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CrawfordFan13
New member
- Jan 19, 2015
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Hey everyone. First off, let me say this forum is amazing. I've been lurking daily for months now and find the passion of the members here truly amazing. It inspired me to get back and finish my following collection. Seeing how dedicated people are towards 1990's inserts, player collections, and just the hobby in general is simply awesome. I've been a dedicated member to other forums years back, but was out of the hobby for quite awhile. I used to collect Carl Crawford game used and autographs of low serial numbers, but just lost a passion for it (right about when he went to the Red Sox). But this rainbow has been one I've always wanted to complete, regardless of how into the hobby I am.
Not to give you guys a novel, but it's nice to have people see why I collect what I do; so here we go. Back in 2003, I wasn't too much of a baseball fan, always a football fan like most Americans. I decided I wanted to start following baseball but didn't have too much of a team to root for (I used to root for the Phillies when I was a kid, but didn't know anything about them). So I looked at a list of projected fantasy players and found Carl Crawford. I loved the way he was projected, the way he played the game, and hey... he debuted on my birthday back in 2002. So I decided to make the Tampa Bay Rays and Carl Crawford my team/player. Since then? I've been in love with the sport and couldn't care less when football started. I've avidly followed Crawford and everything he's done for 11 years now. Although he's fought with irrelevance over recent years due to injury, I've passionately followed him and will until the day he retires. He's without a doubt my favorite athlete of all time and I don't see that ever changing. He got me into the sport I love. He was one of the most exciting players to watch for 6 years (if only fans saw him more often when he was a Ray, instead of remembering his days with the Red Sox).
So logically, as a player collector, what would be the ideal rainbow to get? How about his entire rookie set from Bowman/Topps. I've always wanted to complete this set but didn't have the funds or resources to, and then when I did have all of that, I lost the passion for the hobby of collecting. Back in my collecting heyday though, the ideal Carl Crawford card to get what his 1999 Topps Traded Autograph. If you ever followed Crawford and his sales, when he was in his prime you know this card was $40-50 ungraded, all day. I remember hating myself because before he got huge, I passed up on hundreds of these for $10-20. But I always wanted the perfect one. Crawford signed these cards in such a hideous fashion, that some of them are hard to look at. I literally waited for years before finally snagging one. Here it is:
The autograph? Perfect. The only thing I don't like about the card is the upper left corner looks a very slightly bit white. I still believe the card should grade a 9.5 with a 10 auto. But just to show an example of how nice this autograph is compared to others? Look at this picture.
I don't know if his hand was tired or if he was just lazy. But he signed about 95% of these cards with an ugly, ugly signature. As I said, it's why I waited so long. I didn't want just a normal one. But the one I got sparked my interest. It was his first rookie card I ever obtained. It made me want the entire set. But how viable was that in 2007-2009 from a 1999 set of a player who had an increasing value? It was difficult. Too much for me. But I did want to get his Bowman Chrome regular card, just because. It's what everybody believes to be his classic RC and I didn't have one in my collection that I valued so much. But once again, I wanted to go big. So here we go:
Boom. One of 8 in the world of the hundreds graded to receive a perfect 10 grade. But... there's a downside... for my wallet. Not only did this spark my interest even more in his rookie cards. It sparked my interest in graded cards. I now wanted the entire rainbow AND I wanted it all graded BGS 9.5+.
Over the course of time though, I realized this wasn't possible. Over the next few weeks, I couldn't find any other variations, let alone graded. I bought a regular refractor BGS 8 for a cheap price and I bought an ungraded Bowman Gold #ed /99 that had awful corners/edges for a cheap price as well. Neither of these were what I was looking for and it kind of killed the momentum and vibe I had. It was shortly after that, that I gave up collecting all together.
So every now and again, I'd browse ebay out of boredom, see if anything cool was listed, see what the hobby was like nowadays. About 6 months ago, I saw a card that I wanted forever but just simply didn't seem to exist. The Chrome Gold. The one with just a simple gold signature. Inserted 1:24 packs. Nothing too special, but seldom seen. I think I saw 1 in my prime collecting years and didn't think much of it, since I wasn't pursuing my rainbow at the time. This was what would rejuvenate my interest in this rainbow. So, I made a new ebay account (forgot the info to my old one) and at about 20 seconds to go, I would snipe this card... right? Wrong. I signed up, made a paypal with my new debit card. It wasn't verified. The seller was only accepting bids from verified bidders. The card ended for $7, 1 bid. That feeling of dejection returned. But it made me want to try this again. So I went to google to see what I could find. That's where I stumbled on FCB. A member here had posted a question in 2011 about the 1999 Carl Crawford Bowman Gold. Curiosity killed me. I had to find out if he still had it. The kicker? He's not very active anymore. I sent him a PM asking if he still had it. Waited a week for a response, and never got one. So I went back into hibernation.
