A Work Trade

While the Rockies have been mired in their textbook July slump (though they have managed to put together a two-game win streak), the big news for fans is the recently-announced retirement of Troy Tulowitzki. After 13 seasons, many of them injury-shortened, the All-Star shortstop has decided to step away from playing the game of baseball. After many great years as a Rockie, he spent some time in Toronto, and finally got to live his dream of playing in the Bronx, occupying the same spot in Yankee Stadium as his idol Derek Jeter.

2019 Topps Historic Through-Lines #HTL-22 Derek Jeter / Jackie Robinson

Speaking of Derek Jeter, a card of his came my way this week in unexpected fashion. A coworker whose last day was Thursday mentioned last week that he was starting to get into baseball cards. He knew I was the guy to ask, and after mentioning that he had spent around $150 on some current product after unearthing his 35,000-card childhood collection, I told him I'd be happy to pull some cards out of my duplicates box.

On Monday morning, I had a small box with a few hundred cards for him in my cubicle, ready to drop them off free and clear. But he made a trade out of it, offering up four cards from 2019 Topps Series 2 (presumably left over from his $150 spend), including the Historic Through-Lines insert card you see above. It was most welcome and entirely unnecessary, as I was just excited to be in the vicinity of a fellow collector. But offloading a bunch of duplicates in return for some Hall of Famers that I wouldn't find in the factory set worked just fine for me, especially when they came in four perfectly perfect penny sleeves, the mark of a new collector who just dropped some dough on supplies.

Troy Tulowitzki may not have been a legendary player of the same caliber as Jeter and Jackie Robinson, but his career will definitely remain a question mark of what might have been. He finished with 225 career home runs, five All-Star appearances, two Gold Gloves, and a .290 average.

2019 Topps Historic Through-Lines #HTL-44 Corey Seager / Pee Wee Reese

Continuing the shortstop theme is another card from Historic Through-Lines, this one featuring Pee Wee Reese, who shared the middle infield with Jackie Robinson, and Corey Seager, the 2016 NL Rookie of the Year. Reese is pictured as a Brooklyn Dodger, which is where he spent the vast majority of his career, but he did make the trip out West in 1958 to play his final season in Los Angeles. Seager is chipping away at Reese's record mark of home runs by a Dodger shortstop, and in today's game, he's likely to break that sooner rather than later.

Design-wise, I'm not thrilled by this set, which feels awkwardly named and not the best execution of a two-player card. 2011's Diamond Duos came to mind first, although there are some intriguing pairings in Historic Through-Lines, like Ichiro with Shohei Ohtani, Bob Feller with Corey Kluber, and Christy Mathewson with Max Scherzer.

2011 Topps Diamond Duos #DD-GT Carlos González / Troy Tulowitzki

Here's an example from Diamond Duos, which I received via trade from Texas Rangers Cards long ago. Look how much energy this card has! Judging by the helmet rack in the dugout behind both players, these photos were probably from the same game. There's even a Todd Helton cameo in the on-deck circle behind Tulo. Sadly, the card back is an accurate microcosm of Tulo's career, which tells us that Carlos González emerged as a "top run producer" in 2010 while Tulowitzki was sidelined with a broken wrist. Troy did return later that season to hit 15 home runs in the month of September alone, though it was not enough to secure a playoff spot that year.

Interestingly, Tulowitzki's career batting average when this card was released was .290, and while it did trail off later in his career, it shows what a determined competitor he is, keeping consistent stats as best he could while dealing with frequent injuries.

I enjoyed the privilege of seeing both Tulo's and CarGo's returns to Coors Field with visiting clubs, and was proud to give them each a standing ovation for their long careers in Colorado. In fact, González's game was the same game as Ian Desmond's moonshot, which was documented on my first Topps Now card of the year.

2019 Topps #647 Kyle Freeland

My coworker threw in a couple base cards in addition to the inserts, two with lots of glorious Rockies purple. Kyle Freeland led things off, the "breakout star" pitcher who put together a 17-7 season last year, but hasn't done any better than 2-8 so far in 2019, which included some time in the Minors to figure things out. It's been a frustrating year to be a Rockies fan, especially given their playoff-caliber greatness the past two seasons.

