My first silk - and my wife was watching

 

One of the great things about being a "returning" baseball card collector is the blissful ignorance regarding what is a "hit" and what is a "really big hit" - and what is just a pretty cool insert.  And honestly, I am still not sure what this Napoli silk (mine is 25/50) counts as - but the moment it created was priceless.  My wife was sitting on the opposing couch, holding our 8-week old daughter, and watching me open a few packs that I grabbed at my local card shop.  I had torn through a hanger pack and a blaster from Target, but I was intrigued by what treasures awaited in the hobby box pack - no doubt dreaming of a monster hit to blog about. 

As I hit pack 3 of 6, it felt a little different.  My wife watched as my eyes lit up while going through the pack... a card I had never seen before!  It was blue and thickish, with a window - and inside, a piece of silk with a Mike Napoli baseball card upon it!  Na-po-li!  Na-po-li!  My eyes grew bigger when I saw it numbered 25/50 - wow, only 50 of this card... in the world?!?  I explained this excitedly to my wife, who vaguely remembered Napoli's heroics during the postseason.  (What a great sports fan she is - humors my infatuation with watching 150 Mets games like a champ) 

I then made the mistake.  THE mistake.  You know, like when you look up a possible symptom (an itchy elbow) on WebMD (and find out you probably have 6 weeks to live).  So, to the great Ebay I went, curious to find what this rare, sure-to-be-relic card would be fetching on the open market - you know, if there were ANY other humans on the planet who were lucky enough to pull it...

$25, for sure, right, like as a minimum?  $50, I mean, as a best case?

Well, not exactly.

$1.25, if you act now.

See, that's why I have loved getting back into cards.  Keep in mind, I left collecting before inserts and parallels cluttered up the potential understanding of what exactly was a good card.  It 1987, it was easy.  Gooden?  Great card, can't miss Hall-of-Famer!  Strawberry?  Ditto!  Well, maybe it wasn't quite so easy - but you know what I mean...

So, even if I didn't pull the relic that for about 2 minutes I was convinced I had, that rush was palpable - and very hard to describe to anyone outside the hobby.  But my wife saw it in my eyes.  And you guys out there - you know it, too.

Happy hunting.