If You Build It, They Will Come

What is a player card?  Before I get into the results of the 1989-90 binder, I wanted to ponder that question for a little bit.  I would imagine that when we look at a players checklist on TCDb, we naturally assume that the players name and photo are prominent on the card.   Basic Player Card: Name on Front, Photo of Player As you read through a players checklist, especially a player of Puckett's stature, you'll notice that you get other cards that don't quite fit that name/photo narrative. Plus, we've added Kent Hrbek to the photo as well.  Does the player have to be solo? Super Team Card: Shared photo but no name Is this a Kirby Puckett card?  I guess its a bit of a cheat because his name is kinda on the card (his jersey).  But what about this variation from 2015? Donruss card: Photo on front, nickname on front? What if it's artwork?  Not a photo. Diamond King card: Name, no photo Now let me blow your mind... 1992 Confex: No photo, no name, artw...

 When I was a young kid, I along with everyone I knew depended on two sources for how much a card was worth.  How much a dealer was selling a card for was one way, but the main way was to look up that card in Beckett.  Beckett listed out the notable cards in every set and set a value for them.  You'd grab every issue and see if the cards you owned had that coveted up arrow indicating that the card had gone up from the previous issue.  How much?  You'd have to do that research on your own. I have been reliant to those numbers for years.  Almost more now, even though I know that the economics behind it is bunk.  The value of a card is not what a magazine says it is, but what you can get for it.  However, it does help out a guy who can't possible keep up with everything in the hobby just to have a baseline. Back in 1996, I came across a stack of Steve McNair rookie cards.  Fifty, I think, and the dealer offered them to me for a quarter each...

 So I post a couple of weeks ago that I was starting to play around with TCdb.  I've been a loyal Beckett user for years now, and have become more down on it lately.  For collectors like me, it seems that TCdb has gathered a pretty decent sized following and positive reviews.  But how will it work for this collection?  Here's what I found. TCdb Pros Cost You can't complain about the cost (free!).   Its like some of the other big services I use for my collecting, mainly wikipedia and [sport name]-reference.com in that they provide so much information but I just don't know how they do it well.   The Checklists The database is very comparable to Beckett.  Beckett does have some cards that TCdb doesn't have, and visa-versa.  Notable for this blog, Beckett does not list the 2017 Panini Iowa set, and TCdb doesn't have all the Iowa Hawkeye Football team sets from the late 80's, early 90's.   Rankings! After I enter in my card for...

 I'm a child of the 80s and 90s, and when you collected cards during that time, you probably had a Beckett magazine.  (Or Tuff Stuff, but really that was the Go-Bots to Beckett's Transformers).  You'd look through the articles to see what cool cards were coming out, read the back for the card shows in your area, and flip through the prices to see what cards were going up in price, and which had the dreaded down arrow.  There would always be a month where the community had collectively given up on a prospect and his cards went spiraling downward, think Ryan Leaf. Well, once I got back into collecting in my adult years, I naturally led my way back to Beckett, and have built up a pretty substantial Organize. All my wants and all my trade bait in one place.  I still didn't do pricing, because that was pretty expensive, so I'd use the free organize and then I'd use the print magazines for prices.  Because besides current year cards, most cards are generally pret...