It's almost August, and this is the first appearance of the 2019 Topps Base design on this blog. I'm not super proud of that. Even worse, the Bowman-esque 2020 design was just released this week, so I am way behind the curve here.

The two big design elements that jump out at me are the reverse hockey sticks that emulate 1982 Topps, and the pattern of small dots on the edges, which always remind me of a 2013 Topps insert set called Chasing the Dream. I'm sure those dots have been used in a bunch of sets, but that's the one I think of.

2019 Topps #499 Daniel Murphy

The final card depicts Daniel Murphy, the veteran who is covering first base this year. Earlier in the season, I wasn't quite sure what to think of him. He's a good player, but he's just sort of, goofy. Even this photograph looks a bit goofy to me.  He mixes up his facial hair style quite frequently, always seems to have a smile on his face, nearly got steamrolled during a between-innings mascot race, and belly flopped to touch home plate.

Mets and Nats fans, was he always like this? Because I'm definitely warming up to him.

One final thing I'll mention as part of the July round up was the game I attended in San Diego. I had a Southwest flight credit to use, so I figured I'd venture to another Major League town and visit a new stadium. I was there on July 13th, and saw the Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres in 10 innings.

I did a few laps of Petco Park before the game to check out the dining options, which did not disappoint. There was also plenty of craft beer to enjoy. What surprised me were all the little nooks and crannies on the main concourse. It's not a level walkway that simply encircles the field like at Coors Field. There are a few spots that bend and twist, a couple shortcuts, and some hidden spots, especially in left field between the bullpens and the Western Metal Supply Co. building down the line. My seat on the third base side offered great views of downtown San Diego and the glide path of the airport.

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#walletcard at Petco Park, home of the Padres! Already lots of scoring and it's still the first inning. #NLWest #baseball #sandiego #mlb

A post shared by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jul 13, 2019 at 6:03pm PDT

And yes, I did snap a #WalletCard photo op. Fernando Tatis, Jr. was at the plate, and Manny Machado hit two home runs that game, just like I saw him do the last time I was at Coors Field in mid-June.

Three parks down, twenty-seven to go.

#Walletcard Amongst the Greats

Well, I did it again. I waited until the last weekend of the month to write a post. That's how it's gone since May, which, perhaps not coincidentally, was the same month as a major change at work. I haven't taken any big trips this month, but I have seen four games at Coors Field in July, including a win against the Oakland Athletics yesterday for Star Wars Night. Another mark in the Win column, and I left with a souvenir Chewbacca beer koozie.

More news from the baseball front includes a visit to the Play Ball! exhibit at History Colorado Center, a showcase of the best of the Marshall Fogel Collection. On display were jerseys, gloves, hats, and more from the most memorable Hall-of-Famers from Babe Ruth to Sandy Koufax. Nearby, there was a large clear plastic case filled with about fifty bats spanning the history of Major League Baseball, all the way from Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, up to Ichiro and Ken Griffey, Jr. Off to the side was a small case with memorabilia of some of baseball's more infamous figures: Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, and Mark McGwire. And, since this is Denver, plenty of Rockies memorabilia, such as a ticket stub from the first-ever Rockies game on April 5th, 1993 at Shea Stadium, three bottles of champagne and a ring from the Rockies' historic 2007 playoff run on loan from pitcher Jason Hirsh, and signed jerseys from current All-Stars Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon.

Don't think for a moment that there were no cards. There were. One item was a box (likely empty) of 1954 Bowman, a gumball vending machine that also once distributed 1956 Topps cards for a penny, and a serious highlight that was on display for only three days during the All-Star Break, a PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, estimated to be worth $10 million. My visit was a day too early to see that (it was there between a Monday and a Wednesday, and I had All-Star Game parties to host), but there was plenty of news coverage about it in the Denver area.

Finally, as you might have gathered from the post title, my Wallet Card had a chance to come out and play with the greats, occupying a small space in a 1975 Topps frame, one of those wooden platforms you could pose behind.

Visiting the Play Ball exhibit at @historycolorado with my #walletcard. Spot it inside the 1975 Topps frame. #baseball #museum

A post shared by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jul 15, 2018 at 12:00pm PDT

If you happen to find yourself in Denver before the MLB season wraps up, be sure to check it out. I've never been to Cooperstown, but I assume this exhibit offers a small taste of the full experience.

