San Francisco Tri-Star Show - A Second Chance

A few months after I started this blog, and got back into collecting again, I went to the big semi-annual Tri-Star collectors show at the Cow Palace in Daly City. I was a little disappointed in the show last year, as it was not as nice as I had remembered in being, but I was hoping that this year would be better.

I hadn't been to a show since then (gone are the days where there is one practically every weekend at some nearby Holiday Inn or strip mall), so I decided to give it another chance. My collection had certainly grown since then, as I had 41 post 2001 cards (about when I initially stopped collecting) at the time, and now I have 331!

I trekked the two hours from Sacramento, and after waiting outside in the rain (they refused to open the doors even one minute before 10am), it was time to browse. I know everyone probably has their own strategies for "attacking" a card show, but I like to take a quick look around first, and see if anything jumps out at me. I then go back for a second trip, carefully stopping at each table (unless it's filled with something like Pokemon cards, which really don't belong at these type of shows). This strategy paid off this time, as I was able to snag a pretty cool new Rickey collectible.





This is a 10-piece Rickey Henderson "puzzle" pin set that the A's are currently selling a the Coliseum. The large "pin" at the top is probably about 2" square, with each of the gold circle being individual pins, as well as the four other quadrants and the A's logo in the middle. The name plate at the bottom is even a large pin, which I didn't realize until I took a closer look at it for this post.

Jim over at tastelikedirt actually just e-mailed me a picture of this last week (the first I'd seen of it), which also contained it's $40 price tag. That's a bit pricey for a pin, but I was able to get it for half off at the show, which definitely made it worth the trip.



My next find was the premiere issue (I'm not sure how long it lasted, but probably not very) of Trading Cards magazine from July 1991, which I got for only a buck. Rickey has been on the cover of a lot of a lot of magazines over his approximately 25-year career, and while I don't usually pick up the regular baseball magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Inside Sports, I do like to collect any baseball card related magazines on which he is featured.



This was the other magazines I picked up, and it's actually the current issue of "Beckett Graded Card Investor & Price Guide" (not the most memorable name), which Beckett had available at their booth. I'll feature both of the Rickey articles in these magazines in the near future. The Trading Card magazine also has a few interesting non-Rickey articles, including one on why Fleer and Donruss had to initially include stickers and puzzles in their packs of cards.



Here's two of the seven Rickey cards that I was able to pick up from the show. I was holding out hope that everyone would bring out their Rickey cards, considering this was the first major show in the Bay Area since his HOF induction, but that didn't seem to be the case. The card on the top is a 2004 Leaf Certified Cuts jersey, numbered out of 100. The bottom card is a 2005 Studio Heritage jersey numbered out of 250. The green swatch on the top card is nice, as is the fact that they both feature him playing with the A's.



These next two cards are actually Topps stickers from 1989 and 1990 respectively. The look pretty ordinary from the front, but then you flip them over...



I know that's not the most exciting picture, but both of these stickers are blank backed. They actually started an interesting trend, as the three remaining cards that I picked up also become more interesting when flipped over.



Here's a 2003 Playoff Portraits of Rickey, once again featuring him as an Athletic.



But, flip it over, and it's a dual jersey and bat card numbered to only 25 copies.



This next card is a 2004 Playoff Honors Players Collection jersey, which features a nice black swatch of jersey from his time with the Mariners.



Flip it over, and you'll see that it's numbered 24/25. Cards serial numbered to Rickey's jersey number always sell for a premium, so it's nice to pick one up for a normal price, and then get a nice surprise when flipped over.



Here's what looks to be Rickey's base card from 1999 Skybox Molten Metal. But, flip it over...



And it is also blank backed. It is fairly common to find blank backed and printer error cards from Topps sets in the late 1980's, but anything more recent is usually pretty hard to come by.

So, although there wasn't the deluge of Rickey items that I was hoping for, I still added some great cards to the collection, including some nice oddball pick-ups. Unless things change unexpectedly, there won't be any Sacramento shows in the near future, and I'll find myself in Daly City once again a year from now.

