Anyone Familiar With SGC Grading?

We'll get to that question in a minute - first some PC adds. Over the past month or two I've spent a lot of time searching for, purchasing, and showcasing the Pirates gold refractors. While the gold has been flowing in and that's my top collecting priority, I'm also constantly on the hunt for black refractors as well.

Mitch Keller - 2019 Topps Update Silver Pack 1984 Topps Baseball Chrome Black Refractor  #/199

This came to me through through a recent PWE swap through TCDB. I must say, as a newcomer I'm really enjoying trading on the site. Even though I'm not a set builder, I'm a team collector, and I'm finding that it's a really great way to turn unwanted cards into wanted Pirates cards. The "cost" of acquiring this card was a Miguel Andujar base rookie, a 2018 Mike Trout base card and a few other commons. My trade partner also sent me two Bryan Reynolds rookie cards and another parallel that I'll highlight in a future post. This card would run me $5-$10 and chances are I would have eventually bought it - so this a big win.

(L) Cole Tucker - 2014 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Chrome Black Refractor #/75

I wish someone had this available for trade too, but the black refractor on the left is my most recent eBay pickup. Two weeks ago I spotlighted the same card but that was the gold refractor (pictured right). This is the first "black and gold" combination I've acquired. 

Gerrit Cole - 2013 Topps Chrome Black Refractor #/100

On to my SGC question.

I've been keeping my eye out for this card for a while. It's been the most difficult component of the 2013 Topps Chrome black refractor Pirates team set, which consists of four other cards - Andrew McCutchen, Russell Martin, Startling Marte, and Justin Wilson. I don't own that many graded cards. Maybe 12-15 total - but all of the ones that I own are either from BGS or PSA. In fact, I'd never even heard of SGC until I saw this card, so needless to say this is the first SGC in my collection. I wasn't searching for a graded copy. In fact, if I had my pick I would prefer this card raw, but the price on the card was the same as the raw cards have gone for. So I pulled the trigger. The condition of the card isn't of terrible importance to me in this case.

I am curious, though. I see that it is "Mint" and looks to have received a grade of 9 for *something*, but also a grade of 96. Is that a scale of 1-100? If so, what's the 9 under Mint for?

Has anyone reading ever graded with SGC? Any and all advice is appreciated...

Weekly Additions to the Pirates Gold Room

The quest for gold bordered Pirates cards continues. This week features another pair of 2019 rookies who will play a large role in the success of the team moving forward.

Bryan Reynolds - 2016 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Chrome Gold Refractor #/50

Bryan Reynolds - 2019 Topps Update Gold Refractor Autograph #/50

With regards to the card on top, I'm bending the rules a bit for the Pirates Gold Room. The idea of collecting gold parallels was to "match" the gold border with the gold colors the you'll find on all Pirates jerseys. Reynolds was still with the Giants for his coveted 1st Bowman card - and orange sure as heck doesn't match with gold. Thankfully his almost-all-black jersey is pretty close to the Pirates colors. I'll let it slide.

I've learned something about myself as a collector: I don't mind collecting cards that picture my favorite player on their former teams. Ideally all of my Pirates cards would have the guys in Pittsburgh jerseys, but if they came via trade, I'm perfectly fine with them donning another team's threads. Even the Yankees... *eye roll*

How about you - will you collect your favorite players wearing their former team's colors? Or do you want your PC cards to only display your teams' logo?

Both of the cards above came to my attention through one of my eBay saved searches, which is about as broad as they get: "Bryan Reynolds Gold." I'm a huge fan of the saved search option on eBay.

The listing was for three cards total - it included both of the Reynolds cards above - but it had two copies of the 2016 BDPP Chrome! It was a Buy It Now, and the price seemed a little low to me. The price would have been fair if it were for just these two cards, so the extra copy of the 2016 BDPP seemed like a real bonus. I jumped on it just hours after it was listed. It might have flown a little under-the-radar since the cards were in a "lot." I've read that eBay sellers that are looking to maximize profit should avoid selling in lots since high-value cards in the group can get watered down by the rest of the cards. I'm thinking I may have been on the right of the the deal!

