FCB wants to hire you as a writer (unless you suck)

[notjomommasclint]

I would love to read only writers that suck!!!

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Any interest in the litigation between card manufacturers/major league organizations and legality of products?

Bob Loblaw's Law Blog.

(say that 3 times fast!)

 

[Liberate Baltimore]

I'm already the Head Writer for a major sports memorabilia auction house....does that count?

 

[thegreathambino]

This post is pretty specific, but my idea is too write about new boxes for the major sports , as they come out and write blog entries on there value. This is kind of the opener to all that, and I'm sure there are other things to branch off of this topic:

"""""

I have been a collector all my life, and I still have a long future with
it. I am still in the early years of my life and am recognizing the pro's and con's of the card industry. My problem is with the boxes that Topps puts out for baseball (Topps has a monopoly on putting out baseball products with team names and logos). Why must box value be so off? In fact, why is there almost no value at all?

Sure i have a weakness for the gamble of opening up boxes and hoping for a top rookie auto, or a sick jumbo patch or a cut auto. The chances of me or anyone pulling these in from a box is slim to none. I opened up a box of 2008 Bowman Draft Baseball back when it first came out. For those who don't remember, this was a loaded Autograph checklist at the time with guys like Gordon Beckham, Jesus Montero, and maybe the most wanted autograph Buster Posey. I opened my box and I pulled a Buster Posey Chrome Autograph Rookie Card. This was the best autograph card you could pull out of this product. It sold for around $50 at the time. And whats when I began to question box breaking in general. If you pull the best autograph card out of a box shouldn't you earn your value back on the box at least? Now I know people will argue that there are variation autos of the Posey autograph that are worth more then the box. But that doesn't seem logical to me. Maybe I'm crazy, or stupid, but I would like to have at least made my money back on a box if I pull the best autograph possible from the base set, regardless of the variation.

I do believe that there have been boxes in the past that do give the card collector a better chance at having an honestly valuable breaks. Most of these breaks I remember came from boxes from companies such as Upper Deck and for football; Panini. Upper Deck was a company that knew how to give the collector a relatively inexpensive box break with good value. When I mean relatively inexpensive, I am talking about the $80-$120 range. Boxes like SP Authentic and SPx and Sweet spot are all boxes that are not produced anymore for baseball, that were around $100 and had good checklists, with nice looking cards. Not to mention that Donruss Elite Extra Edition produces a more valuable box break for prospect junkies then Topps' Bowman. I just got into football recently, but I found great value in boxes like Panini Certified football, along with other Panini football products that I have seen broken numerous times.

I still start with the new Topps Tier one. Topps tried to make an affordable product with 3 hits per box that would give the collector a good chance of pulling some solid hits. Sure the card are decent looking, although Topps still is missing the face that collectors like on card autographs on all there cards. The box is just so plain though, and the base set autograph checklist is weak to say the least. If you get an on-card autograph, it is considered a 'case hit' in this product. There is something wrong with that. Once collectors are exposed to nice looking on card autographs, like those in the new Topps Marquee, collectors will only those and will expect them. I'd say Marquee is a good break, but it falls above that price range that I think is where mid end box breaks land. And for a box that is priced between mid-high end pricing, it sure does not give the opener value, just nice looking cards. Maybe thats the real problem; nice looking cards with crappy players.

Anyway that is my rant on Topps and there failure to produce box breaks. They seem to be working like the economy, eliminating the middle class.

""""""""""

 

[Ryan The Orange]

TTM is interesting, but I don't think it warrants a regular column.


An occasional write up, sure.

Exactly what I was thinking... I see interest being there--as even non-TTM collectors enjoy reading about strange/cool success stories--but I doubt there could be enough variety for a consistent column.

 

[nkdbacks]

I think it would definitely be cool to profile different player/team collectors, maybe once a month or every couple weeks. Just kind of expanding on some other ideas I've seen. Perhaps not just the obvious specifics about the collections, but talk about how they put the collection together (what kind of budget they have, how that affects their decision making process), their opinions on how their collection has evolved over the years with the changing sports card market. Go more in depth into why they collect certain types of cards over others, etc.

If any of that sounds even remotely appealing, I can begin putting together a sample article. I've got quite a bit of journalism experience (though I'm only in college), so I'm sure I could help.

 

[bdj610]

I'll save everybody the hassle. All of the things being discussed as topics for a "blog" have at one point or another been written by someone in the Hobby Blogging Community. gilmo, how about this, just link the Sports Card Blogroll (the link is in my signature) to your main page. My SCBR links over 350 blogs about our Hobby on a wide variety of subjects, many that would interest the members of this board (in fact, I think a few of the members of this board are on the Blogroll already).

Since you're willing to "pay" for content, I'd be more than happy to have the FCB sponsor the SCBR. What do you think?

 

[JoshHamilton]

I would love to read only writers that suck!!!

search.php?author_id=1113&sr=posts

There ya go

 

[JoshHamilton]

I'll save everybody the hassle. All of the things being discussed as topics for a "blog" have at one point or another been written by someone in the Hobby Blogging Community. gilmo, how about this, just link the Sports Card Blogroll (the link is in my signature) to your main page. My SCBR links over 350 blogs about our Hobby on a wide variety of subjects, many that would interest the members of this board (in fact, I think a few of the members of this board are on the Blogroll already).

Since you're willing to "pay" for content, I'd be more than happy to have the FCB sponsor the SCBR. What do you think?