Take it to about a month ago (WHOO ONLY A MONTH OF STORY TIME LEFT). Upon doing a random ebay search, I found a seller who listed a card that I truly believe didn't exist. I thought they forgot to print Crawford in the set. In 10 off an on years of ebay searches, I never saw this card mentioned. This seller had... 7 of them. The Bowman Chrome International Refractor #ed /100. The seller listed 7 of them, all graded, 2 of which were my dream 9.5's. Surely this would be what I needed to finally complete this passion. So I did it again. Nervously waited for the listings (which all ended the same second) for the 2 9.5's to end. I had my snipe ready. Bid over double on one of them, had it ready to go. With 8 seconds to go, confirmed my bid and I was the winner!!! For about 3 seconds. Someone outbid me. But fear not! I had a backup plan on another tab, so I hit confirm bid on that one as well. Wasn't high enough. Both bids over double what the price was with 10 seconds to go... neither card mine. Ouch. But for this... there was a backup plan. Not only did that seller list 7 graded ones. He listed 6 ungraded ones a few days later (yes he had 13 of the 100 and they never saw the light of ebay until a month ago). The bad thing about these? He used 1 generic scan to show all 6. I sent him a message asking for separate scans and for some reason he didn't understand my question, he just assured me that all 6 were different. So I had to bid at these blindly and hope they're in nice shape. Needless to say, I wanted at least 2 of them to make my odds of getting a nicer condition one. I did the same thing I did with the graded ones, went for the snipes, and this time... I won 2 of them (more than what I wanted to pay). So then I had to painstakingly wait for them in the mail and pray the conditions were nice. When I finally got the package... wow. The first one was awful. The centering was hideous, the surface looked bad. The other one?
Not too bad. Sharp corners, decent edges, decent centering. I'm not saying it's a BGS 9.5, but there's a small shot. Should at least be a 9. I was much happier than the first one I saw and happy to finally have this card that I didn't think existed just a month ago, in my possession.
Okay, so that did it for me. That was the kick start I needed to make me want to complete this rainbow. Over the next few days I got a few of the easier ones out of the way. The regular bowman, the traded, the traded chrome all BGS 9.5 were cheap on ebay. I offered some prices to some sellers and ended up getting them all for reasonable prices.
But... I still needed that gold signature. This time I had to step up my google game. I didn't just search for the card, I searched for Carl Crawford collectors and just to hope and pray they had this card sitting there, were still responding to messages, and were willing to part with their collection. What do I see in about the 50th one that I checked. A blogger who's last blog was in December 2013. I click his collection. I see he has it! I find his email, follow his blog, send him a message on there and pray for a response. Sure enough, the next morning I had an email waiting for me from this guy. He was actually willing to sell because his wife had wanted to him to cut down anyway. He was in my boat, he wasn't collecting anymore. So I respond to him and asked to see scans of it, as well as a scan of his Bowman Chrome Refractor he has. He sends them, and let's just say the gold sig doesn't look too hot, but the refractor looks gorgeous. I told him I'd be interested and for him to name a price. He did, it was reasonable, I said yes. Shortly after, I realized I was 1 card away from finishing this rainbow... or so I thought. Upon doing research about the rainbow I thought I knew like the back of my hand, I realized there was a difference between the 1999 Bowman International and Bowman Chrome International. Like really? I'm this close to completion and you have to throw this curveball at me? I just bought a regular International for $3.20 now I need to find the chrome version? The best part though... this guy who had the refractor and gold sig also had the chrome international. I asked him if he'd be interested in throwing that in there for a few more dollars and he was more than happy to. I sent this gentleman some money and boom, shortly after I received these guys in the mail:
Like I said the gold signature (hard to see with my crappy cell phone pic, sorry my scanner is broken) is centered quite badly, but I don't care. I finally own it after months of getting my hopes up. The Chrome International and Refractor are very nice and should probably grade highly.
So buying that new refractor even though I own a lame BGS 8 one made me energized to buy a new Bowman Gold #ed /99. Found one on ebay that looked in nice shape but the seller wanted a pretty high price for it. I sent him a best offer and to my surprise, he accepted. So now, I had 2 nice condition cards of the previously not so nice versions I owned 4 years ago.
