Is this a super-rare autographed error card?

. . . or just another stupid mistake by a card manufacturer? Can you spot the error:

CLUE: the mistake is on the front of the card.

Compare the two. You'll have to click on the images to find the mistake. This is from a package of 2009 Bowman Jumbo that Joshua ripped today.

Can someone tell me if this is a common occurrance, or even if this guy is an up-and-comer? I know nothing about him, or about what constitutes an "error" card. Thanks for any help.

UPDATE: Baseball Dad hit a homer! Yes, that's right, the auto card has his name as "Greer" whereas his real name is "Geer." So, my son's question is will this be more valuable than a basic auto?

Book Value vs. Market Value

OK, I'll risk another silly flame war. Yes, I'm diving into the deep end with all the Big Thinkers and Blog All-Stars. I'm going to address... book value! (Cue the scary music, Psycho screams in the background, lightning flashes, haunted house, etc.)

Book value is, well, just that. Value. A number. Someone's idea of a "fair price" that he/she had the gumption to print, to put it on paper and let the world read it. I agree with Bailey, Dave and Gellman, though, that this is random and arbitrary. There is no real basis for it.

What makes a card valuable? Scarcity. Supply and Demand. Economics 101. My 11-year-old kids are already learning about it in 5th grade! If a product is in high demand, the price will increase due to low availability. That is why error cards (or any item) that are corrected shortly after being noticed are more valuable than the corrected version.

As an example, let's go outside our dear hobby to look at a few significant examples. The Inverted Jenny is one of the most famous stamps in American history, due to the fact that only one pane of 100 stamps ever made it into the public domain before the error was noticed and corrected. One collector happened to buy the entire 100 stamp panel and soon after sold it for $15,000. In 1918!

A recent example of this is the "Godless dollars" that circulated in 2007. Certainly, a dollar coin is worth a dollar. Right? Wrong. In the case of the George Washington gold dollar coins that are being issued currently, approximately 50,000 of the coins were printed without the wording around the edges of the coin that say "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum," thus resulting in the name "godless" coin. The first instance of this coin sold on eBay for $600, but as more started appearing, they came down in value to $40-60. Even more scarce are similar versions of the second coin in the series with the likeness of John Adams. As Wikipedia states, "They are lesser in quantity than George Washington plain edge dollars, making them rarer, thus more expensive."

There it is. Right there in black and white.

• Lesser quantity = rarer = more expensive.

How much more plain can it be? The market sets the value.

Of particular interest in the Wikipedia article on coin collecting is the subject of grading, one of Gellman's pet peeves. The gist of the following paragraph is "Buyer Beware." Grading is good in getting rid of counterfeiters, but it gives rise to the subjectivity of experts.

Several coin grading services will grade and encapsulate coins in a labeled, air-tight plastic holder. This process is commonly known as coin slabbing and is most prevalent in the US market. Two highly respected grading services are the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) and the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS). However, professional grading services are the subject of controversy because grading is subjective; coins may receive different grades by different services or even upon resubmission to the same service. Due to potentially large differences in value over slight differences in a coin's condition, some commercial coin dealers will repeatedly resubmit a coin to a grading service in the hope of a higher grade. The grading services came into being (PCGS being first) in an effort to bring more safety to investors in rare coins. While they have reduced the number of counterfeits foisted upon investors and have improved matters substantially, the goal of creating a sight-unseen market for coins remains somewhat elusive.

Does this all sound familiar? Substitute "Card" for "Coin" and you have our hobby.

In the end, it is us who determine the value of a card, not someone sitting in an office. Who knows what method is used to assign value. It could be well-reasoned research. But then again, it could be a dartboard. As President Obama has been saying lately, we need more "transparency" to this. Dissemination of information is never a bad thing. Secrecy is. Just ask all the critics of ex-President Bush.

I believe!

I saw the "error" Fukudome card yesterday with my own eyes. It exists. Now, we need Scully and Mulder to determine what Topps' motives are for doing it!

Name That Mariner

OK, who can tell me which is the REAL Mariner pictured in this image? No checking through Beckett. Let's see which one of you really knows your baseball.

Don't ask me - I would never have been able to guess which one was correct. I'll give the answer in the comments.

Error Cards

I have a few error cards that are fairly interesting. In searching through my old lots for Dodgers for Night Owl, I came across this pair of cards from '91 Topps:

But if you look at the back, their is not one iota of difference between the two.

A peak at Beckett reveals the answer: The one on the left is actually Billy Beane. It is worth five times what the actual Jose Gonzalez card is worth! Too bad that the actual one is only worth five cents. 

The other set of cards comes from this year's Topps Series 1 set. This is the first box of regular hobby cards that I bought after starting to collect again. Can you find the problem with these? 

 

Of course, there is no foil stamping on the cards of Rick Ankiel, Jeff Kent and Billy Wagner. I ended up with several dozen of these, including Ryan Howard. Topps requests that you send in the cards, the packs, the box, the reciept, a blood sample, a pound of flesh, some dirt from your yard, your tax returns from the last seven years and a picture of your wife in order to get the cards exchanged for corrected versions. I'm holding on to them for a while, just in case. 

What do you think? Are these "error" cards, or are they less than worthless?