When it comes to set building, even Da Babe has questions in this day and age of parallel sets and short-prints.
It all came to the forefront last year as I checked out a card show in Medford, N.Y.
Da Babe spotted a short-printed rookie card needed to fill a 2008-09 Topps basketball set. The only problem was the card was a parallel with gold foil printing on the front.
The dealer, looking to make a sale, assured me that any collector would be pleased to find a rarer parallel card as part of the set. Da Babe wasn't so sure and passed. It turned out to be the right move.
"Base cards only make up sets nowadays, no parallels,'' said Scott Kelnhofer, former editor of Sports Collectors Digest.
"I think the hobby looks at sets in a couple ways,'' said Brian Fleischer, a senior market analyst for Beckett. "I think generally, 'set collectors' try and get one of each base card. For 2008 Topps, for example, they'd want one of every base card. I think this type of collector sees parallels almost like insert sets and doesn't consider them part of the set. Part of the product? Yes. Part of the set? No.
"Now for some products like the Topps Heritage brand, there are 'master set collectors.' These are collectors who go after everything issued in a product. Base cards, parallels, inserts, game-used, autographs _ everything. These types of collectors are few and far between and are pretty hardcore.''
There are certainly plenty of choices out there. In recent years Topps has had cards with gold foil printing, black, gold and platinum parallels for its regular baseball, basketball and football products. There were also parallels with numbers in red on the back. Topps Chrome 2008 had refractors as parallels. There were blue refractors, copper ones numbered to 599 and red ones numbered to 25.
"What gets people angry (set collecting purists) are the short-printed rookies, which make it almost impossible to build sets from packs,'' Kelnhofer set.
In these instances, there is a base set and then a number of short-printed cards (usually rookies and sometimes numbered). Unlike parallels and inserts, short-prints are considered part of a set.
Kelnhofer may have hit the nail on the head when he mentioned the inability to build sets from packs. With card shops and shows on the decline, most collectors turn to Internet shops and auction sites at some point.
Methinks the card manufacturers realized this trend and created the short-prints, knowing collectors would be able to complete their sets by surfing the Internet.
This approach is definitely the only way the five folks who put together Upper Deck's massive 6,661-card Yankee Stadium Legacy insert set that has a card for every game played at the old Yankee Stadium -- from 1927 through the final game in 2008.
Dear Babe: I have a Chipper Jones Topps rookie card that is signed. Do you think the signature is real or machine signed? -- Richard Rhodes, Atlanta.
I doubt Jones was using an autopen in 1991 when your Topps card was issued. The signature on the photocopy you sent does not look like Jones' signature today. Many athletes' signatures change over time. While it doesn't apply to today's rookies and high school prospects, many older athletes had nice, readable signatures when they first appeared on the national scene. The question is when Jones allegedly signed your card. If it's supposedly a more recent signature, I'd have my doubts.
If it's from 17 years ago anything is possible. That's why there are authenticators out there. However, it's probably not worthwhile to have the signature authenticated. I answered another question on signed Jones rookie cards a few months ago, saying they might be worth $15-$25. Usually, cards are not the best choice when it comes to autographs.
(Send card questions to Babe Waxpak, PO Box 492397, Redding, CA 96049-2397 or e-mail babewaxpak(at)charter.net. If possible, include card number, year and brand or a photocopy. Please do not send cards. For Babe Waxpak's blog, see www.scrippsnews.com/waxpak. Babe Waxpak is a feature of The Record Searchlight in Redding, Calif.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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