Cal Ripken Jr. Collection

[RITM]

Spent the majority of my time on the football boards but figured this would be a good place to share some background for those of you who have never heard the story.

My user ID is a reference to a website I built in 2006. I have collected Cal Ripken, Jr., ever since I have been collecting. I still have a copy of Cal's 1982 Topps rookie card that I got as a kid when I traded a box of UD basketball cards my mom bought me. The box had the Shaq Trade Upper Deck redemptions.

As an adult my attention focused on Cal's minor league cards. It was cool to be able to grab a card of a guy before he was famous. I learned that Cal had 4 minor league cards by himself and 2 cards that were a checklist/team photo. My goal was to someday own all of Cal's minor league cards.

When I took a job in 2004 I decided to jump at the opportunity to purchase a blue bordered 1980 WBTV card as a gift to myself. Fast forward to the fall of 2006 and I was able to purchase Cal's "Holy Grail" of minor league cards, a 1980 Charlotte O's Police orange bordered card. Very little is known about the card so I had to research. I found a gentleman who worked for Cal's Ironclad Authentics and sent a note asking for help. To this day we are great friends.

In our initial conversations I told him that I had the blue bordered WBTV. He asked for a scan. Little did I know at the time that the 1980 WBTV was being used by counterfeiters. Sure enough, my WBTV was a counterfeit. I was pretty hacked off because I try to do my homework on big purchases. The information was simply not there. Having the new information I realized that counterfeits were being sold at least once per month at prices up to $1,000. I tried to get auctions pulled but it is not like I had credible information to back me up. With all of that said I decided to build a website to help others, ripkenintheminors.com

5 years later the site has grown to something I never imagined. I have been able to chronicle all of Cal's minor league cards, expand outside the cards and help educate a lot of fellow collectors. The site has been featured nationally and was even included in a recent book about the longest game in professional baseball history. The biggest honor of all was having Cal to personally participate in multiple interviews to help share his recollections about his minor league days.

Feel free to take a look at the site but let me throw out a disclaimer. The group hosting my site had a glitch and many of the images on the site are not working right. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Here are scans of Cal's minor league cards from 1980:

[Hilfiger1975]

wow!

[joeya2001]

Feel free to check out my collection!!!

[RITM]

wow!

Thanks!

[RITM]

Feel free to check out my collection!!!

Took a look at your page. You have a very impressive collection!

[RITM]

Here are some more minor league cards. Technically Cal has 6 minor league cards. 4 of the cards features Cal by himself. The other two are a team photo (1980 WBTV) and checklist (1981 ™™™). Here are the cards not pictured earlier

1980 WBTV Team Photo:



1981 TCMA:



1981 ™™™:



1981 ™™™ Checklist:

[RITM]

Continuing the minor league theme, here are some other minor league cards. Had these signed by Cal through Ironclad Authentics:

[Hi Im Brandon]

Nice cards! He was one of my favorites growing up. Class act and a true competitor. A true legend and only a few like him.

[WVcoltsfan]

im jealous!

[RITM]

Nice cards! He was one of my favorites growing up. Class act and a true competitor. A true legend and only a few like him.

Thanks so much! He was certainly an easy guy to cheer for the way he conducted/conducts himself.