Getting Help From a Fellow Supercollector

There is a lot of good in this hobby and the supercollector niche really rises to prove that.  

Ever since I redefined my collection and trimmed off a lot of the fat, just focusing on Collecting Cutch, I have made interactions with a group of guys who help each other out with their player collections.  

I get excited when I come across a Roy Oswalt Superfractor spelled wrong on eBay because I know exactly who wants it. Check out Chris' Roy Oswalt collection here royoswalt44.com

The same situation can be said when other collectors come across a McCutchen card they think I need.  I have gotten a lot of awesome cards via Twitter because of being tagged about their existence.

The supercollector that has in my opinion, the most impressive collection of a single player is Robert Morris aka dalsubfan.  Robert collects Mark Teixeira.  

His collection can be viewed on SportsCard Album under the name dalsubfan.  There you will see over 1,000 1/1s of Mark Teixeira.

If you thought my collection of Andrew McCutchen baseball cards was impressive, your socks are about to be rocked.  Robert's Tex collection is insane!!!

The fellow supercollector reached out to me because he had bought a large lot of autographs and among them was a certain autograph of the Pirates franchise player from the 2010s.  

He asked if I wanted it and sent it my way free of charge because "the McCutchen was a throw in for the lot I bought".

How awesome is that?

These 4x6 photocards were given out at Pirates charity events and their annual PiratesFest held each year in December.

The photocard was signed at an event and is certified on the back by JSA with matching certificate identification number.

Based on the back of the photocard and the image used, I believe this to be a pre debut "card" and autograph of Andrew, likely from the PiratesFest event held in 2008.  

While I am not a handwriting forensic scientist, I have hundreds of things signed by Andrew over the years and know that sometime between 2008-2009 he shortened his signature to the now more simple and better recognized ACutch found on many items.  

If you read this Robert, thank you for the awesome gift.

And if you want to look at thousands of baseball cards of one player, go check out Robert's SportsCardAlbum.

The Future is Now!

The 2019 All-Star Futures Game is happening today.  The future of the MLB will be showcased for the fans of today to see who is coming up through the minors.

Andrew McCutchen appeared in the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankees Stadium.

A year later he would be called up to the majors and in a few seasons he would become the face of the franchise, be an MVP, gold glove winner, Roberto Clemente award winner, 4 silver sluggers, and make 5 All-Star appearances.

These are all the Futures Game related cards of Cutch I have.

The 1/1 Futures Game Logoman autograph has catapulted into one of my top 10 favorite cards.  Topps Sterling was a beautiful product when it was first released despite the sticker autographs.

2008 Bowman Draft featured a bunch of different parallels to chase.

In terms of paper, I have the base, gold, and blue parallels. The red 1/1 has eluded me.

The Chrome parallels are the nicer of the bunch. Above are the X-Tractor, Blue, Base, and Refractor.

The Red is a stunning parallel which is numbered to 5 copies.

The Gold Parallel is equally stunning and is numbered to 50 copies.

Above you can see the "scouting report" of a young McCutchen.

I also have a 1/1 magenta printing plate from the paper release.

This commemorative "pin" manurelic was inserted in packs of 2016 Topps.

Is anyone going to watch the game?

Here are Cutch's 2 plate appearances at the Futures Game in Yankee Stadium including a just missed homerun shot.

BLOG BAT A ROUND : red cards for Red Schoendienst

News broke last night that Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst passed away at the age of 95.  Red was involved in professional baseball for 74 years as a player, coach, manager, and executive.

He played most of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals and stood in for Stan Musial in Leftfield while Musial served in the military.

He would play several positions before settling in at second base where he went on to collect 2,449 hits en route to a Hall of Fame induction in 1989 by the Veterans Committee.

As a manager he would collect 1,049 wins good for a .522 winning percentage.

He was a 10 time All Star, 5 time World Series champ, and would later have his number 2 retired by the Cardinals.

I thought it would be fun to have a blog bataround where we show off our 10 favorite red (related) cards in our collection. One for each of his All Star appearances.

