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bigunitcards
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..He takes a lot of pictures and writes a (relatively) short story.
In late 2013 I revived my interest in collecting Randy Johnson cards. From 2000-2004 I collected his cards on eBay, Yahoo Auctions and the old Beckett collector-to-collector trading platform whose name I cannot recall. As I entered college and became caught up in work my interest in collecting faded, not to mention the glut of releases than started ramping up in 2003/04. When I quit I had around 1,900 unique Johnson cards and maybe 7 or 8 autographs. There were no Superfractors back then and while there were a few 1/1s, I had none.
When I got back in during late 2013 I started by getting all the base singles I had missed in the past 9 years. I picked up a few autographs from the 04-07 era but was kind of let down they were mostly all stickers and insert paper pieces. Also, RJ's presence in new releases pretty much ended in 2009 with only a few cards here and there after that. Then, in 2014, like they were waiting for me, he signed a contract (not sure how long) with Topps and out came a litany of new cards and autographs. They seemed to be in every release but were always short printed. I added more than 20 on-card Randy Johnson autos from 2014 Topps releases (and 20 more from 2015 products).
One of my favorite cards was the 2014 Topps Finest Greats Auto Refractor set. I picked up the first Gold #/50 that popped on eBay. That set became heavily collected and I'm sure you've seen numerous posts of guys who have build the Gold and Red sets. While I generally don't go after all the variations of RJ autographs with the prices they demand, I did with Finest Greats and got the Red #/25 & Atomic #/5. When I saw the Rivera & Schmidt Superfractors from the set I knew that was THE card I had to have. I added it to my signature and searched high & low. eBay gets 11 million searches per hour and I was helping move it up to 12.
Randy Johnson has 12 Superfractors listed in Beckett for TC/BC/Finest base cards 2005-2009. Even if I were to find one of those, my interest in cards with him as a Yankee/Giant aren't high, I'm 99% DBacks/Mariners in my collecting. 2014 Finest Greats is his first and only Superfractor Auto, and he was on it as a Mariner. (2015 Finest subsequently had another FG super auto so now he does have 2, although that one has not surfaced).
2014 Finest released in August 2014 and while the Finest Greats set was highly sought after, most liked the colorful base design but not the fact all the variation refractors were indiscernible. The product didn't seem to be hot for long and more than a year passed with no sight of the RJ Superfractor. I figure it was still in a sealed box somewhere that might never be opened (like we all think about the card we want). I attended the National for the first time ever in 2015 and found the only case of '14 Finest in the building. There is 1 FG auto per case, and I pulled a Schmidt in the first box. Oh well, I tried. But I did make a custom '89 UD Superfractor and he signed it in person at the National. So I had a Superfractor, sort of, but the need for THE Superfractor remained.
Then on January 9th of this year, nearly a year and a half since the product released, this was posted in the 2014 Finest Big Hit Tracker thread:
"My sister bought me three packs of 2014 finest a few days after release. I hit the R.J. greats Superfractor autograph on the first pack! It's in a safety deposit box for now. Not sure what to do with it. - jesse "
My reaction was that A) someone saw my signature and is getting a rise out of messing with me or B) they're trying to scam me. This is about a week after I bought a fake RJ Diamondbacks snakehead patch and was on full alert. But if there was even a 1% chance it was legit, I obviously had to reach out and see. So I message this person and ask for a picture, pretty sure I'll get some "my camera phone is broke but if you PayPal me $1000 I'll mail it to you" scam artist response.
But I didn't. He sent pictures. He had the card. THE card. He pulled it only weeks after release from opening just 3 packs. He found the '14 Finest thread on FCB via Googling and saw my post about looking for the card. A deal was made and today the card arrived. I likely overpaid by a good amount but honestly don't care. While I don't care for prospecting, I do envy the fact that new player collectors can get THE CARD of their guy in Bowman Chrome. To me, this card is his BC Superfractor Auto, and now I have it.
As of this writing I have 4,718 unique Randy Johnson cards; 75 on card autographs, 10 1/1s, 34 sketch cards, 155 refractors and...THE Randy Johnson Superfractor Autograph. I know of 2 or 3 other people that may have a bigger RJ collection that me stat wise, but they can't match that last one. Thank you to Jesse from NH who pulled the card and gave me a fair shot at landing it. If you're in the same boat I was waiting on a card you think will never show, don't give up. Thank you for reading, now look at some pictures.
