Eric Chavez Mailweek: Tons of Swatches, Auto & Button #7!

[chippernate]

chippernate: Thanks, good luck tracking down a button. The Auto/Button is by far my favorite but the 03 and 04 Limiteds are beautiful sets as well. .

I love the look if the limited sets. One of the nicest design IMO

 

[VizquelCollector.com]

VizquelCollector: I always think of what it would be to collect a guy with fewer cards like Vizquel. There are definitely pros and cons to each. How many big Vizquel collectors are there? I know some lesser followed players sometimes have huge devoted card follows (Juan Gonzalez for example).

Sorry I'm just now responding!

I can tell you that for my personality, I would much rather chase Vizquel cards than Griffey, Thome, Ramirez, Jeter, etc. I'd go OUT OF MY MIND trying to juggle which cards to buy. I think I posted a while back the worst things about it, mostly that I hear a lot of "Viss-QWELL? Second base for the DBacks, right?"

One of my favorite things is to complete a "run" of all the Vizquel parallels from particular set. When I look at my list and see that I have the black, blue, red, gold versions but missing the silver, it makes me crazy. That's why I really loved Pacific. On the other hand, it's a curse. The 1996 First Pitch Preview and 2004 Topps Black #143 (/53) keep me awake at night.

Another great thing about Vizquel is that I've gotten amazing cards for virtually nothing. Guys have emailed me to say they have a weird parallel of Vizquel, numbered /15 and they don't know who he is let alone who would collect his cards. "How about $5 delivered?" Nice! Or amazing patch cards on eBay that never get another bid and I win for $0.99. How sweet is that?

Since Omar isn't in many sets these days, it's been much easier to get almost all the new stuff. Not to mention it's much easier on my wallet. It's freed me up to buy some much nicer cards that I couldn't afford previously.

If you don't count 1/1's, printing plates, National/convention cards, and samples, I'm missing less than 40 cards. That definitely doesn't suck.

As far as other serious Vizquel collectors, I've become pretty good friends with the other one. There are a few others that come and go, but no one other than my friend has a collection remotely close.