Card of the Day / Collection - 2009 Bowman Chrome : Mike Trout Base Autograph Refractor Parallel (28/500) and BGS Graded a Gem Mint 9.5

This being primarily a Dodger blog you would think that I would showcase something about Kershaw today considering he won the MVP award yesterday. At the very least something Dodgery right? Well I am going a different route and finally going to showcase my centerpiece of my autograph collection. And it's not a Dodger.

As we collectors have many items we consider main pieces or crown jewels I myself also fall into that category. I have many that I deem untouchable but this one is for sure never going to be traded and I am just mapping out how high in value it can go when his career is over. I present to you Mike Trout, the 2014 AL MVP.

I have shown the other two autographs of Trout that I have in my collection but this one has never seen the light of day till today. I have had it for almost 2 years now. Yes, that long and never did a blog entry on it. Something else always came up and I planned to do it on his birthday in but I forgot to so I let it ride for another few months. I was then going to do it last year at this time when he should have won the MVP award but he didn't so once again, no post. Well he finally won his well deserved first MVP award and arguably what should have been his 3rd in a row.

I acquired this card back in late February of 2013. Another one of my off season steals. More so now that the card has skyrocketed in value. I wanted to add this Trout card to my collection even when I wasn't collecting cards but the price was already high (far from what it is now though) so I had to make a decision. If I really wanted it I would have to part with some items in my collections to cover the cost of this one. At the time I still had loads of signed balls and comic paperbacks piling up in my spare room. That old saying of you have to give something up to get something came into play here and I had to figure out what I was comfortable with parting to acquire this card. First off, if I was going to purchase this card it had to be a refractor and it had to have already been graded by BGS as a 9.5. Nothing less would be acceptable. Would have loved the blue refractor but I had my limit and that one was beyond it.

I ended up selling a whole series of paperbacks to cover half the cost of the potential purchase of Trout and then the hard part of selecting what in my autograph collection would I be willing to part with to cover the other half. I ended up selling off my whole collection of signed bobbleheads which netted me more than I thought they would. Now mind you I hadn't secured this card yet, I was just hoping to have a chance at it but I wanted the funds ready to go. I still felt I needed more funds so I cherry picked a few cards that I knew would net me more money than others. I went more with quantity than quality so that would lessen the blow. I did end up selling off a prized Kemp autograph but it went for a greater cause.

Well with all funds in hand it was time to bid on this card. There were a few copies at the time so I had my choice of which one to go after. I lost out on one and then I zeroed in on this one as it had an odd ending time aka late at night on west coast. I put in a token bid which was low considering closed sales prior to this one. To my surprise I won it. I finally owned THE rookie card of the best everyday player in baseball.

Since the acquisition of the card the value of it has gone through the roof. I would love to see this hit 10K which may not be far fetched considering the value of it now with most of his career still in front of him. I told the wife when it does I will sell it and we will go on lots of trips with the funds from the sale. This is the one true investment piece in my collection with my Kershaw coming in a close second. I can't believe the deal I scored on it and look forward to seeing what the return is on it 15 years from now. Till then though it is locked up in a safe with a Magnum 44 next to it for additional security. Ha Ha.

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