It's October 3rd

Beginning this year and carrying on for the foreseeable future I hope to make a Mean Girls related post each October 3rd.

Each year during the month of October, I show off only pink (and shades of pink like magenta, peach, etc) to help raise awareness of Breast Cancer, a leading cause of death for females in the United States.  For each (meaningful, non spam) comment left by those that follow the blog I donate a dollar to hopefully help at least one woman get a much needed mammogram.  Early detection is key!!!

If you want to make your own private donation please visit the National Breast Cancer Foundation.  There is a donate button on the main page and it only takes a minute of your time.  Every little bit helps.

I have focused primarily on cards that only feature Andrew McCutchen on the card, but in recent years have also featured cards with a cameo appearance (either being seen on the card or as a name cameo on the back of the card).  Last year I created Falco Files which discussed players that replaced (Shane Falco Replacements movie reference) on an active roster, number worn, or trade.  I will continue to utilize these styles of posts as we celebrate the 4th Collecting Cutch Save Second Base event (I am no longer counting my first run on the Pirates Treasure Room I did back in 2014.)

Please be sure to click here for a Babe Ruth relic card I am offering as a contest prize to one lucky person who posts their own pink cards for the month.  I am matching the $1 per comment on YOUR BLOGS too if you show off pink cards. 

You ready to get started?

Somehow our country has made Mean Girls day an actual day to celebrate (much like Star Wars day on May the 4th) each year.  I am sure that there are other movies that have spawned unofficial days like Empire Records (Rex Manning Day), but today we are focusing on this weird social media meme focused day as we celebrate a star of the movie.

The reason Mean Girls day is celebrated on October 3rd is because of this random line in the movie when Lindsay Lohan's character, Cady (pronounced Katie), first talks to the guy in her math class she has a crush on.

Mean Girls is the story of a group of popular girls at high school that are known as the Plastics.  They control much of the school's functions.  Lohan's character joins them after being the new school student.

If this goes well, I plan to focus on other "Plastics" in the future (my favorite being Rachel McAdams)

Today I will focus on Lindsay Lohan though because I just want to get it over and done with.

She became famous at a young age for many Disney produced movies and was one of the rising actresses with a unique blend of cute and quirky while showcasing a good range of acting for a teenager.

In her late teens, early twenties things got a little troubling for Lohan.

And she transformed into an actress that seemed to focus more on partying than working.

Some of her other early starring roles included: 
Freaky Friday

She starred opposite Meghan Fox in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

One of my favorite roles for her though was Herbie:Fully Loaded.

Over the years Lohan has lost her cute factor in my opinion.

I am not a huge fan of Lindsay Lohan in her current state (pictured in white dress below).

Lindsay in her prime in my opinion was 2004-2006 (red top above).

That's when the future seemed bright for the actress

The movie Mean Girls will forever be a generational classic.  It has already become a Broadway play and a National Day.

One of the focuses of Mean Girls is when Lindsay's good nature Cady joins a new school after living her entire life in Africa.  She meets "The Plastics", a group of the three most popular girls at high school.

This PSA graded 2018 Topps Chrome card will forever be encapsulated in plastic.

It may not be Wednesday, but today the card is dressed pink.  This is a play on another one of the "Plastics" rules.

Comment chatter below about Lindsay Lohan, your favorite grading company, any of the Mean Girls quotes you remember, or any movies that have a day associated with them.

Why bother grading a 1/1?

I've been reading everyone's "Things I like that you don't" blog bat around posts and I continue to see conflicting interests in the subject of graded cards.

Some people like them.

Some people don't.

I used to only like base vintage cards graded because it gave a sense of security for the validation of a card's authentic grade.  However with all the new card doctor reports surgically adjusting their cards and sending them in for consignment, I even question that now.

I no longer have an interest in graded cards.

Now that doesn't mean I won't buy a graded card.

As a matter of fact I have picked up two major additions to the collection because they were graded.  The cards both received grades below 9.0 which made them less desirable.

The best part to me is that they are both 1 of 1s.

Despite a low grading from Beckett, no one else could claim to have this type of card.

