Baseball Happenings Podcast | Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict

Tanner Jones joins the Baseball Happenings Podcast to tell the listeners what exactly led him on the path to spend $100,000 to amass one of the finest single-player collections in the world en route to earning the "baseball card addict" title. In his new book “Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict” he narrates his fascinating journey of building a 10-million-card collection before deciding to roll the dice on one player — Jose Canseco.

“I call junk wax a cheap gateway drug in my book because I almost feel like it was engineered by the card companies to be mass produced in the '80s,” Jones said during his appearance on the Baseball Happenings Podcast. “So that way, when we all grow up, we are able to come back to a super easy. It's really easy to slip in a couple wax boxes of Score just for nostalgia sake, and while you're at the card shop you're like, ‘Wait a second here, there are some cards out here that have pieces of jerseys and autographs on them.’ You know, it's a completely different way of collecting than what we were used to as kids.”

Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict / Tanner Jones

Once Jones had the itch, he was off to the races. Armed with extra cash to spare, Jones started to buy back his childhood memories at pennies on the dollar.

“It didn't have anything to do with Canseco when I came back as an adult,” he said. “I was just absolutely enamored by the prices of the complete sets that I loved as a child. So yes, thinking, ‘Wait a second, I can get an '89 Upper Deck factory set for 60 bucks? Holy cow, how do you not buy that?’

“I started assembling a complete run of complete sets from 1980 to 1992, or '93 or so. Along the way is when I started discovering the game used and autographed cards, so I just got into that hardcore as well. After a while, I take step back and go, ‘Holy cow, I've already dropped a couple grand on this stuff — on baseball cards!' To me, that was like insanity back then, like a couple thousand dollars [spent] on baseball cards.”

For most, a few thousand dollars would have sufficiently scratched their nostalgic collecting itches; however, Jones is far from ordinary. His re-entry was just the tip of the iceberg that led him on a multi-million card chase for the next decade. Jones discusses how he moved from flipping cards to settling on one player before deciding to sell it all. In the midst of all of tales of wheeling and dealing, he gave valuable advice on how to keep your marriage intact during the process. Jones drops gems on the collecting conundrums throughout the latest episode of the Baseball Happenings Podcast below.

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Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict by Tanner Jones | Book Review

What does it feel like to spend $100,000 on baseball cards? Tanner Jones shares the rush of putting what amounts to a sizeable down payment not just into a baseball card collection, but rolling the dice all on one player in his new book, “Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict”.

Jones started his foray into collecting with a story that would even make Gary Vaynerchuk smile, explaining how he fueled his collecting habits in the early 1990s by flipping baseball cards to his elementary school classmates. Students would line up with their lunch money as Jones fed their cardboard desires.

“I was responsible for all of their stomach growls throughout the rest of the afternoon because the boys liked wax packs more than they liked lunch,” Jones said.

He even experimented in the early advent of online sales, firing up services like Prodigy to connect globally with traders and sellers. After a move ended his brief grade school flirtation with online dealing, Jones used his entrepreneurial spirit to make money scouring for deals at baseball card shows.

As with most teenage boys who came of age during the 1990s collecting boom, Jones put aside his baseball card hustle for more social endeavors.

“I slowly drifted away from the hobby that I loved so much,” he said. “I started devoting my time to friends, girls, cars, and church youth group activities.”

For the next decade, Jones focused on getting his life in order, which included a stretch where he was homeless. He quickly pulled himself up to start a burgeoning website development business, get married, and have a child.

Jones thought he put his cardboard obsession behind him, but a trip through his childhood Jose Canseco collection rekindled his itch to collect. Armed with his own finances, Jones made his way back to what he knew best, the art of the flip. However, this time he wasn’t going for the dollar lunchroom deals, he set his eyes on entire collections.

He eventually purchased a van to haul off the remnants of other dealers’ hordes. Often these acquisitions would take up his entire living room and garage. Thanks to an understanding wife and a generous cash flow, Jones was able to spend another decade hustling cardboard.

“Through all of this, I realized I was not just a collector, but also a dealer,” he said. “Not only a dealer but a dealer who was buying out dealers. … Never in the ten years of wheeling and dealing did I never have nothing to sell.”

