Busting Wax

The Breaks that almost Broke the Camel’s Bust

Almost a year ago, my interest in breaking the “semi” expensive packs (packs in the 20-30 dollar range like SPx and SP Rookie) was waning and I decided go for something a little more pricey. The “Big Stuff.” (I use the term “Big Stuff” loosely here) I decided to try my hand at a pack of 2008 Bowman Sterling (don’t ask me why) and was immediately bummed by the results. Disillusioned may be a better description.

There is always a sense of foreboding when you drop close to fifty bucks on a single pack of cards. But with the promise of guaranteed hits that include an autograph and jersey cards, you can rest assured that you’ll get SOMETHING. Little did I know how disappointed I was about to be. My first bust contained the following cards (except for one card I didn’t write down, but obviously wasn’t anything to brag about.):

2008 Bowman Sterling Bust #1 ($45)
43 Martellus Bennett base 35/50
85 Shane Lechler 107/49 Pro Bowl Jersey
173 Harry Douglas 209/569 RC Jersey
Aqib Talib Base RC Black Refractor Auto Redemption (recently redeemed)

Seriously. I paid forty-five bucks for a jersey card of a punter. No offense to punters (I am a fan of Jim Tressel, who says the punt is the most important play in football, after all) but I could think of twenty other positions I’d rather have a card of than punter. (In all fairness to Lechler, he was just made the highest paid punter, so that should stand for something). I was excited about getting my first redemption card (which I just redeemed last month) but again, Aqib Talib doesn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.

So that was disappointing, but I didn’t want to give up hope on high-end breaks. I was at one of the two Local Card Shops (LCS) and I saw he was selling boxes of 2007 Topps Performance football for $90, marked down from $160. I should have pressed him for my information as to why he was selling these cards at such a cheap price, but the allure of hitting a Peterson was too strong. Stupidly, I got brave, decided to drop a bunch on a box of this garbage. (Gellman recently skewered it in his list of worst of the worst)

2007 Topps Performance 90$ (originally 160$)
34 Brandon Jacobs 13/99
103 JaMarcus Russel RC 243/359
108 Chris Leak RC 069/199
129 Yamon Figurs Auto unnumbered
133 Paul Posluszny Auto unnumbered
108 Chris Leak 26/50 jersey/auto (“player worn” jersey)

The box had 16 cards with the guarantee of two autographs and an auto relic. The ten base cards weren’t great, but I wasn’t here for the base cards. I was ready to see what good stuff the box contained. And I’m still waiting. I’ll probably be waiting forever. Two Chris Leak cards is a double slap in this Buckeye’s face. Not only was he the QB that defeated the Buckeyes in the 2006 National Championship game, he was not drafted in the 2007 NFL draft. He later signed with the Bears as a free agent but that didn’t last long. He’s no longer in the NFL as he’s now bouncing around the CFL. The Figurs and Posluszny autos are decent, but in a box where I could have hit any other card, hitting that Chris Leak was devasatating. At this point, I was about ready to swear off big busts for good.

But, like the junkie (addict?) that I am, I went back to the well ONE MORE TIME. I should have sworn them off, but I couldn’t help myself. Again, there is no rhyme or reason to my reasoning, but I went for one more pack of 2008 Bowman Sterling. This time, things were much better:

2008 Bowman Sterling
26 Marcus Harrison RC unnumbered
36 Xavier Omon RC 109/199
71 Chad Johnson Jersey 069/199
145 Kevin O’Connel Jersey (“player worn”) 133/569
151 Darren McFadden jersey/auto 27/50

I play a lot of golf, and I’m convinced the Golfing Gods will almost always bless you with a great hole down the back nine to remind you why you love golf. You’ll have one hole (usually between 16 and 18) where your drive will be a 275 yard beauty, your second shot will be feet from the cup and you’ll birdie the hole like a pro. You could have had 15 horrible holes up to that point, but the only hole you’ll remember is that birdie and you’ll be back out the following weekend. It’s a vicious cycle.

It appears that the Card Gods have the same sense of humor.

Of the hits that were popular a couple seasons ago, the McFadden cards were just a step below the Petersons. Now, not so much. I’m not sure what I’ll ever be able to get for that card, but I’m pretty sure it’ll do better than anything else during this “experiment.” It’s amazing how one little card can make everything better.

So I haven’t completely sworn off busting premium wax, but I sure take my time deciding what I’ll be busting. The thrill is still there and the fun hasn’t completely worn off.

(This post has sat in my drafts folder for way too long. I have wanted a chance to rant about this for a while but never got around to finishing it. Sorry for bring up old busts, but I needed to get it out of my system. Thanks for reading)

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Card Show Haul

I’m still working on the Post. That. Will. Not. End. So I don’t want to post about new wax until I finish that one, but I just got back from spending some of my birthday money at the local Card Show here in Columbus, Ohio. Here’s a picture of my haul:

For the paltry sum of 150 smackers, I got a box of 2009 SP Authentic Football, a 2009 UD Black Malcolm Jenkins Auto 052/399 (117) for my personal collection, a handful of packs (2 2003 SPA Football, 2 2005 SPx Football and 2 2009 Topps Platinum Football) and some supplies. I’m looking forward to busting some wax this afternoon!