So what's that leave? The holy grail to 99% of Crawford collectors. The Chrome Gold Refractor. In my time on ebay, I saw 2 of them. Both of them went for astronomical prices as an unemployed kid out of high school. I never had a shot at them. But... there's always been one on ebay. One that few people touched or looked at because of the price. One that I talked to the seller before but he wasn't too willing to go down on his price. But I had to have it. It was time. I need 1 card for my complete, 10 year long work in progress. I sent the seller a message telling him my story. Telling him I'm not trying to rip him off and why I love the card so much. He finally negotiated with me, and although I still believe I severely overpaid in terms of ebay value, I had my holy grail after 10 years. I really don't think I could overpay for this card. The best part? It's one of 4 of the 17 sent to BGS (11 more were sent to PSA, so I'm guessing some unhappy BGSers sent theirs into PSA to make it look nicer) graded a 9.5. Out of the 25 in existence of this card... I had one of the 4 that was graded to my specifications. I own around 20 1/1's of Crawford and none could touch how much more this card means to me. I'm still in awe that after drooling over it on ebay, that it's finally in my possession. Here it is:
My crappy cellphone picture truly doesn't do this card justice. I recommend going to ebay and searching for it under completed listings. It's truly beautiful.
This thread wouldn't be a thread if it weren't for a group picture of everything. So here we go:
There it is. Top Row from left to right is: Traded, Traded Chrome, Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor #ed /25, Bowman Chrome, Bowman. Middle Row is: Traded Autograph, Chrome International Refractor #ed /100, Bowman Gold #ed /99. Bottom Row: Bowman International, Chrome International, Chrome Refractor, Chrome Gold Signature.
I also have a double of the traded auto that looks pristine but the signature still isn't as sexy as the one in this thread.
If you've made it this far into a post about a player that hasn't seen his time in the limelight in 5 years now, I commend you. If you read my rants, I feel bad for you. But thank you. This forum is truly an awesome place and I felt that you guys who inspired me to get back into this set should know more about me.
Lastly, yes, I will be sending the 7 ungraded ones to BGS within a few weeks. I will post the results. I think all but the gold sig and international regular all have a legitimate shot at a 9, if not a 9.5. Thus, my story remains incomplete. I won't stop upgrading this set until I have all 12 in 9.5+ cases. But for right now, it's a dream come true to finally own all 12, in hand, and I felt I should share.
Thanks for reading,
Jim
Not to give you guys a novel, but it's nice to have people see why I collect what I do; so here we go. Back in 2003, I wasn't too much of a baseball fan, always a football fan like most Americans. I decided I wanted to start following baseball but didn't have too much of a team to root for (I used to root for the Phillies when I was a kid, but didn't know anything about them). So I looked at a list of projected fantasy players and found Carl Crawford. I loved the way he was projected, the way he played the game, and hey... he debuted on my birthday back in 2002. So I decided to make the Tampa Bay Rays and Carl Crawford my team/player. Since then? I've been in love with the sport and couldn't care less when football started. I've avidly followed Crawford and everything he's done for 11 years now. Although he's fought with irrelevance over recent years due to injury, I've passionately followed him and will until the day he retires. He's without a doubt my favorite athlete of all time and I don't see that ever changing. He got me into the sport I love. He was one of the most exciting players to watch for 6 years (if only fans saw him more often when he was a Ray, instead of remembering his days with the Red Sox).
So logically, as a player collector, what would be the ideal rainbow to get? How about his entire rookie set from Bowman/Topps. I've always wanted to complete this set but didn't have the funds or resources to, and then when I did have all of that, I lost the passion for the hobby of collecting. Back in my collecting heyday though, the ideal Carl Crawford card to get what his 1999 Topps Traded Autograph. If you ever followed Crawford and his sales, when he was in his prime you know this card was $40-50 ungraded, all day. I remember hating myself because before he got huge, I passed up on hundreds of these for $10-20. But I always wanted the perfect one. Crawford signed these cards in such a hideous fashion, that some of them are hard to look at. I literally waited for years before finally snagging one. Here it is:
The autograph? Perfect. The only thing I don't like about the card is the upper left corner looks a very slightly bit white. I still believe the card should grade a 9.5 with a 10 auto. But just to show an example of how nice this autograph is compared to others? Look at this picture.
