Collection Cornerstones - Trout!

I'm not exactly sure why this is, but for whatever reason I seem to neglect showing off some of my absolute best cards here on the blog for many months after acquiring them, if not longer.  My best guess is that I have a "save the best for last" mentality generally speaking, and with all the trade packages and many other ways of acquiring new cardboard I just never seem to get to the "last".

As an example of this, the card I've finally got queued up for today was actually acquired well over a year ago now.  Check this one out!

Not too shabby, huh?

Whether you're a sabermetrics stat geek, or just a good ol' fashioned fan of the game, it's hard to dispute the fact that Mike Trout is one of the top players in all of baseball, period.  Hell, even at just 25 years of age he's already accomplished more than many HOFers have in their entire career.

Mike has been named an All-Star and captured a Silver Slugger Award in every one of his five eligible seasons to date, and in those five years he has also either won or placed second for AL MVP.  While it's still early, this year looks to be no different, in fact many people seem to think that 2017 will actually be his single best season to date.

*excuse the fuzziness, my scanner and PSA-graded card backs don't seem to agree

While I would never be crazy enough (or rich enough!) to collect someone with this much notoriety and hobby demand, I decided a year or two ago that I wanted one really significant Trout card for my humble little collection.  After some research I finally settled on what I wanted, and after a few missed opportunities I finally ended up with this gem.  Here's a better look:

To me, this was the perfect Trout card to go after.  I was a kid collector in the early '90s when rookie cards were all the rage, so I definitely wanted a rookie of some sort.  On top of that, I'm a well-documented fan of all things shiny when it comes to sports cards, and the Cognac Diamond Anniversary parallels from 2011 Topps in particular are real favorites of mine.

While it certainly wasn't a cheap pick-up, I feel like my patience really paid off here as I was able to reel in (wow, that was a horrible play on words) this PSA 9 copy for under $200 with free shipping.  Sounds like a lot to pay for a single card, and it is, but it's not something I do often and I felt in this case that it was totally worth it.

With that transaction a good 14 months in the rear view mirror at this point I'm very pleased, as the cheapest copy on eBay (graded or not) is going for around four times what I shelled out.  Nice to know I could easily re-coup my money if it ever came to it, but I don't plan on parting with this one for a good long time!

Have any of you invested in a card like this that doesn't necessarily feature a player or team that you collect, but that you just had to have?  If so, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

Thanks as always for taking a few minutes of your day to stop by!