In about 2011, I got back into baseball cards. I collected for a while around 1989-1992, the peak of the Junk Wax Era, when the market was flooded with cards that everyone thought were going to be investments like the cards your grandmother threw away in the 1950’s. I never had any money then, but in 2011 I had a real job and some friends who were ALSO interested in getting back into it.
I started collecting Aroldis Chapman cards. He was a young Cuban pitcher with an AMAZING fastball. He played for the Cincinnati Reds, which meant as an Oriole fan, he could never really hurt me. I have quite an extensive collection of his cards from 2009-2014. Then, at close to the same time, there were accusations (pretty substantiated, I think) of domestic abuse AND he went to the Yankees. I lost interest in my collection.
If you aren’t familiar with baseball cards since 2010 or so, I need to explain a few things. In order to avoid the overproduction of the early 1990s, they do limited print runs of some cards. Often a player will have his regular card, then they will do, say, 500 of that same card with a different color border, and they’ll number then out of 500 so you know you have the limited edition. They also put the printing plates into circulation. These are three metal versions of the card that they claim to actually use in the process of printing the card. There is only one of each of the three.
At the height of my collecting, late 2014, I found this on eBay.
This is a framed mini card (my favorite type of card). The card itself is about the size of a tobacco card, and it’s encased in plastic, and then a cardboard border to make it the same dimensions as a standard baseball card. This is the printing plate for a 2011 mini. It says on the back that it’s card #5, but I have card #5, and it’s NOT that. I scoured every website that dealt with cards and I couldn’t find ANY evidence of this card existing. I did find that there was a card, #385, that was a Chapman found inside of a rip card. This is a regular-dimension card but thicker with a pull tab on the back. You can choose to pull the tab, lowering the value, but MAYBE there’s something inside worth even more.
However, even armed with this suspicion, nothing. I even offered a bounty for proof of existence and nothing.
Here we are, nearly 11 years later, and a few weeks ago a hit on my eBay search. I found it! I was indeed correct that it was from inside a rip card, and someone had it for sale! I went back and forth for a while because he was asking a lot for it. But in the end, I couldn’t resist. I made him an offer (still too much) and he took it.
Yesterday, it arrived.
I can’t believe it took over a decade.
And as you can see, the printing plate is a liar:
It’s not 5, it’s 385. Whatever. Stupid lying sticker.
As an added bonus, this has inspired me to try to sell off the collection, aside from a few favorites. They just take up space. I was hoping his new contract with the Red Sox would bump his popularity enough to get some interest in the cards, but so far that has not really been the case. Anyone want to buy some Chapmans? I’ve got some really nice stuff…