A Missing Ray

I have a nice collection of Ray Lankford cards.  I do not have printing plates, but I have a healthy number of low print run cards.  Over the last few years, I have tried to add new Lankford cards, but the cards I do not own rarely come up on Ebay or COMC.  Unfortunately, there are also times when I do see Ray Lankford cards come up to auction, but they are way past what I am willing to spend for the card. 

This one still kind of hurts. 

Although, I would have been in hot water with my other half for spending $172.50 on a Ray Lankford baseball card.  Probably good I did not go after this card. 

Last week, I found a Ray Lankford card that I did not have in my collection.  I put it on my watchlist on Ebay half expecting it to be $100, or more, after the first day. 

Nobody bid on it. 

In fact, it had a pretty high starting price, and I ended up being the only person who bid on the card.  I am sure that I probably could have let it relist to try and get it cheaper.  There are just so few though, so I was not going to let it pass me by.  It's a great looking card. 

This is a 1998 Topps Gold Label Class 2 Red Ray Lankford.  The different Class cards in the original Gold Label were based on the background picture and the color of print on the front of the card.  The Class 2 cards had players running in the background and the player's name in silver print. 

The back of the card has the serial number, which is out of 50.  I have the Class 1 red card, which is out of 100.  I was missing this card, along with the Class 3 Red, which has just 25 copies.

It has been a long time since I have found a new Ray Lankford card.  It feels like I am only able to find one or two of these a year.  Wish there were a few more to find.