A Heartbreaking Waste of a Card.

As I have gotten further into this hobby, and the prices of hobby boxes continue to rise thanks to Michael Eisner returning this hobby to the kids, I have been forced to continually modify my collection quest. While I feel really comfortable with my "To the Nines" (TM, all rights reserved), I have also pretty much decided that I am going to target mainly Jacoby Ellsbury cards since I have already amassed quite a stack of them and it also limits my needs to one or two cards per set, which is great for a man on a budget.

So to my joy, last week on Ebay, a Jacoby Ellsbury rip card /25 surfaced! Actually two of them did. This is a great looking card! The reason I so desperately wanted this card was that, just like my 2008 Jacoby rip card received through a trade, I intended to keep this card fully intact with mini safely encased inside for all of eternity, or pretty darn close. My philosophy is that if you receive a Rip of a regular ol Joe that you don't really care about...rip away! Or sell high. But if you collect em, keep it together, man!

Sadly, however, this card (and it's friend) quickly slipped away as this card rapidly escalated in price and sold for nearly $160 bones. The other card was a BIN for over two bills and it vanished quickly.

Even more sad...................this image......................(sniff)................this image that you see above.............(sniff sniff)........is currently posted on Ebay..............as a RIPPED Jacoby card!

Utterly disrespectful!

I equate this travesty to the equally devastating hunting of elephants to cut off their tusks, hunting buffalo for their hides, throwing away the outside of an Oreo cookie just because you want to get to the cream, and letting your Bowman prospect cards pile up unnoticed as you search in vain for a Strasburg auto.

And look up at that card again. Jacoby don't look happy about it either.

RIP, rip.