A tale of ten dollars

You know how I keep saying my dad has had quite a bit of cardboard luck this year?

As I've mentioned before, I've let "pops" pick out my retail packs during our last few trips to Target. He's had the hot hand so far in 2013.

His luck continued the other day, although it didn't have anything to do with a retail card aisle.

As fate would have it, he found a ten-dollar bill just lying on the ground as he left work earlier this week. Always keeping my collection in mind, my dad decided to see what he could get for it at a local card shop.

While I try to hit this particular shop at least once a year, it's not a frequent stop for me by any means. Although decent, the owner doesn't replenish his quarter boxes too often. And most of his other cardboard is a tad overpriced.

Still, he's a nice guy, so my dad and I try to support the shop a bit whenever we can. It's the least we can do.

When my dad stopped in the other day, the owner gave him a free LCS-exclusive pack of promotional Archives cards. I'd seen the "day-glo" orange parallels on a few different blogs, but I'd never seen anything from the "Promotion Week 2" offering.

Enthused, I dug into the special pack.

As it turns out, the pack wasn't as exciting as I thought it'd be.

It didn't even have anything to do with the Archives brand. It turned out to be a five-card pack, four of which were your standard Series 2 base issues.

The redeeming factors, however, are the special "blue slate" (or something) parallels. I believe they're exclusive to these LCS packs.

My grand pull was the nice "play at the plate" Chris Iannetta you see above.

But, Nick, what about the ten dollars?

I'm getting to that.

See, when my dad told me he'd found the ten dollars at work and went to the card shop for me, I couldn't help but wonder what he found. I never quite know what my dad will find for me on any given day.

The only thing I could come up with was vintage. My dad quickly shot that down. It wasn't a vintage buy, he said.

Aside from that, I couldn't even fathom a guess. What non-vintage card could've possibly cost him ten bucks?

He knows I don't much like autographs or game-used these days, and we both think the whole "graded card" thing is a scam.

When my dad presented his grand purchase to me, though, I was floored. It was a card I definitely wanted, but it certainly wasn't something I'd ever planned on owning.

Not anytime soon, anyways.

PUIG!

Of course, given my dime box mentality, I wasn't counting on finding a card of Yasiel Puig until sometime next year. At the earliest.

I certainly didn't want to put up the kind of cash that "prospectors" are plopping down for Puig. And, as you probably know, I'm no prospector.

Still, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the game's best young stars. Far from it, actually.

Puig is one of the most exciting players in the game today. And I would've loved to get a card of his. With our budgets, though, it simply wasn't in the cards for either me or my dad.

Or so I thought.

The LCS owner had it this Bowman Platinum Puig rookie priced at $15 (which is a bit high), but he gave it to my dad for the ten dollar bill he'd found at work.

It's an awesome card of a guy who's sure to be a fixture in this game for years to come. For once, the scan does indeed do it justice. A beauty, no doubt.

Being the great person he is, my dad had a feeling I'd like this one. Boy, was he right.

You know, it's funny.

High-dollar dealers are probably busting cases and cases of product in search for anything of Yasiel Puig.

My dad bought a card of his with a crumpled ten-dollar bill he found on the ground at his work.

The hobby works in funny ways sometimes.