Jeter card creates hunt for treasure
Jeter card creates hunt for treasure
By: Gene Morris
Tuesday, March 6, 2007 4:16 PM CST
It has been a good 26 years since I’ve opened packs of baseball cards with the frenzy I did last week. I got caught up in the hunt for the 2007 Topps No. 40 card of Derek Jeter.
The baseball card has been all over the news and, no doubt, was a driving source behind sales of the newly released issue.
Someone in the graphic design department at Topps digitally altered a photograph of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter swinging the bat at the plate. Standing in the dugout with a bat over his shoulder in the lower left corner of the card, is none other than Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle. President George W. Bush is waving in the stands on the upper right.
Please. Like a ploy of that nature would really sell more baseball cards.
So there I was at the Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Paola, buying boxes and then packs of baseball cards looking for the error.
It wasn’t my fault. Seriously. I had been traumatized.
Unable to sleep last Wednesday night, more than a little frazzled after getting caught in quite a thunderstorm coming home from taking pictures at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Union Station in Kansas City, I came across a newspaper with a picture of this “error” card of Jeter.
What is a baseball card collector to do? I had to go hunting for this card.
Besides, it was 2 a.m. and I didn’t really need to hear about some fountain of youth facial cream, learn how seaweed pills could change my life forever or study some plan on how to buy and sell real estate with no money down.
At the very least, this hunt for Jeter would keep me occupied.
On my first of three trips to Wal-Mart, I decided to buy a couple of boxes with 10 six-card packs in each one for $9.95. Opening those 20 packs, a total of 120 cards, yielded not one Jeter card.
I opened more and more packs. Even I have to admit this was a bit crazy after the seventh box. For those of you scoring at home, that’s zero Jeter error cards in 70 packs for a total of 420 cards.
“You are certainly determined,” one of the Wal-Mart associates said upon my return. “I would have given up by now.”
With no more of the special 10-pack boxes left, I moved on to the regular packs. I went through 30 of the $1.99, 12-card packs and finally pulled out the Jeter error card.
I put the card in a screw-down protective holder when I got home and showed it off at work later that morning. I got to thinking there had to be at least one more card of Jeter in the Wal-Mart shipment. Didn’t there? I went back out to the store Thursday afternoon. I had left all of 15 packs from 2007 Topps in their inventory.
Buying them one pack at a time, I got another Jeter card on the second pack and called it good.
My first Jeter card set me back about $130 in packs. The second, coming in only two packs, was less than $5. I should have started with just the two packs.
What is it worth? Well, the card is selling on eBay for anywhere from $30 on up to more than $300.
Rumors have surfaced that this card will be pulled and replaced with a corrected version for subsequent releases of the series’ one-packs.
If that happens, the error Jeter card with Mantle and Bush could skyrocket to the $500 range.
But the real fun is the hunt. The 2007 Topps cards are a winner anyway with the throwback 1971, black-border style and the updated pictures of players like Alfonso Soriano in a Cubs uniform and Gil Meche in a Royals jersey.
The series features some great insert sets with Distinguished Service, including President Harry Truman; three Mantle subsets with one featuring the classic 1952 Topps design; Own the Game; and Generation Now with today’s top young players.
When I started collecting baseball cards at the age of 7 in 1976, there wasn’t near as much to think about. I didn’t have to decide which brand to buy ? it was just Topps.
I got in some trouble with my parents for wasting my candy money on “worthless” pieces of cardboard, and the bubble gum had to be turned over to them, too. I tried some of it years later, and as it turns out, I wasn’t missing much.
You can’t put gum in packs today. Why, the collectors would get hopping mad if you messed up their rookie card with a gum stain.
I remember when a $5 lawn mowing job would load you up with a Big Gulp and 16 packs of cards.
What’s $130 to feel like a kid again and bring back some good memories? Ah, let the games begin with the hope that springs eternal.
