Mailday - Best. Patch. Ever.

A couple weeks back I got into a little bidding war on a redemption card that was up for auction on Sportlots.  For those of you who haven't used Sportlots, the auction bid has to stay stagnant for 3 days before you win.  There is no timeline on when an auction ends.  Another potential buyer and I kept going back and forth and one upping each other but I finally prevails.  I thought it was kinds silly but I ended up paying $2 shipping to get this:

This came in a PWE in a top loader which kinda annoyed me for $2.  I also paid $13.50 for the card.  I didn't closely watch the Museum Collection release this year.  I have picked up a Lincecum relic on the cheap and several base and parallel cards.  When I got this I wasn't sure what the card would look like or what the print run would be.  I looked on Beckett.com and saw there was a regular version of this card along with cards numbered out of 25 and 5.  I figured this had to be the 25 version so I figured I would get a nicely signed card from my favorite current Giant with 3 jersey swatches.  If I got lucky, maybe I would get one of the swatches with a little orange on it.

Well imagine my surprise when I got a package from Topps today from FedEx and opened it to find this:

WOW!!!

This is by far the best patch now in my collection.  Each of the windows has a swatch from a different part of the jersey and each contains 4 colors.  The middle swatch seems to contain part of the word baseball and the third shows most of the San from the city name.  There are gold accents all around the card including the sticker and this wonderful card is numbered 3/5.  My wife cards little to nothing about cards (other than her complaints that I spend too much) but even she appreciated this gem.  I still can't believe I picked it up for $15.50 delivered.

I have to think that if the seller had redeemed it himself and sold it on eBay he would have scored quite a bit more and I am certain I never would have even seen the card from a search much less own the card.  A very nice mail day.