Also, now that the Wallet Card has some serious travels under its belt, I decided to give it its very own blog tab. Because travel seems to be way more fun when you can look back on the good parts.

The Travels of Adam

In the four and a half years since I started this blog, I haven't missed a month. Here it is June 30th, and this is my first post in the month of June, just barely keeping my streak intact. I have barely kept up with the Cardsphere since late April, and I'm sure I've missed quite a bit.

I did see Nick mention yesterday that Bob Walk The Plank is calling it quits, which hits particularly close to home for me, since that particular Pirates blogger and I started right around the same time, in January 2014. He's done zillions more posts than I have, but it's always tough to see another blog decide to cease operations. Despite my relative absence around here lately, I still intend to keep this blog going. I like writing; in fact hardly anything puts me in a state of "flow" more than this. Unfortunately, "baseball card blogger" isn't a job title that will pay the bills, as much as I'd like to live in that world.

Yet despite all its frustrations, my day job affords me the opportunities and the resources to see a bit of the world. Come along for the ride and I'll tell you what I've been up to the past couple of months while ignoring my blogger feed.

As I mentioned last month, I took a trip to London, England in early May. It was a great trip, and I saw some sights I'd wanted to see for quite some time, and also flew on a Boeing 747 for the first time, which was one of the reasons I took the trip in the first place. By now, I mainly recall the fond memories like world-class art museums, awesome corner pubs, tons of history, beautiful parks, outdoor food markets, cheddar & onion crisps, contactless payments nearly everywhere, usable public transit, and lots more. The general travel annoyances of jet lag, walking so far my legs and feet hurt, and generally being sandwiched in like a sardine in the Tube and in Economy class on said 747 are slipping out of mind.

However, one less forgettable issue I encountered within about five minutes of venturing out into the city was losing my wallet somewhere near Victoria Station. Once I stopped kicking myself, ordering replacement cards and ID online was a cinch, which were all waiting for me when I got back stateside. Mercifully, I had the foresight to squirrel away another credit card, my Oyster transit card, and a couple banknotes in a separate wallet that became my lifeline, and is part of the reason I discovered the prevalence of contactless payments in the UK.

£120 evaporated into thin air, which is a bummer, but I'd say the biggest loss of all was probably my Wallet Card. It was a 1994 Topps Gold Joe Girardi, and it had been all over the place, including Vienna, Sacramento, and of course my home city of Denver. Interestingly, that particular card was sent by The Card Papoy, who mans the French outpost of the Cardsphere. I guess that Girardi card really wanted to be near the 0° longitude line (which I saw while visiting Greenwich).

1994 Topps #372 Joe Girardi

Fortunately, my girlfriend recognized my plight, and gave me a replacement just a few weeks ago. There's Mr. Girardi in his inaugural-season Rockies gear in Mile High Stadium, pictured on the 1994 Topps design. Longtime readers will recognize that as the first factory set I ever purchased, so this card has a lot of meaning to me, gold or not.

That explains a week or so in May, but that still leaves June. Well, work has been crazy the past couple months, but they believe I'm enough of a top performer to award me with a second President's Club award. The first award took me to Vienna, and this time I was headed to Orlando, Florida in mid-June. I happen to have friends and family in central Florida, so I extended the trip a few days before the company event started.

The first time I visited Florida in 2013, I was there for an old friend's wedding. She still lives there, and I got to meet her four-year old daughter. The next day, we went to Acme Superstore, which is first and foremost a comic book store, but also has aisles upon aisles of pop culture memorabilia. Star Wars, Mario, Hot Wheels, you name it. There were a few baseball cards, including a 1962 Topps Gaylord Perry rookie card, but I didn't pull the trigger on it.

1999 Pokemon Fossil Unlimited #52 Omanyte C

One thing I did get for myself was this Pokémon card, the first one in my collection. Like many people in the summer of 2016, I played Pokémon Go, a great opportunity to get out and about and explore my local parks. This little critter Omanyte, which is based on the extinct ammonite (a sort of nautilus squid thing), inexplicably became my favorite little Pokémon. I set it as my "buddy" when they added that feature to the app, and couldn't pass this card up when I ran across it.

