As is customary for this blog, it's Sunday so that means one card only. As is also customary for this blog, there will be a short complaint about the card hobby at the moment.
But first, the Padres 2020 season came to an end in the early hours of Friday morning (UK time). One benefit of getting up for a 2am first pitch was it meant I could text my friend who was being kept up all night by her brand new twins and say "Hi, I'm up in the middle of the night too!" I didn't last the whole game. 8-2 down at the end of the fifth inning I went back to bed. I wasn't too surprised to see the Dodgers had gone on to win the game and the series when I woke up in the morning.
It's been an exciting season to be a 'Slam Diego' fan. Fernando Tatis Jr has become a very hot property in the collecting world and it's been funny watching my fellow collectors scramble to pick up Padres cards in the various Facebook groups I'm in. Until this year I've had a free run at anything Padres. Now I'd have to be quick if I wanted to buy any. I'm not complaining. It's nice to be a fan of a popular team for a change.
However, being in those groups, I have noticed how many people are putting relic and autographed cards up for sale. There is a constant stream of newly minted, newly pulled relics up for grabs. Now you can buy boxes that guarantee you a relic inside and it feels like they are almost too common. In fact they are so common now, a friend gave me a Topps hangar fatpack as a birthday present, and I pulled a relic card out of that. It was the first time I had ever done that in my life, and I feel that if I'm pulling them, given the rarity of how often I open packs, then it shows what I mean about them becoming almost commonplace.
But that is the situation at the moment. I've seen several people ask if we are into a second over-production era. I think we are. Except this time it's not just junk wax. It's also junk parallels and junk relics and junk autos. There are a few people still building sets out there, but there are also people accumulating lots of special insert cards that they don't really want.
Anyway, enough of my complaints. Today's one card only dates from a time when relic cards were difficult cards to pull from a pack.
Card Number 401: Pacific Private Stock, 2001; #148
It's a dark blue swatch card.
So far none of the big hitters in the Slam Diego line up in 2020 have had a streak to rival these records. Maybe one of them will next season.
Total: 401 cards
I'm excited about the Padres future. They've got a solid young core and a solid starting rotation. The Dodgers were way too talented and on fire. I'm hopeful that the Padres will bounce back next season.
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