2005 PLAYOFF ABSOLUTE TOOLS OF THE TRADE DAVID CONE
Everyone knows a real patch when they see one.
There’s Patch Adams, the treacly doctor/clown portrayed by Robin Williams in the treacly doctor/clown movie of the same name.
There are Sour Patch Kids, those tasty tartaric-acid-coated gummy candies.
There’s the soul patch, as worn by your douche-chill neighbor circa 1997 (see Billy Bob Thornton and Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines for quick reference).
And who can forget the Cabbage Patch Kids? (Seriously, I need to know. Because I can’t, and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since 1983 as a result. Shudder.)
But then there are the fake patches…
In card-collecting circles, buyers will pay a significant premium for uniform cards that contain a colorful/meaningful patch. Team logos, laundry tags, and number patches of even the most middling players can garner great interest.
The 2005 Playoff Absolute Tools of the Trade set was a groundbreaking insert, containing many unique memorabilia cards. There were indeed some beautiful patches included in the set.
However, there were also some large game-worn jersey cards that displayed rather mundane patches, and at some point, enterprising card doctors realized that there was the potential to turn a $10 David Cone card into a $100 David Cone card by swapping out a legitimate white pin-striped swatch with a much sexier patch from the local Modell’s.
Other prominent game-used sets were vulnerable to this trickery as well, and the unfortunate result is that any card with a noteworthy patch is now viewed with a jaundiced eye…
I’ve mentioned before that the game-used stuff on cards never did anything for me. Still, even doing my best to put away that prejudice – this is one ugly card.
The game-used stuff was a sign of the entire industry losing its way. Desperation. Also, in some cases, sacrilege. I believe they cut up one of the last remaining Babe Ruth game-used bats for use in cards. Does that ring a bell, Doug Parker? I recall some sort of kerfuffle about it.
Yes James, if memory serves, Donruss bought a game-used Ruth bat for something like $200K for the purposes of slicing and dicing for memorabilia cards. It was not one of the last remaining Ruth bats, but this was viewed by many as a sacrilegious act…
I agree Brian, this card is too busy, with no theme.
I’d suggest that much of the busyness comes from the damn-fool fake patch that someone affixed to the poor card. I suspect the unaltered version was more visually appealing…