Exhausted by his last mega-deal in 2015, Jones capped a career that would have satisfied many baseball card collecting addicts, except for himself. Not one to put aside his love for the hustle, Jones moved to create custom memorabilia cards for collectors.

While immersed in this new artistic side of the hobby, his love for one of the “Bash Brothers” reemerged. Jones set his laser focus on a new target, his childhood hero Jose Canseco.

At first, Jones went to recapture the cards of his youth, but quickly he was sucked into the chase of becoming the premier collector of Canseco cards. Fueled by his obsessive interests, the heart of Jones’ story is his quest to earn the Canseco Super Collector title.

The second half of “Confessions of a Cardboard Addict” is dedicated to how he established his truly monumental Canseco collection. From his wild ride to Canseco’s home for his own private signing to his conquests of the rarest of the slugger’s baseball cards, his story opens a door to the compulsions that drive many in the hobby.

Within a few short years and over $100,000 later, Jones stood at the peak of his collecting summit pondering the $85,000 acquisition of one of his collecting rivals. Just as he was about to purchase a ticket to corner the market on the most exclusive Canseco collection, he sat down with his wife to talk through the purchase. Suddenly, he had a moment of clarity.

“Just like that, I had an overwhelming sense that purchasing the collection was not what God wanted me to do,” he said.

With that decision, Jones was at peace with his collection; however, there was just one problem — how was he going to get back the $100,000 he poured into it? The only way he knew how of course, by hustling.

The fact whether Jones did or did not recoup his hefty investment in the “Juiced” author’s baseball cards isn’t central to “Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict”, but rather another step into the long-winding abyss of one wrapped up in the narrow world of hardcore collecting. His journey towards recoupment is filled with tips that even the most savvy of sellers could benefit from reading.

While Jones’ narrative gets blurred at times with the OCD-like tendencies of a collecting hunt that will most likely appeal to only fellow hobbyists, his tale is a cautionary reminder that our value is defined by the impact we have on others, not size of the collections we amass.

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Why 2017 Topps Baseball fortifies their place as the gold standard in baseball cards

With Kris Bryant brazenly fortifying the cover of 2017 Topps Baseball, Topps is making a clear signal of their expectations for their flagship product. Promoting this year’s theme of having fans, “rediscover Topps baseball,” the quality of this set is exhibit A as to why 2017 is a perfect time to fall in love with baseball card collecting.

2017 Topps Series 1 / Topps

The 350-card base set, book-ended by Bryant and David Ortiz, features action-packed photos of key players across the league. Sharp collectors will notice that Topps reinserted card number seven back into the checklist, placing New York Yankees phenom Gary Sanchez in the spot previously skipped or reserved for Mickey Mantle since 1996.

No matter how impressive the clear and crisp layout of the base set appears, 2017 Topps Baseball's true gem is the 1987 Topps 30th anniversary parallels. Designed in the wood motif of the most fashioned set of the 1980s, the glossy updated look and feel of the 30th anniversary parallels are sure to attract collectors for both nostalgic and aesthetic reasons. Some collectors would go as far to argue that Topps could have made the entire base set a throwback to the 1987 design.

Topps keeps tradition by creating a wide array of inserts and parallels to keep collectors interested past compiling the base set. The expansive Topps Salute 100-card insert set presents a beautiful chronology of the past season, and the Five Tool subset highlights the ultra-talented superstars that excel in many facets of the game.

2017 Topps Inserts / Topps

Each box promises one autograph or relic card. The box provided for this review uncovered an autographed Jose Canseco 1987 Topps 30th anniversary card. Canseco’s original 1987 Topps card was one of the most iconic in the set, the card emblazoned with a Topps Rookie Cup picturing the young slugger eagerly sitting in the dugout. The 30th anniversary autographed version featured a Canseco orbiting a trademark moon shot with a bold signature on the card.

One of the more awesome things to come out of 2017 #ToppsBaseball is this 1987 #Topps style @JoseCanseco signed card. pic.twitter.com/1Qldb0IdPo

— N. Diunte (@ExamineBaseball) February 4, 2017

Set builders will be happy with the collation, as a box came up only 30 cards short of a 350-card complete set; however, the cards were condition sensitive, as quite a few had dinged corners fresh out of the pack. Buoyed by the stunning 1987 retro cards, collectors will easily overlook a few soft corners as they are quickly reminded why Topps remains the industry gold standard.

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