ISA Grading Ad...Really guys?

ISA Grading Takes Professionalism Seriously

I'm not trying to say I'm perfect and never mispell anything or use questionable grammer, but then again I'm not doing this for a living and I'm not trying to turn this blog into a business. So I don't mind if I make a mistake here or there and my readers catch them. But I was floored when I first saw this ad for ISA Grading in a magazine.

It's just one of my pet peeves I guess, but before a company sends something to print, or pays to have something produced, or what have you, I think I should be able to hold them to a higher standard than myself. Especially if they are trying to introduce themselves to potential customers and they would like to be taken seriously.

Here is the ad that had me so annoyed...

The first time I read through the ad, I found four problems. Four. Are they serious? How many people read this copy before they sent it to be printed and let their reputation be advertised as this unprofessional?

"Oh, this is were I want to send my cards to be graded. These guys are obviously detail oriented. They reviewed their own ad so closely that only 4 things were missed. I could probably be sure that any card I buy that they have reviewed should have been just as closely examined and that only only 4 scratches, dinged corners, bits of paperloss, spots of writing, or any other problem that would normally downgrade a card should be missed as well. In other words, a card they say is a '10' could have up to 4 blatant condition issues."

Let's take a closer look now.

1. They failed to capitalize their own name: In the first sentence, they typed their name "international Sports Authentication".

2. They offer "expert grading, great rates, and quick turnaroudn".

3. They ensure a "tip-notch" grading relationship as opposed to a "top-notch" one.

4. When informing us of their location, they abbreviate Michigan as "Mi" instead of the proper state abbreviation method of "MI".

I'd love to hear from a representative of the company if they want to claim these were all intentional mistakes and meant as a joke.

Hats off to ISA. You guys are true profesiionally dedecaded to makeing me feel like i'm getting the bestest review of the cards I collact.

Enjoy the hobby all.

Recent Pick Ups

I've been getting a bunch of new stuff lately, both on the internet and from the last Philly Show. Is it still called the Philly Show by the way, really? Anyway, I really like that show even if some of the dealers complain about the table prices going up since Heritage started running it.

I'll try to get scans of all my new cards as well as other things, but my scanner isn't working right now. My old computer crashed and when we got a new one, we kept our old Dell printer/scanner and I can't get it to work yet with the new HP computer.

I do have images of these three new items however, and am happy to share them with you.

First up: Two new cards for my horizontal collection. These aren't baseball cards, but I really don't care. They are E77 American Caramel Co. "Prize Fighter Caramels".

I've been liking these horizontal boxing caramels more and more lately. I have a few of the "Scrappers" set from Philadelphia Caramel Co., so when these ones came up on eBay a little while ago I was excited to have a chance to pick up some examples from a different set.

After winning them, I checked out Adam Warshaw's site that identifies several of the many many different boxing issues and saw that he says that these are "very tough to find". Hey, that's cool and makes me even more happy to have them. I just hope I haven't misidentified them or something.

Okay, so the other card that I have an image of (for now) is an upgrade to one of my Jersey City C46's, John "Rube" Kissinger:

I am always excited to pick up another Jersey City card! I know what you're thinking, "This is an upgrade?" Yes, it's an upgrade.

My first one had some major paperloss on the sides of the front on both sides of his head and it has always bothered me. I picked the first one with the paperloss because I didn't have it yet and needed it. This one will someday be upgraded as well, but I'm very happy to have this one. I'm only missing Butler, Jones and Wells now to complete the 9 card subset.

There were recently a Butler and Jones on eBay but I didn't put my snipe high enough to win them. Them another Jones came up, but it was a little too nice and I knew my high bid wouldn't be enough, so I didn't get that one either. No problem, I'll get them someday.

Well, I know it's not much, only three new cards, but when I get my scanner back up and running, I'll get a lot of scans up for show.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a great one.

Tristar Flop

Like many prewar collectors I'm a big fan of the Obak sets. Between the years 1909 - 1911, packs of Obak cigarettes came with a card featuring players of the Pacific Coast League and the Northwestern League. These cards are widely considered to be some of the most beautiful prewar cards produced.


You can differentiate between the the three years quite easily. The 1909's actually have a slightly different look on the front, and the 1911's have sevaral cards that have a sort of drippy gooey-like background that are only found in that series. But the easiest way to determine the year is by flipping the card ove and looking at the back design; each year has a different back.

1909----------------------1910----------------------1911

While I could go on quite a bit longer on the original Obaks (and I most likely will in a future post), I'm actually writing this post to ask this question: What were they thinking?


"They" are Tristar Productions and they have released a new line of cards (I know what you're thinking, "Modern cards?!") that have borrowed the name of the old Obaks and the back designs for it's modern release. And for some reason, I couldn't resist seeing what they were like.

I was expectedly unimpressed and furthermore left scratching my head at how these things made it past the various stages of design and approval before they started printing them. They did nail the most spectacular part of the Obak design; the amazing sunset backgrounds.


They decided to make the player's image really dark and dropped the quality of the image so much that the guy is actually pixelated like they took the photo with a really cheap 1.5 megapixel camera.


The scan I took actually brightens up the image considerably as the card in hand looks as if there was no light in front of the guy. You can barely see him on the actual card.


Each pack comes with some old timers in there pictured with their minor league squads and this is kind of cool, except they decided to make them black and white images of the players set against the colorful background and they just don't look right.


