Rich Klein's Ramblings: Of Rental Cars, Auction Catalogs and a Shaky Rookie Card Class

by Rich Klein

First off, we begin with the “car’ update. As you read here not long ago, my car was hit while parked in front of my house. The person who drove away from the was caught and the repairs are underway. The funniest aspect of the rental car I have is that when I got the car from Enterprise there were no compact cars on their lot. Thus I ended up with a full size model. In fact, it’s so nice that one of the guards where I work muttered ‘I’d like to have that car’ as I drove by after lunch one day. Sir, if you are willing to have your own car tied up for nearly two weeks you can sure have this car.

Oh, and one other thing I have really learned. I truly miss my Sirius/XM radio. Almost everything is better about those stations including being able to listen to baseball games from throughout the country.

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Say, have you seen the new REA (Robert Edward Auctions) catalog? Good grief, what a volume. Weighing in at six pounds and featuring tons of cards and collectibles. this book reminds me more of what rural folks use to dream of when they received their Montgomery Ward catalog way back in the day and started dreaming about those items they believed only the “rich city folk” could afford.

To card collectors, the annual REA catalog is the closest parallel we have to those olden days. When an T-206 Honus Wagner card is not even the first item in the auction, you know you’re seeing a catalog with great material. And by the way, many major auction houses can take a cue from REA and be more aggressive about sending out free catalogs. I know it can seem expensive with postage being what it is now, but those catalogs are some of the best forms of advertising you can create.

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I finally received my graded card submission back from Beckett and frankly I did better than I expected on modern cards and worse than I expected on vintage cards. Either way, next Saturday 5/4 at the McKinney TX Craig Ranch show, you.can see for yourself how I did and maybe even find a card or two you need from my inventory for your collection.

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And finally, the NFL draft was last week and I don’t remember a first round with exactly four skills position players taken in the first round and only one quarterback. Although names known to most collectors did go in the second and following rounds this is not usually a good set up for a long-term impact rookie class and for card companies this means any product based on rookies may not be very popular. I might try to focus on veteran players and retired greats in this year’s card brands. And with the one and done rule in basketball, that draft does not look like we will know most of those players either. I guess this means the card companies will just have to work harder in 2013.

Rich Klein can be reached at [email protected]