Back before all the crazy parallels made in today's current hobby, 2005 Bowman Chrome Draft had only a handful of parallels to chase.
Refractor (not numbered)
X-Fractor /250
Blue /150
Gold /50
Red 1/1
Superfractor 1/1
That means that there is only 456 cards that were numbered and only 1 of them has the red borders like the 7.5 BGS I now own.

Compare that to 2019 Bowman Chrome which has added the colors purple, green, and orange to the numbered parallels.  The reds have been increased from 1 to 5 copies and the refractors are now numbered to 499 copies.  The 2019 Bowman Chrome has 1,079 numbered parallels compared to 456 numbered parallels from 2005.

This 1/1 red Refractor is super rare.  It (along with the traditional 1/1 Superfractor) fell 1:6,609 hobby packs.


You may remember a few years ago that my brother got me a graded 1/1 from Cutch's draft year (see this post here about the graded 1/1 2005 Bowman Heritage Draft my brother got me).

He was able to get it for a big discount due to the 8.5 grade, despite being a 1/1.




In addition to the 2005 Bowman Chrome Red Refractor 1/1 I picked up in the past few months, I have also picked up the below laundry tag booklet.

The workout jersey cards for the All-Star games are used in various products following the All-Star game.  Topps Update is where you can typically find the small swatches (with very little patches available) and the following year's Triple Threads product often has laundry tags, sleeve patches, and huge patches from the All-Star Game.

This 2013 Triple Threads booklet features the laundry tag from Cutch's workout jersey he wore during the Home Run Derby in the 2012 All-StarGame.



All 3 of the above cards were picked up for steep discounts compared to similar players mainly because of the lower grade, despite all being 1/1s.  Had the cards remained in raw form, the seller probably could have gotten twice the price.


Would you buy a 1/1 card for a discount if the grade is below average for a modern card?

Captain Marvel is Back!

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!

Brie Larson

The Super actress will be a HUGE part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the next few years.

Her character, Captain Marvel, was summoned at the end of the latest Avengers movie.

But she has also helped saved people in other films she has been in.

In the suspense psycho thriller "Room", Larson plays the role of a young woman who was kidnapped and forced to captivity.  She raises her son and after over a decade confined to a single room in a shed she devises a plan to save herself and her son from the captor that took her when she was just a teenager.  It is an imcredible performance in the film by Larson.

In the upcoming film Captain Marvel we already know that the film takes place in the 90s.

Of course this would be hard for Larson to correctly portray and she was born in 1989.

Topps used the 1989 design several times in 2014 and 2015 for their Archives release and also as a mini insert set.  The set was also given a chrome version...which lead to Superfractors.

I love the pink and black backs of the 1989 set.   I remember opening up so many packs from 1989 and reading those backs over and over again.

(This is just the regular base back.  I chose to show this as the scan made it difficult to read the text through the BGS case)

Steelers got an important game today.  They need to Avenge their embarassing tie with the Cleveland Browns from Week 1.

HERE WE GO STEELERS!!! HERE WE GO!!!

Burnout=Tapping Out

When it comes to collecting, I feel like I have no self control.  I want to be the best at everything I collect.

Since 2000 here are some things that I have collected

2000 to 2002 Thundercats

I collected all things Thundercats.  The original figures, the mini figures, carded figures, loose figures, prototypes, comics, vhs videos, vehicles (box and loose), bedding, baby shoes, party goods.  If it had an eye of Thundera on it, I owned it.

Then I sold EVERYTHING!!!

Went full steam ahead with Voltron and Transformers.

Rinse and repeat as seen with Thundercats above.

Sold everything except a 3 foot prototype for the Voltron3D toyline.

Got into comic books

Had a complete run of X-Men begining with Giant Size #1 to present (stopped in 2010)

Had complete runs of The Flash begining in 1981 to 2010

Sold the comics to focus on original art

Focused heavily on my favorite character, Gambit.  Would attend about 5 to 8 comic book conventions each year.  I commissioned hundreds of artists to draw my favorite comic character.  I even built a website and had a blog detailing my collection.

