Another month and more great cards added to my collection! I've really started to see a steady incline in the prices of Scott Rolen cards. I'm not sure what has caused this rise in prices recently. If it had happened this time last year, I would have said it might be because of the pandemic. I realize that he's knocking on the door of Cooperstown, but I'm not sure if that is the reason for the price increase either. Regardless, I'm going to continue adding cards to my collection as time and budget allows.
1999 UD Ionix - Warp Zone WZ13. Unfortunately, Scott didn't have one of the HoloGrFX cards from this release. But what we have here is his toughest card to pull from the set. Seeded at 1:216 packs, you'd potentially have to open up at least 10 boxes of this stuff to even get a Warp Zone card. And even then, it might not be the Rolen as there were 15 players included in this insert set. I missed out on the last one of these offered for sale on eBay, but I was lucky enough to snag this one at a great BIN price!
1998 Topps Tek - #88 Pattern 7. These cards are becoming more and more difficult to find. With 90 different patterns in the set it seems like whenever I find one for sale, I already have it. With the addition of this pattern, I now have 59 of the 90 patterns. We won't even talk about the diffractor parallels since I only have one of those. When I saw this pattern show up for sale, I couldn't hit the BIN fast enough!
2021 Topps - 1986 Topps Baseball 35th Anniversary Autographs Gold 86A-SR, SN/50. Since I already had the regular version of this card as well as the black parallel, I figured I would pick this one up when the price came back down to earth. Sales for this card have been all over the place, but I was able to pick this one up for a steal of a price. Now if I could just find the red version for a reasonable price to add to the collection.
1998 Bowman - Certified Gold Autograph #17. I have been searching for this card for years, so I was beyond excited when I saw one listed on eBay with an incredibly low BIN. The gold foil below the Bowman logo is what differentiates this card from the blue and silver versions. This gold version was seeded at 1:2,976 packs with an estimated print run of only 25 copies!
The seller accidentally sent me the blue foil version at first so I was disappointed and thought that my search for the gold foil card would have to continue. Luck was on my side though, as when I reached out to the seller, they informed me that they had the gold foil version and they would send it out to me immediately. After a few days the card arrived in the mail and the search has ended.
1998 Finest Centurion - Refractor C4, SN75. I've read several stories about the origin of these cards. If you look at the back side, the serial number formatting doesn't fit that of the pack issued cards. The pack issued cards are serial numbered "0XX /75" whereas this one is just "XX/75." Before I purchased 069 /75 I did quite a bit of research on the serial numbering of these cards because I wanted to make sure I had an authentic, pack pulled, copy of the card. When I saw this one come up for sale, the price was nice enough to entice me into purchasing this version as well. I'm happy to have one of each version of the card. Eventually I would like to add either 69/75 or 044 /75 to have a matching pair.
2004 Bazooka - Blast Bat Relics Parallel 25 SR, SN25. I've been wanting this card for quite some time and missed out on one a few months ago. This one came from another Rolen collector who has been selling his collection for the past couple of weeks. It has a pretty severe crease running through the opening for the game used bat piece, so I would like to eventually replace it with a cleaner copy. Don't let the scan fool you though, this card has a beautiful refractor shine to it which differentiates it from the more common version of the card.
I also picked up a lot of Rolen patch cards. There's a consignor on eBay who is selling lots of different themed Rolen cards. This particular lot contained 17 patch cards, most of which I needed for the collection. After receiving the patch cards in the mail, I finally picked a side of the fence to sit on regarding collecting duplicates of a patch card. I've now decided that I will collect duplicates of patch cards because each patch used is unique. Varying from the super basic single color patch to my personal favorite pieces of the Cardinals bat from the front of their jerseys. There's just something about that bright yellow that draws my eye and makes the overall appeal of the card that much more grand.
Below you will find other cards I've added to the collection this month. Overall, it's been a pretty productive month for me. I've not added any of my "most wanted" cards this month, but I'm a pretty patient guy. And there is certainly no shortage of other cards I need to add while I wait for those big ones to surface.
I've got several more cards in transit that I will be sharing in August. I'm hoping to add at least one more of my "most wanted" cards by the end of September and another by the end of the year. Will that happen?