After visiting friends and family, the four-night company event began in Lake Buena Vista. Similar to the Vienna trip, there were various daily activities to choose from, concluding with a dinner each night. It all went pretty well, other than flipping my kayak over in a creek following an inadvertent collision. One evening took us to dinner at a Universal Studios soundstage, followed by a rather empty theme park to explore. I have a lot of friends and family who are into Harry Potter, so naturally my guest and I spent some time in Diagon Alley.

Harry Potter Chocolate Frog Cards Gilderoy Lockhart (s17)

One can't go to Diagon Alley without getting a chocolate frog, and inside those chocolate frog boxes you'll find a pentagon-shaped lenticular card like the above. In addition to a pretty decent 5 oz. chunk of solid chocolate, I pulled Gilderoy Lockhart's card, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, portrayed in the film by Kenneth Branagh.

It's hard to find a complete list of these, but I think there are only seven or eight to be found at the Universal parks. This isn't something that Beckett has cataloged yet, and it'll be tricky to find a spot to store it. There's a little "s17" in the corner, which may refer to its release year.

So that's why I haven't been around much. "Work Hard, Play Hard" has definitely been the name of the game lately. That doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging, and has put me even further behind on trade posts from Nachos Grande, A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts, blog reader Chris, and my annual Opening Day blaster. The year's flying by (in fact the baseball season just hit the halfway point), but I'm still around.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Road Trip!

Last week, my girlfriend and I took a road trip to visit some of her friends and family in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. What better week to do it than the week of July 4th (assuming you have air conditioning in your vehicle, of course)? Though my home state of Colorado is a hotbed for craft beers, we found that the microbrewery craze has infiltrated that region as well, as we came back with several six packs from the Dallas area.

While it was nice to get away and relax for a while, the hobby was still in the back of my mind. I was frequently glancing at the many roadside stores, curious if I might find a card shop nestled in one of those towns. As we were preparing to head out of Arkansas and back toward Oklahoma City, my vigilance was rewarded just outside Fayetteville.

1992 Bowman #611 Bill Swift (FOIL)

I spotted a small white sign as we were about to leave town. A few quick turns later, I walked through a windowless and unassuming white door. Inside, I found Cleve's Baseball Cards and Collectibles to be a well-stocked shop, and after wandering around for a few minutes, I asked for a box of baseball singles to dig through, affording me a #walletcard photo op.

#Walletcard in a card shop I stumbled onto in #Arkansas.

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jul 7, 2015 at 2:13pm PDT

Bill Swift's card above was the first one I picked out of that box, which more or less ended up being a quarter box, once we settled up. Gold foil from the early '90s draws me in no matter which state I'm in.

1994 Score Gold Rush #118 Willie Blair

I was surprised to find so many Rockies cards in a corner of Arkansas. Almost a quarter of the Score Gold Rush parallels I found were Rockies. The owner even had a flag on display from the 1998 All Star Game, the only year it's been in the Mile High City. Turns out, he is a Rockies fan, and he even owned a chain of record stores in the Denver area back in the '70s. Small world.

1999 Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Team #X5 Cal Ripken

I immediately recognized the 1989 Upper Deck design on this card, but figured it to be a more recent throwback parallel. Sure enough, this is from 1999's 10th Anniversary Team insert set, UD's self-congratulatory set documenting its first decade. The gold foil on the base line is rather tasteful, but there are only so many gold seals you can put on a card before it starts looking cluttered.

There's a tiny photo of Ripken's actual 1989 card on the back, and they picked a pretty similar shot for this anniversary card. I didn't know the specifics of this card when I set it aside, but an iconic design is always worth a second look.

2001 Topps Through The Years Reprints #50 Derek Jeter '93

I knew this was a reprint right off the bat, thanks to the Topps 50th Anniversary logo in the lower right, but I'd know this card anywhere. Other than Griffey's rookie from the aforementioned 1989 Upper Deck set, Jeter's rookie from 1993 Topps is one of very few cards from that era that still holds some value. Last year, I bought the Topps Gold parallel of this card from Christian, my primary card show dealer, for around $15. 

Topps released many reprints in their golden anniversary year, spanning insert sets, a large subset of the Traded set, and even some gold-bordered Factory Set exclusives.