Here are the ones I got in my pack:



I did get one card in the pack that I'm happy with though. In each pack, you also get a reprint of one of the original Obaks. I got a reprint of one of the most sought after of all original Obaks. It is the Victoria Bees of the Northwestern League player named Ten Million. Yes, that's right, his name is Ten Million. It's written right there on the card.

I've always liked this card and it will be a long time before I can actually afford an original, so it was kind of cool to pull this card from the pack.



It's safe to say I won't be buying any more of these packs, so I'm glad that I got one card I liked out my trial pack.

Happy collecting everyone, enjoy the hobby.

Recent Pick-Up

I thought this was too cool to pass up when I saw it so I tossed a little bid out and ended up with a new piece for my shelf.

I really like items with the centennial logo on them. 1939 and our beloved game was a hundred years old already. Unreal. Anyway, it's not the most amazing pick up but it sure as heck looks pretty cool don't you think?


Good ol' Abner Doubleday in the center of the Centennial logo. I assume all of my readers know that he actually had nothing to do with the creation (or evolution) of the national pastime. Obviously this tidbit of information wasn't known back in 1939.

It's interesting to note that the 1939 record book didn't have the same red border as the other years did. Now, I'm not an expert on these books, so if you know any more info than I do and the fact the color is not red points to this being a fake then please let me know. I have seen others with this same color though, so I'm pretty sure this is authentic.

I like to pick up items that will decorate my office shelves someday when I have a home office that I can turn into my baseball room. Not everything I pick up is so old either, sometimes I pick up some nice modern stuff too. Well, thanks for checking this out and letting me share it with you.

Enjoy the hobby all, we got a great one...

Hobby Reference Not to be Missed

There are many things in life that we take for granted, and whenever I realize that I have been taking something for granted, I try to make up for it in some way.

To that end, I wanted to make sure that anyone who reads my blog is sure to become familiar with one of the very best Vintage/Prewar Baseball Card resources on the internet. If you haven't already become familiar with them, you absolutely MUST check out OldCardboard.com.

They have a wealth of information about our hobby's different vintage baseball card sets. They are focused only on baseball which I particularly like as I don't really collect anything but baseball. Their site is easy to navigate and I am constantly referring back to it for card images or checklists or just some general info about a set.

They offer all of the following for your reference needs:

1. Set descriptions and images - Each featured set has a brief description as well as at least a couple of images to help identify the set.

2. Galleries of tons of sets - Many of the featured sets have full set galleries with images of all cards in the set. The T206 set is one of these and they have images of all 524 cards.

3. Checklists of tons of sets - Most, if not all, of the featured sets have full checklists listed.

4. Links to eBay's top 100 Vintage Card dealers - This is a great reference for when you want to find a new search on eBay.

5. Monthly e-newletter - This is an amazing reference tool with updates to the site listed as well as great articles and upcoming auction info.

6. The best Prewar magazine published today, fittingly called "Old Cardboard" - This is seriously the greatest current vintage baseball card publication out there with well written articles with full color images, set galleries, and even collector profiles.

7. Plus a bunch of great links to all sorts of related sites from collector's personal sites, other references, auction houses, show calendars, etc.

Please check out this outstanding hobby resource if you haven't already. The guys behind the site and the magazine are a couple of great contributors to our hobby and we should all be doing something to support their efforts and help them keep up their great work.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a great one.

New Link :: David B. Vintage

There is one dealer of vintage sports cards and memorabilia that stands out as a truly great and honest seller on eBay. His eBay seller name is davidbvintage and he has recently launched a very nice new website as an additional forum to offer collectors his consignors items.

If you have never dealt with David on eBay you can rest assured that he is the most honest seller out there and he has great stuff to offer.

Do yourself a favor and check out his new site here:

I've also added him on my links at the side of my blog for all of you.

If you have items that you would like to sell, you can consign them to DavidBVintage and have them sold for you on eBay or on his website. Details are on the website. His reputation and feedback level on eBay make him one of the best consignment choices around and I can only imagine his website will be become a wonderful place for vintage collectors to find new additions to their collections as well.

Enjoy the hobby all, it's a super duper one.

Recent Pick Up

I am very excited about this pick up everyone!

On my Jersey City want list, there are a few cards that I am not too confident in my chances of ever picking up. At least not any time in the next several years. This is due to both rarity and cost.

If you follow my blog at all, you know that my budget as a collector is pathetic by most standards. I live on the hope that at some point in my future, I will have gotten far enough into my career that I will be able to really spend what I would like to on cards. Until then, I'm picking up beaters at best.

This is no exception. However, this is one of the cards on my wantlist that I never thought I would find, let alone find in a condition that I could afford and still look presentable.

I submit for your viewing enjoyment a T215 Red Cross Tobacco Billy Purtell of Jersey City. When you're done drooling, please keep reading. :)

This card also exists with the ultra rare Pirate back and, of course, I will be forever trying to find that one in comparible condition so that I may be able to afford it. To be honest, this one was a little out of my price range, but I couldn't let it go.

When else would I ever find one? Of all the Red Cross backs to show up for sale, how often is one specific common going to be the one offered? Know what I mean?

Now, I know what you're thinking, "But Andy, his jersey says Chicago, not Jersey City." And you are correct. But the caption reads Jersey City.

And that's all that matters when you're putting together a wantlist for a specific team right?

So, I'm very happy to have added this card to my collection recently. I'm not going to be beating this one for a while. I do have a lot of recent pick ups to post though. I haven't really shared any of my new cards in a long time, so I'll start posting some of them for you all soon.

Enjoy the hobby all. It's a great one.