Wrapped in Plastic, It's Fantastic! 2

While searching for my Jim Abbott card from 2015 Topps Archives Signature Series I came across a couple of other cards from the product that interested me for various reasons. I am still chasing one of them, but I was able to get the other a little while ago after some stress caused by a postal delay. The package got stuck in Pennsylvania around the time of the big winter storm and even after other mail stuck in PA got moving again this package stayed still. After it had sat for six days I opened a help ticket on the USPS website and within a few hours of that the package was scanned in to my local processing center for delivery the next day. Here is the card I waited so long for:

It's a copy of John Kruk's 1989 Topps Traded card. I wanted the card mostly because this card is not flattering at all. Topps did a bad enough job selecting this photo and messing up the airbrushing, but then they came back 26 years later and asked him to autograph 54 copies of the thing. I guess maybe this picture of Kruk engaging in a little mouth-breathing against a stark white wall was the Topps airbrusher's easiest one to work with? That's the only reason I can think of to choose this photo outside of having some sort of personal agenda against the player. It's almost enough to make me start a John Kruk super-collection. Beckett has graded one copy of Kruk's 1989 Topps Traded card, a card that came away with a relatively average 8.5 final score.

Actually, in looking at his stats and reading about his career, I just might start myself a little John Kruk PC. *goes and adds all 100+ John Kruk cards in JustCommons.com's inventory to cart* Well, that was fun. I like picking up instant player collections on that website. Most of the cards were between 10 and 15 cent apiece, so it was like a virtual John Kruk dime box. There were a few higher-priced items, though, so the final average per card was around 20 cents. Still not too bad. I'm looking forward to a nice cardboard retrospective spanning his career, assuming I actually go back and close out the order. It looks like he's got some good stuff on Sportlots and eBay too, but I should probably start with just the one lot and build from there. He's got some nice relics, oddballs, promos, and autographs out there so it should be a pretty fun PC to work on.

Here's the back of the card. It hasn't been altered at all from the original appearance. I guess I could mention that this copy is # 45 / 54, which is a nice palindromic serial number. I didn't buy this card for that reason, though, I just bought it because it was the first one to fall to me at my bid price. Everything about this card makes me happy and I am glad that it has spurred me into starting a new player collection.

Just last night I won an auction for the third and final card I was seeking from the 2015 Topps Archives Signature Edition set, so look forward to reading about that in the next couple of weeks. I have my post queue built almost all the way through February, so it may take some time before I can fit that next one into the rotation.