Secret Santa Has Arrived!

First off, let’s all take a minute to say a big thank you to Jon at A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts for hosting another successful Secret Santa. This was probably my personal highlight in terms of collecting in 2019. Waiting for my Secret Santa package to arrive admittedly gave me a the good old kid-on-Christmas feeling. I also had tons of fun putting together a package for my Secret Santa, Henry at Cardboard Greats. He recently posted a recap of what I sent him if you’re interested in checking it out.

I received my secret Santa package last week in the form of a bubble mailer. I didn’t recognize the return address, so I had a feeling this was the surprise that I had been waiting for. Upon opening the mailer I was greeted by a nice typed letter revealing my Secret Santa as Jim, who joined the fun via The Trading Card Database. Jim mentioned in his letter that our collecting habits didn’t exactly align so he didn’t have a lot to send my way. So what did he do?

Jim went out and bought something that he knew I’d love. HOW COOL! This really resonates with me. If you’re going to join a Secret Santa to voluntarily send a stranger a gift, I’d say you’re a kind and generous person. But Jim took it to the next level by going out of his way and spending some money to get send something that he knew I’d enjoy. No matter what was in the packs, I was already overjoyed.

I’ve opened several packs of 2019 Topps Chrome Update and I have yet to pull a base card from “THE guy” of 2019 baseball collecting. You know who I’m talking about:

There he is. 

I for one am not a believer of the Vlad Jr. hype – or least the level of hype that he’s getting. I think he’s going to be very good in the MLB, but I haven’t seen enough to merit the first ballot HOF acclaim that he’s been garnering and I certainly wouldn’t pay the sky high prices for his rookie cards. But to pull one out of a pack that was a gift? Now we’re talking! This will be archived with my other rookies and revisited someday.

Out of all the Topps Chrome Update that I’ve ripped, it’s been exclusively Mega Boxes which do not include the Pink Parallel packs. Those are exclusive to hanger packs.

This could have gone a whole lot worse! Chavis is an exciting rookie on a promising team. I don’t know much about this other dude – but it’s a chrome rookie parallel, and I’ll never complain about that.

Aside the packs, Jim also threw in a few Pirates and one awesome Steelers card:

I’ll be honest – These two names are new to me and I had to hop on Google to learn who these guys are... and wow, I'm glad I did. Both of these guys have some cool stories:

Dick Stuart enjoyed a 10 year career in the majors after serving briefly in the military. He had a handful of nicknames due to his subpar fielding abilities, such as "Dr. Strangeglove" and "Stonefingers," which was given to him by none other than Hank Aaron. At the plate, it was a different story. The slugger finished his career with 228 home runs. In 1963 on the Red Sox, he hit 42 home runs and led the majors with 118 RBI. 

On the topic of nicknames, Richard "Ducky" Schofield also enjoyed a great career. While his statistics wouldn't indicate anything special (career .221 hitter, 21 HR and 211 RBI in 19 seasons), he played for nineteen damn years! He must have been doing something right. In 1960, he took over at shortstop in September after the legendary Dick Groat broke his wrist, and Ducky batted .403 for the rest of the season. He was instrumental in the playoff run, any Pirates fan and most baseball fans can tell you how the 1960 ended. He's also got one pretty autograph.

To wrap it up, a beautiful 2007 Topps Chrome Hines Ward Refractor. I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again – Pirates and Steelers cards look sensational with black, yellow, and gold borders. This card is no exception. The black border matching with the black jersey is such a smooth combination.

Thanks again to Jim for this awesome Secret Santa package, and thanks to Jon for hosting. Until next year!

Bowman Chrome X

Earlier this week, Topps stirred up some news by partnering with a company called StockX to bring a new product offer to baseball card collectors: Bowman Chrome X. In this post, I’ll try my best to break down what it is, how it worked, and I’ll also share my thoughts at the end.

The Product: Bowman Chrome X – What is it?

