Do you collect autographs? Do you have a story about getting one that you think others would like to hear? Do yourself a favor and check out Matt Raymond's free eBook Autograph University. The free eBook is a compilation of stories of collectors getting autographs and it resonates with me on many levels, because over the years, I've chased down some autographs and have some really good memories to go along with them.
The 2012 baseball season is finally underway. To me the game has completely lost its luster. I can blame many things including ticket prices, concession prices, roids, attitudes and more, but it really comes down to the fact that baseball has become watered down. There are too many games, too many teams and the league has been far too relaxed with its punishment toward players abusing their drug policies.
I was out totally for awhile. You couldn't pay me to watch a game. I'd rather tune in for a hockey game, a game of roundball or my favorite -- the NFL. To be honest, I even prefer NASCAR and Soccer these days. But, in 1999 I decided to attend a few minor league games. I watched this young kid named Lance Berkman just absolutely kill the ball in a couple of games in Las Vegas. I followed him as he eventually was brought up by the Astros. It wasn't until 2002-03 that I got lured back into watching MLB on a more regular basis. I saw the Mudcats play and this skinny kid named Miguel Cabrera was just eating Double A pitching for lunch. It wasn't long before he was brought up to the Florida Marlins and began beating down National League pitching too.
In what seemed like an instant, he became their cleanup hitter. In addition to being a phenomenal pure hitter, he smacked a significant amount of dingers helping the Marlins reach new heights and a World Series victory.
I had been a follower, and his skills made me a fan. I began searching out his rookie and autographed cards. Of the ones I have collected, this is by far my favorite. Fleer, in my opinion was producing the very best baseball cards at the time of their demise. They were trying new things and in some ways they were also playing catch-up with Upper Deck. The fact is, they also crafted some of the very best brands at the same time. Avant, Genuine, Patchworks, Greats of the Game and E-X produced some of the most exciting card designs of modern times. Say what you want about them, but you can never take that away from the team that worked there.
This Cabrera card comes from the 2004 Fleer Genuine Insider collection. The card and the concept is just simply cool. You have what appears to be a thick regular-sized 2.5 x 3.5 trading card. The magic is that the card slides out and inside is a beautiful autograph or in some cases a giant swatch of game-used material. Yeah, I said game-used, not a swatch that could be this, or might be that. You know the ones where the manufacturer won't even tell you what it is, or where it came from. It's not some swatch of junk with no description used just to make the card look nice.
Anyway, enough rambling, it's a cool card, and best of all Russ Cohen found it while dumpster diving at the Fleer offices during our broadcast that reported them closing their doors for good.
Ok, I totally made up that last part, I pulled it out of a pack myself. But wouldn't that have been funny? I know for a fact that people were indeed dumpster diving at the Fleer offices and always wondered what they found. I wish Fleer was still around. Not the Fleer that Upper Deck has, but the real deal. They were creative, innovative and with the exception of a ton of redemption cards, they did a fantasic job producing some of the better baseball cards of the early 2000s.
Update 9/2012: With one day left in the season, Miggy is looking at the first Triple Crown since Yaz did it in 1967! Cabrera is in my opinion the best player in the game today. I applaud the way he's dealt with his demons and is back on top of the game. This is a good story. Who doesn't love a good story?
I've had a few favorite television shows over the years. From Hong Kong Phooey when I was like 5 and more recently the FX Cop Drama the Shield, it takes a lot to get me to sit down and actually watch something week in and week out. Since complete seasons and series have come out on DVD, I find myself borrowing them from my local library to avoid commercials and cliffhangers. Time is of essence!
One of the shows I missed when it made it's television debut is the Fox Sci-Fi thriller Fringe. On a whim, I saw season one was on sale at Best Buy for $9 and I bought it. I had heard some good things about the show and since I was a little child, I loved the idea of a parallel universe, time-travel and the science behind it. It sounded like my kind of show, and after watching a couple of episodes I was hooked.
With a great cast including Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham, Joshua Jackson as Peter Bishop, Mark Valley who was awesome as Brad Chase on Boston Legal and the quirky John Noble as Walter Bishop (you might know him from Lord of the Rings, I never sat through them), I really got caught up on the show and couldn't wait for more.
When they finally progressed the story to the point of having characters from one earth inhabit the other earth, it became my favorite show that's currently airing. Yeah I am a total geek and I know it! So I figured I'd check out what actors on the show had autographed cards. It was just about the time that Wizard World's Comic Con was hitting the Chicago area and I wondered if I might have some luck trying to find some of the cast members autos there.
Of all the many dealers and vendors present at the show (no major trading card manufacturers) I did find one non-sport card dealer who had binders and binders of memorabilia and autographed cards for sale. I flipped through several binders and found a few amazing signatures (many of which will end up as a SIGnificant Cards column).
Among the group I purchased that day included this Rittenhouse Archives Stargate SG-1 signature card of John Noble a.k.a Walter Bishop from his time in the long-running series as Meurik. It was a steal at just $5.
