Saturday, March 29, 2008

Mailbox Joys: A Legendary Cut Above The Rest

2007 Legendary Cuts - Legendary Materials #LM-HB - Harold Baines 050/125

I keep running into these cheap game-used card on eBay. I guess there are so many flooding the market now, that they don't seem special anymore. Will this devalue these cards for the regional and minor star player? Even Hall of Fame players seem to be picked up on the cheap lately.

Unless a bidding war ensues, most game-used cards of players who retired in the last 30 years, can be won at or near the opening bid price. Yes, that's a real shame. These stars should be commanding a better value. On the other hand, it makes starting a collection fairly easy. I would imagine that would draw more novices to the hobby. The more the merrier I say. Just don't try driving the price up of something I'm bidding on. Then again, if somebody wants a card badly enough, they will end up paying for it.

As for the card itself, it's nicely designed, if not flirting with being gaudy. I understand the uniform being underneath the C and the U, but what's the meaning behind the gold foil behind the T and the S? The silver foil surrounding the CUTS is blinding at times, but is textured in a beveled crosshatch.

There's also a nice headshot of Harold from the lean years of the White Sox eighties experience. The 1987, 1988 and 1989 teams were some of the most horrid put together on the South Side of Chicago. Without those teams, the ressurgence in the early nineties could not have happened.

If the White Sox did better in 1987, Robin Ventura may have gone to the Phillies. If the the club did better in 1988, Frank Thomas may have been a Cub. If they did better in 1989, Alex Fernandez would've been a Pirate.

Even with those bad teams of the late eighties, Harold and a few others provided enough thrills to keep fans coming out to the park. I will always be grateful to Harold Baines and others by making those teams watchable. Now if only some company would come up with a John Cangelosi White Sox relic. I'd be in Heaven.

2 comments:

capewood said...

There are 4 versions of the card. The first has a jersey piece just behind the C, the second with a jersey piece behind the C and the U, up to the 4th version with a jersey piece behind all four letters. The C card has gold foil, the CU card has silver foil and the CUT card has copper foil. Don't know what the CUTS card has but since the value of the foil material decreases as the number of letters are filled, I'll guess that the CUTS card has aluminum foil. When I first saw these, I thought there would be a different jersey piece behind each letter but it looks like they just used bigger pieces for the each extra letter. I have the C for Schmidt (paid $4.24 and Steve Carlton (paid $7.50), the CU for Gaylord Perry (paid $6.50), and the CUT for Kirk Gibson (paid $7.84). There were CUTS cards available on eBay when I bought the others but those auctions were in the $15-$20 range for nobody I really wanted.

Cliff
www.capewood.blogspot.com

Steve Gierman said...

Ahh, that would explain it. Thanks for the info Cliff!

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