Another Rickey Card in 2008: Tri-Star Signa-Cuts

Whenever a new checklist comes out, I always quickly scan it over to see if Rickey is included, but usually come away disappointed. When the TriStar Signa Cuts Baseball Edition checklist was released early last year, I saw that Rickey was included, but quickly forgot about the release.

First, I knew that the card would be extremely short-printed, and I'd never be able to afford it anyway. And second, based on the Franken-cards that I'd seen from Tri-Star's cut signature sets, I knew it was not going to be the most attractive card.

I received an e-mail from Ken (a fellow Rickey collector) last week, with scans of the Rickey card, which was the first time that I had seen it.

As expected, this card is horrendous! I don't see why they felt the need to hack a perfectly good signed card to pieces, and then put a little frame around it. To make matters worse, the 1985 Fleer card that they used was not the most exciting release in the first place.

Plus, considering that the main point of this card is the signature, it looks like he signed it while on a riding mower! It's definitely not one of the better Rickey sigs I've ever seen.

The back of the card features the typical legal jargon. It doesn't list the print run, but Ken says that only 2 were produced. I'm curious as to if the other card also features a similar mangled Fleer card, or if it is actually a different card that has been encapsulated.

Of all the signed Rickey Henderson cards that are out there, you'd think they could have purchased one that was a little nicer, especially considering that they only needed to buy two of them!

Other than the Prime Cuts game-used card that accidentally leaked out, this was the only card produced of Rickey in 2008. But, given the look of the card, I think the hobby would have been much better without it! I'm still holding out hope for better luck in 2009.

San Francisco TriStar Collectibles Show

As I mentioned at the end of my last blog, I went to the annual TriStar Collectibles show held at the Cow Palace in San Francisco (well, it's actually in Daly City).

I hadn't been to a large card show in about 10 years, and I was actually quite disappointed. I'd been to quite a few TriStar shows during the 90's, and a remember them being a lot larger than the one this weekend, and it's not just because I was a lot smaller at the time.





I'd estimate that over half of the dealers specialized in pre-1950's cards, with another large percentage focused mainly on high dollar modern inserts and autographs. There was not one dealer that had any Rickey cards set aside. But, it wasn't just Rickey, but base cards in general, as it would have even been hard for A-Rod and Iricho fans to add to their collections (for under $50 a card at least). If I remember correctly, Beckett lists at least 2,500 (correction: it's actually 2,997) different Rickey cards produced from 2002 to the present. Since I've been out of the hobby for awhile, I only have about 50 of those, so I came to the show with high hopes of increasing my collection. Boy, was I wrong!



The card on the left is the ONLY non-autograph or game-used Rickey card that I was able to find at the show. There were a handful of pre-2002 cards that I already had (which I found by searching through a few stacks of "A's player" cards), but this 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings Legend card was all I could come up with. I did come across probably a dozen or so game-used cards, and decided to add these two relatively cheaper ones to my collection.



The middle card is a 2004 Donruss Timelines "Boys of Summer" #21, serial numbered 4 out of 100. The card on the right is a 2004 Donruss Diamond Kings "Flashback" #153, serial numbered 12 out of 30. These cards both featured dual game-used pieces, including a bat chip and swatch of gray jersey. I have a few game-used Rickey cards, some featuring bat pieces, and others jerseys, but none featuring both, which is why I decided to add these to my collection.

Although I struck out on the card front, I did manage to add a few nice oddball items to my collection.



I have about 10-15 postal cachet's featuring Rickey, but all have been postmarked and stamped from inside the United States. I therefore found this cachet from the 1991 All-Star game in Toronto, Canada rather intriguing. The cachet was stamped in Toronto on "9.VI.91," which I'm assuming is Canadian for July 9, 1991.



I also picked up a few 1980 Topps cards that I had been wanting, the backs of which I've shown here. On the left is the A's team card for the year, which I already have, but someone had already "checked off" the cards that they had. On the right is the Topps checklist for cards #364-484, which includes Rickey's rookie card, #482. I don't normally collect checklists featuring Rickey's name, but wanted to make an exception for his rookie card.

I also picked up two magazines that I'd never seen before, and am really excited to have, as well as a couple postcards, but I'll save those for my next post.