Why is this Giants Collector Buying Yankee Cards?

Several times I have shared my enjoyment with the auction section of Sportlots.  I have picked up tons of Giants vintage cards, more recent inserts and GUs and vintage cards for my sets.  The prices are pretty random, some cards go super cheap while others go much higher than I would expect.  I have found a decent chunk of my monthly card budget going away from eBay and towards Sportlots.

This recently pick up is one of the reasons:

This is one of the 42 Yankee Memorabilia cards produced by Upper Deck in 2008 as part of their year-long love fest with the team in pinstripes.  I actually think these are pretty well designed cards even though they aren't for my favorite team.  So as the title says, why did a Giants fan buy this Yankee card?  Two reasons:

1. About a month back, I shared a quick book review of a book featuring Ron Guidry and Yogi Berra that I really enjoyed.  Guidry seems like a great guy in the book, very down to earth and likable.  Plus, this card goes great with this card I pulled a few years back:

I think these look great together and I am happy to have them as part of my collection.

2. It was cheap.  Can you believe that I scored this Guidry card for $3.74?  Bidding started at a quarter, someone bumped it to 50 cents so I raised my bid to 75 cents.  There were no other bids so add $2.99 in shipping and it was mine for under 4 bucks.

In addition to celebrating my new addition and its perfect pairing, I want to go off on a tangent and talk about card values for a bit.  A few bloggers have shared how much more enjoyable trading in the blogging community is so much more fun that trading in the Forums.  The primary driver of the dissatisfaction is the over reliance on book value.  Let's look at these two cards as examples.

The Guidry has a Beckett value of $50.  I was able to buy one of under $4.  I did a quick eBay search and the cheapest one there is would cost $21 shipped with a buy it now.  The cheapest recent sale on eBay was for $9.24 shipped.  COMC has one for $13.24 without delivery.

The Berra has a Beckett value of $30. The first issue I have here is curiosity as to why Berra's card is only 60% of the value of Guidry's.  Guidry had a very good career including one of the most dominant seasons ever by a pitcher however his career pales in comparison to Berra's. Yogi is a sure fire Hall of Famers with World Series records and has is easily one of the best catchers in baseball history.  The cheapest Buy It Now for sale is $27.95 shipped and the cheapest recent eBay sale is $10.50 shipped.  COMC has one for $28.99 without delivery.

All the data clearly shows that Berra should have a higher book value than Guidry but is just isn't the case.  Just some additional evidence that the entire way that Beckett prices is completely out of whack. We as collectors have to take all this into consideration if we run into a shop or seller that bases everyone on book value.

However, despite all this grumbling about values, I can gladly say that this Giants Collector is very happy to have these two Yankee cards in his collection.