When I stopped collecting back in 2009, one of my biggest frustrations was continuing my 20+ year Jose Canseco collection on a budget. Essentially, I was in a constant losing battle on eBay for cards I wanted that also caught the eye of some serious big spenders who also collect Jose. That was part of the reason I focused my collecting on tracking down as many of Jose’s twin brother, Ozzie’s cards as I could find.
It is now 2011 and I am not quite ready to pick up any cards yet. On March 7th of this year I was blessed with a daughter, named Ava Lynn, who happened to make her debut on daddy’s own birthday. So with spending on hold for a little while, instead I’d like to focus on my dream cards to keep the site active on slow news days like today. The first card comes from a time when Upper Deck was spanking the competition.
The card below comes from 2005 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts. Sadly, any Upper Deck future releases featuring baseball players will likely NEVER look this good again until they are allowed to use logos. To me, this is true hobby innovation. In my eyes, this is a perfect modern trading card, a disposable iPod is not.
The card features a great, action photograph with an elegant border. Toward the bottom right hand corner it has a great-looking sticker autograph that does not diminish the look of the card in any way. At the top right it has a piece of game-used memorabilia with part of a patch included. It also features an even more elegant border. This particular card happens to be a 1 of 1 but there are many other versions available.
The only way this card could possibly look any better would be if it were to feature an on-card autograph. Still, there are more than a few instances when a sticker is not obtrusive and does not kill the overall design of a card. Upper Deck will soon release a hard-signed autograph featuring Jose Canseco but as you can see, the magic is gone.
To see what a more popular player’s version of this card sells for, click HERE.