I don't know if his hand was tired or if he was just lazy. But he signed about 95% of these cards with an ugly, ugly signature. As I said, it's why I waited so long. I didn't want just a normal one. But the one I got sparked my interest. It was his first rookie card I ever obtained. It made me want the entire set. But how viable was that in 2007-2009 from a 1999 set of a player who had an increasing value? It was difficult. Too much for me. But I did want to get his Bowman Chrome regular card, just because. It's what everybody believes to be his classic RC and I didn't have one in my collection that I valued so much. But once again, I wanted to go big. So here we go:
Boom. One of 8 in the world of the hundreds graded to receive a perfect 10 grade. But... there's a downside... for my wallet. Not only did this spark my interest even more in his rookie cards. It sparked my interest in graded cards. I now wanted the entire rainbow AND I wanted it all graded BGS 9.5+.
Over the course of time though, I realized this wasn't possible. Over the next few weeks, I couldn't find any other variations, let alone graded. I bought a regular refractor BGS 8 for a cheap price and I bought an ungraded Bowman Gold #ed /99 that had awful corners/edges for a cheap price as well. Neither of these were what I was looking for and it kind of killed the momentum and vibe I had. It was shortly after that, that I gave up collecting all together.
So every now and again, I'd browse ebay out of boredom, see if anything cool was listed, see what the hobby was like nowadays. About 6 months ago, I saw a card that I wanted forever but just simply didn't seem to exist. The Chrome Gold. The one with just a simple gold signature. Inserted 1:24 packs. Nothing too special, but seldom seen. I think I saw 1 in my prime collecting years and didn't think much of it, since I wasn't pursuing my rainbow at the time. This was what would rejuvenate my interest in this rainbow. So, I made a new ebay account (forgot the info to my old one) and at about 20 seconds to go, I would snipe this card... right? Wrong. I signed up, made a paypal with my new debit card. It wasn't verified. The seller was only accepting bids from verified bidders. The card ended for $7, 1 bid. That feeling of dejection returned. But it made me want to try this again. So I went to google to see what I could find. That's where I stumbled on FCB. A member here had posted a question in 2011 about the 1999 Carl Crawford Bowman Gold. Curiosity killed me. I had to find out if he still had it. The kicker? He's not very active anymore. I sent him a PM asking if he still had it. Waited a week for a response, and never got one. So I went back into hibernation.
Take it to about a month ago (WHOO ONLY A MONTH OF STORY TIME LEFT). Upon doing a random ebay search, I found a seller who listed a card that I truly believe didn't exist. I thought they forgot to print Crawford in the set. In 10 off an on years of ebay searches, I never saw this card mentioned. This seller had... 7 of them. The Bowman Chrome International Refractor #ed /100. The seller listed 7 of them, all graded, 2 of which were my dream 9.5's. Surely this would be what I needed to finally complete this passion. So I did it again. Nervously waited for the listings (which all ended the same second) for the 2 9.5's to end. I had my snipe ready. Bid over double on one of them, had it ready to go. With 8 seconds to go, confirmed my bid and I was the winner!!! For about 3 seconds. Someone outbid me. But fear not! I had a backup plan on another tab, so I hit confirm bid on that one as well. Wasn't high enough. Both bids over double what the price was with 10 seconds to go... neither card mine. Ouch. But for this... there was a backup plan. Not only did that seller list 7 graded ones. He listed 6 ungraded ones a few days later (yes he had 13 of the 100 and they never saw the light of ebay until a month ago). The bad thing about these? He used 1 generic scan to show all 6. I sent him a message asking for separate scans and for some reason he didn't understand my question, he just assured me that all 6 were different. So I had to bid at these blindly and hope they're in nice shape. Needless to say, I wanted at least 2 of them to make my odds of getting a nicer condition one. I did the same thing I did with the graded ones, went for the snipes, and this time... I won 2 of them (more than what I wanted to pay). So then I had to painstakingly wait for them in the mail and pray the conditions were nice. When I finally got the package... wow. The first one was awful. The centering was hideous, the surface looked bad. The other one?
Not too bad. Sharp corners, decent edges, decent centering. I'm not saying it's a BGS 9.5, but there's a small shot. Should at least be a 9. I was much happier than the first one I saw and happy to finally have this card that I didn't think existed just a month ago, in my possession.
Okay, so that did it for me. That was the kick start I needed to make me want to complete this rainbow. Over the next few days I got a few of the easier ones out of the way. The regular bowman, the traded, the traded chrome all BGS 9.5 were cheap on ebay. I offered some prices to some sellers and ended up getting them all for reasonable prices.
