2001 Absolute

I love the look of this card. If it weren't a multi colored piece, I doubt I would have picked it up though. There are 700 of these cards and I have only seen 2 (including mine) that have multi-colored pieces. According to the back of this card, the base pieces used are from 2001 Opening Day bases. The Absolute Home Opener HR parallel has similar pieces and there are only 25 of those. I would estimate there are 15-20 multi-colored base set cards. I paid a 50% premium for mine.

Other Pickups

I love cards produced for special events like the Fanfest or National. After picking up this 2006 National promo, I believe I am only missing the 2006 Topps Fanfest card, 2001 Bowman Heritage National Promo and the 2003 Playoff Portraits Fanfest Green variation to have each card of Albert produced for these shows.


I picked up this bat RC for under $20, which is a steal considering they normally go for around $50. It's nothing special and I wasn't looking for it, but for $20 I couldn't pass.





These were dirt cheap and they are really nice. I'm not sure how many variations there are, but these are really attractive cards.

Finished 2009 Fanfest Set

I'll space a couple postings out over the next several days. I was recently able to complete the 2009 All Star Fanfest set. The last cards I needed were the exclusive Cardinal cards found in the Topps Factory Sets available at the Fanfest. I did not think passing up on the $50 I could get from these by flipping them on eBay was worth keeping the cards from mine, so I waited. At first, the cards spiked, especially the Pujols, but I was able to pick these up for around $20-25 total.

Quick Update

I should have a new mailday post coming up in a week or so. I'll be home for the Playoffs, so I'll have an opportunity to scan some of my new acquisitions. In the meantime, check out this feature on Albert from MILB.com.

One more Mailday

Thanks to some fast shipping from eBay, this arrived today:


This was one of Albert's hottest cards back in 2001 and for good reason: These were inserted as redemption into Donruss. They are uncommon, and one of his best true RCs in my opinion. For whatever reason I got this for $85 whereas a PSA 9 went for over $200 just days before.

Today I also took advantage of the BGS weekly special that grades Pujols cards for $7 at the 10 day level. I sent in both retrofractors (min grade 9) and my eTopps autograph (min grade 9.5). Hopefully they all meet or exceed the min grade!

Recent Pickups

Here's some of the cards I've recently acquired.

First are two issues from previous Fanfests held in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. I really like the look of the 2007 card. Both of these were from the Upper Deck booth. I believe I only need the 2009 Topps Factory Set Insert and the 2006 Topps Fanfest card to have a complete run of Fanfest issued cards (Playoff distributed green bordered portrait cards at the 2003 Fanfest, but they featured no Fanfest logo).

Next up is a card I've always wanted to own. I am usually not a fan of plain jersey cards (or most patch cards for that matter), but I've always been attracted to the 2005 Absolute set. The Babe Ruth Jumbo Jersey from this set, is arguably one of the top 10 cards of the decade. I got this for a nice price on a Saturday night.

I think one of my side Pujols goals is going to be to complete the Absolute Home Openers run. I already have the auto down and would love to acquire either of the Home Run parallels. I thought I did well grabbing this single version for a $30 BIN, but it arrived damaged (mark on back, chipping on front by the banner). Luckily, the seller was a class act and issued a $15 refund. I will be looking to get a clean version in the future.


Finally, my favorite non-autographed parallel from 2001. The Topps Chrome Retrofractor. I always thought this card looked amazing and being the proud owner of a Bobby Abreu, I knew they looked even better in person. That being said this is a gorgeous card. I've been trying to formulate a print run estimate but it's very tough to do since Topps Chrome had Hobby and Retail versions and very little serial numbered inserts. I'd like to think it's slightly less than the Topps Chrome Traded Retrofractor run. Beckett has graded 51 of these compared to 97 of the Chrome Traded, so maybe it's halve? Seems plausible. There were only 266 cards in the Chrome Traded set with Retros at 1:12 compared to over 300 for the regular Chrome set which were also 1:12 inserts. I imagine there's a significantly higher run of Chromes printed than Chrome Traded, but who knows. This is a gorgeous card. I'll probably submit both this and the Chrome Traded to Beckett. Hopefully they come back 9s.

Barring some insanely fast shipping, this will likely be my last mailday post for a couple of weeks. As I'll be returning to school. I will still update on various other Pujols related items.

BGS Pujols Mailday

I just received my most recent BGS grading order back. This order was actually not due to until August 24th, but BGS finished the grading on August 19th and I have the cards today.

First up is a regular Topps Traded. I was pretty pleased with this. I would never buy this card graded, much less a gem, so it was nice to add a gold label to my collection.

Next up is the Elite TOTC AU. I was incredibly pleased with this. I thought it may get knocked down a bit for what could have been a surface problem (x-fractor type line on the bottom), but I guess not.


I placed a minimum grade of 8.5 on this and it reached it. The edges and corners show white pretty easily on this.

Was hoping for a 9 on the Reserve, both on the auto and the card. I may resubmit for a sub bump in the future, but I will definitely be looking to upgrade this card in the future.

All in all it was a pretty successful submission. I am already gathering cards for my next one.