There’s very little doubt that Archie Manning has become the Saints most memorable player in their history, but he’s probably not the best. When it comes to the best player in Saints’ history, I’m very tempted to lean the way of the absurdly dominant, Willie Roaf.

I’d like to take a step back from Roaf though — just one more generation — to the DOME PATROL.

It’s almost mandatory to own the following cards, if you’re a real Saints fan.

1. Ricky Jackson, 1984 Topps Football Card #303

Outside linebacker for the Saints during their Dome Patrol period, Jackson was probably the most skilled of the bunch.  Jackson still holds the All-Time career record for most sacks with 123.  Jackson was an absolute beast that eventually moved onto San Francisco to win his title.  Jackson was voted to 6 Pro Bowls and probably amongst the top-5 Saints of all-time.

2. Sam Mills, 1988 Topps Football Card #65

Mills was absolutely tiny for a linebacker at the NFL-level at 5’9″.  That’s why he didn’t originally stick in the league, or even the Canadian Football League for that matter. But Mills found a home with Jim Mora in the USFL and eventually followed him to the Saints.  Four games into his NFL career and he was a starting Middle Linebacker. Some of the younger generation may remember Mills as not a Saints’ ‘backer, but rather that old guy that played so well for the most successful expansion team of all-time — The Carolina Panthers.  In ’96, as a 37-year old, Sam Mills made his fifth and final Pro-Bowl with those very same Panthers. With the Saints, Sam made the Pro-Bowl in ’87, ’88, ’91 and ’92 and formed the second piece of a deadly Saints’ linebacker crew.

3. Pat Swilling, 1988 Topps Football Card #66

Pat Swilling was the second outside linebacker and earned five Pro Bowl invitations, himself.  In 1991, Pat Swilling had 17 quarterback sacks and was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

Earlier this year, Swilling was named to the College Football Hall of Fame as a Georgia State Yellow Jacket.

4. Vaughan Johnson, 1989 Score Football Card #65

Last but not least, Johnson was an All-Pro with the Saints from ’89 to 92.  Johnson, like Sam Mills, also played in the USFL to start his career before making his way to the Saints. This entire group, the Dome Patrol, went on to lead the league in sacks in 1992 and together all made the Pro Bowl. Crazy.

So, I’m up.

He Wakes Me Up At 6AM and then sleeps until noon.

So far, BlowOut’s offered their typical, and pretty fucking stunning, case of National Treasures for under $1000.
BLOWOUTCARD’s 2006 National Treasures Case

2006 Playoff National Treasures Football Hobby 4 bx Case-$999.95 a Case

It was gone in a snap, as were the rest of the items offered up on Twitter.  Thankfully, more contests followed from twitter…

BLOWOUTCARDS

the 27 caller gets a FREE box of 2009 sp threads fb 1 autograph 3 memorabilia per box on average call 703 421 1877

….and that’s that.

With the cat settled down, I’m surely back off to bed.  Maybe I’ll stay up and try my hand at the sales, which based on the internet traffic, are going very well.

The folks at BlowOutCards have finally made Apache their bitch, and almost all web-connections are running smoothly.  If you stayed up for the deals, you should manage to snag ‘em.

Blowout Cards

Big Black Friday event with teasers on the form: http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/news-announcements/44773-11-27-09-there.html

Lots of teasers:

Posted on 11/23:

Getting Geared up for the BLACK FRIDAY EVENT ! Here’s a few “TEASERS” to preview…these are just a few of the HUNDRED’S of specials we will be posting hour by hour throughout BLACK FRIDAY. Items will be available in Limited quantity ! !!

2001 Upper Deck SP Authentic Golf Hobby Boxes at $109.95
2003 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Baseball Hobby Boxes at $29.95
2008 Score Football Blaster (11packs per box !) 20 bx Cases at $59.95

Posted on 11/24:

Here’s a few more “TEASERS”
Topps Indiana Jones Heritage Hobby 8 bx case-$99.95 a case
2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Hobby Box-$26.95
2006 Donruss Elite Football Hobby Box -$32.95

Posted on 11/26:
More “TEASERS”
Yugioh Boosters…$9.95 a Box !
2005/06 Upper Deck SP Signature Edition BasketballBox -$11.27 !
2008 Upper Deck Documentary Baseball Hobby 12 bx case-$11.27 a case !
2008 Topps Series 1 Baseball Jumbo HTA Box $11.27

DaCardWorld

Nice little email from the boys in Buffalo earlier today.  They seem to be taking more of the traditional approach rather than asking people to get up at 6am on a Friday.  DaCardWorld website, if that’s your thing.