In 2005 I attended my first baseball game in over a decade.  It was a Pirates vs Phillies game.  I liked the Pirates as a kid.  Barry Bonds, Andy Van Slyke, Bobby Bonilla, and Doug Drabek were on the verge of entering their primes when they were dominating the NL East in the early 90s.  I thought there would be several Hall of Famers on that team.  Unfortunately none of them were involved with the Pirates in 2005.  I thought about collecting Brad Eldred (who was the first player I saw hit a HR in person for over a decade), but I realized he wasn't going to be any good.  Instead I decided I would follow this kid Andrew McCutchen who drew comparisons to Marquis Grissom.  I saw a few minor league games and grabbed a few cards, but I wasn't having the cardboard crack addiction....yet.

Well I stopped being as obsessed with comics around 2009 when a certain Pirates rookie made his debut.  I began selling off my comic collection and growing my baseball card collection.

Baseball cards specifically 1987 Topps is what started it all for me after all.  Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Barry Larkin...that set was loaded with future Hall of Famers rookie cards.   Well???? Maybe not in the eyes of those voting for the Hall of Fame.  That set was iconic to me.  I had thousands of 1987 Topps all sorted by team in a binder and some pages had 4 or 5 of the same card shoved in each pocket.  I was 6 years old then. Condition meant nothing to me.  I wanted to get back into the card hobby, but all my favorite players were retired or on the verge of it.

I decided I would collect (not at a super level yet) the player the Pirates drafted in the first round the year I got back into attending baseball games.  That McCutchen fella.

My cardboard collection quickly grew to be all things Pittsburgh.  I was grabbing autographs of Ian Snell and Evan Meek and seeking out parallels of Robinson Diaz for the baseball front.  Willie Parker and Rashard Mendenhall became a staple in my growing Steelers collection as my favorite football player (Jerome Bettis) was long retired.  I was spending money on junk!

Around 2015 I stopped focusing on all things Pittsburgh and began focusing on just Andrew McCutchen cards while still building the Topps flagship team sets each year.  I became laser focused on adding and collecting all things Cutch.  I saw my collection grow by nearly 1,000 cards in two years.  I was getting a card a day on average.

I was addicted and COMC and eBay became my dealers.

Winter 2017 my favorite player of my favorite team gets traded.

Summer 2018, I realize that I am watching more Giants games than Pirates games and debating if I am collecting for the joy of the hobby or obsessing over false idols.

I have nothing to be ashamed of if I stop collecting Andrew McCutchen cards.  My collection might be the biggest in the world.  I have so many cards I could post a single card a day of Cutch for nearly 8 years without showing a duplicate.  

I mentioned that I wanted to get back on track with my other blog Chasing 3,000 (my Roberto Clemente collection) and I think this will be a good opportunity for me to slam the brakes on buying more cards and appreciating the cards I have more.

Instead of daily "show and tell" posts, I will be providing more content to both this blog and Chasing 3,000 as I will no longer be exhausting unnecessary energy in searching for more cards to buy and appreciating the cards I have.  I hinted at it yesterday when showing a 2018 Series 2 insert card.  There are just way too many parallels to try and collect now.  The thrill isn't long term.

Cutch has appeared in a handful of insert cards for 2018 flagship so far including a 1983, 1983 All-Star, Salute, Superstar Sensations, Opening Day Stars, and Legends in The Making.  That is 6 different insert sets.  Don't get me wrong, I love the exposure that Cutch is still getting despite his career numbers taking a dip over the past three seasons.  The problem with each of those inserts is that there is 4 different parallels to chase (base, red, blue, black). Instead of 6 cards that's 24 cards I would need to add to my collection.  That can be exhausting both in terms of money (although many do go fairly cheap) and time.

Recently another Supercollector, Tanner Jones, who had one of the most impressive Jose Canseco collections in the world decided to give it up and sell his Canseco collection.  Tanner is selling his collection not so much because of being burned out, but because of personal reasons and feeling that it is something God wants him to do.  I respect this decision a lot.  I wish I had a stronger relationship with our Lord.  I have faith, but it's not as clear to me what my path is as what Tanner has recently experienced.

Back when I used to have my Gambit art collection I created a website to showcase it all off.  It was fun and I was able to continuously view the collection even after I sold everything off.  Consequently I sold the address and it now belongs to some company in Japan that has nothing to do with the X-Men character Gambit.

