellow bloggers and twitter friends and get their insight and opinions on the matter. In the beginning of my plan and even though I was highly hesitant to add a Kershaw autograph to the sale pile I knew I would get a premium price for his cards right now. I didn't want to and my heart really wasn't into it. Derek and Aus from Twitter reaffirmed my thoughts and basically said I would be crazy if I did that. I pulled the Kershaw out of the potential cards and moved onto another subject.

I have plenty of Kemp autograph cards and knew I was willing to sell at least one to fund this purchase. The trick was to find one that still held some value as most of his cards had gone down in price the past two years. One thing I wanted to make sure to get rid of was a sticker variety as those are annoying to me. With that thought I knew which one to include.

Even though I love that Matt is in his Brooklyn uniform the autograph is on a sticker and I have another autograph of Kemp in his Brooklyn uniform that is an on card version. That made this card expendable. With it being numbered only to 10 I knew the scarcity of it would help it sell. I was right in that thinking as the sale of the Kemp card was close to $50. I added that to the stack with the sale of the refractor BGS card of Seager that brought in close to $100. So with the 2 bringing in close to $150 combined I still had a little ways to go and knowing I wasn't going to sell a Kershaw card I had to figure another avenue to acquire some funds.

After talking to Aus and Derek I ended up talking to fellow blogger Greg as well on the purchase I was trying to put together. I contemplating on selling my BGS Puig card that hails from the 2013 Bowman set. It is a non autograph card but probably would net me somewhere in the ballpark of $80. Was also thinking of selling a couple of other Kemp autographs but there was nothing else that either would sell at a reasonable price that made it worth my while or one that I could live without. So no Puig and no more Kemp. I was finishing up a TPB story line that I could sell and add those funds to the collection pile. Did just that and it netted me a little over $80. So almost $230 in total now. Still needed a little more so I thought about it and came up with something I was comfortable with.

Refractor
X-Fractor
Green
Orange
and
Gold.

5 Dee Gordon autograph rookie cards that were part of my rainbow project that hit a wall as I could not find a purple or red to complete the set. I went with the thinking that you sell high and buy low. I bought each one of these prior to the 2014 season for a total of a little over $25. I sold them as a lot thinking some people would rather have them all at once instead of searching for them individually (which also keeps my shipping costs lower). I was right as the sale netted me close to $50 which when added to the almost $230 I already had put me a little south of $280.

I know some people, including the ones I asked for their opinions, might think I overspent/paid for the Seager card. In the long run, money wise at least, they might end up being right but I look at it this way. Didn't need the Seager anymore so that was a wash. Kemp was expendable due to me having more than 20 autographs of the Matt and the one I got rid of was a sticker autograph. While the Dee bundle was a lot and wiped out all but 2 of my Dee autographs in my collection I was able to hold onto all my Puig and Kershaw cards (which would have brought in the most money). I like Dee and think he is a great guy but I didn't feel as much attachment to these cards as I do to a nice gem mint card of Seager. I love any and all Kemp cards but when it comes down to it I could spare one even though it was a limited one.

All that netted me this great card :

2 10's

The new crown jewel of my Seager collection.

I ended up spending nothing out of pocket and even though I gave up 7 autographs for 1 I think it was a good deal and I am happy that I did it. Though the Dee part of it irked me a tad I am already working on acquiring a new Dee autograph that will make any bad taste that I might still have from this transaction disappear.

Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Joc Pederson Base Blue Refractor Autograph Parallel ( 62 / 150 )

It's educated guessing/hoping/gambling time once again on the blog.

I already have/had Joc's Bowman Chrome card in gem mint as recapped HERE . But I have always wanted to get my hands on the more limited and blue refractor for my collection. Well the graded copies are too high for my tastes so I decided to sell my BGS graded one and try my luck on a raw blue version.

With my recent hit and misses on BGS submissions this is a slight gamble. All that on top of the fact the seller of this card on eBay is new to the community and has a grand total of 1 feedback. It was an even swap for the graded base refractor for this ungraded blue refractor. Now when I head back to Frank and Sons I will submit this with a few others and hope for the best.

I have submitted 10 cards in the last month and 5 have come back as gem mint 9.5's. A 50% rate. Of those 5 that did not grade out to 9.5 at least 2 I thought were sure shots so I am slightly second guessing myself on personal grades BUT with that said I believe this card here is a great candidate to secure a gem mint 9.5. We shall see. At worst a 9 blue is more valuable than a 9.5 base refractor so there is that.

62 of 150

BGS Submission Update Three - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Bryce Harper Base Autograph Now Graded and Slabbed a Gem Mint 9.5

Reaching the mid way point for the week on the submission posts and considering this is the "worst" of the remaining three then it helps me swallow the bitter bill of the Yu grade from Monday.

Even with Bryce hurting right now I think he will have a great career and I wanted a Bowman Chrome autograph rookie card of his in my collection. I first went out and searched for an already slabbed BGS 9.5 on eBay but could not find one at a cost to my liking. As recent as a couple weeks ago closed sales have been from $350 to $420+. I decided to go a different route and hustle to find an ungraded one that I believed would grade out to a gem mint. Had to inspect it closely on the computer screen and ask sellers certain questions. Found this one and when it came in I believed it would grade out to a gem mint 9.5 and now I can officially say it will and did as I now have it back in my hands with that grade.

Unlike Corey's and Yu's grade there is no stinking 9 grade for the autograph. I expected and received a 10 on the autograph. I didn't see anything really wrong with the card when I submitted it except that it might be ever so slightly off centered but all the sub grades came back 9.5 with the exception of surface which received a 9. No worries as the 3 9.5's offset that 1 9.0. I now have my own gem mint Bowman Chrome Bryce and paid nowhere near the $350-$420 that I had seen recently on the bay.

Card of the Day - 2012 Bowman Chrome : Joc Pederson Refractor BGS Graded 9.5 w/10 Autograph ( 495 / 500 )

Joc, Puig, Puig, Joc...

That was the debate back in May and June as who to bring up with Kemp going down and the Dodgers needing another outfielder. While Joc was passed up for Puig he still waits in the wings for that possibly call up if something else goes wrong on the team. I was able to get Puig's cards before they skyrocketed as shown here but for Joc I waited until all the hub bub died down a little.

I am and always will be partial to bowman chrome refractor autographed rookie cards so there was no doubt where I was going to set my sights on. I originally was looking at the blue bordered variant but that got too pricey in my eyes for a MLB untested player so I set my goal on just the regular refractor. I didn't want to try my luck on one and hope it graded out to a 9.5 so I made it my goal to get one already graded a 9.5 and that is when this beauty appeared on eBay. Wasn't sure what I was going to pay as this is almost like an investment piece as he hasn't played a day in the majors and we don't know how he will respond. Just like Puig. So I was finishing up some paperbacks and ended up selling them prior to this card's auction close. I ended up in a slight bidding war and I don't know how he will pan our or even if he will play for the Dodgers but for today I won the battle and acquired the card for a tad over $60. With the book value at $25 and with the grading cost and the 9.5 I think I basically broke even on the transaction. If he bombs then I overpaid but if he excels I think this is a great buy. Either way I am happy to add this card and hope it pays off in the future.

Refractor 495 of 500

Mmm... Gem Mint