With the over-saturated market for sports autographs, this is one of the aspects of the hobby I love most. Many actors/entertainment personalities have autographed cards in sets that don't reflect their current work. Either they get too busy to sign, are uninterested in signing or the show or movie they appear in doesn't get a card set made. But I could rattle off a list of actors/actresses in my collection that have signed cards for different projects than the ones they are most known and famous for. This is but one of them.
On one side you have Iron Man, on the other War Machine. Friends or enemies? They've been both over the years, but in the motion picture Iron Man 2, you get the first look at James Rhodes in his armor. Upper Deck, not known for producing great non-sports products has delivered a couple of really strong ones recently with Iron Man 2, Captain America and Thor.
If I had to rate them, I'd give them 4.5 out of 5 on the designs, but 1 star for content because they just didn't nail some autographs of the bigger stars from the films. Captain America was missing Chris Evans and Tommy Lee Jones, Thor was missing Natalie Portman, Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins and Iron Man 2 was missing Scarlett Johansson, Sam L. Jackson, & Robert Downey, Jr.
When I got my initial box of Iron Man 2 cards, I didn't know what to expect because original solicitations included the big names on the checklist, then as it drew closer only Rourke & Cheadle were touted. They were joined by director Jon Favreau and the smoking hot Leslie Bibb.
I was actually pretty bummed because when you get a non-sports set you expect the best. Sometimes because of the cost an actor could desire for autographs or a lack of interest in even signing cards, it can get very pricey, but there is no excuse not to put at least 1 cut sig (if not more) of the big stars in the mix of a product of this magnitude if they don't want to sign, go freaking buy one.
That said, after seeing the list, I actually wanted a Bibb or Cheadle more than all of the others. Bibb because of this:
and Cheadle because of this...
I was happy when I got the Don Cheadle. I mean it is Rhodey for crying out loud. I've been a lifelong Iron Man fan and Rhodey has been along for the ride for a long time. Contrary to what the movies portrayed, the character of James Rhodes has a much deeper relationship with Tony Stark, taking over the reigns of the specialized suit when Tony lost his fortune and alcohol took precedence over saving the world. It wasn't until after Stark regained control of his company and did battle with Justin Hammer that War Machine was born.
War Machine was Iron Man on the juice. He looked cooler, was gun metal grey and had a big ass missile launcher and a flamethrower to boot. It was unreal to see both of them in action on the big screen and Favreau did a fantastic job taking them from the pages of comic books onto the big screen.
From the West Coast Avengers to the adult-oriented War Machine MAX series, I've been to hell and back with James Rupert "Rhodey" Rhodes. I can only hope he has a cameo in the Avengers and is signed on for Iron Man 3.
Card A4 is an absolutely awesome looking card. UD killed it with the designs on this set. It is a sticker auto, but its a clear one and doesn't take away from the design at all. I am not a fan of the sticker, but I see how it is necessary in rare cases. This one in particular doesn't bother me that much, but I hope in the future UD can do away with them in non sport products and also bolster up the products with the best possible autograph content they can get.
Oh and while Iron Man might have the jump on War Machine by many years, they both have a kick-ass theme song. You already know Iron Man's... Here's War Machine's courtesy of AC-DC.
As a child of the 70s I was exposed to some of the best and worst television had to offer. I was there for the beginning of many explosive starts to what have become mainstream pop culture phenomenons. Big budget movies, video games, etc, etc. were all in their infancy stages when I was a kid, yes I am old. Not that old, but old enough. TV in the 70s was the very best IMO. Sitcoms ruled like All in the Family, MASH, Good Times, Different Strokes. Family shows like the Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Courtship of Eddie's Father were also pretty strong. But I liked action the best. I was glued to the TV set on Saturday mornings for the Shazam/Isis power hour and I wouldn't dare miss an episode of CHiPs.
I used to draw superheroes and cars and I loved a good chase. CHiPs had some of the best on TV. They were always the same too. Someone would have a hit and run accident or they'd commit a robbery with a hot getaway car but Jon and Ponch always got the bad guy in the end. After an hour, all was good with the world. I also thought actress Randi Oakes (Bonnie) was pretty hot.
The one thing that stuck with me though over the years was that while Erik Estrada never really kept a big profile in America, he was huge in Mexican soap operas and the guy doesn't even speak Spanish! His lines were fed to him. That's simply classic. Also, he was never afraid to poke fun at himself making many appearances over they years as a "Ponch-like" character in sticoms, and cartoons.
When I really gained some respect for him was when he was a member of the cast on season two of the Surreal Life. Surreal Life was one of my all-time favorite shows (you can watch many of them on Hulu). This poor guy was a saint and he had to live with Tammy Faye Baker, Ron Jeremy and Vanilla Ice. It was truly must see TV.
Anyhow, I was already a fan, but for all of the reasons above, I remained a fan. Then Erik played the Friendly Officer (again a Ponch-like character) on Family Guy and he cemented his greatness.
In 2005 Inkworks put out Family Guy Premium Trading Cards and the only autograph I cared about was Erik's. Unbelievably, I pulled it from the only box I ever opened of the product. It's an awesome card and an excellent conversation piece. The set was also very good and I am happy that Leaf is bringing us more Family Guy cards, the autograph potential from the iconic prime-time cartoon is endless.