Here's my 10 favorite red cards

This 2010 Bowman Chrome numbered to 5 copies starts the list off at number 10.  The pin striped Pirates home uniform makes a rare appearance as Cutch only had a half season opportunity to wear that uniform in his career.

In case you missed it yesterday, I have the 1/1 logoman patch from this Futures Games jersey.  This 2008 Bowman Chrome red is also numbered to 5 much like the 2010 I showed above.  I love the fascimile signature.

It's a 1/1 triple patch of 3 of my recent favorite Pirates and it only comes in at #8?  As much as I love the Jolly Roger sleeve patch for Cole and the 2014 Postseason patch for Harrison, it is just a very basic design of Triple Threads with three boring photos of the Pirates stars.

This was a huge score for me when I acquired it in 2017.  It is a 2009 Topps Chrome rookie card numbered 22/25.  Yup it is numbered to his jersey number. How cool is that?

Topps Bunt is one of those fun products that brings back the joys of collecting and set building I had as a kid.  Insert cards like this Infinite parallel would have made the much younger version of me flip out back in the day.  Who am I kidding? I still flip out at getting great insert cards of my favorite player.

Early dreadlock Cutch cards with low print runs are some of my favorite cards.  This one stands out for it's tobacco influenced card design and the photo of Cutch.  Dude had swag for days.

One of the most expensive cards in my collection, this red xfractor autograph can often sell for four figures.....when they pop up that is.  Limited to only 25 copies, these are pretty much all snagged up.

I am going to classify these Topps Tek red orbital diffractor numbered to 5 copies as 3a and 3b.  The multiple different patterns that Tek produces make chasing cards like this down a fun neverending quest.  Maybe one day one of the other patterns will surface, but for now these are the only two I have seen.

Arguably the best looking McCutchen rookie card to have, this 2009 Topps Red Hot Rookie redemption reminds us that Cutch used to lay down bunts for base hits when he first appeared in the league and that he was one of the fastest guys in the league too.

The grade is a bit disappointing, but the fact my brother got me this 1/1 right around Christmas means more than the grade.  It is Cutch's first ever card in a Pirates uniform and an incredibly tough pull at 1:1,374 packs.  The set contained 350 cards so guaranteeing pulling this card would be roughly half a million packs you would need to open.



Now let's see yours.  It could be the color red, the Reds, Red Sox, red birds (Cardinals) or actual Red Schoendienst cards.  Show off your top 10 reds.

R.I.P. Red

0 for 10, but still a victory

My job had recently hired 10 new associates to fill some holes in the store.  Zero of them are left.  We terminated half of them and the other half determined that this wasn't a career they wanted to continue.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

About a month ago I saw a deal that was too good to pass up.  8 prerookie cards of Cutch were listed for $6.99 with $3 shipping.

There was ZERO time wasted in my haste to hit the buy it now.  While I technically didn't need any of the cards, I couldn't let these go for $10 to anyone else.

Here's the lot as a whole

The card on the 2nd row is a SP photo variant that I only had one copy of graded.  I had been wanting to get an ungraded version for my binder.  Mission accomplished.

The SP photo version usually goes for about $7 delivered by itself.

The mahogany Bowman Heritage is another card that can sell for about $10 by itself.

None of the other cards command value by themselves to just flip, but most sell for $3-$6 no problem.

I didn't need these, but I felt for $10 it was still a victory.
Anyone need a Cutch prerookie card?

These Are Not The Indians You Seek

As is my customary Wednesday function, I am going to the movies for a $6 matinee.  I might finally see Star Wars, hence the reference in title.

On a completely unrelated note, I am a bit disappointed to hear that Chief Wahoo will no longer be appearing on the Cleveland Indians in future years.  Not that I want to support a politically incorrect baseball cap, but Major League is one of the greatest baseball movies of all time and Chief Wahoo and Wild Thing go together so well.

I wonder if this will ultimately lead to teams changing their names too.  One other not as recognized team called the Indians is the Pirates AAA team who hail from Indianapolis.

The team was formed in 1902 and has served as the farm system for the Expos, Brewers, Reds, Pirates, White Sox, Phillies, Braves (Boston) and of course Indians.  The Pirates have held the rights to the club since 2005 and it was in 2009 that the team saw it's most prized prospect get promoted to the majors.