2001 Topps Through The Years Reprints #42 Ken Griffey, Jr. '92

This Griffey is the one of three others I have from this 50-card insert set, and I'm pretty sure it came from one of my first-ever visits to Christian's table, circa 2003.

1994 Leaf Slideshow #6 Barry Bonds

I collected a lot of Leaf cards, even in my childhood days. It was a nice product, and affordable, even on a kid's budget. I thought I knew the 1993 and 1994 sets pretty well, which is why I was surprised when my girlfriend showed me this one out of the dollar box. It's made to look like a slide (remember those?), and might be the first transparent card to hit the market, a few years before 1997 Skybox E-X 2000.

It's full color and everything. And if you could hack a slide projector to fit a baseball card, I'm sure it would project nicely before melting.

And now, how about a few cards with absolutely no gold foil at all?

2005 Finest #162 Reggie Jackson RET

Due to the high price of Topps Finest, I've never actually purchased a box or even a pack of it. I've always relied on scavenging the discount boxes. I find them rather frequently, but there are definitely gaps in my collection. This is my first card from 2005 Finest, and it strongly resembles the ripple/fingerprint element in this year's Topps base set.

I've compared the hexagon-heavy 2003 Finest to 2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates, so if one wants a preview for what Topps has up its sleeve in coming years, Finest seems to be a good place to look.

Speaking of 2014 Stadium Club, this was the first time I found the set in a discount box.

2014 Stadium Club #53 Willie Mays

In addition to Mays and this vintagey-looking photograph (to go along with his Field Access insert), I also found Yasiel Puig's card. Two players that couldn't be more different. 

2014 Stadium Club is only a 200-card set, and I'd love to build the whole thing. I've yet to purchase any 2015, but from what I've seen so far in the blog community, I don't like it as much as this epic 2014 set.

2000 Topps Tek Pattern 5 #9 Andruw Jones

Topps also resurrected the Topps Tek brand last year, and I found a few examples from 2000 in this box. Like all Topps Tek sets, there are numerous background variations, but unlike the nearly 10,000-card master sets of a few years prior, this one is a much more manageable 900.

1996 Leaf Preferred Steel #2 Paul Molitor

I found about a half dozen Leaf Steel cards, which you've seen before on Infield Fly Rule. As you can see, these were all pretty beat up and chipped around the edges, but that doesn't affect their heft or magnetism. It's surprising, though, that pretty much the only metal baseball cards out there are quite fragile.

1992 Kellogg's All-Stars #1 Willie Stargell

I'm not the biggest fan of oddballs, but these Kellogg's cards are starting to grow on me. Unlike the miniature ones we're a bit more familiar with, this is close to normal-sized. It's a standard width card, though it's about a centimeter shorter. It's from 1992, and I had no idea Kellogg's was making these 3-D cards that recently. Whatever they did, they found a way to prevent the cracks that are frequently seen on earlier cards.

2000 Pacific Crown Royale #89 Rickey Henderson

My girlfriend found a few of these "Princess" cards in the same dollar box that yielded Bonds' transparent slide, so I couldn't resist. She also noticed that they had a sealed box of Crown Royale football cards on the shelf, and I had no idea that Panini resurrected this brand in recent years. 

Henderson in a Mets uniform is pretty unfamiliar, but he did play for quite a few teams in his long career, especially toward the end. Unlike, say, John Elway, he didn't quite know when to hang them up, and he kept signing with whatever team would take him.

Just when you thought Pacific cards couldn't get any crazier, they go and do something like this:

1998 Pacific Paramount Special Delivery #20 Jose Cruz, Jr.

From the Special Delivery insert set, they sort of went postal here.

Pun intended.

The back looks like a postcard, with a second photo in the upper right made to look like a postage stamp, echoing the overall outline of this card. The font on the back is script, clearly mimicking handwriting. It's sort of like the Studio credit card idea on steroids. Which is entirely appropriate for 1998.

I guess when you stumble on a card shop a thousand miles from home that's run by a Rockies fan, anything goes.

#WalletCard overseas

For my first-ever trip out of the United States, my girlfriend and I spent several days in Vienna, Austria!

