I'd first come across the idea of the "Pentafecta" on another sports card collector's blog a few months back. "What is this, 'pentafecta,'" you may ask? Good question.
Collecting a pentafecta of cards for a particular player consists of...
I'd first come across the idea of the "Pentafecta" on another sports card collector's blog a few months back. "What is this, 'pentafecta,'" you may ask? Good question.
Collecting a pentafecta of cards for a particular player consists of obtaining five cards in the five following categories:
1. A rookie card
2. A relic card, for football cards this usually consists of jersey material or a swatch of pigskin from the ball
3. An autographed card
4. A patch card, like card 2. above, this is usually a piece of "game-used memorabilia"
5. A "1/1" card, this is a card made singly with no other like it, officially noted as a "one of one"
As you can see, this affords the collector, most often times, quite a challenge.
For some players the rookie card can be obtained quite readily, yet the relic or autographed card may be seemingly impossible to find. For yet other players, the relics, patches and autographed cards may be ridiculously scarce, while the rookie, though available, can be prohibitively expensive. Nearly always the "1/1" card is a beast to be reckoned with, either in terms of price or availability, often times both.
I'm feeling in an Ozzie mood today...
Black Sabbath - Killing Yourself To Live (live)
One of the most maddening aspects of being a Chargers card collector (hence the name of my personal card blog: The Underdog Card Collector) is that while so many of the players on our roster may have great talent potential, we seem consistently plagued by injuries or just bad luck, watching some leave to go on to have super-star careers with other teams.
However, one of the great aspects to collecting the Chargers is that we have access to some phenomenal cards for much lower prices than some teams, comparatively. Don't get me wrong, this hobby can get silly-expensive, but when our starting running back has autographed-relic cards with low serial numbers (say, "x" out of 10 cards) available between $20 - $50, that's much more sane than those comparable cards hovering between $250 - $400.
Ryan Mathews is a case in point.
Though this is officially my second pentafecta completed (my first being my favorite athlete to collect, Mr. Tony Gwynn), this is my first football pentafecta.
Now, in full disclosure: I made a decision a while ago, when John brought me on as one of the new writers for Bolts From The Blue. I decided to leave most of my feelings for the players and lay analysis to our experts (when I watch "tape," it consists of a live football game, me passionately and in no way objectively engaging the drama). All I'm intending to do through The Football Sunday Collector posts is to share some of Chargers cards and memorabilia. Which means I'm not going to analyze Mathews play as there are others doing that better than I can. I'm going to confab about cardboard. With that, on to the cards...
The Ryan Mathews Pentafecta
1. Rookie Card
2010 Topps Magic #52B-36
2. Relic Card
2011 Panini National Treasures #13 - 15/49
3. Auto Card
2012 Panini National Treasures #11 - 9/10
4. Patch Card
2012 Panini National Treasures #7 - 4/49
5. 1/1
2012 Panini Elite Printing Plate for Card #82 - 1/1
The rookie card above is fairly common and quite cheap. Though a simple "base card," it's copying the layout of the 1952 Bowman football cards and, because of that, it's got a great throwback, vintage look to it. Not a whole lot of '52 Chargers cards floating around (oh, yeah: make that none) so getting these contemporary nods to the older designs gets us as close as we can get.
The 2011 Panini marks my first leather relic for a football card and with the visible "oot," presumably from "football," that's a great find.
The third card, the 2012 auto relic, has 4 well laid out swatches, probably from one of the right-angles that make up the edge of the lightning bolt or a number on his jersey.
The fourth card comes from the National Treasures Pro Bowl Colossal series Panini relea