  

Cole Tucker - 2014 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Chrome Gold Refractor #/50

Gold refractor, or mustard yellow refractor? 

It seems that some time between 2014 and 2016, Topps changed their definition of gold. The two Reynolds cards seem to shine and pop a little brighter than gold refractors back in 2014. Not complaining, this card is still a beauty and looks better in-hand than on the scanner.

I wrote a bit about Cole Tucker in my previous post when Gavin hooked me up with my first Tucker auto - he's a first round draft pick and should be the Pirates shortstop of the future. It's kind of crazy to think that this card is already six years old, and Tucker is only 23 years old and made his MLB debut last year. When this card was printed, Tucker had just turned 18 and just graduated high school. I can't imagine being printed on baseball cards a few months after I graduated high school. On the other hand, it's also hard to fathom grown men paying lots of money for those cards, and yet here we are!

Thanks for reading.

Mailday! ...And I Finally Joined TCDB

One of my oldest trade partners, Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown came through with a sweet PWE this week. I dug way back in the blog archives and discovered that Gavin and I first traded in November of 2013. Almost seven years of trading sports cards - that's a hell of a run and I'm pretty grateful for that.

I sent Gavin a stack of random stuff - a handful of players on his PC and an extra Joe Musgrove autograph that I had. There were even some basketball cards thrown in. In return, Gavin sent me back some great Buccos cards.

(L) Jordy Mercer - 2018 Topps Big League Gold Parallel

(M) Ralph Kiner - 2001 Fleer Greats of the Game

(R) Ralph Kiner - 2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites

I've never purchased any Topps Big League packs, but many of these cards have made their way to me through trade. I'm cool with that. The first card I pulled out of the PWE was the Jordy Mercer BL card. Even better, a gold parallel, which of course looks awesome on Pirates cards. This marks my third Jordy Mercer gold parallel.

(L) Jameson Taillon - 2016 Bowman's Best Blue Rookie Refractor #/250 RC

(R) Tyler Glasnow - 2013 Bowman Platinum Prospects Green Refractor #/399

Bowman's best is another product I haven't purchased any boxes or packs of, but have acquired a lot of cards individually. The cards are clean and they've had some great checklists for Pirates. This Taillon rookie is really nice. My favorite part of the card is the gold "P" logo in the background. The Glasnow prospect card is a great addition as well. I don't look for it any more, but I opened a ton of Bowman Platinum back in the day. 

The big prize of the PWE comes in the form of my first Cole Tucker autograph. The Pirates first round draft pick in 2014 is (or was?) likely to be their starting shortstop this year. His autographs have been a little too pricey for me. At only 23 years old, I suppose he's still considered a high-ceiling prospect. I was really excited to get my hands on this trough trade. Big thanks, Gavin!

(Clockwise)

James Conner - 2016 Donruss Rated Rookie

Austin Meadows - 2018 Topps Update

Tyler Glasnow - 2017 Topps

PNC Park - 2019 Topps

In other news, I finally joined the TCDB a few weeks ago. Not only did I join, but I'm proud to say that I have finished cataloguing my entire collection of 4,730 cards. Compared to most collectors on the site, I realize that less than 5,000 cards is an incredibly small number. I live in an apartment. I also move a lot for my job, and frankly I just hate having a ton of cards eating up storage space.

The bigger story here is that I catalogued every last one of those cards one-by-one, card by card. Boy did it take a while. That's the real reason I think it took me so long to sign up - I found the prospect of manually uploading thousands of sports cards to be a bit daunting. Furthermore, I organize my cards by team - not by set - so it really made things interesting. Eventually I figured out a system and was able to get several hundred cards uploaded each time I sat down. 

This was all possible because of quarantine. Without the extra time, I don't know if I would have undertaken the project. Cataloguing cards has become a fun and productive use of my time to fill the random gaps during the day - between work calls and such. 

I received my first trade proposal last week. A collector from Florida requested four cards that I had, and he asked me to check out his trade list. I found the four cards above and the deal was quickly accepted. The PWE was in my mailbox just a few days later. I'm really excited to continue on, hopefully turning lots of random base cards into Pirates cards that I want. That's the whole idea, right?