Describe The PERFECT Card

Every now and then I'm asked "What is your favorite card?" I am split in my mind 6 ways. Is it my knob auto? Dynasty logo patch? Red Crusade? My custom that Jose personalized to me? 89 Topps gold border? Wood Museum auto? I've narrowed down my absolute favorite to a little under items in my collection seen here: http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/my...wg_standart_thumbnails_0[]=42&page_number_0=1 LOL

This got me to thinking. What would be the absolute perfect card? I guess for me, I don't really know. I have some ideas though.

Back story - A card with a fabulous back story is hard to beat. I love the stories on the 89 Blue Chips, 90 Aqueous, 88 Topps Cloth, 90 UD Buybacks - any card with a mysterious / good story & history can many times beat an autograph or patch card in my mind.

Design - While a story completely trumps this for me in terms of desirability, the design is huge for me. Ever since I have started creating my own cards, I've been more inwardly critical of cards that hit the market. I sometimes look at cards now and say "UGH! Why did/didn't they put foil on those cards?" or "What a horrible cropping job! What were they thinking?"

Photography - This is especially true for cards nowadays when retired players oftentimes have the same picture over the course of 20 different cards. A great, unique picture makes a card more appealing to me.

Scarcity - Having a feeling of being a part of an exclusive group (or the only person) that owns a certain card adds tons of desirability. Like it or not, knowing that a card is coveted by others helps.

Player - (DUH). It would be hard to call any card of Mickey Hatcher better than any card of Mickey Mantle....UNLESS you are a die-hard Mickey Hatcher collector. In that case, the perfect card for you could definitely be a Mickey Hatcher card, when put up against ANY Mantle.

Autograph - In a world where players are paid to pump out hundreds of autographs on cards and stickers, some can get sloppy and thus affect the sale value of a card. I've seen a wide swing of sales price between two cards just because a part of the signature was slightly off the sticker, (or heck, on sticker as some hate those), streaky, etc. A good, clean autograph looks great, while a junky one can ruin the aesthetics of a card.

Relics - A nice patch can really set off a card, as can a nameplate, bat knob, etc. These pieces can really make a card stand out nicely, compared to regular bat chips & plain swatches. The whole idea of having a piece of a jersey or bat embedded into a card gave us collectors a feeling of being closer to the game. When the market was flooded with them, the premium patches/knobs/etc. gave many of us the same feeling again ... though at a much heftier price tag.

To me, the backstory and relic pieces used are most important, I think. Unfortunately, these cannot be married together, as time is needed for a backstory and the premium relic pieces are fairly new to the game.

What is most important to you? Describe your perfect card!

For me (and only me) it would be a 1972 style Topps Nate Colbert card featuring an on-card autograph and five (5) bat pieces for each of the homeruns he hit in the doubleheader on 8-1-1972.

The perfect card already exists:


1980 TCMA Minor League #897 - Dick Pole
Courtesy of COMC.com

DeliciousBacon said:

The perfect card already exists:


1980 TCMA Minor League #897 - Dick Pole
Courtesy of COMC.com

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Discussion over

More and more I've come to like "pure" cards. Ink on cardboard. As nice as all the modern stuff is, with any number of different printing media, foils, finishes, colors, plus all the embedded material, I keep coming back to plain old cards as my long-term focus. Here are some cards I've bought recently:

Pretty much state-of-the-art modern card making. But as squinky as they are, are they really better than these?


OK, the Bogaerts has foil stamping. But for all the stuff new, high-end cards have, there's something that's starting to feel artificial about them. Cards used to be valued for their design only, not for their materials or other enhancements, including the extreme scarcity. The print runs of the first four cards is 53, altogether. There's something nuts about that. Maybe I'm just nostalgic lately as I have turned more to vintage stuff (I say that, but have spent way more on modern stuff this summer). And yet, a "good design" is impossible to isolate, even among cards from which other stuff has been excluded. T-206 is probably the simplest design you can have. And yet it's so much better than almost anything else. A lot of that comes from the color printing that gives everything a certain softness and classicness that can't be replicated today. However, something like 1971 Topps Greatest Moments or 1972 Topps are on the other end of the aesthetic spectrum and still very different from each other and each almost as endearing.

So, describing the perfect card is like describing the perfect anything else, which is practically impossible because you probably can't encapsulate everything you want into a description, especially the feelings you'd want it to evoke. You have a good list to start, but one thing I'd add is contemporaneity. That is, the card has to come from the guy's active career. I don't buy many Frank Thomases anymore, but when I do, it's usually something from 1990-2008. I have some post-career cards, but they are either cheap base or very high-end modern stuff, things that match all the other things on your list. But even then, they sort of feel separate from his active-year cards. There will be a lot more post-career cards than contemporary cards for players of any notoriety. That somewhat diminishes them. That and for things like Panini, the lack of logos is also a detraction in most cases.

The perfect card for me is one that is paid for, and knocked off my list.

Here is my perfect card from my collection..

Donruss only picked 15 players for this set and Edgar happened to be one of them..



and I also have this one as well.

Surprisingly, the card below has a lot of qualities I love in a base card and some I don't.


I love black borders as well as READABLE foil on the front.

This card also has the classic bat on shoulder pose which I also love.



I also love "uncommon" photos, such as the one on this back.

The large card number is also a must on base sets which are meant for set builders.

BUT the back also shows a couple of things I REALLY dislike including the lack of FULL stats and vertical name.

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Pack Issued - this is important to me. I like that everyone had a chance to get it, but I was the one who ended up with it.

Historically Relevant - from an important set, or features an important player, or has some special quality about it

Eye Appeal - the card should be naturally sexy, without alterations. A great photo or illustration is a huge plus.

Condition - the perfect card better be in great condition

Long Term Value - ideally, it's a card that will appreciate

Wow! Factor - if I show it to other collectors, I want jaws dropping

No Gloss, No Foil, No Relic, No Auto - don't get me wrong, there are a lot of amazing modern cards. But for me, the perfect card looks, feels and smells like the baseball cards I grew up with


Perfection:

Holy moly is that your Jackson and Anson?


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Lancemountain said:

Holy moly is that your Jackson and Anson?

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I wish! I can't have perfect things.

I'm in Brad's camp. They were making perfect cards 100 years ago (quality was a little low before that)

I believe it is hard to truly and honestly answer that question w/o value being a major player in the decision. Even vintage cards, you tend to see the star players mostly. True, there are some pure "love of the card itself" choices, but the "perfect" card…can it really be a 10-30 cent common?

There are so many cards that just catch my eye, whether they are valuable or not…too many to pick just one. Munson's 71 Topps comes to mind as an example of cardboard perfection for me, but would it be just as cool if it was John Ellis instead of Munson? Probably not for me, although it would probably look the same. Imagine the cards below with only the player image reversed, meaning Ellis in the Munson pose and vice versa. Would you drool over that great action shot of Ellis as much?

1956 Topps is a great design, but Jackie, Mick and Ted certainly look better than Fred Hatfield, Leroy Powell and Dave Pope!



A lot of my favorites are the unique cards, but I suspect that if they were easier to find, I would not enjoy them as much. I find that I enjoy them BECAUSE they are scarce and rarely seen.