1st Redemption Day

Soon after Greg Maddux was elected to the Hall, I was on the hunt for a Mad Dog auto to call my own (Not the best timing on my part). He doesn't have much out there and what is out there they ain't cheap, especially with the HOF hype in full swing. There was a cool one that I mentioned back then, but I lost out on it, sadly. I soon thereafter saw a redemption card pop up at a high-but-not-insane Buy It Now price and impulse-bought it. It was my first redemption card, but figured I'd take a chance on it. I was aware of some horror stories involving redemptions gone wrong, so it was a bit nerve-wracking waiting.

So it was a relief when I finally got email notification that it was sent out. Panini does a kind of annoying thing where they ship via FedEx and require a direct signature. You can't even just sign the slip they left on your door, like you can sometimes get away with. No, somebody's either got to be home, or go out of your way to the FedEx building in the evening and pick it up.

I missed the first delivery attempt (yesterday) because, like many people, I work normal hours, but as luck would have it my fiancée took the morning off work today to do some stuff for school, so it turned out she was around and able to sign for it. Hurray! Let me take a moment to mention my lovely lady not only works full-time at a fancy financial place in a skyscraper downtown, but also goes to grad school at night working on her MBA. Plus she does Crossfit nearly every morning, is active on a Dragonboat team (a rowing-type of sport), and still finds time to care for her fella and our pup. I really am in awe of her. She's a keeper, for sure. Just 8 more weeks till I sign her to a long-term deal.

But back to the card in question, now these 3+ months since redeeming it, here it is:

2013 Panini Americas Pastime
Majestic Marks Gold

I can begrudgingly overlook it being Panini/logo-less, since obviously I knew that going in, but was disappointed to see it was a sticker auto. I thought the whole point of redemptions was to give the guy more time to sign the cards. Bummer. It's serial numbered 6/25 (Yeah, 12/25 would have been so much better.. oh well).

Still though, it's a pretty cool card and I'm very happy to add a Maddux auto to my collection. As a former Padre in the Hall, he's a guy I collect.. and a sub-mini-collecting goal of mine is obtaining a certified auto of all such guys. After checking Maddux off the list, just a couple left to go.

Would I do the whole redemption thing all over again? No, probably not. Especially knowing it was gonna be a sticker. So yeah, I'll continue trying to shy away from redemptions best I can.

I hear Panini has a "points" plan head which will phase out the need for redemptions. Instead of pulling a redemption for a specific card, you'll pull special cards with points you can amass and then exchange for cool cards on their website. Hopefully that takes off and redemption cards soon become a thing of the past. Though, yes, ideally you'd cut out the middleman and pull the cool cards directly from packs. But at least this way you can go after your favorite teams/players, not just be stuck with the luck of the draw.