Chicago Black Sox Scandal
Buzz Buys: A few cardboard debuts, new autos, early TV items, bonus cards, Tiffy Time, old stuff & more for familiar names
Buzz buys and busts a lot of boxes right here for Buzz Breaks, but one of my goals is to rip a little less and talk more about cardboard that I -- and you -- might like. One way to do that? Simple show and tell -- present a few pick-ups and say why they captured my attention.
So, with all that said, here are a few Buzz Buys ...
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GOING HIGH-END ...
The Card: Bo Bichette 2020 Bowman Transcendent (/100) -- Rookie Card
The Price: Less than some retail mega boxes ...
Why it’s Buzz-worthy: While this comes from one of the most-expensive brands ever made and he's a past All-Star, a bad season apparently prompts easy sell-offs these days and in this case I was a buyer. While I'd like his RCs from these releases in slabs (the frames and Chome-like surfaces here can show smaller flaws easily) this one was too cheap to pass up in comparison to slabbed cards that weren't even in elite grades. This cost me half or even a third of common asking prices for the graded cards with no obvious, blatant flaw to make it feel like it would check in lower ... though it's not perfect. It's a perfect start for me here -- I'll likely add more if The Big Bo Slide of 2024 keeps going. Why? I collect Bichette.
Grab a box right here: Nothing for this one, but MLB boxes are here.Keep reading for more interesting items ...
Making the Grade (October): Ronald Acuña Jr. heaters, Clerks, Ernie Davis, hot ink, Supergirl, Catwoman & real Nuke LaLoosh
Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.
Here's this month's grading diary here on The Buzz ...
The Card: Ronald Acuña Jr. 2018 Topps Chrome Update #HMT25 Rookie Card
The Reason Graded: I only opened a couple of mega boxes for this brand but did land this guy -- and, man, do I wish this card had used the bat-down photo. (What could have been?) I recently revisited a few of my boxes holding the finds of my buys last year and this one struck me as a clean example worth a slab, especially with him having had an elite season coming up just short of being the youngest member of the elite 40-40 Club.
The Grade: BGS 9.5Grade 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10 B10 Total Population 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 18 348 83 8 459 Reality Check: Turns out I was right, though this is a card that's heavily graded with a growing pop report since I submitted this one. There was a 10 grade right after mine in the serial-numbering line and there have been plenty of 9.5s graded since -- and even the 10s aren't all that rare for this one. There's plenty here to feed the demand for a guy who should be on collector radars for years. You'll see more of Acuña here.
Keep reading for more of this month's new slabs for Buzz.
Only one of John Mahoney's past roles included baseball cards
He might be best-remembered as the curmudgeon father of Frasier Crane on NBC's Frasier, but decades in acting only led actor John Mahoney to appear in a number of memorable roles.
But only one led him to appear on baseball cards.
The actor died on Sunday at 77 after a brief health battle, years after he played William "Kid" Gleason, the manager of the 1919 Chicago White Sox in Eight Men Out.
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