I've been watching quite a few case breaks of Panini Flawless to see the crazy cards that come out of the product. I've seen a couple of really nice Hakeem Olajuwon pieces come out and some crazy 1/1 cards that fetch ridiculous prices on the eBay, but realistically 95% of the cards coming out of the $1500+ cases aren't worth near the $160+ people pay to play. Each metal briefcase contains just ten cards, and so usually ten people pay to be entered into a randomized draft, where they open the case and then each pick a card in turn. But 95% of those people lose money on the deal, and a lucky few hit the big $1000+ cards.
I may be a bit of a risk-taker, but I'm not that much of a gambler. So I watched eBay for one of these Olajuwon relic/autograph cards. I bid on a couple of them that went above my (admittedly rather cheap) price tolerances, but finally this one fell to me for less than half of what a randomized draft slot would've cost. I went through my player collection to find out where on the uniform this fabric came from, as my initial guess was that it might be a sock due to the heavily-ribbed fabric. It's not a sock. Olajuwon seems to have worn plain white socks throughout his career. The fabric pattern does match the trim around the neck and armholes of the white home jerseys the Rockets wore during the late 90s, when they switched from the classic red, yellow, and white to the blue, red, and white super-cartoon spaceship logo and pinstripes uniform. So it is from the jersey of a home uniform later in Olajuwon's career.
One thing I like about this is that Olajuwon signed the card and the swatch. I haven't seen any of the other #/25 cards in the set where the player has signed the fabric swatch as well as the card. It might have been nice to get a part of a patch or something, but I am pretty happy with a relic and two autographs of my favorite player. This is probably the most high-end card of Olajuwon I will be getting for quite a while, and it's a good one in my book.
In other news, I have been absolutely swamped with schoolwork, real work, and what little time I spend with my wife and kids, so I have not attended to all of the many things I would like to do with my cards. I know that I owe several people either cards, e-mail replies, or both. I also owe a couple of trade partners a post on the blog. If you have sent me cards and I have not posted them, please give me a little bit more time. In addition to everything else that is going on, I had to do a fresh re-install of Windows on my computer, and all of my scans went onto the backup drive. I still have not added them back into my blog scans folder, so there is at least one big trade post sitting there in limbo. And if you are awaiting an e-mail response, I have most of my e-mails regarding cards labeled and placed in a folder, but I have not been able to formulate replies to them. If you are tired of reading excuses, please scroll up and look at the card again, then look to my sidebar which links to many other blogs, some of which feature posts that are excuse-free.
As a side note, I am setting this post to show up on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in honor of Armistice Day, which is also Veterans' Day. Because I had to somehow work into today's post that I am a veteran and I can do pretty much whatever I want on Veterans' Day, including eat for free at many restaurants if I am willing to brave the crowds of other veterans looking for tribute in the form of food. Actually, I am probably going to sit in my basement and do more schoolwork.
i was reading somewhere that olajuwon was the only one who signed on both places on these cards. it's an awesome card, too.
ReplyDelete