I have been buying so much cardboard that I literally am about a month late with just updating the spreadsheet.  Moreso, I haven't been taking the time to truly enjoy each card.  They just keep getting added to the stack.

I am going to make the decision to slow down with this cardboard addiction I have and instead of buying 4 different parallels of a Topps Museum card all with the same four boring white swatches I will focus more on quality instead of quantity as I continue to Collect Cutch.

There is PLENTY more for me to write about and I am going to try and continue to post as daily as possible.  But, after reading about Tanner's decision to quit cold turkey, I reevaluated my hobby habits and life priorities.  I have never met him in person or even talked to him other than to congratulate his work on a custom card or a recent pickup via FreedomCardboard.  I think it makes sense for me to focus my energy on appreciating what I already have instead of needing to have more.

A perfect example is this 1/1 Laundry Tag.  I forgot I had it as evidenced by not including it in my post featuring the Logoman cards I have and that it was never inputted into my spreadsheet. It had fallen by my desk and I never noticed it until I was reorganizing today.  A 1/1 Laundry Tag that I wasn't realizing I was missing?  Yeah I got problems!

Thank you for the inspiration Tanner.  Hopefully I can get my website, CollectingCutch, finally up and running now that I won't have to always be searching for more new cards.  I did some general layout and design in February, but never did anything else with it.  Looking at so many great player collectors' sites online really makes me want to get mine up and running so that I can appreciate it more and not always be looking for the next "high" of getting more cardboard in the mail.

Who knows, maybe one day I can get a custom card from you containing the likes of Cutch, Clemente, and Bonds.

God Bless and I hope everyone enjoys the content I have going forward.

Only A Select Few Can Be Golden

The title says it all

Panini may get a lot of hate for their logoless baseball cards and the problems that football and basketball fans have towards their products, but honestly they know how to make color parallels better than anyone.

The Select product lasted just one year in their recent production of cards, but the Gold parallels are beautiful pieces of cardboard to have.

With only 25 copies produced it is extremely tough tracking these rare parallels down for the unlicensed product from 5 years ago.

Two have surfaced recently and I was lucky to make a bid for one of them.

Quick post of shinies

I'm very short on time today so here's 3 more cards I got in over the past month, all PSA graded 8.

The black static is /35, orange /25, and shimmer /15.

Majestic delivery from Canada

EBay has been running some ridiculous good programs lately allowing members to save up to 20% single purchases or offering 12% eBay bucks.  I took advantage of these deals in massive ways and will be having some mega cards for the collection show up soon.

This one is pretty awesome though.

It marks my 191st 1/1 for the collection.

The fact that it features the Majestic logo and an autograph (albeit a sticker) makes this graded card a welcomed addition to the collection.

Light Up The Bat Signal!

When the Pirates were trading for AJ Burnett just before spring training 2012, my optimism for the team was at an absolute high.  The team managed to be very competitive through the first half of the 2011 season.  Their use of shifts and elite bullpen was good enough that the Pirates offense could still hang in for games.  Add to the fact that they had a pipeline of front of rotation guys on the way in the form of Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon,  and Luis Heredia made it seem like the Pirates were going to finally start winning regularly again.

AJ Burnett instantly became my favorite pitcher of the staff.

Prizm released an insert called Band of Brothers and it featured both Andrew McCutchen and AJ Burnett.   For the past few years I have been trying to track down all the parallels.

One of the biggest non 1/1 needs from my entire collection can officially be crossed off.

I managed to snag this for $40.

AJ Burnett became known as Batman around Pittsburgh and during his final home game with the Pirates he was given a painting.

In his return to the Burgh after a stint on DL in 2015, the city lit up the bat signal behind him.

His final home game had Batman flags and posters and t-shirts all throughout the stadium.

What to do, what to do

I have needed a 2010 Topps Peak Performance Relic Blue parallel /99 for a long time.  They don't pop up for sale very often.  Only 2 have hit the market in past year.  They aren't overly expensive, but they are just rare to come by.

I finally saw one, but it was graded with substandard grades.  (Only an 8)

I needed the card, but hate the grade.  For $6 it seemed like a fair price to grab it.  Should I remove it from the case or just keep it as is?

If I do choose to remove it, what is the best way to do so?