$10 off! Use this coupon: 225-9QXF

Take $10 off any order over $100! Coupon Good through December 31st 2009. Just use gift code 225-9QXF during online checkout or over the phone and save!

Some decent specials too!

Baseball

• 2009 Bowman Baseball Hobby Box – $28.95 $32.95
• 2009 Just Minors Team USA Mini Helmet Baseball Hobby 12-Box Case – $408.00 $456.00
• 2009 Just Minors Team USA Mini Helmet Baseball Hobby Box – $34.95 $39.95
• 2009 Sports Kings Series C Hobby Box – $279.95 $294.95
• 2009 Topps American Heritage Heroes Edition Baseball Hobby Box – $44.95 $44.95
• 2009 Topps Series 2 Baseball Jumbo Box – $63.95 $68.95
• 2009 Topps T-206 Baseball Hobby 10-Box Case – $890.00 $940.00
• 2009 Topps T-206 Baseball Hobby Box – $89.95 $99.95
• 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom Baseball Hobby Box – $59.95 $66.95
• 2009 Upper Deck Piece Of History Baseball Hobby 20-Box Case 69812 – $720.00 $745.00
• 2009 Upper Deck Piece Of History Baseball Hobby Box – $36.95 $39.95
• 2009 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Baseball Hobby 18-Box Case 72770 – $1,495.00 $1,525.00
• 2009 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Baseball Hobby Box – $83.95 $89.95
• 2008 Donruss Threads Baseball Hobby Box – $52.95 $52.95
• 2008 Topps Moments & Milestones Baseball Hobby Box – $40.95 $44.95
• 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball Jumbo Box – $50.95 $57.95
• 2008 TriStar Hidden Treasures Futures Autographed Baseball Hobby Box – $25.95 $29.95
• 2008 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball 24-Pack Box – $15.95 $19.95
• 2008 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Baseball Hobby Box – $99.95 $109.95
• 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Baseball Hobby 18-Box Case 66546 – $522.00 $600.00
• 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Baseball Hobby Box – $29.95 $33.95
• 2008 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Baseball Hobby Box (Pack) – $109.95 $119.95
• 2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball Hobby Box – $44.95 $49.95
• 2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic Baseball Hobby Box – $55.95 $62.95

Basketball

• 2009/10 Panini Basketball Hobby Box – $39.95 $43.95
• 2009/10 Upper Deck SP Game Used Basketball Hobby 6-Box Case 72764 – $990.00 $1,100.00
• 2009/10 Upper Deck SP Game Used Basketball Hobby Box – $165.95 $182.95
• 2008/09 Fleer Basketball 20-Box Retail Case 67145 – $180.00 $250.00
• 2008/09 Fleer Basketball 36-Pack Box – $9.95 $14.95
• 2008/09 Press Pass Basketball Hobby Box – $60.95 $68.95
• 2008/09 Topps Basketball Hobby Box – $39.95 $45.95
• 2007/08 Fleer Hot Prospects Basketball Hobby Box – $47.95 $47.95
• 2007/08 Topps Finest Basketball Hobby Box – $49.95 $54.95
• 2007/08 Upper Deck SP Game Used Basketball Hobby Box – $109.95 $119.95
• 2006/07 Topps Chrome Basketball Hobby Box – $40.95 $46.00

Football

• 2009 Bowman Chrome Football Hobby Box – $56.95 $56.95
• 2009 Donruss Elite Football Hobby Box – $71.95 $76.95
• 2009 Donruss Gridiron Gear Football Hobby Box – $80.95 $84.95
• 2009 Donruss Threads Football Hobby Box – $75.95 $80.95
• 2009 Press Pass Football Hobby Box – $62.95 $69.95
• 2009 Upper Deck Philadelphia Football Hobby Box – $43.95 $49.95
• 2008 Bowman Chrome Football Hobby 10-Box Case 712-08H – $460.00 $485.00
• 2008 Bowman Chrome Football Hobby Box – $46.95 $49.95
• 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Football Hobby Box – $39.95 $44.95

Hockey

• 2009/10 Upper Deck Black Hockey Hobby Box – $179.95 $209.95
• 2009/10 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey Hobby 12-Box Case – $684.00 $720.00
• 2009/10 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey Hobby Box – $57.95 $62.95
• 2008/09 Upper Deck SPx Hockey Hobby Box – $67.95 $72.95
• 2008/09 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey Hobby 12-Box Case 68012 – $516.00 $575.00
• 2008/09 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey Hobby Box – $43.95 $48.95
• 2006/07 O-Pee-Chee Hockey 36-Pack Box – $18.95 $21.95

Check Out My Cards

Last, but not least, CheckOutMyCards.com sent an email my way.  They have their Black Friday Specials listed up here.