There's not a lot of Cutch cards with the Indians as he was there for only about 200 games.  Many criticize the Pirates for not promoting him until 2009 after he put up a triple slash line of .283./.372/.398 in 2008 as a 21 year old.  He also would go on to steal over 30 bags that season in AAA.

The reality that many forget is that the Pirates had an All-star centerfielder named Nate McLouth who was posting a .276/.356/.478 line while playing gold glove defense.  The next year Nate would be traded for Charlie Morton, Jeff Locke, and Gorkys Hernandez to make a spot available for Cutch.

Andrew sometimes gets credited as being Daniel McCutchen, the losing pitcher of the Jerry Meals July 26th 2011 game.

I believe that I may have shown the ones above off already, but here is the only other Cutch card I have with the Indians.

How do you all feel about Chief Wahoo being removed?
Do you think other Indians logos and maybe even names will be changed?

Go ahead and put your Hancock there...

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Visit the official site here.

Breast Cancer will be detected in one of eight women in the US each year.
It is the second leading cause of cancer death among women each year.
On average every 2 minutes a woman will be diagnosed with breast cancer and every 13 minutes one person will die from breast cancer.
There are currently 33 million breast cancer survivors in the USA.

It's important to support the research for cancer.  Breast Cancer is often associated with the color pink so I will be showing off some pink Cutch cards.

In addition, you can expect to see some boobs with each post.  Who doesn't love boobs?

So let's start with what we're hoping to save!

Ketchupman36 of the blog Rekindling The Cardboard Flame recommended Julia Louis Dreyfuss, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  The image above shows her 2014 Rolling Stone cover.  The actress took to Twitter to announce her battle and has received a lot of support online for her health in recent days.  She will forever be Elaine from the TV series Seinfeld to me and I wish her a quick recovery.

Now to the cardboard, this 2008 Bowman Sign of the Times Printing Plate is technically Magenta, but it has enough pink shades that I'm going to bend the rules on this one.

I purchased the card a little over a year ago and was pretty stoked about it because you don't see many licensed prerookie autographs of Cutch pop up.  There's hundreds of the Just Minors autographs, but the design is terrible and they're not MLB licensed.  It's one of two magenta printing plates I have.  Expect the other to be shown off at some time during this month.

Keep the suggestions coming for who else can be a featured actress on this segment.  (Gavin: I have a Christina Hendricks post ready to go this week)

Trouble with the Curve?

Congratulations to the Pirates AA team, Altoona Curve on their Eastern League Championship.  Top prospect Mitch Keller dominated the playoffs.

I wasn't able to see any of the playoffs games this year, but vividly remember the Curve winning the Championship in 2010.  I was in Trenton when they won the Championship lead by efforts of Justin Wilson, Rudy Owens, Josh Harrison, Chase d'Arnaud, and Andrew Lambo.

The young group of men playing for the Curve look like future big leaguers and should make the Pirates position depth very good beginning as early as next year and beyond.

Of all the players on the team I am pulling for the most is former 1st Round Pick, Cole Tucker.  If anyone has some Tucker cards they wouldn't mind giving up, I will happily take them off your hands.

I love to chase down early Cutch minor league cards.  I have quite a few and would like to add some more.

Above are all my Andrew McCutchen cards in an Altoona Curve outfit.

Here are a few of the Curve Stadium Give away figures and bobbleheads I have gotten over the years.

Out of this World Bobblehead

MVP bobblehead

OYO figure

There is one more Cutch Curve bobblehead that I need in a standard batting pose.

Here's a few others I have though

Tony "Elementary" Watson bobblehead

Starling "Martay Partay" bobblehead

The Shark Tank Bullpen (Hughes, Watson, Wilson)

The Curve's marketing department has really upped their game in terms of SGAs over the past few seasons.  Other notable figures include a Gerrit Cole Garden Gnome (on my desk at work)
Along with these that I don't own
 Jordy Mercer "Lloyd Christmas"
Jameson get your "Suit and Taillon"
Josh "Need more cow-" Bell
Gregory "El Coffee Barista" Polanco

All 125 Unique Cutch Autos in my Collection

Today is a wonderful day!!!