In late 2013 I revived my interest in collecting Randy Johnson cards. From 2000-2004 I collected his cards on eBay, Yahoo Auctions and the old Beckett collector-to-collector trading platform whose name I cannot recall. As I entered college and became caught up in work my interest in collecting faded, not to mention the glut of releases than started ramping up in 2003/04. When I quit I had around 1,900 unique Johnson cards and maybe 7 or 8 autographs. There were no Superfractors back then and while there were a few 1/1s, I had none.
When I got back in during late 2013 I started by getting all the base singles I had missed in the past 9 years. I picked up a few autographs from the 04-07 era but was kind of let down they were mostly all stickers and insert paper pieces. Also, RJ's presence in new releases pretty much ended in 2009 with only a few cards here and there after that. Then, in 2014, like they were waiting for me, he signed a contract (not sure how long) with Topps and out came a litany of new cards and autographs. They seemed to be in every release but were always short printed. I added more than 20 on-card Randy Johnson autos from 2014 Topps releases (and 20 more from 2015 products).
One of my favorite cards was the 2014 Topps Finest Greats Auto Refractor set. I picked up the first Gold #/50 that popped on eBay. That set became heavily collected and I'm sure you've seen numerous posts of guys who have build the Gold and Red sets. While I generally don't go after all the variations of RJ autographs with the prices they demand, I did with Finest Greats and got the Red #/25 & Atomic #/5. When I saw the Rivera & Schmidt Superfractors from the set I knew that was THE card I had to have. I added it to my signature and searched high & low. eBay gets 11 million searches per hour and I was helping move it up to 12.
Randy Johnson has 12 Superfractors listed in Beckett for TC/BC/Finest base cards 2005-2009. Even if I were to find one of those, my interest in cards with him as a Yankee/Giant aren't high, I'm 99% DBacks/Mariners in my collecting. 2014 Finest Greats is his first and only Superfractor Auto, and he was on it as a Mariner. (2015 Finest subsequently had another FG super auto so now he does have 2, although that one has not surfaced).
2014 Finest released in August 2014 and while the Finest Greats set was highly sought after, most liked the colorful base design but not the fact all the variation refractors were indiscernible. The product didn't seem to be hot for long and more than a year passed with no sight of the RJ Superfractor. I figure it was still in a sealed box somewhere that might never be opened (like we all think about the card we want). I attended the National for the first time ever in 2015 and found the only case of '14 Finest in the building. There is 1 FG auto per case, and I pulled a Schmidt in the first box. Oh well, I tried. But I did make a custom '89 UD Superfractor and he signed it in person at the National. So I had a Superfractor, sort of, but the need for THE Superfractor remained.
Then on January 9th of this year, nearly a year and a half since the product released, this was posted in the 2014 Finest Big Hit Tracker thread:
"My sister bought me three packs of 2014 finest a few days after release. I hit the R.J. greats Superfractor autograph on the first pack! It's in a safety deposit box for now. Not sure what to do with it. - jesse "
My reaction was that A) someone saw my signature and is getting a rise out of messing with me or B) they're trying to scam me. This is about a week after I bought a fake RJ Diamondbacks snakehead patch and was on full alert. But if there was even a 1% chance it was legit, I obviously had to reach out and see. So I message this person and ask for a picture, pretty sure I'll get some "my camera phone is broke but if you PayPal me $1000 I'll mail it to you" scam artist response.
But I didn't. He sent pictures. He had the card. THE card. He pulled it only weeks after release from opening just 3 packs. He found the '14 Finest thread on FCB via Googling and saw my post about looking for the card. A deal was made and today the card arrived. I likely overpaid by a good amount but honestly don't care. While I don't care for prospecting, I do envy the fact that new player collectors can get THE CARD of their guy in Bowman Chrome. To me, this card is his BC Superfractor Auto, and now I have it.
As of this writing I have 4,718 unique Randy Johnson cards; 75 on card autographs, 10 1/1s, 34 sketch cards, 155 refractors and...THE Randy Johnson Superfractor Autograph. I know of 2 or 3 other people that may have a bigger RJ collection that me stat wise, but they can't match that last one. Thank you to Jesse from NH who pulled the card and gave me a fair shot at landing it. If you're in the same boat I was waiting on a card you think will never show, don't give up. Thank you for reading, now look at some pictures.
Congrats
