Simulated Wood Grain

[penfield]

A few nights ago, I was lying awake in my childhood home, with the TV on and my parents already fast asleep. Everything was either a rerun or a Christmas Special starring Patricia Heaton, so I had taken to flipping around. I landed on some sort of home shopping channel -- you're probably familiar with the scene -- with some highly caffeinated and vaguely sleazy retail pimp plying his cheap garbage for his sixth consecutive hour.

But I stopped on this channel, because I noticed that it was a baseball card show. I don't know if it was because I was back in my old room, haunted by the musty ghosts of adolesence or because it was after midnight and I was bored stiff, but I suddenly became very interested in these baseball cards.

I remained on the periphery of its spell until the next item, a factory-sealed complete 1987 Topps baseball card set, only the coolest baseball set ever made. (I could justify this claim myself, but this guy does it for me, and better.) I was instantly transfixed.

This screaming salesman was offering the 1987 set, along with mint-condition Topps sets from 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990, for $149.99, which sounded like a real bargain, based on my extremely limited knowledge of the baseball card market (which, in turn, was based on my recollections of the price guides I used to read 15 years ago). I kept thinking about the valuable rookie cards therein and the obvious investment value. I kept thinking about having that set as a prized trophy to keep in my house and pass on to my heirs, despite the fact that the cards came in a plain brown box and would instantly depreciate if I were ever to open it. It was like they were selling a piece of my childhood. I had to have it.

Like a zombie, I dialed the toll-free number and placed my order, suppressing any anxiety about giving over my credit card number. Within ten minutes, the set was mine. The euphoria lasted about two minutes.

Then I panicked. Did I just get ripped off? Obviously. For how much? I snuck into the computer room to check the going rate for these packs, and I suddenly felt very stupid. And then I felt guilty for all those times I teased my mom, all those times she was lulled into purchases like "limited edition" Star Wars movie posters or "antique Pez dispensers." I had no idea what merciless villains she was up against.

I called the 800 number again and, in a deep voice, curtly asked them to cancel my order. (This was not a problem. But if they had given me any static, I was prepared to say that my foolish son had used my credit card without permission. Thus was the height of my humiliation.) And like that, I was back in the present.

So from now on, I'm just going to zoom right past those shopping channels. But if anyone sees a good deal on that 1987 Topps set, please let me know.

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[instant-ethos.livejournal.com]

While I can never claim to have ordered (or cancelled) anything off those shopping networks, their lure during early morning hours is pretty irresistable. I think the fact that I now have a toddler at home is the only thing that prevents me from buying those 375-piece knife sets that include the limited edition bowie dagger with lightweight crossgrip and serrated blade with accompanying 26-inch galvanized carbon-steel Samurai-style sabre. Man, that would look totally killer hanging over the changing table.

The baseball card market is really surprising. My grandmother gave away what was likely a small mint when she passed off my father's well-cared for and completionist baseball card collection to a neighborhood boy who either destroyed them by putting them in the spokes of his bicycle wheels or left them for his mother to throw away. Or maybe he's now chilling somewhere in the Hamptons. Wherever he is, millions of mothers, much like my dear grandmother, gave birth to a huge industry.

Even though our childhood bedrooms have now been converted into home offices or repositories for excersize equipment, a generation later our mothers saved all of our hermtically sealed baseball cards, therefore ruining their value. I recently ventured in the the "Collectibles" section of a Barnes and Noble and sought out the baseball card price indexes. I was shocked.

Those Ken Griffey, Jr. cards I bought as a pre-teen at a local card shop for $15 were now worth less than the day I took them home and placed them in my vinyl-paged three-ring binder. Even more disappointing was seeing that the cards I got from packs (like the Tony Gwynn or Greg Maddux rookie cards) were only worth slightly more than then bubble gum that came sealed under the same wrapper.

So don't feel bad about being duped into buying over-priced baseball cards and collectibles. We've been doing it for about 20 years now. In case you're interested, I have the 1986-1989 TOPPS complete sets sitting in my closet. My parents bought them for me as a kid and now they wanted them out of the house. They were blocking the way for the new Ab-Rocket they just bought on HSN.