Card of the Day - 1996 SPx : Mike Piazza Die-Cut Hologram Autograph

One of the most important autographs to reacquire on my checklist has finally been secured and is now in hand and damn if it wasn't a long time coming.

Even though Mike will most likely enter the Hall of Fame at some point it will be with a New York Mets hat on the plaque. He still has resentment towards the Dodger organization and I don't blame him. It can be argued that his best years on the field were with the Dodgers but he meant more to New York when the city needed him and I am okay with him going in with the Mets logo. His autograph though had to be as a Dodger and more so I wanted it to be on card and not a sticker.

Having Mike's autograph while in Dodger blue is hard enough. Being an on card variety is near impossible as I believe this is the only one that fills those requirements. Looking at releases from multiple years Piazza's autographs are always shown with him in Mets gear. Well a few 2014 releases have finally shown him in Dodger gear. I went to look at the selection but they are stickers not on card. I was bummed but that was going to be my back up plan. I then saw that he was going to be featured in Five Star which is on card and I hoped it would be of him in a Dodger uniform. Found out he wasn't.

Well with plan B as an option I went searching for the one card I knew that he was in Dodger blue and the autograph being on card, this one. One big obstacle was that this card's autograph at times can have streaking and/or fading issues. There was a BGS 9.5 one up for sale but that ended up going for $200. Didn't have enough in the til for that one. I was okay with minor streaking but fading would not be acceptable. Picky much? This one came up one day as a BIN with a best offer attached. I sent the seller 3 offers and each one either was rejected or never responded to. A pet peeve of mine, please respond don't just ignore. Anyways, the auction closed and I moved on but then I saw it pop up again on a traditional auction with a starting bid of LESS than my offers. Uh...okay. Anyways, back onto the watch list it went and as the auction was coming to a close there were no bids so I put mine in and won the card.

With the "funniness" of the auctions I wondered if the card would arrive and if it would be in good condition. A week later it did and no harm was done to the card. I knew there would be minor pen streaking and that is okay.

Finally able to add Piazza back into my collection and its a beautiful card of him in glorious Dodger blue,