• • This is an 80% discount compared to standard shipping after the 11th card.
  • Shipment requests must be placed by Monday, November 30th 11:59 PM

• • Store credit must be purchased on Thursday or Friday from here https://www.checkoutmycards.com/Manage/AddCredit.aspx
  • Checks & money orders must be post marked on Friday November 27th and include a note to include “Extra 10% Free”.

• • Learn more about how to use CheckOutMyCards.com to sell your cards http://www.checkoutmycards.com/Sell.aspx

• • Redemption request must be placed on Thursday or Friday from here https://www.checkoutmycards.com/Manage/RedeemStoreCredit.aspx
  • This can be used in conjunction with the amazing discounts that Blowout Cards is offering for Black Friday. http://www.blowoutcards.com/

• • The coupon gives you FREE Express processing for 24 cards. ($15 Value)

CheckOutMyCards also still has the first time seller discount:

First-Time Sellers

If you have never sent us cards to sell, you can send us up to 50 cards and we will use the Express Processing services to list the cards for FREE!!!

Restrictions
– Encased cards, box-toppers, jumbo and graded cards are not eligible for this promotion
– Packages must be postmarked by Monday, November 30th
– Boxes must be clearly marked with your user name and “First-Time Seller: 50 Free”
– Follow the instructions for how to ship to us

There’s some good deals to be had, but who knows if I’ll be waking up at 6AM.  Most of the quality sales get killed by customs anyways.  Damn UPS.

I didn’t have a Topps profile, as I was very new to collecting, so I created one and entered codes a couple at a time as I debated just selling or holding the redemption cards.  Since you obviously cannot return opened boxes of baseball cards, my profile came to look like this:

Okay..

For the last month, I’ve been receiving emails from Topps saying,

Dear Consumer.

This email is to inform you that the Topps Company is currently beyond the 15 week processing time allocated for the following redemption card:

PIN #:          Product:                        Card/Player Name
XXXXXXXX    Topps Finest                    Travis Snider AU Rookie Letter Patch

Our staff is working diligently to process and ship your redemption card as soon as possible.  Please continue to check your Online Redemption account for updates regarding the status of your card.

If you no longer wish to wait for the redemption card, please contact our Consumer Relations team in order to place a substitution request for a card of equal Beckett value.

Obviously, the consumer has to believe that Topps had a contract with Snider and just wasn’t able to get the cards signed in time, right?

Well after complaining about the misleading (and illegal?) sales tactics to support@etopps.com, I finally got an answer about when the cards would (maybe) arrive at my doorstep:

Response (Colin)

11/09/2009 11:52 AM

Thank you for your inquiry concerning our current redemption program.

I wanted to apologize for the delay and allay your concerns in reference to Topps having received your redemption claim. Below you will see the entry into our system for your card:

09-BB-FIN-152-RF Backordered 2009 Topps Finest Baseball Travis Snider AU Rookie Letter Patch Refractor 152

This specific card is scheduled to be printed and constructed in November along with the Finest Rookie set. Please allow four to six weeks for us to obtain the autograph and ship the card. If, at the end of that period, you have not received, feel free to contact us again involving the status of your redemption.

Now, I’m fucking furious.

Topps hadn’t even PRINTED the Cards at the time the release, let alone SENT them to Travis Snider.

If this isn’t a severe misrepresentation of a product, I don’t know what is, but I’ll be filing the papers.

I feel like I’ve got another problem in waiting, though.  After a seller invoiced me, he messaged me back a week later saying that he needed another 3.50 to mail the item to Canada.  Now, I’ve received enough items to understand that shipping is either 2-something for regular airmail or 11-something for registered and insured airmail.  Not once have I seen an envelope with seven dollars worth of postage.  Either way, the seller put a tracking number on the package but it’s yet to pass through a checkpoint on it’s way to the Great White North.  Whether or not the seller simply printed the postage and kept the item is yet to be seen, but even in the worst case scenario, I’ve still only had two problems out of 150 transactions.  Is 1% about the going rate on eBay for problem transactions?

In addition to eBay, I rooted around CheckOutMyCards.com for some cards that were produced after 1970.  If you haven’t used CheckOutMyCards, I’d highly suggest it despite some of it’s problems.  The first problem is a logistical one and thus, it’s really tough to criticize their implementation. In order to make offers on cards, you must add the required amount to your COMC account prior to any offers.  Obviously, this is a reasonable way to conduct business until you look at the fee structure: If you’re just purchasing cards on the website and plan on having them shipped, you have 30 days to conduct your business before fees begin to apply.  Originally, I’d just planned on throwing 100 dollars into CheckOutMyCards and shopping around until I was ready to ship the items out.

