March 2017 BGS Submission Result Number THIRTEEN of FORTY-TWO - 2015 Topps Five Star Clayton Kershaw Jumbo Patch Autograph (32/35) Now BGS Graded Mint 9

Day number 13 and the final non gem of the batch is here. Out of all the non gems I only had 5 I really had bone to pick with so considering this is a 42 card batch and 37 I am "OK" with I guess I should consider myself lucky. Yes there were 8 others that of the 13 that didn't gem but most were expected just like this 2015 5 Star jumbo autograph of Mr. Kershaw.

No matter the conditioning issues I will always love the brand and having yet another Kershaw on card autograph for the collection in mint form is always a good thing. I knew the corners would be an issue as when I picked this up I could see a slight issue but what surprised me was the centering coming in as an 8.5. Close call to having an overall 8.5 but thankfully that was the only real issue on this card. With this not being an investment but just part of the overall project of having an autograph for each Kershaw win in his career I am more than happy with this 9 return. Now onto the 9.5's of the batch.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2015 Topps Five Star : Clayton Kershaw Jumbo Patch Autograph (32/35)

Thirty-Five copies of this card are in existence and I swear that I have probably seen at least 20 come and go as I tried to acquire one to call my own. Once again this card is an exception to the rule as I do not purse relic/patch cards anymore but the Five Star brand usually puts out beautiful cards and this one falls into that category and the first time I saw this I knew I had to pick one up for myself. Finally that day has come.

This particular copy had been on a BIN auction with an OBO option as well as another one concurrently running on eBay by a different seller for the same asking price. eBay was running a 10% eBucks promotion so I sent the other seller an offer of more than 50% less than his asking price. Yup, I was going the low ball route. On top of that all the copies I saw never went as low as what I was attempting to acquire it for. Not surprisingly I received no answer from that seller so a day later I sent the owner of this card the exact same price and within 30 minutes I received an email stating he took my offer without even countering. Nice.

As many of you know thick cards like Five Star are notorious for corner and edge issues but this one only has the littlest of issues on one corner which could only be seen under a loop. Naked eye its perfect so hopefully this will gem when BGS is back in town.

Thirty-Two

of

Thirty-Five

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

September 2016 BGS Submission Result Number FORTY-THREE - 2015 Topps Five Star Clayton Kershaw Silver Signatures Autograph Green Parallel (1/15) Now BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

2015 Topps Five Star Clayton Kershaw Silver Signatures Autograph Green Parallel (1/15)

Here is yet another thick card and once again there is a small issue on the back side when it comes to 2 corners. Other than that this card is perfect in my opinion. Centering and edges look great and as long as those corners don't get docked down to an 8.5 I believe I will score another gem mint Kershaw autograph for myself.

I believed and I received. I thought that as long as the corners do not come in lower than a 9 then all the other categories would carry this card to a gem mint 9.5. The corners not only didn't come back lower than a 9 but they gemmed all by themselves. I thought there might be an issue with some of them on the back but before I sent the card I tried to "fix" them a tad and I guess it worked. Not too shabby of a return from a seller on eBay that just started selling which makes this even sweeter considering there were less people bidding on it. 

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2015 Topps Five Star : Clayton Kershaw Silver Signatures Autograph Green Parallel (1/15)

I took an eBay gamble and I think it paid off with the acquisition of this Five Star which in hand looks to be one of the better conditioned ones I have won on the auction site.

Wanting to achieve my overall goal of 100 Kershaw autographs and hopefully for at least 50 by the end of this year I continue to look for deals wherever I can find them and this one definitely qualifies as one. I tend to steer away from low feedback sellers on eBay but one without any feedback? I hadn't done a transaction with one yet but that changed when this one showed up on eBay. The seller was brand new so at least their zero feedback did not include negative feedback. Like me it seems most collectors stay away from sellers like these and I had the same intention but this card looked to be in great shape from the pictures on the screen. I decided to take a chance as long as I could score a deal on this card.