As many of the souvenirs remind you, there are no kangaroos in Austria. There are, however, many centuries-old buildings, like St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom in German), a central landmark in Vienna's old city, and darn near a thousand years old. I only took one #WalletCard photo while in Vienna, but I thought that would be the best place to do it.

#walletcard at St. Stephen's Cathedral, the primary landmark in Vienna's 1st district.

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jun 6, 2015 at 3:38pm PDT

It was a really fun trip, and my employer picked up most of the expenses! This was for President's Club, a company-sponsored event held at different location around the world each year. I was fortunate enough to have been voted in by my colleagues, and got to meet about 125 other employees and their guests from around the globe!

We had lots of wine, a tour of the Jewish Quarter, a visit to a Baroque-era cathedral outside the city and a wine tasting in their historic cellar, lots of wandering around on our own seeing the sights, and a stop by the open-air food market (a must for any foodie).

The company events were also fantastic, one of which was a dinner/ball at the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Appropriately for Vienna, we got some amazing musical performances as well, including a 10-year old boy who played Mozart amazingly well and got a well-deserved standing ovation, as well as a short concert from the Vienna Boys' Choir!

It was great to spend the better part of a week in a historic European city with my girlfriend, and we're already thinking about our next overseas trip together, likely to Scotland.

But now that we've returned, I'm getting right back into baseball, as I'll be seeing the Rockies host the Cardinals tonight for my third ballgame of the year. Mr. Girardi might make another appearance in fairly short order.

#WalletCard

It's already April and we're about a week in to the 2015 baseball season. Though I wasn't able to snag any tickets for Opening Day, I did get two Club Level tickets through work for home game #2. Although the Rockies lost to the Cubs 9-5 for their first loss of the season, spending a spring evening at the ballpark and surrounding bars with coworkers and my sister made for a fantastic Saturday evening.

Mr. Girardi managed to peek out of my wallet mid-game for my first #WalletCard entry of the year.


Rather than just a hat, I now have a proper Rockies jersey to wear to games, and it's of Nolan Arenado, the third baseman. He had a few defensive chances that were just too tough to convert, although he did hit a home run to left field early in the game! That's him at the plate, in a blurred background behind Joe Girardi's 1994 Topps Gold card with my left thumb obscuring most of Girardi's name.

There are many more trade posts to come, but I didn't want to let a trip to Coors Field slip by without posting an entry for the wallet card trend.

The Wallet Card

The latest craze sweeping the blog community is the "Wallet Card", an idea introduced by defgav at Baseball Card Breakdown.

I think we all understand the general idea by now, so I won't go into too much detail. Pick a card to carry in your wallet for a year, and take the occasional photo of it in your surroundings. I can't say I gave it a whole lot of thought; I just thumbed through a row in my duplicates box until I found something that I thought was meaningful.

However, there is one set out there that would be completely perfect for this trend.

1995 Studio Gold Series #42 Andres Galarraga

1995 Studio! They're designed to resemble credit cards, with holograms, rounded corners, and raised lettering. If I had some extras kicking around, I'd totally pick one of these. The above card, which was recently sent to me by William at Foul Bunt, is only the ninth card I own from that set. Alas, I have no duplicates to spare, and I don't want to ruin this one of The Big Cat by carrying it around all year.

So what did I end up choosing? I'll give you a few hints. It's a Rockie, of course. There is gold foil. The design matches the first factory set I ever purchased. And it's a player I've met in person.

1994 Topps Gold #372 Joe Girardi

Joe Girardi, who now manages the Yankees, will be accompanying me in cardboard form throughout 2015. I always liked this 1994 Topps set, so much so that I spent $45 on the factory set at the young age of ten. Rather than just a base card, I figured I'd go a little bit upscale by picking the Topps Gold parallel. And I met Mr. Girardi for an in-person autograph signing at the now-closed Rockies Dugout Store in Boulder, Colo., along with Eric Young.

It's a nice card, and this was my favorite parallel set as a boy. It's not quite to the level of The Junior Junkie, who picked Ken Griffey Jr.'s rookie card from 1989 Upper Deck, one of the only overproduction cards that still holds some decent monetary value.

Come back throughout the course of the year and see what adventures Mr. Girardi encounters.

Update: I was just looking over some previous posts, and it turns out that this one came to me in a trade from The Card Papoy all the way from France!