Join Beckett Baseball‘s Chris Olds and Reed Kasaoka from Baseball Card Exchange (bbcexchange.com) as they rip into a box of 1985 Donruss in this latest Ripping Retail video.

What will they find inside? Watch and find out …

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor | Commentary

If you’ve collected for any amount of time, you’ve probably had the moment where you sit back, look at all of the hot mess that is your collection and wondered what your focus is.

Wait, it’s just me? Ok, I’ll go along with that … but we all know better.

As I pondered a column topic for an upcoming Beckett Baseball, I turned to the Hall of Fame — the simple idea of writing about notable sigs I don’t have. It was to be a woe-is-me approach — more like confession — of how I am lacking some notable signatures in my collection, particularly given my supposed collecting focus (well, at least one of them … one that has been around for a long, long time).

Instead, I actually surprised myself — while still realizing that, yes, I am lacking some notable sigs.

I’ve never focused on collecting autographs of baseball’s Hall of Famers — instead acquiring decent autographs at decent prices when they presented themselves, hunting sigs one old-fashioned way or finding autographs in packs. Years ago, that hunting meant trying for autographs of big names through the mail — baseball and otherwise — and, back then, it worked pretty well.

Between all sports — and non-sports, too, I easily have a few thousand sigs. Or at least it might seem that way. Besides being too undisciplined to intently focus on just one niche over a long period of time, I’m also not much of a sorter. My autographs and memorabilia cards are separate from other stuff but that’s it. (I’m missing that one “collecting gene” that must have everything in an orderly place.)

Despite my haphazard ways, I surprised myself when I quickly tallied my Hall of Fame autograph total, mentally checking off those I have and those I don’t. Again, despite never trying to actively seek out players, I have 41 of the 297 members of the Hall — mostly players but a couple of others. It’s a total that is far from Hall of Fame worthy — probably downright laughable for some of you Hall 0f Fame-focused fans with deeper pockets — but it’s a reflection of 25 years of having fun, moving from interest to interest within the hobby, not worrying about making  a buck. I collect for fun based on what I can afford.

Many of my Hall of Famers came via through-the-mail requests — guys like Richie Ashburn, Kirby Puckett and Eddie Mathews who often signed for the price of a stamp but are no longer here. Then there are the certifieds of the Hank Aarons (added just this year), Whitey Fords, Harmon Killebrews, Frank Robinsons (1994 Nabisco, baby!) and Barry Larkins of the world who I found inside packs or got via mail-in offers. That’s another way — perhaps the most-common way — I found them. Then, of course, there are the guys who I picked up on signed baseballs through the years — Nolan Ryan,  Steve Carlton, Paul Molitor, to name a few. That was before I realized I just don’t have the patience — or space — for storing a bunch of single-signed balls and the dangers of fading and leather blotches. Some of them came from the JCPenney Christmas catalog while others were picked up in trades with what went out of my collection long, long forgotten.

Oddly, though, none of my Hall of Famer autographs have been acquired in-person — perhaps a sign of how big the autograph industry has become during my collecting years (1987 to today). While I have met many a legend in other sports and gotten sigs in-person from some of them, oddly the sport I follow the most hasn’t created a moment. Well, unless, you count my recent encounter with Reggie Jackson — but all I got there was a single photograph and I wasn’t even thinking about ink.

The invention of the cut autograph allowed me to add a Joe DiMaggio sig straight from a pack a few years ago, but oddly he’s probably my least-favorite Yankees hitting legend of the bunch and yet the only autograph I have. Taking a different approach — winning a Twitter contest — allowed me to add a Goose Gossage autograph. (Not one I really ever would have sought out. I just got lucky.)

I’ll undoubtedly have more Hall of Famer autographs in my collection in the coming years as my generation’s stars are up for election — well, at least they’ll have a chance to be elected from the wreckage of the steroid era. Optimistically, my stats will look better with age even if I don’t add a single sig starting tomorrow.

Oh, and that confession part? Well, I’m a long-time A’s fan and I still haven’t tracked down a Rickey Henderson or a Reggie (not sure I would now). Other big names from modern times? Mickey Mantle? Nope, never forked over the cash. Bob Gibson? I should have — he’s too affordable considering his on-mound dominance. Cal Ripken Jr.? Nope — always wanted a signed 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken instead. Henderson will likely be next — but like much of my collecting habits, there’s not really a target item or date in sight.

Heck, here’s the biggest revelation of them all — the most-shocking thing I realized when I mentally worked through my Hall of Fame autograph collection.

I don’t even own a Bob Feller … and he signed everything.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor | Commentary

As we ready ourselves for new calendars, it’s easy to look back on the past year that was cardboard and assess.

However with two more baseball products to come for 2011, we’re not quite there yet — so that led me to look back a little further.

How far? December 1984 — just the second issue of Beckett Monthly magazine.

Beckett Monthly — now, of course, Beckett Baseball — was the only Beckett magazine for sports cards of any kind and it focused purely on baseball. Its 38 pages cost you $2.50, and it was quite a different animal. Four of those pages were for the 1985 price survey as reader input was one way that collectors and dealers could help establish a better look at the market. Two more of those pages were to show off a single card from all of the notable card sets from 1948 to 1984.

The remaining 32 pages? An editor’s note, letters, pricing and house ads for various Sport Americana books, which predated the Beckett mags.

Oh, how times have changed.

Are you ready for some December 1984 prices?

The 1952 Topps set? $8,700. (That’s $65,000 today.)

The 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle Rookie Card? $375. (That’s $8,000 today.)

The 1952 Topps Mantle? Just $1,450 then. It’s $30,000 now — in raw, ungraded form. (Remember, professional grading didn’t exist then, either.)

Back then, a 1955 Bowman set would cost you $510 on the high side. Today? Six grand.

How about Cal Ripken Jr., who was hot enough to grace the cover of the issue alongside Mantle? How’d he fare? A $5.50 card in the $27 1982 Topps set. (Today, he’s a $40 in an $80.)

Or a classic 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan Rookie Card? Just $35 then … $500 now.

Back then, a Hot List didn’t exist but one card probably would have topped it — a “1984 Topps Extended” Dwight Gooden “RC?” which was the most-expensive card of the year at $3.50. Of course, now it’s known as a 1984 Topps Traded XRC, and it still fetches as much as $10. It’s since been topped as one of the year’s best, of course.

The only other $3-and-up cards from 1984? The 1984 Fleer Update Gooden at $3.25 and the 1984 Topps Darryl Strawberry and Don Mattingly RCs at $3.25 apiece. That’s it.

What is considered Mattingly’s best RC today, 1984 Donruss, was $2.25 — just a little more than the red-hot 1984 Fleer Rookie Card of Juan Samuel at $2.

How’d that work out?

Speaking of 1984 Fleer Update … Roger Clemens? Just 40 cents, while Alvin Davis was $1.35. How about the esteemed Barbaro Garbey? 40 cents. Meanwhile, Kirby Puckett was $1 — the same as Jeff Stone.

Times sure have changed — way more than the calendars have.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.