There was a time when serial numbered cards were special. Even cards numbered to as many as 10,000 (see this 1992 Donruss Elite Series Frank Thomas) were considered rare because each card bore a serial number, letting the collector know exactly which card of the reported print run they owned. The numbers really is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things because it really doesn’t mean anything other than it was the first, 34^th or 174^th stamped. It does not necessarily indicate that it was the first card produced, which in a sense is also insignificant, but some collectors (like me) still cared.

Anyhow, as serial numbered cards evolved and as the numbers got lower, collectors started to take notice of the actual serial numbers because some of them began having “meaning.” Some of the serial numbers matched achievements of certain players, were the same as the year a player was drafted, or as is the case of this 2007 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor David Wright, matched the jersey number of the depicted player.

I inadvertently ran into this Wright last summer while doing a blind search for Gold Refractors from the 2007 Bowman Chrome set. At the time I contemplated attempting the entire gold set since I already owned all of the Red Sox, but I pretty much ditched that effort when I lost interest. But when I acquired this Wright, I noticed that the serial number matched Wright’s jersey number. This fact, which may or may not have been mentioned in the auction description, but was definitely not in the title, got me thinking: Do player collectors really care id the number matches the player’s jersey number?

When numbered cards really started to take hold of the hobby, collectors definitely were willing to pay a little more, and in some cases A LOT more for certain copies. But now I am not so sure. There are just way too many cards on the market for any particular insert set to hold so much meaning. The one additional thing this Wright has going for it is the fact that it is a gold refractor, a key search phrase on eBay.

This entry was posted on December 15, 2008 at 1:30 am and is filed under Card of the Day with tags baseball cards, Bowman Chrome, Card of the Day, Cardboard Icons, David Wright, Gold Refractor, jersey, New York Mets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.