Monday, February 6, 2012

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.

4 comments:

  1. There was a Napoli silk on ebay that ended at $1.25? I find that hard to believe, most silks go for $5 minimum and can get $25 easy if they are a popular player. A silk is still a pretty big hit, especially when it is of a meaningful player like Napoli, so congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd pay 1.25 for that in a heartbeat and I'd be super excited to pull any Ranger silk card. I've got two from years past, but they both came in trades.

    ReplyDelete
  3. By the way, I'm following you and you show up on my dashboard....I'm not sure why you're not showing up on my blogroll...

    ReplyDelete
  4. well, perhaps the 1.75 was an hour before it sold. i saw the last one go for $4 - it was still really exciting to open it, though... thanks guys!

    ReplyDelete