Box Chrome X is essentially a “hobby box” that contains one baseball card. All cards are:

• Green X-Fractor parallels.
• A rookie or prospect.
• Numbered to 31
• Pre-graded a 9 or a 10 by PSA.
• NON-Autos.
• Cases are also offered. Cases have five boxes, but also an added incentive – one of the five boxes will include a hit off a special checklist:

OK. Now we’ve got the product down. Now, how were they sold? This is where it gets interesting. Bowman Chrome X was offered through a website called StockX, who sold the product through an IPO (Initial Public Offering). This model is loosely based off the stock market when a company “goes public” - when a company goes from a privately held company to publicly-traded company. The IPO gives investors the chance to be the first to buy stock.

So how does this come into play with Bowman Chrome X? How does a StockX IPO Work?

• StockX IPOs are a blind auction.
• Customers place anonymous bids on items – they can bid whatever amount they’re comfortable spending.
• Once the auction has ended, the top bids that match the quantity in stock for that specific size will win the item.
• For example, if there are 100 boxes available, then the top 100 bids will win the boxes.
• However, all winners will be charged the same amount - this is what is called the 'Clearing Price'.
• The Clearing Price is the lowest winning bid of the 100 mentioned above. This means that even if you had the highest Bid at $1,000, if the Clearing Price is only $200, then you win the box for just $200.
• Think of it this way: Using the example above, the bids are ranked 1-100, highest to lowest, and the clearing price is whatever #100 bid.
• Bidders are notified within 24 hours if they won or not.

If you’re still confused on the process, I highly recommend checking out this 90-second YouTube video from StockX that explains it very well.

OK – Now we’ve got this down. So what happened?

• The IPO for Bowman Chrome X went live last week and closed on 10/30/19, 8:00 PM EST.
• The quantities offered in the IPO were 1,100 individual boxes, and 400 5-box cases.
• After bidding closed, the StockX website stated that over 2,100 bids were received for boxes. I did not see a bid number for cases.
• According to what I’ve found on Twitter – which I believe to be legit due to tweets from multiple winners – the clearing prices ended at $50/box, and $300/case, plus $12-15 shipping.

My thoughts?

1) I tried to get involved. I’ll admit it. I bit! This a brand new concept, and it was something I couldn’t help but get involved with. I like Chrome and shiny new things… so I thought I’d give it a spin. I put in a bid for one box and one case, hoping that I could throw in a low-ball offer on each and get involved at a decent price. For better or worse, my bids were under the clearing price. I didn’t miss the box price by a ton but I was way under on the case price. No Bowman Chrome X for me.

After seeing the clearing prices, I’m glad I’m not spending that kind of money on 1 or 5 baseball cards. And I guess that's the beauty of this - I wouldn't be comfortable paying $50/box plus shipping... and, I'm not paying that! I submitted my bid, and my bid wasn't high enough. 

2) I'm not sure I trust the results and the clearing price. It's interesting. If the clearing prices are truly $50 and $300, those seem to be strangely round numbers, no? If you have over 1,100 people bid on something, and the 1,100 highest bidder is the one that sets the price - don't you figure it would be some obscure number? Like $48.78? I have a hard time believing that they happened to land cleanly on $50 and $300. 

Furthermore, I've read rumors on Twitter that StockX has notified box winners that they can buy more boxes. But... If there were 1,100 boxes, and over 2,100 bids, how the heck are there more boxes for sale? 

To add another layer, now the StockX Bowman X webpage is still showing that there were 1,013 bids. So, wouldn't that mean that the clearing price should be at whatever #1,013 bid? And since that's the lowest bid, we know that bid is the guy who put in $.01. 

3) The IPO concept is definitely cool - if it's legit. As stated above, I certainly question the validity of this. But if it's actually a legit offering, it's really cool in the sense that it empowers consumers to set the market price.

4) I will be watching these cards closely when they hit the market. And you know that won't take long. There are already boxes and cases listed on eBay for ridiculous prices, and thankfully, none of them have sold yet. Eventually they will sell, but I'm hoping they don't sell too high above the clearing price. This would only encourage flippers. As for the boxes that are opened - you can bank on the Vlad Jr. and Bichette PSA 10s going for a good price. Beyond that, I'm interested to see what these cards sell for. 

If you've made it this far, I'm SUPER curious to hear your thoughts. Did you consider getting on the Bowman X action? Did you bid? How do you feel about this type of product offering?