01 November 2013

Seeking Redemption 1: R.A. Dickey Tier One Relic

I got my first redemption card the other day, but not from a pack. I bought it on eBay for a couple of dollars. Usually Dickey's relic and auto cards go for just a little more than I'd like to pay, but the redemption cards come at a discount, probably because they come along with some uncertainty about when or if you will get the card described. I think Dickey probably will fulfill his contract at some point to send in a jersey or underpants or whatever so that the relic cards can be produced.

After the card arrived I went to the Topps Redemption site, set up my profile, and entered my code. It appeared to work the way it was supposed to, and now I just have to wait. I saw on the Topps Redemption Update Tumblr that Dickey has signed his Tier One cards, but I don't know if that also means he has provided pieces for relic cards.
Although my last post went up on this blog just a couple of days ago, it has been a while since I actually wrote anything up. I'd been running on queued posts for a while there. There's been a lot of stuff going on with school, work, and family, and by the time I get some of that stuff taken care of I just don't have it in me to scan and edit pictures of cards or write paragraphs about them.
That does not mean I've been keeping away from sports cards, though. I broke open a couple of boxes that I will feature here pretty soon, I've completed a couple of trades, and I've moved out of my old hobby room and down into the basement so my sons can have the old hobby room as a playroom. I've also picked up cards from eBay and a few e-tailers and I've been watching quite a few online case breaks to see what it might take to get into that as a part-time gig. Last night I saw a 1/1 Kyrie Irving autograph card come out of Panini Flawless ($1600+ for ten cards!) that should sell somewhere between $7-10k. Not a bad pull for the guy who drew the number one slot in the draft. The problem with Flawless is that the cases are so top-heavy that by the time the last 5 or 6 slots get to pick each guy is $100+ in the hole. I guess I just can't handle the big-money stakes. I did see a Hakeem Olajuwon patch-autograph card that I would love to have pulled, but again, it would have cost me $155 for a slot and then I would have had to win the first or second pick in the draft to come away with that card. I guess if you've got the money to spend on draft slots, you can afford to keep playing after a bad day, but at what point does it become a gambling addiction? I do think it would be a fun side job to bust packs open on camera, but that is probably a little ways off. I need to do more research on what the successful online breakers do and the math involved.

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