The Beckett Files:The Missing EDITION= Big Pulls

I am now turning the corner in this series on Beckett. I am going to start discussing things that I miss about the magazine.

How many of you remember a time when this feature was in there?

I do.

One thing that is always fun and something that I request on both my Twitter and Facebook page is for people to post their hits or share some of their favorite cards for me and for others to see. This was a feature in Beckett I really enjoyed. You know, one of those "man what a sick hit" or "man I have one better than that". I tried a couple of times to make it in, but never did. Guess my big pull was only big to me.

It seemed though as time went on that less and less of these were being shown and all of a sudden the feature disappeared. I think it was a sad loss and one I would love for them to bring back and I am pretty sure I am not alone with this.

I know I have a few cards I would try submitting and I am sure others do to. I mean who wouldn't want to be featured in a sports card magazine???

What do you guys think? Do you miss this Beckett feature? Would you submit a card in to be featured? What would that card be? Let me know your thoughts in comments!

The Beckett Files:The Hot List

It may sound crazy, but one of my favorite features in Beckett other than the price guide is The Hot List.

When my new issue arrives, I always find myself flipping it open to those pages first. I think it's fun to see which cards I have make the list and which spot they fall under. For the most part, baseball and football are always last for me meaning either one or none make the list even though I collect those sports most. It's odd.

If you are unfamiliar with these pages or haven't seen The Hot Lists in Beckett, they look like this....

They list the Top 20 hottest cards on the market from each sport along with a position they fall in and Beckett book value.

I thought for fun, I would have you guys first tell me if you have a card off from the Hot List for these three pages, then take a guess on which one or ones I have off from it. I do have at least one off of each.

Baseball:

 

Basketball:

 

Other Sports:

There are still more The Beckett Files to come. The next parts of the series will focus on things I miss that are no longer apart of Beckett. Stay tuned!

The Beckett Files:COVERing My Collection

In the previous The Beckett Files, I discussed the price guides and whether you guys use them or not.

In this post, I want to take a look at something else I get Beckett's for, the covers. (Don't worry about this segment series ending quite yet however, I plan on going back inside the magazine in the next The Beckett Files)

I don't collect them as much as I used to, but in the 90's I would collect Beckett's specifically for who was on the cover and keep the magazine in the best condition I could. Storing them wasn't easy, but I found using sheet pages and binders worked best.

When it came to collecting the covers, it couldn't be just anybody on it. It had to feature either a special event or one of my PC players/teams. One of my bigger collection of Beckett's is of Griffey since I use to PC so much in the 90's.

This one was one of my favorite Griffey ones except I don't believe I ever got the 4 in the 24 cover. Either way, I always thought it looked cool.

 

Here's one with Griffey as a Red with Bonds and A-Rod. Obviously only one of these guys hit their home runs the truthful way.

And here is one of the latest Beckett's discussing Griffey's introduction into the Hall Of Fame. This one obviously had to find it's way in the collection.

 

Some of my other favorite magazines over the time are the June 1990 issue with Bo Jackson on the cover, 1990 July Ken Griffey Jr cover, A Brett Favre one (can't remember the year but it had a cool jersey design to it) and of course the Super Bowl 46 Champions NY Giants to just name a few. There are others, believe me.

I tried to cut down on collecting these as much as I am putting my main focus of my collecting strictly on cards and nothing else. But, if the occasional one pops up that I think I need, well, I will most likely grab it. Especially if it involves Griffey or the NY Giants.

So don't make me feel alone in collecting these. How many of you collect Becketts for their covers? Which one is your favorite if you do?

The Beckett Files:Price Guides Are Still A Thing (to me)

It's amazing the change in determining value in today's collecting as opposed to collecting when I entered.

Back in the 90's, Beckett was very relevant as a price guide. If you needed a price or value on a card, most likely you would hear the response, "I need to look it up in my Beckett." I remember plenty of card shows where the dealer would get out their specific Beckett and check the half book value before they sold me the card for that price.

Today, the thing you will hear most about Beckett is their grading services and people using eBay for card values. There are very few of us who use a Beckett for values anymore from what I have observed and heard. Me, I still use it. Not that I plan on selling, it's just fun to see a value put on your cards and keeps you wanting to beat your last highest value. I was raised and born into the hobby using a Beckett for values and as long as there are Beckett's, I don't plan on changing.

I plan to continue to search these pages for my card values

Being a collector of multiple sports, its sometimes challenging to keep up with looking up values.  I at one time had subscribed to multiple Beckett magazines to cover all of my areas. But, when Beckett switched from individual monthly sports to the Beckett Sport Card Monthly, they dropped the other sports to 4 times a year (they have since switched them back to monthly), I decided to stick with the monthly one that covered all of my sports. The problem I have now is that they don't list everything I need as you can only fit so much into a monthly magazine.

Luckily I found a way to fix this problem, I buy one Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey card issue once a year. Cause honestly, who can afford to subscribe to them all. Prices have also gone up for them since the 90's as well.

I am just glad that there isn't much expansion in some sports as I don't have to buy individual ones for wrestling, UFC, Golf, NASCAR and

figures just yet.

I know some of you may ask why I just don't get an online subscription, well, that's a simple answer. One, it costs a lot more and doesn't fall into my finances. Two, I have stated how old fashion I am many times and how I like "physical" objects and I would rather flip through the pages instead of scroll on a computer.

It may be fun for me to see the Beckett values in hand, but when I tried to use those in a trade once I learned a valuable lesson. I learned that most collectors won't use book value anymore to judge a cards trade value. That is something that doesn't settle very well with me. If I see a card worth $100 in Beckett, I expect to trade for the same value.It does not work like that anymore and it's been a tough transaction but one that I will have to deal with. 

I am not sure when the transaction from everyone using a Beckett to not using one for card value changed, but I guess it just shows the hobby continues to evolve and move forward. Are all changes like this one a good thing? Hard to tell. I still wished this one remained that way everyone can be on the same page with card values, yes pun intended, cause I think that sometimes leads to issues I have seen on many social media sites when people trade/sell/buy. At least I will always have a roundabout number.

Today's article is one in a series of ones called The Beckett Files. I sat down one night and tore threw a Beckett comparing today's Beckett to the ones I grew up with. There are definitely some ups and downs and you will see them all as I post these up.