But... I still needed that gold signature. This time I had to step up my google game. I didn't just search for the card, I searched for Carl Crawford collectors and just to hope and pray they had this card sitting there, were still responding to messages, and were willing to part with their collection. What do I see in about the 50th one that I checked. A blogger who's last blog was in December 2013. I click his collection. I see he has it! I find his email, follow his blog, send him a message on there and pray for a response. Sure enough, the next morning I had an email waiting for me from this guy. He was actually willing to sell because his wife had wanted to him to cut down anyway. He was in my boat, he wasn't collecting anymore. So I respond to him and asked to see scans of it, as well as a scan of his Bowman Chrome Refractor he has. He sends them, and let's just say the gold sig doesn't look too hot, but the refractor looks gorgeous. I told him I'd be interested and for him to name a price. He did, it was reasonable, I said yes. Shortly after, I realized I was 1 card away from finishing this rainbow... or so I thought. Upon doing research about the rainbow I thought I knew like the back of my hand, I realized there was a difference between the 1999 Bowman International and Bowman Chrome International. Like really? I'm this close to completion and you have to throw this curveball at me? I just bought a regular International for $3.20 now I need to find the chrome version? The best part though... this guy who had the refractor and gold sig also had the chrome international. I asked him if he'd be interested in throwing that in there for a few more dollars and he was more than happy to. I sent this gentleman some money and boom, shortly after I received these guys in the mail:
Like I said the gold signature (hard to see with my crappy cell phone pic, sorry my scanner is broken) is centered quite badly, but I don't care. I finally own it after months of getting my hopes up. The Chrome International and Refractor are very nice and should probably grade highly.
So buying that new refractor even though I own a lame BGS 8 one made me energized to buy a new Bowman Gold #ed /99. Found one on ebay that looked in nice shape but the seller wanted a pretty high price for it. I sent him a best offer and to my surprise, he accepted. So now, I had 2 nice condition cards of the previously not so nice versions I owned 4 years ago.
So what's that leave? The holy grail to 99% of Crawford collectors. The Chrome Gold Refractor. In my time on ebay, I saw 2 of them. Both of them went for astronomical prices as an unemployed kid out of high school. I never had a shot at them. But... there's always been one on ebay. One that few people touched or looked at because of the price. One that I talked to the seller before but he wasn't too willing to go down on his price. But I had to have it. It was time. I need 1 card for my complete, 10 year long work in progress. I sent the seller a message telling him my story. Telling him I'm not trying to rip him off and why I love the card so much. He finally negotiated with me, and although I still believe I severely overpaid in terms of ebay value, I had my holy grail after 10 years. I really don't think I could overpay for this card. The best part? It's one of 4 of the 17 sent to BGS (11 more were sent to PSA, so I'm guessing some unhappy BGSers sent theirs into PSA to make it look nicer) graded a 9.5. Out of the 25 in existence of this card... I had one of the 4 that was graded to my specifications. I own around 20 1/1's of Crawford and none could touch how much more this card means to me. I'm still in awe that after drooling over it on ebay, that it's finally in my possession. Here it is:
My crappy cellphone picture truly doesn't do this card justice. I recommend going to ebay and searching for it under completed listings. It's truly beautiful.
This thread wouldn't be a thread if it weren't for a group picture of everything. So here we go:
There it is. Top Row from left to right is: Traded, Traded Chrome, Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor #ed /25, Bowman Chrome, Bowman. Middle Row is: Traded Autograph, Chrome International Refractor #ed /100, Bowman Gold #ed /99. Bottom Row: Bowman International, Chrome International, Chrome Refractor, Chrome Gold Signature.
I also have a double of the traded auto that looks pristine but the signature still isn't as sexy as the one in this thread.
If you've made it this far into a post about a player that hasn't seen his time in the limelight in 5 years now, I commend you. If you read my rants, I feel bad for you. But thank you. This forum is truly an awesome place and I felt that you guys who inspired me to get back into this set should know more about me.
Lastly, yes, I will be sending the 7 ungraded ones to BGS within a few weeks. I will post the results. I think all but the gold sig and international regular all have a legitimate shot at a 9, if not a 9.5. Thus, my story remains incomplete. I won't stop upgrading this set until I have all 12 in 9.5+ cases. But for right now, it's a dream come true to finally own all 12, in hand, and I felt I should share.
Thanks for reading,
Jim
.