I've been driving a rental car for almost a month as I have been having extensive work done on my car.  Today I get my car back and am really looking forward to it.

To celebrate my auto coming home, I thought I would showcase all my Cutch autos.

Yup!!!!

All of them.
I have a few more hopefully on the way and maybe I can even work out a trade to acquire another that I need.

First up the 1/1 Printing Plates

Now to show them off by year begining with the most expensive autograph in the collection.

"2004"
This beautiful BGS graded 9.5 with 10 auto is extremely tough to find as it was a redemption program card.  The card technically wasn't produced until 2006, but is classified as a 2004 Bowman Chrome Aflac All American card.  The card is numbered to only 125 copies, but it's believed that not all 125 were redeemed.

2005
2005 was the year that Cutch was drafted and because of that he has several different autographs in Topps Chrome, Bowman Sterling, and Bowman Heritage.  Pictured on the Chrome side are a Base, Refractor, Black (/200), and Red XFractor (/25) along with a Cyan Printing Plate (1/1).  The Bowman Sterlings are again sticker autographs and also included are two jersey swatches.  The Black Refractor case is severely damaged but the card appears to be fine.  It'snumbered /25 copies.

Bowman Heritage offered the first On Card Autographs of Cutch in a Pirates uniform.  The Red Ink is hand numbered to 51 copies to celebrate the Bowman 51 release.

Amongst my other 2005 autographs are 5 Just Minors cards including a pair of Gio Gonzalez (/25 and /10 respectively), Cole Hamels (/25), Michael Bourn/Chris Nelson Triple (/3) and a base solo (/200). I also have a PSA authentic with Luke 14:11 inscription.

2006
2006 included a lot of buyback autographs along with some Just Minors autos.  The Stubbs Triple is /5 and the Andrew Miller is /2.

2007
A lil bit of Bowman and A LOT of Just Minors stickers autos.  The Golds are /10, Silvers /25, and Triple Black /5.

2008
Only Just Minors released autographs of Cutch in 08.  Silver Heyward /25, Triple Gold /10, and Triple Black /5.

2009
Cutch would make his MLB Debut this year.  By far my favorite of the group is the Go Bucs 22 inscription.  I believe it may be an unofficial 1/1 inscription.

2010
I have built many rainbows for 2010, but haven't completed any yet.  The Triple Threads and Bowman Platinum rainbows are awesome looking despite not being complete.  This would be the first Cutch booklet autos too (both /10 or less).

2011
This is a year that Cutch began being recognized as an elite talent.  He would be selected to his first All-Star game and appear in many releases with certified autographs.

I can not get the blue ink on the Marquee Frame auto to scan well.  It's a stunning signature though.  The Canary Lineage is /10 and the Gypsy Queen Auto/Relic is /25.

2012
This was the year that Cutch signed for many many different releases.  It also saw a sticker dump from Upper Deck.  Among some of the dual autographs to appear with Cutch this year would be Ralph Kiner, Gerrit Cole, Jay Bruce, George Springer, and Alex Presley.  This year also released the hexabook which I showed earlier this year.

2013
The National League MVP began getting fewer and fewer autographs in releases in 2013.  Arguably one of the game's top 5 tool talents he appeared in less than a handful releases with certified autographs in 2013.

2014
There weren't many options for Cutch autos in 2014.  Elite offered a few color parallels and Topps used some sticker autographs on previously released cards including the Photo Variant Zoltan sign (/5) and Power Players (/25).

2015
2015 saw even fewer autographs of Cutch hit the market.  Allen & Ginter booklets and All-Star Patch sticker autographs were the only releases.

2016
Were it not for National Treasures, Cutch would have had no new certified autographs in 2016.  Numbered to only 5 copies these booklets with sticker autographs were the only offerings.

2017
There have been a few Hits Memorabilia 1/1 autos released this year and I have one en route.  Immaculate just released a few autographs as well for 2017.  Is it possible we see more autographs from Topps soon?  I hope so.


So there they are all 125 unique Cutch autos in my collection.
Over half of them are numbered /50 and nearly 50% are numbered to /25 or less.