Card of the Day - 2013 Topps Five Star : Sandy Koufax Autograph Rainbow Rainbow Parallel ( 10 / 25 )

The immortal Sandy has once again returned to my collection.

Taking another minute to enjoy the beauty of this card.....

It has been a grand total of 7 days that I have not owned a Sandy Koufax autograph. As stated in this previous post I am getting out of the signed balls part of the hobby ( other than IP black balls ) and Sandy was not an exception. I know a lot of people would say what I did was sacrilegious for selling his autograph but I felt it was right at this time. With that said, out of all the autographs I am selling off ( and please see the list as I still have more to get rid of ) Sandy was the most important and urgent one to reacquire. As soon as I sold the ball I was zeroing in on a Koufax signature and nothing else held my attention for 2 days.

I knew that the funds I received from the sale of the ball would not fully cover the acquisition of a card of Sandy's. Thankfully I had a ton of more sales to draw money from to cover the difference. I did not want an Upper Deck autograph and I also wanted a card that would hold it's value but most importantly had a clean autograph and looked pretty. Enter Topps Five Star.

At the time of the purchase there was an auction going for the non rainbow version ( #/30 ) that I was in on but at the very last moment I was out bid for it. I turned to the seller of this card that had it on a buy it now or best offer auction. This card is numbered out of 25 so technically it is more "rare" than the one I lost out on. The book value for this card sits at $500 right now. The seller had his asking price at $400. No way was I going to pay that much but at the same time with the combined total of 55 copies of both versions of the card I knew once again time was of the essence to get this done. 

Sent him an offer in the mid $200's and even though I knew there was no way he was going to accept that, the bid didn't automatically reject so within a hour he countered. We went back and forth for a couple hours till we settled in on a price that in his words said he felt like he won and I in turn got the best bang for my buck. In the end with the sale of the signed ball and the sale of another much lesser autograph on a ball I received this great card. 

Unlike a lot of the Five Star cards this on seems to be devoid of any chipping. The corners are sharp. Looks like a prime candidate to get graded and see what the professionals of BGS think. No matter the grade though this is a great card and glad that the Koufax hole in my collection has been filled after only just a week.

One of the best signatures in all of baseball. Legible too

10 of only 25 in the world.