Mail Day! Grail Day! 2 MASSIVE Pickups!

Hi, my name is Brian and I'm the Hip Hop Professor and today I have an epic mail day. I have two gigantic for me packages coming. Uh, in fact, they've just arrived. Haven't opened them yet. And with all the selling off I've been doing in January. I am going to make a video about that, by the way. So, just wait. Um, but I have, uh, you might say, reinvested some of the, uh, some of the earnings, the proceeds from those sales, uh, into two PC cards that I am just over the moon with. I can't wait to get into these. So, we're going to turn the camera around, bust into these, and talk about what I'm holding. All right, we're going to start with the envelope first. And so this was a card that I had been looking at. I had been in negotiations with someone to pick up one and that those negotiations had kind of stalled out partially because this card is so rare that the seller didn't feel comfortable selling it without um without having more comps readily available, you know, which which look, I'm I'm sympathetic to that. I I just sold a couple of cards, a handful of which um I was in a very similar boat and I kind of had to play a little bit fast and loose with some numbers, do some napkin math, so I completely understand where they're coming from here. Okay, so my goodness. Oh man. All right, so I I did now, you know, in all fairness, I did tease this. I teased that this card was coming in uh the last Brothers Duo episode and so it has just arrived here today and oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Emerald moment. 98 Pinnacle Epics. Greg Maddox. Oh baby. this card. Man, would you look at this? Wow. Incredible. All right, so time for a very brief history lesson. Um, why is this card amazing? Well, it's amazing for a couple reasons. First of all, just look at it. I mean, look at it. Just look at it. It's incredible. Um, the Pinnacle Epics in '98. This set was a unique set. I actually don't have the all of them. Uh, this is the rarest one. This is the toughest one to get by far. Um, and so they came in a bunch of different designs. And so we had the most common design, which was the play. And they also came in three colors. The orange was the most common color. 70% of each one of these type were orange. 20% were the purple type. And the rarest of the three colors was the emerald which were 10% of the print run for each of them. Now there are not print runs for most of these cards. But the as you ascend from orange to purple to green again 70% 20% and 10% these emeralds especially they will command a premium uh regardless even ones that are that are the play. Um now there are actually five different types of emerald uh themes. the play being the most common one. It has this concentric oval design which is really cool and this is a dot matrix type insert. The in the issue is that not every player had every design. So while there are five of them out there most players only have four. So these were these were basically like I I wouldn't call them stealth inserts like like the 98 Donner Crusades, but I would call them it was a it was an insert set that ran through a bunch of different sets. So, Pinnacle had these in there. Uh, Zenith had them in there. A bunch of them ha had potential to pull epics of different types for different players. So, the first type is is the play type. Then we have the game, which doesn't have the oval shape, but you look at the shine here. It has these sort of radiating um, you know, sunburst like a ray from the back. And so, we've got the game orange, the game purple, and believe it or not, I'm missing the game emerald for some reason. and I I fell asleep with the wheel. There was one for sale, I think, for about 50 bucks. Someone else snapped it up. I'm not too worried about it. I I'll pick up in my own time. U but this is the uh a little bit tougher to get than the plays. Then you have this one, which is the Allstar Moments. Now, there there's there's one variety that Maddox does not have, and I don't think Bonds has it either called seasons. And so Maddox just doesn't have a seasons, but uh but like Derek Jeter does and Ken Griffy Jr. does. Um and partially that's because some of the sets that these were in uh because of the pinnacle bankruptcy never I think never made it out. This was during 98. So yeah, they hadn't finished their entirety of their run. And I'm almost knocking over the camera here. All right. But you can kind of see this is a really neat sort of um has this sort of X sort of flower blossom design. It is wild this matrix stuff. Um now what's interesting about this is that the moments the epics moments are by far the toughest ones and we'll get to that in a second. But the allstar moments are are still tough but they are definitely an order of magnitude or two easier to find still than the emerald moments. And we'll talk about that one. So, when people say they have an epics moment, uh, check to see if it's the all-star moments because it's not quite as impressive as if they have a legitimate just moments. So, here's the orange all-star moment. Here's the purple all-star moment. And here is the emerald allstar moment. But then we get to the creme de la creme. We have the regular moment. And look at this this um design, this sort of uh sort of you know, zigzag uh type pattern in the background. And and with these now, this is the only style that they had reported print runs. And so by kind of using reverse uh some reverse mathematics, it was it was said that the Emerald Moment, this one right here, which completes the trifecta, that this has a print run. It's not serial numbered, but has a print run of 30 copies made. And if indeed the emerald represent 10% of each style of card they have moments that would mean that this one the purple which is 20% would be twice as much as the 10%. So there should be 60 of these. And if this one the orange moment represents 70% of the print run. Well, again, if 10% is 30, then well, we can multiply 30 * 7 really to get from 10% to 70%. And there should be a print run of 210 of these orange moments cards if my math is correct. So, those are some stated print runs. Um, no one has seen anything that would um that would that would sort of contradict what those stated print runs are. So, we we don't actually know. Um, you know, a lot of a lot of, you know, weird hanky panky things were going on with the with the bankruptcy. Um, I'm not generally into a bunch of the bankruptcy issues. Um, with with one exception. I do have this uh select numbers card from uh from 98 Select. Another dot matrix shine that is fantastic. Um, that uh yeah, for sure is a is a keeper card for me. But this card just oh of of all of the epics cards, this is the granddaddy. This is the This is the the key to to the whole Epics run. And yes, it's a it's a PSA 6. I don't really care. Uh it's a POP three with only one higher. That's how how tough these cards are to get graded. Um and so good luck. Now, that being said, you know, there was a I think there was a Chipper that sold not that long ago for about $600. There was a Frank Thomas Emerald Moments PSA 10 that I believe just sold for $3,000. I did not verify that on 130 point. Um, but and and same with the Chipper. I have to make sure to do that before I say something that's not verifiable. But still, um, wow. This is this was a card that was that has been um, nagging at me. It's been on my list uh of intended targets for quite some time and it either just doesn't show up or if it does show up like there's two others available I think on eBay right now but but one of them is ungraded and I think they want $900 for it and the other one is another fellow PSA 6 that uh I think they have buy it now for 1,500 and so uh really pleased that I was able to pick this up for uh for 400. So, great card. Great card. And exactly the kind of amazing card I'm looking to pick up um if I'm moving along some other cards that don't mean as much to me. This one, oh, baby. Um, wow. Just wow. All right, let's um let's put that to the side. Let's go ahead and get into this next one. Now, this next one is is going to take a little bit of explaining, which is which is fine because it's um it's going to take me a second to get in here anyway. So, this next card uh this is one that also has been on my radar for quite some time and it is an absurdly rare card. It is a card that that like some of these like bankruptcy type issues, it's a card that should not exist. In fact, it's a card that is not even pullable from a pack. Uh they did not insert this card into packs. So, what is this card? Um so, this is a card from 97 Finest and it's a finest refractor, but there's an issue with this refractor. And the issue with this refractor is that it has the wrong refractor pattern on it. Oh boy. Oh boy. Here we go. Oh, look at that packaging. Oh, yeah. All right. Thank you. My buddy Keith packaged this one up very nicely for me. Uh likewise, I was in I was in dealings uh negotiations with with the same seller who had the other one and then I found another copy of this. So, as you know, I like shiny cards and Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Okay. So, so in in 97 finest, let's let's let's back up a little bit. These 97 finests, they would come in either, you know, bronze, silver, or gold tier cards. Of course, they had refractors for those as well. For the silvers and the golds, they had uh regular refractors, but they also had embossed cards, regular embossed cards and embossed refractors. So, the granddaddy of them all is the gold embossed refrator, not serial numbered, but there's an estimate. Well, there's some debate about how many people estimate are out there. My estimation is that there's a print run of about 30 of the gold embossed refrators. So, let's back it up a little bit. We're talking about this card right here, 97 finest. Here is the gold refractor of Greg Maddox. Gorgeous card. Amazing shine. Look at it. Look at that card. All right. So, with this beauty right here, what you then have is this was my Grail card from about a year and a half ago. And look at this gold embossed refractor. And so this one, if I can get this thing to focus. There we are. Take a look at the embossing. He's popping out of the card. The the the the atomic refractor pattern, the decal edge. Oh man, in all of its full glory. Look at this card. But then, you know, partially because my dad is such a big collector of Barry Bond's errors and promo cards, I was aware of this because I knew he had one like this. where this is a gold refractor with the wrong refractor pattern. Notice this card does not have a decal edge. And notice that this card does not have the embossing. If I put the light on this, you can see how Maddox is popping out of there. And with this card, it is a flat surface on this card. And so this card is a curiosity. This is a card that should not exist. It is one that was not pack pulled. And again, so we we don't know how many of these there are. There's an estimated I'm estimating the print run at about 30. I don't know for sure. Some some go as high as 50. I think I think that's way too high personally. This card is a mystery. It's an enigma. Nobody knows what this is. Some people, including PSA, by the way, mistakes this. Um, PSA should not slab this card. I have seen it in PSA slabs. Um, but they mistake it for either a gold refrator. I don't think they mistake it for a decal edge gold emboss refractor like this. But man, I really wanted this card to tie together this trifecta right there. Right there. Wow. And this card is sort of a tribute like to my dad because he likes this kind of promo stuff, unreleased stuff, um, error cards, you know, these these odd these sort of odd cards that shouldn't exist but they do. He's all about that and I that always stuck with me. And I'm not like going to change my entire collection to go after those kind of cards, but if I'm going to seek one one big one from the 90s, this is the one. This is the one. I've wanted to complete this trifecta for quite some time and now I've got it. In talking with other other collectors, um, other collectors seem to think that there's a print run. There's about 10 of these out there for every player. I I I again, this is just pure speculation. This is I don't know the veracity of that statement, but uh can't verify it, but that feels about right because there aren't a ton of them out there. you do have to seek them out. Um, and you don't see them everywhere you go. And the people that have them like to hold on to them. So anyway, what a mail day for me. Oh my goodness. Thank you for joining me and in this video and I will see you. Oh, let's let's let's line them all up here. Hold on. Let's let's let's go out with a bang here. Oh my gosh. Well, I can't ruin the run with the with the moment. So, let's go ahead and put this There we go. There we go. And they can't see with the light. There we go. Get that out of there. All right. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for watching. And I will see you in the next one.