Cards on Cards Greatest Hits

A little classier than "Show Us Your Hits", perhaps.

I pulled this Giancarlo Stanton jersey card, numbered to just 99, out of a Topps hanger box over the week. (Most offers accepted.) It's a really nice looking card. I believe the odds on these are 1:380 boxes, which means that you'd basically have to spend $3800 to get one (on average.) While the card itself isn't going to bring me ultimate riches (it's selling for around $20 and has a "book price" of just $10), it did get me thinking about some of the greatest "hits" I've pulled in my time around these blogs.

This puppy came out of a box that was a gift from a friend. While the rest of the box didn't give me a ton of things I needed for the set that I am still working on to this day, I never thought I'd own a genuine piece of Mantle memorabilia. I can't complain about Jorge Posada per se, but it's interesting that they didn't pair Mantle with another player of higher stature on this card. Considering my luck with pulls, though, this will be hard to top for the rest of my collecting life.

My biggest Group Break hit, and almost certainly the most expensive card I'll hold in my hands in my lifetime, is this 1/1 auto/bat barrel from Albert Pujols. The autograph is on a sticker and his picture is really small, but this was a crazy lucky hit that I had no business ending up with. I immediately had thoughts of selling it, and absolutely should have considering that he was probably at the peak of his popularity at the time I received it. Now that he's no longer a Cardinal, it's a little easier to think about letting go of this card, but those feelings are definitely offset by the fact that there's no way the payoff would be as great. Pujols is almost certainly a Hall of Famer, and his heyday was in Cardinal Red (as opposed to that totally different Angel Red) where he was the unquestioned MVP of two Cardinals title teams.

And that's... it. I can't really think of more than two eye-popping hits that I've managed to snag by random chance. I feel fortunate every time I get something rare, be it a Marlin jersey or a Royal autograph. And it's been great to occasionally find good homes for these minor gems.

This is probably the best card that I own, however. It was a gift from Erin and it's not perfect, but it's a lot nicer than my scanner would have you believe. It probably has 95/5 centering from top to bottom, if the 5 means that there is a little snip of white border. The corners are in really good shape, and overall it's a great example of a great card that turns 35 years old this year. Not bad.

Nice sideburns, too.