We go through a lot of boxes of cards here at Tuff Stuff's Sports Collectors Monthly. Hey, when you prices and picture these items on the Web, in magazines and in books, you have to have the inventory.

The main draws, of course, are rookie cards, autographs, parallels and those thick swatch/patch/memorabilia cards. I really like those patch cards, regardless of their value – great or (more likely) small. I think they are something unique and add to a collection of regular cards.

For instance, in the last few weeks as part of the Bustin' Wax blog (click on the link to the left), we've gotten patch cards featuring pieces of jerseys from Jim Brown, Alan Page, Steve Slaton, Mike Schmidt, Albert Pujols and many, many more. And the quad, six and eight-swatch cards from Upper Deck in the Ballpark Collection were tons of fun to open. How else can you get these pieces of jerseys with out buying one yourself. And I don't care if it's game-worn, event-worn or whatever - I like them.

But do these drawn in collectors? I think they draw in the younger and more novice collectors, but the values of these cards (which isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things) reflects that the big spenders don't bother with these. So what are the serious modern card guys going after? Autos and rookie parallels just don't seem as much fun to me.  

I've been grabbing Robin Yount patch cards here and there over time. Sure, some 1-of-5s have cost a little more, but the average patch card for him is less than $30 at the high end. And I think they look great displayed next to old yearbooks and such.

So if you enjoy patch cards, too, keep visiting the Tuff Stuff forums and this blog - we're giving ours away and I know people will enjoy seeing them. Details to come.