This site and its contents Copyright © 2007 The Greater Kansas City Community Newspaper Group
By: Gene Morris
Tuesday, March 6, 2007 4:16 PM CST
It has been a good 26 years since I’ve opened packs of baseball cards with the frenzy I did last week. I got caught up in the hunt for the 2007 Topps No. 40 card of Derek Jeter.
The baseball card has been all over the news and, no doubt, was a driving source behind sales of the newly released issue.
Someone in the graphic design department at Topps digitally altered a photograph of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter swinging the bat at the plate. Standing in the dugout with a bat over his shoulder in the lower left corner of the card, is none other than Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle. President George W. Bush is waving in the stands on the upper right.
Please. Like a ploy of that nature would really sell more baseball cards.
So there I was at the Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Paola, buying boxes and then packs of baseball cards looking for the error.
It wasn’t my fault. Seriously. I had been traumatized.
Unable to sleep last Wednesday night, more than a little frazzled after getting caught in quite a thunderstorm coming home from taking pictures at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Union Station in Kansas City, I came across a newspaper with a picture of this “error” card of Jeter.
What is a baseball card collector to do? I had to go hunting for this card.
Besides, it was 2 a.m. and I didn’t really need to hear about some fountain of youth facial cream, learn how seaweed pills could change my life forever or study some plan on how to buy and sell real estate with no money down.
At the very least, this hunt for Jeter would keep me occupied.
On my first of three trips to Wal-Mart, I decided to buy a couple of boxes with 10 six-card packs in each one for $9.95. Opening those 20 packs, a total of 120 cards, yielded not one Jeter card.
I opened more and more packs. Even I have to admit this was a bit crazy after the seventh box. For those of you scoring at home, that’s zero Jeter error cards in 70 packs for a total of 420 cards.
“You are certainly determined,” one of the Wal-Mart associates said upon my return. “I would have given up by now.”
With no more of the special 10-pack boxes left, I moved on to the regular packs. I went through 30 of the $1.99, 12-card packs and finally pulled out the Jeter error card.
I put the card in a screw-down protective holder when I got home and showed it off at work later that morning. I got to thinking there had to be at least one more card of Jeter in the Wal-Mart shipment. Didn’t there? I went back out to the store Thursday afternoon. I had left all of 15 packs from 2007 Topps in their inventory.
Buying them one pack at a time, I got another Jeter card on the second pack and called it good.
My first Jeter card set me back about $130 in packs. The second, coming in only two packs, was less than $5. I should have started with just the two packs.
What is it worth? Well, the card is selling on eBay for anywhere from $30 on up to more than $300.
Rumors have surfaced that this card will be pulled and replaced with a corrected version for subsequent releases of the series’ one-packs.
If that happens, the error Jeter card with Mantle and Bush could skyrocket to the $500 range.
But the real fun is the hunt. The 2007 Topps cards are a winner anyway with the throwback 1971, black-border style and the updated pictures of players like Alfonso Soriano in a Cubs uniform and Gil Meche in a Royals jersey.
The series features some great insert sets with Distinguished Service, including President Harry Truman; three Mantle subsets with one featuring the classic 1952 Topps design; Own the Game; and Generation Now with today’s top young players.
When I started collecting baseball cards at the age of 7 in 1976, there wasn’t near as much to think about. I didn’t have to decide which brand to buy ? it was just Topps.
I got in some trouble with my parents for wasting my candy money on “worthless” pieces of cardboard, and the bubble gum had to be turned over to them, too. I tried some of it years later, and as it turns out, I wasn’t missing much.
You can’t put gum in packs today. Why, the collectors would get hopping mad if you messed up their rookie card with a gum stain.
I remember when a $5 lawn mowing job would load you up with a Big Gulp and 16 packs of cards.
What’s $130 to feel like a kid again and bring back some good memories? Ah, let the games begin with the hope that springs eternal.
This site and its contents Copyright © 2007 The Greater Kansas City Community Newspaper Group
posted by Walking Contradiction at 11:10 PM
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