Gunning for 1,000

 

I've hit the next milestone in my collection of Clayton Kershaw cards.

I'll never consider myself a player collector, but once I hit four figures on cards for a single player I'll have a difficult time convincing anyone of that. It's true, he's my favorite current player and I do chase his cards, although he has to share time with my other pursuits.

I received this 2021 Topps Gallery card from reader Rich a couple of weeks ago. This is the 899th Kershaw card in my collection.

That meant I actually had to take some time to search out something special for my 900th Kershaw card.

The trouble is "special Kershaw cards" go for prices I could not justify paying in a court of law. Even sort-of-special Kershaw cards hold loopy price tags. I miss 2011 so much.

So my 900th Kershaw card is reasonably priced, a little bit goofy, and perfect for me:

This is from the 2018-19 Montgomery Club set. It's supposed to be a sticker, but it doesn't stick, so I consider it a card, my 900th Kershaw card.

Every time I see the Montgomery Club card designs, I'm disappointed and also glad I didn't fork over the money to be part of their club. But I do like this one. 

I think it cost me 4 bucks. Who knows what the 1,000th Kershaw card will cost me.

 

Four bucks is appropriate because fourth is where I rank on Trading Card Database's list of Kershaw collections. TCDB doesn't believe I have 900 Kershaw cards but that's because I'm not done logging my collection yet. Still have a few Kershaw cards to get filed.

I don't expect I'll ever surpass the top two Kershaw dudes. Cardboardicons, a fellow blogger, is actually a Red Sox fan so he should be giving all of his Kershaw cards to me any minute now as the logical thing to do.

But I could surpass them all. You never know. Back in 2008 when Kershaw became my favorite player, I didn't expect to have this many cards of him.

I also didn't expect this card to be listed at more than $500 on TCDB.

I look at TCDB's prices with a cynical eye. They don't account for card condition and I don't know how TCDB arrives at them. But looking on ebay, yeah, that Red Hot Rookie Kershaw card is commanding some hefty sales.

This card was a throw-in with a bunch of other cards from a collector around 2009. And I have autographed cards of Kershaw from that same period that I'm sure would go for $100 each. Unfortunately I haven't been able to acquire any Kershaw autos more recent than 2010 because people suddenly figured out who he was and nothing is affordable anymore.

But the advantages of blogging in 2008 and 2009 were pretty great and I'm happy I started when I did, even if I'll never get his 2006 Bowman card.

Maybe when I'm closing in on Kershaw card 1,000, I'll see what I don't have of him in 2012 Panini Triple Play.