Straight over your head. You missed the point entirely

If I wanted to read about the NFL, I'd read Peter King. If I wanted to read about the NFL and actually be entertained, I'd read Mike Tunison

 

[bdj610]

Straight over your head. You missed the point entirely

If I wanted to read about the NFL, I'd read Peter King. If I wanted to read about the NFL and actually be entertained, I'd read Mike Tunison

Not really. I know what he's asking for. I could make the same comparison using sites on the SCBR. If I wanted to read about baseball cards, I'd read Chris Olds. If I wanted to read about baseball cards and actually be entertained, I'd read Chris Harris.

It takes a committment to put out the kind of articles that he is looking to add to the FCB blog. But the first few attempts that I've seen this done on this site (there was a whole slew of blogs that were created and then lost to obscurity) didn't turn out well. He's got a number of people on this site writing blogs already on their own (Gellman with SCU, Witmer with Big Box Breaks, etc) and they're doing very well for themselves. He could just save himself the hassle and just link one site that brings these all together.

Besides, I know I'm not going to be taken seriously here anyway, so I thought, "why not throw this out there, and see if something happens?"

 

[JoshHamilton]

Straight over your head. You missed the point entirely

If I wanted to read about the NFL, I'd read Peter King. If I wanted to read about the NFL and actually be entertained, I'd read Mike Tunison

Not really. I know what he's asking for. I could make the same comparison using sites on the SCBR. If I wanted to read about baseball cards, I'd read Chris Olds. If I wanted to read about baseball cards and actually be entertained, I'd read Chris Harris.

It takes a committment to put out the kind of articles that he is looking to add to the FCB blog. But the first few attempts that I've seen this done on this site (there was a whole slew of blogs that were created and then lost to obscurity) didn't turn out well. He's got a number of people on this site writing blogs already on their own (Gellman with SCU, Witmer with Big Box Breaks, etc) and they're doing very well for themselves. He could just save himself the hassle and just link one site that brings these all together.

Besides, I know I'm not going to be taken seriously here anyway, so I thought, "why not throw this out there, and see if something happens?"

Good points. I see what you're saying.

FCB has some clout though. I dunno about the site you're talking about (I'm guessing it's a Bleacher Report-type collection of blogs?), but I'm sure Chris would want everything to remain on his site

 

[matfanofold]

The purpose of publishing your own, original articles is to draw in organic hits, period. Yes, it's a plus to the members benefit(s) as well, but the focal point is (and should be) to grow the community. Simply linking to a blog source is fruitless with regards to intent. I believe Gilmore is attempting to grow the site, and to do this in conjunction with what he is asking, the material needs to be published here and draw the organic hits (future members) in. It's simply amazing just how many daily browsers (and subsiquent registered members) one can get from quality, original work.

 

[AmishDave]

I could write "Musings from a Hoarder" ... The fanatical player collector's blog

 

[rico08]

Any interest in the litigation between card manufacturers/major league organizations and legality of products?

Bob Loblaw's Law Blog.

(say that 3 times fast!)

Plagiarism for the win!

 

[bdj610]

The purpose of publishing your own, original articles is to draw in organic hits, period. Yes, it's a plus to the members benefit(s) as well, but the focal point is (and should be) to grow the community. Simply linking to a blog source is fruitless with regards to intent. I believe Gilmore is attempting to grow the site, and to do this in conjunction with what he is asking, the material needs to be published here and draw the organic hits (future members) in. It's simply amazing just how many daily browsers (and subsiquent registered members) one can get from quality, original work.

I get the fact that he's trying to grow the site. And I'm not saying that it can't be done (there is another Hobby forum out there that has an established blog that allows its members to write articles of the quality that Chris is looking for in his original post). Since he was offering money, I was just trying to see if he'd be willing to sponsor the Blogroll.

I am pretty sure that the writers on that other site I mentioned aren't getting any remuneration for contributing to the other forum's website (maybe they're getting cards in exchange, I don't know the specifics). But if he's willing to pay for articles done by this community, and it has to be of consistent quality and not "one and done" as he described, I was curious as to what he was willing to pay.

On an unrelated note, a few of the ideas that had been thrown out on this topic sound like great ideas for a blog:

A "Law Blog" makes sense because not too many of us know/understand the legal aspects of this Hobby.

A TTM blog would work, but can only go so far in terms of what can be written about it.

I especially liked the one proposed titled "That's Why I Like Leaf." Okay, that's a stretch.

The one referencing a complete set of graded cards (somebody mentioned '55 PSA 6) would be good not only for writing about a great set, but the stories behind getting the cards would be interesting to read.

I had high hopes when the blogging program started and was disappointed when interest in it died the first time. I'm just hoping that whatever comes of this, that the project becomes more successful than the first go-around.

 

[homerun28aa]

I love to write on the forum, I'd love to write articles every once in awhile but I wouldn't wanna be the guy who got paid to do them, but that'd be pretty sweet to write an article about an interesting topic here and there.

 

[csmtampa]

How about some signature studies of popular athletes? Or articles related to autographs and memorabilia?

 

[imac220]

I would be more than willing to write up an article or two a month when the season starts about my in-person autograph adventures!

 

[ChicagoCubsWS]

I would be interested. I made a blog a few weeks ago for some small writing, so heres a link.

Could write about anything whenever I have time.

http://adamsalutric-battingpractice.blogspot.com/

 

[TwinGnats]

I haven't written much lately, however when I do if FCB wants to use any of my articles they are welcome to do so.

http://www.examiner.com/baseball-card-i ... n-anderson