The Greatest card ever made!

It's been quite a week for me card wise. I've finished a huge project, came up with a new goal for the year (to replace one I failed during February) and I've gotten a lot of great cards in the mail- both from purchases, trading and a couple of RAOK.

But right now I want to highlight just one card- the Greatest Card Ever Made!

After being in the hobby for 28 years this year, it isn't every day that a new all-time favorite card enters my collection...but yesterday, March 9th, 2016, it happened. (Which, coincidentally, is my Mom's birthday!)

Yes indeed, that IS a card of me!!

A couple of years back, I had a friend of mine whip up the front for me, and I used it for a while as my profile picture on Facebook and on my own website. The 1991 Maxx design has always been one of my favorites, and it's the definitive NASCAR set in my mind. So it was a natural choice.

Flash forward to sometime last week, Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown posted up his set of Simpsons customs that was available on a limited basis...I had to have it. I've been a Simpsons fan most of my life and I've seen every episode many times. Many, many times. Well into the triple digits for a large majority of episodes. There's not a day that goes by that I don't quote the Simpsons more than once, and I end every day with reading a portion of one of the Simpsons Library of Wisdom books.

So I asked Gavin if he would take on a commission to print my card, to send along with the Simpsons set, and he would. So...I delved into my files and had the front ready to go. The back was another story. I had never had a back of the card made up.

I decided to make it myself.  I wrote the text, lined it up, and did the stats, which were the hardest part to do in getting them lined up. Those are my actual stats, by the way, not just numbers made up randomly to look good. I even changed the photographer credit to reflect the fact that my mom took the picture.

Writing about myself in the third person was kind of strange, but I wanted to make this look professional, and cards don't talk, so Billy made the adjustment.

When the card arrived yesterday, I was thrilled to see how it turned out. Perfect! Exactly how I imagined it. The colors match an actual 1991 Maxx card perfectly. It now is my all-time favorite card, and I think it will be for a long time.

Thanks for making this a reality, Gavin!

In case you are interested, this was the card back I used to make my own. The only thing I could not match was the font used for the name. I just had an idea that I could have done to match it, but it would have significantly raised the amount of work for me, and of course, it didn't occur to me until right now.