So for about 10 years now, I’ve been creating custom cards for both my and other people’s collections, while showing them here. I’ve had a blast doing it, but 2023 is the year I focused on it more than any year prior. I wanted to show a handful of pieces that I created throughout this past year. I’ve done a ton more, but these cover a wide array of various designs I created, etc. Happy New Years, fellas! I hope 2024 brings you a lot of great cardboard into your collections! The post Cutting Up Valuable Autographs appeared first on Tan Man Baseball Fan ..read more

The last trade of 2023 was a super fun one, and it capped off a phenomenal year for my Canseco PC. For a little bit of a back story, the first card I remember ever pulling is a 1987 Topps Jose Canseco. While it isn’t his true rookie, it is his most popular Topps card, and perhaps his second most popular card ever, behind his Rated Rookie. In 2017, Topps came out with a set called “Clearly Authentic”. In it was a 1986 Topps Canseco Rookie Reprint – and a 1/1 parallel. I thought it was the coolest thing – well, the coolest thing to me would be a 1987 version, but still … Oh, and the ’86 style ve ..read more

Goodness, has it really been 6 months since I’ve last written an article?  That’s a good tell for how busy I’ve been.  I guess it also speaks to the fact that I haven’t really had anything all that interesting to say … until now.  While the catalyst of the discovery I’m about to tell you is going to zero in on my latest card acquisition, it is my hope that it will cause you to dig into your collection as well, and see if you can uncover gold.  It’ll be a fun exercise, I promise!   So, where to begin?  Ahh yes, August.   In the heat of the day, a mos ..read more

Cardboard grails are a weird thing, man.  They make you do strange and irrational things, like keep you up at night, trying to figure out where to search, and even post things like this … or this …  or even this!    When I walked away from supercollecting, not a single card in the above graphic had surfaced the entire time I was searching.  It should be noted that the first card shown, the 1996 Select Certified Mirror Gold was my main grail I never found, and was one of three that were my favorites.  I dreamt about this card.  I considered buying up all the ..read more

I’ve kept this acquisition under my hat for over a year now   In 1902, the first Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was discovered by Barnum Brown in Hell Creek, Montana.  Does it shock you that it wasn’t that long ago?  Think of all the people who never got the chance to know about the T-Rex.  George Washington, Van Gogh, Darwin, etc.   Barnum Brown is in the white shirt, next to his discovery.  Ever since, the T-Rex has been known as the king of the dinosaurs.  If you ask a child what their favorite dinosaur is, they will either say a T-Rex, or lie and say so ..read more

Happy Babe Ruth Day! On Feb. 6th, 1895, the Sultan of Swat was born.   Ironically enough, I JUST landed this Babe Ruth card! My friend Enrique came over yesterday, and we had a great time talking. BTW, Enrique is now a part of the T206 Wagner Flip Quest!   But anyway, onto the card…it is a SUPER fascinating one …   Babe Ruth’s 1932 Sanella offering pre-dates his Goudey cards, and has, perhaps, sinister implications, as it was produced in Germany during a very dark time.     While the Nazi party was reportedly fringe in years prior, by 1932 it was the largest pol ..read more

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have done the unthinkable. I have consolidated my three shelves of Canseco cardboardy goodness to ONE single, solitary shelf.  Here’s what it looked like before: and here is what’s left standing … Don’t worry, the others are safe and sound in a box, but as Holly says “It looks much less stalkerish now”.  I guess that’s a win!  2022 has definitely NOT been the year of monster pickups for me.  I probably only added 2 or 3 PC cards, and likely none that I’m super wild about.  No vintage, no nuthin’.  In fact, I sold a few huge cards, so I gu ..read more

It’s crazy to think that more time has passed since I quit supercollecting Canseco than the entire time I was a Canseco supercollector.  Admittedly, it is a bit difficult to quantify exactly *when* I became one.  In October 2013, I wrote about how I was going to sell my entire childhood Canseco collection.  I loooove one of the things I wrote in that article: Seriously?  A serial stalker?  Oh, 2013 Tanner – wait until you meet 2014-2018 Tanner LOL.  Here’s a pic of the bulk of my collection in 2013 that I sold.  The biggest card I owned was probably a 95 Don ..read more

Create a high-end trading card of your child, pet, family member, or friend this Christmas!  The Dragonfly Collection is a custom trading card set offering created by Tanner Jones. (Me.  I’m Tanner Jones.)   How does it work?  You send a picture, and “relic” (pretty much anything that can be easily cut!), and I will create a card for you!  Don’t want to send anything?  No problem!  I can send you the pieces, so you can have fun by yourself or with a family member to put together your own one-of-a-kind card in a matter of minutes!  If you want to do ..read more

This has probably been the longest layoff I’ve had between writing.  A lot has happened, and if you follow me on social media, you know why.  I haven’t publicly gone into much detail, so for the purpose of telling our story, and for my own therapy, I’m going to keep tapping away here at my keyboard until I can tap away no more.  Perhaps most importantly, it is my hope that telling our story in its rawest form will help someone out there who has gone through something similar or who will go through something similar.   Before starting, I would like to thank the countles ..read more