Hello Old Friend.

Did you ever sell or trade a card, look back a few years later, and regret that it was missing out of your collection?  I have a few cards like that and always have my eyes and ears open.  Many little things.  A small card that completed a set, or something from a favorite player or set.  I could make a pretty nice list, but I am not sure that it would help very much in some cases.  For example, one of my favorite old Pacific sets was the 2000 Vanguard set.  It was a higher end product for Pacific which used thicker card stock.

The base set is only 100 cards and the insert cards are generally not too difficult to find, but the jersey cards were something else.  Pacific actually seeded their relic cards to be relatively difficult to pull.  More of a one per case, than one per box kind of deal.  This meant that there were a limited number and there is somewhat of a premium for the cards.  Imagine that.  

I used to own the whole set.  There are only five cards in the set, but as of last week I owned an ARod and a Chipper Jones.  I have seen a few copies of the Gwynn, Maddux, and Frank Thomas floating around, but the cards often fetch a pretty steep price for a relic card.  Often they drift north of $10 and are frequently Buy It Nows on Ebay with no offers available.  Little bit much for a simple jersey swatch.  

Last week, I finally spotted a copy of Thomas card up for auction and was able to win the card for less than $5.  Really happy to be a little bit closer to putting my Vanguard set back together.

2000 Pacific Vanguard Frank Thomas Jersey

Great looking card, but also excited that I was able to pick up another cool Frank Thomas card from the same seller from another cool early 2000's set:

2001 Topps Gold Label MLB Award Ceremony Frank Thomas Jersey

The Gold Label set is a pretty awesome line if you've never checked them out.  This Thomas jersey celebrating his AL MVPs in 1993 and 1994 cost me a few cents over a dollar.  Pretty nice card for that price.