The Five Star brand is a very condition sensitive brand and I have had good and bad luck with them in the past but this copy looked to be one of the better conditioned ones I have seen in awhile. On the last day of the auction the current high price was well below what these typically go for. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best and with exactly 2 seconds left I put my bid in (which was very low in my mind) and ended up the winner with room to spare. Now I had to wait till the card arrived to see if the in hand condition would be as good as the on screen condition. With a smile it was and I think it earns a 9.5 from BGS. Numbered out of only 15 this is a great addition.

One

of

Fifteen

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

BGS Submission Result Number TEN - 2015 Topps Five Star : Clayton Kershaw Base Autograph Gold Parallel (20/50) Now BGS Graded Mint 9.0

2015 Topps Five Star Clayton Kershaw Gold Autograph (20/50)

Another Kershaw autograph and another thick card and this time it is from last year's Five Star release.

What can I say? I just love me some high quality Kershaw autographs and this one definitely fits the bill. While centering might not be perfect that looks to be the only thing that looks "wrong" with this card. No bent corners or edge issues to speak of so even though its a thick card I am hoping and thinking this comes back with a 9.5 attached to it.

Another Kershaw that I thought cornering could and would be an issue and in fact was but just like the previous Topps Chrome black of Clayton this one also came back with an overall 9.0 due to another sub grade coming in lower than expected.

Edges and surface came back with the expected grades of 9.5 but the corners earned a disappointing 8.5. I didn't see an issue with them under the loop so unless I totally missed something I think the grader under graded and/or something happened to it while it was in transit. 

Even with that 9.0 attached we are at the point in the batch were all the grades are either expected or accepted and I am happy with all of them. So with 10 that fall in the "bad" category I can't be mad with this or the other 50 after it.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2015 Topps Five Star : Clayton Kershaw Silver Signatures Autograph (33/50)

Silver autograph on a black background of a thick card with future hall of famer Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers on it? Yup, it is as beautiful in person as it is when I typed that first sentence. Yet another Kershaw autograph has been added to the collection and at the rate I am going I might hit 40 by the end of the year. We shall see.

On one of my daily eBay searches for Kershaw autographs I came across this gem of a card on a BIN auction for a very reasonable price. Book has it valued from $40-100 and the price the seller was asking for was right around the low end of book. I put it on my watch list but I was the 9th to do so since the auction went live a day earlier. The reason I didn't just hit the purchase button right then and there was because I wanted to inquire about the card's condition with it being a Five Star which can have fraying issues. I reached out to the seller and hoped to receive an answer quickly so I didn't lose out on it and not 15 minutes later he relieved any concerns I had for the card and I promptly "bought" it and had it in hand a few days later.

Once I had it in front of me I believe it has a very good chance of coming back as a BGS 9.5 as you know I already had that in mind when I bought it. It's now in the stack and waiting for Beckett to come back to town next month.

Thirty-Three

of

Fifty

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2015 Topps Five : Clayton Kershaw Base Autograph Gold Parallel (20/50)

Out fishing on eBay one day for Kershaw cards in general and came across this one and even though I wasn't planning on acquiring any 2015 Topps Five Star cards I wasn't going to turn away a deal if one presented itself.

Don't get me wrong I think the 2015 version is much better than the 2014 and I already own the 2014 autograph version of Kershaw but I was going to totally bypass the 2015 as I wanted to focus on picking up a copy of the 2015 Allen Ginter mini frame autograph of Kershaw as I want to have one copy from each year he has one in that brand. Of course now that I have this one I might have to do the same thing for Five Star as I am doing for Allen Ginter.

When I acquired this card there was no book value assigned yet but when I did a closer inspection of the card (from the screenshots provided) I came away thinking that it would have a good chance of earning a 9.5 from BGS and at the very worst a 9 so I was going to put in a token bid just in case I could snag it at a bargain. Low and behold my "low" bid did in fact win the card and once I had it in hand I still hold the belief it could earn a 9.5 and now "certain" it will earn that minimum 9. We shall see in a few months but I am now thankful I took the time to put that bid in.

Twenty

of

Fifty

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin