August 07, 2007

I think her claim to fame was acting as an advanced scout for the Cardinals. She might have had a little time in the minors, but I know for sure she had a great record on a lot of teams from poor countries.

posted by Howard_T at 07:08 PM on August 07, 2007

I'll trade you 3 John Paul II's, 2 John the Baptist, a group card of The Apostles, and a Derek Jeter rookie card for your Mother Teresa card.

posted by tommybiden at 07:44 PM on August 07, 2007

Two things come to mind after reading the article. First, I still don't get card collecting. Two,(I'm really confused here)after reading the article repeatedly I'm still in the dark as to whose card the Saint signed. Oh, and three, please go easy on the zingers,eh?

posted by sickleguy at 09:02 PM on August 07, 2007

Oh, please go easy on the zingers,eh? Sure, I would hate to offend the only true church.

posted by tommybiden at 09:32 PM on August 07, 2007

I'll be honest...I was sort of hoping that she had signed this card.

posted by grum@work at 09:52 PM on August 07, 2007

I'd like to see a baseball card signed by both Mother Teresa and Christopher Hitchens, with messages to each other. Now, that'd be a collector's item.

posted by owlhouse at 12:28 AM on August 08, 2007

Is that a Mother Teresa rookie card? /har har

posted by BornIcon at 07:38 AM on August 08, 2007

I don't understand this story. If this card is so valuable then why didn't the people that made it just put it on the market themselves rather than lob it in with a load of other cards as some kind of lucky dip? This kind of card is what drives the collector's market these days. While a few lower-end packs are still basic enough that the base card in the set is the draw, most products are the equivalent of a lottery ticket -- you pay your $10-$50 and hope to pull a $100-$5K card. To give you an example, we recently had Upper Deck The Cup hockey in stock. Retail cost was $399.99 per tin, which bought you five or six cards, but all of them high-end -- autographed rookies, patch cards, 1/1s, etc. We sold out in three days and the product now sells for around $500 per tin. That same product from last season contains a Sidney Crosby rookie autographed patch card numbered out of 99 (meaning there are only 99 copies in existence). That card now sells for around $10K. Putting those cards in the boxes is what makes collectors buy them. It's neat when someone pulls something really cool, and not so nice when customers drop $100-$200 on a box and get nothing decent in return.

posted by wfrazerjr at 09:57 AM on August 08, 2007

I'm sure the trends and focus in sports cards have been analyzed elsewhere, but card collecting is quite different now that it was in my youth (I was heavily into baseball cards for 5 or 6 years stating in the mid-80s). It seems more for collectors now and less for kids. Is that an accurate assessment, fraze? I think the downside of this is that it potentially cuts down on the opportunity for the card market to drive young fans to the game. I know part of my fervor for baseball was fostered in (misspent?) summers of my youth spent studying card after card, memorizing statistics, trading cards and flipping cards, etc. Back then, you could buy a complete set of all MLB players for maybe $20, and I would organize cards by team, by number, by my own rankings of greatness or coolness. I was doing "all hair teams" back when ESPN's Page 2 was a twinkle in some marketing consultant's eye. I would assume the current system is probably better for the card manufacturers and card/memorabilia dealers, but not as beneficial for the sports leagues themselves -- while licensing revenues may actually be higher, I would think that some of the long-term economic impacts of cultivating a fan base go missing. But kids these days, with their fancy internets and two-way email pagers, probably wouldn't be up for cards anyway. So I suppose maybe I am just that "Back in my day..." guy.

posted by holden at 03:54 PM on August 08, 2007