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Looking Ahead

I’ve recently taken a pretty hard and serious look at my collecting future. I need to figure out where I want to be with this hobby, what I want to do and how I will derive the most enjoyment from it. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m more or less in my third trip down the hobby road. My love for cards started when I was a kid, up through high school (1985 – 1992). I started buying wax again in 2001 but that phase only lasted about a year. This most recent phase started a couple years ago but hasn’t been consistent. So I had to decide where I was and where I was going.

The first step was to decide what I really wanted to collect. Up to this point I’ve mostly bought wax from all three major sports from pretty much all the different brands. It was pretty scatter-shot and unfocused. I have countless boxes in the basement sitting there, unloved and gathering dust.

(As an aside: I am somewhat of a neat-freak that hates clutter. I know this can be somewhat at odds with collecting anything but it’s especially bad for a card collecting. Along with focusing my collecting habits, I also plan to figure out what to do with everything else.)

So first I started with which sports I want to collect. While this hobby is dominated by baseball cards, I haven’t really followed baseball close enough to be interested in collecting baseball cards. This is actually ironic, because I would estimate that 90% of my collection pre-2007 is made up of baseball cards. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with those. So baseball is out. That leaves me with the two sports I actually follow — football and basketball.

From those sports, I am first and foremost a fan of both Cleveland teams (the Browns and the Cavaliers) and of the Ohio State Buckeyes. I will focus on collecting those player cards. Of course any LeBron James card I can get my hands on is my at the top of my list. Those will mostly be out of my price range, so hopefully I’ll be able to get an occasional LeBron hit from a box or a pack. I’ll concentrate on former Buckeyes in football, like Chris “Beanie” Wells and Ted Ginn, Jr.

That still doesn’t define how I want to collect. At the heart of it, I still like to Bust Wax (hence the blog name). But busting wax without a “purpose” is a no-win situation. So what’s the purpose? Everyone is trying to hit that in-demand autograph or that rare relic. EVERYONE wants to hit a valuable card. I’m no different. Sure, if I happen to get a nice hit of a player I’m collecting or I like, great. But if it’s a rare Babe Ruth relic or Michael Jordan autograph, than all the wax I’ve busted up to that point becomes worth it. Literally and figuratively.

So while I will continue to collect certain players and continue busting wax, I want to have a purpose. I’m a sports fan. I am also a capitalist. Most collectors, though they’re loathe to admit it, are too. Why else would we buy cards, if they held no value? Yes, there’s the noble ideal that we all collect for the love of collecting. But there’s also the cold hard reality that there are people willing to pay for cards of athletes they are fans of. And I’d like to facilitate that transaction.

So I’m setting a goal and starting a bit of a project and a new direction for this blog. I think most collectors would like to get “more” out of their hobby-related activities. I want to see if it’s possible to make a few bucks while enjoying the act of collecting cards. I’m far from an expert but I think I’ve done enough collecting, reading and observing to know how to approach this from a regular collector’s point-of-view. I’m not going to change much in the way I collect. I don’t plan on busting high-end cases of product and I don’t plan on laying out a ton of cash. I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing, with the hope that I can at least break even, if not make a few bucks. It will take work, it will take perseverance and it probably won’t be worth it. I may even upset some people’s sensibility. But if I can came make it work, then anyone came.

I hope you’ll stick around and see what happens.

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Blogger’s Guilt

The other day, I was working on some of my behind-the-scenes tasks for my other blogs, when I was looking at some of my Feedburner stats. I noticed that over fifty people are subscribed to this blog. That may not seem like a lot, but it filled me with a sense of guilt, knowing that there are people out there actually wondering what I might write next.

I actually have a lot of things I’d like to comment on. I just don’t seem to have much time. One of my other blogs, Men of the Scarlet and Gray, is a mostly college football blog and we’re right in the thick of football season, so that takes quite a bit of my blogging time. And when I actually have free time, I’m mostly likely playing video games (which I blog about at Buttonmashing.com). So I have been neglecting this site, which makes me sad.

On top of that, I haven’t really been busting any wax. I mentioned it in a previously blog, but the inevitable lack of interest that has caused me to stop collecting has reared its ugly head again. But I still have a strong attraction to the hobby, it keeps pulling me back in. That, and I’m a huge sports fan. So I’m coming to grips with what I want to write about. I wish I would have started this blog about a year earlier, because as I was getting back into the hobby a couple years ago, one of my childhood dreams came true (about twenty years too late) when my father-in-law gave me an old shoebox full of his old cards for me to catalog and protect. It was really cool going through those, and if I have time, I’d like to share some of those with you.

I also had to come to grips with why I collect. That deserves more time and probably will take multiple posts to really flesh out how I feel about this hobby.

I’m not making any grand promises to start churning out posts at Mario’s pace, but I do hope to get some time this winter to work on some posts and share with you guys what I’ve been doing. Hopefully I haven’t lost everyone’s interest in the long delay between posts. Won’t happen again.

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Very Cool Tech

I know I have updated the blog in like whoa, but I just came across this little story in the NY Times about Topps new 3-D cards that you hold in front of a webcam to get a holographic? 3-D? virtual reality? image of the player on the card:

While this isn’t going to rekindle my fading interest in the hobby, it is cool to see nonetheless. It may turn out to be gimmicky, but they could do some very cool things with these.

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