If you deposit money into COMC and it sits there for more than 30 days, then you’ll have to pay their ridiculous cash-out fee of 20%.  The fee makes perfect sense for sellers profiting on their service, but for the occasional buyer that just leaves money in his account in case he spots a deal, it’s somewhat ridiculous.  If you haven’t used your store credit in the first 30 days after the deposit, CheckOutMyCards decides that you’ll only get 80 of your 100 dollars back if you decide to cash-out.

I’m not certain what service they’re claiming to have provided once the calender turns, especially considering you haven’t purchased a damn thing.  The solution CheckOutMyCards has provided is ass-backwards and somewhat sneaky, especially if you haven’t read their terms of service or fee structure which the occasionally buyer almost certainly ignored.

During the first 30-days, COMC waives their 20% fee on withdraws.  In essence, if you’re going to be purchasing cards without selling them, you’ve got to make a cash-out request every 30 days, just in case.  Once the money clears back into your paypal account, you just go ahead and redeposit it back into CheckOutMyCards.  I believe they’ve eliminated the necessity to email them after your cash-out request to ask for a 100% store credit conversion.

Selling on COMC seems like a sketchy venture as you’ll have to pay the following fees to list a card:

1. 15 cents to have the card processed in 8-10 weeks
2. 3.00 per batch, or about 1 cent per card extra in processing fees.
3. 1 cent per card monthly stocking fee (free for cards w/ asking price under .25 cents)
4. the same 20% cash-out fee

For an example, here’s a 1 dollar card that sits for a few months and eventually sells.

1. It cost you 2 cents to ship it to COMC – ($0.98)
2. It cost you 15 cents for COMC to process it in 8 weeks (more if you’d like it done quicker) – ($0.83)
3. It cost you another 1 cent for the lot processing – ($0.82)
4. The Card is stored free for 3 months, but let’s say it sits 5 total months – ($.80)
5. Finally, you cash out your store credit which is 20% of the selling price, not your net ($0.80 – (20% of 1.00) ) or $0.60

You Make 60 Cents. CheckOutMyCards makes 38 cents.  A wonderful business model for CheckOutMyCards.

They do offer free storage on Cards listed under 25 cents though, which considering it costs you 18 cents minimum to just list the card, plus another 20% of .25 cents ( five cents), you’re looking at making a MAXIMUM of two cents.

Considering COMC has about 400 football cards listed under five cents and over 30,000 football cards listed at or under 25 cents, they’re making a shit-tonne of money.  I’m not even bothering with baseball cards, but I’m certain there’s an equal or greater amount of profit in that venture.  When sellers fail to do any variety of math, it works out just dandy for the buyer.

The offer and counter-offer policy is also a bit confusing, especially when sellers refuse to counter offer or sit on their offer for more than a couple days.  Any funds in pending offers are locked and there’s no real way to blanket offer X dollars for a card and the first one to bite gets the sale.

So instead, I found myself offering X dollars to Seller A and waiting before offering the same amount to Seller B, and then C, and then D, and then E, before upping my offer and repeating the cycle.

This got a little long, but there’s lots of good cards on their way, so I’m excited.

The game of football was made for television, and television was made for the NFL: Pete Rozelle understood this, and Paul Tagliabue inherited it. Roger Goodell’s now using the internet to take the NFL to the next level.

Football’s been all too quick to forget it’s past, which is understandable in a game that’s constantly changing.  It’s hard to equate today’s game to the earliest incarnations of the game.  Goodell’s making an effort this year, with the AFL’s 40th anniversary, to actively remind the public that football has a storied history.

The first thing I noticed when I started purchasing vintage football cards was that the market was insanely undervaluing many of the cards. Many of the NFL Hall of Famers can be attained in raw form for under 10 dollars.

When you consider that BlowOutCards.com has Bowman Sterling on for 215 dollars and many of the boxes have yielded under 50 dollars resale value, it just clicks.

How can you possibly feel like you’ve gotten even the slightest amount of value out of a box, when you could’ve just purchased them on eBay for 1/5th of the price.

Maybe you pull a terrific Mark Sanchez or Matthew Stafford card, but cards like that aren’t seeded at a high enough ratio to justify taking the chance.  Even if you do manage a case hit out of a product, you’ll barely double your money.

I don’t care about doubling my money, but I do care about getting ripped off.

…and thus begins the vintage collecting.