Rich Klein: Support for Base Cards, a Thief, Show Update, APB

Some quick hits for this edition of Ramblings…

On the Sports Collectors Daily Facebook page, there has been a lot of great feedback from my recent Base Card Conundrum post. It turns out that base cards have a lot of fans. As I have suspected, there are many collectors who build sets, send them out for autographs or give them away to youngsters. We even heard from teachers who use them as rewards for school work.

Despite what you may see on message boards, there are a lot of collectors who appreciate the base sets and are active in that market. Few of those who responded thought of base cards as junk and I’d agree, especially considering the print quality of many sets today. Frankly, that is one reason I always include a line about “base cards” and not “commons” in my box reviews.

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On a rotten note, there is a man (we know his name, age, location, and Facebook page), who is now barred from all the Dallas-Fort Worth baseball card stores because of the suspicion of theft. We always hate to hear about these situations for the store owners then start changing their style of operation and become less friendly and accessible. He does come to the shows and I did recognize him from the video camera replay at Triple Cards. I know Al, the owner, is really upset because these thefts are no accident. It is also depressing to hear that the Plano, TX Police Department has not wanted to arrest this man although the evidence is irrefutable.

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Thanks to Nick and Debbie Redwine of Nick’s Sportscards. Not only did they put flyers for our March 9 show in a front location of the store but also they provided some very nice door prizes for us to give away. We’re always looking for more. The show is non-profit and can provide you with a tax write-off sheet if you wish. I also want to give a shout-out to the Dallas Card Show promoter who was nice enough to send a blast out already to his mailing list and will do so again as we get closer to show day. We did pick up a couple of out-of-area dealers from his blast so thanks Drayton!

It is a little scary being one month away from our little show and I’m beginning to understand what Mike Berkus, promoter of the National Sports Card Convention along with John Broggi, says when he looks at the big room of a convention center and wonders how the floor is going to fill up. Each year, it does so nicely and I presume 2014 in Cleveland will be no exception. We are more than halfway to our table selling goal and am hoping for good weather so we can have a nice little turnout. Remember our show is March 9 at Adat Chaverim in Plano and the basic information is available at the www.Planocardshow.com web site. I’m anxious to see what it’s like to be a promoter in 2014 and relay my experiences once it’s over.

I’m preparing for a busy weekend. We’ll be handing out flyers at shows in Grapevine and Richardson, TX and I’ll be manning a booth at each. Now granted these shows are about 30-45 minutes away from each other but it would be nice if our local show dates were better coordinated. Why have two on the same weekend and no others for the month?

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I received an email from a person who read the Rich Ramblings about Mike Cramer, founder of Pacific Trading Cards. Interestingly he did not ask about Cramer or any people on the Pacific staff but instead saw the reference to Jack Wallin and asked if I knew anything about where Jack is today. If you know the answer, please respond to my email address at the bottom of this article. Jack was a photographer who shot many baseball card photos in the 1980’s and also sold cards.

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I’ve been having a blast writing the eBay Card of the Day stories. Every card and every player has a story and while there will always be a lot of feedback for the big names such as Mantle, DiMaggio, Gretzky, etc., there are other ‘stories behind the cards’ too, such as Tracy McGrady who now that his NBA career has ended, wants to give independent league baseball a try. We will mix in the popular players to go with the iconic Hall of Famers in all sports. We also look forward to your feedback and your suggestions for the Card of the Day.

Rich Klein can be reached at [email protected]