Small, Concise, Fast

So a major focus this year is going to be keeping my projects and collections small. I think I made this super clear with my AD collection post and my New Years Resolutions.

This can be either easy or hard depending on how the card companies decide to go about things. Topps and Bowman keep adding more and more parallels to their products every month and probably have like 25 parallels now so I'm probably never going to want to actively build one of their rainbows ever again.

Luckily other companies like Panini and Leaf seem to be going with the less-is-more approach, or at least keeping it where it's always been. Case in point, 2019 Donruss Optic.

Nevermind, Johnny's Trading Spot has notified me that Panini and Leaf also do parallels too much.

Donruss Optic is Panini's answer to Topps' Topps Chrome offering, the two are very much alike in that they're both garbage products. Four cards per pack that's north of $5 each? That is straight trash.

BUT credit where credit is due, Optic in 2019 offered me something I could actually use.

Yes, an Everson Pereira Rated Prospect card.
A combination of Pereira's injury shortened 2019 season and Jasson "The Martian" Dominguez taking up the prospect spotlight have put Pereira on the backburner for a lot of folks, but this meant that I had a clear path to, you guessed it, a project. The card above is the base and I think you all know where this is headed.

This is the refractor (I think it's called a Prizm because Panini feels the need to lend some credence to their lesser offering from their better brands).

This is the gold refractor. I'm not sure if these have a name but I don't respect Optic enough to care.

I do respect that this is numbered to 10 copies though. This is the type of obscure shit I used to pick up if the price was low enough back in 2014-16 because these made for some fun stuff to have in the years following a product's release.

And this is the superfractor or something-vinyl or whatever the fuck.

Point is that it's the 1/1.

According to the checklist there were only four parallels in this Rated Prospect subset, and zero printing plates were ever distributed. You know what that means.

RAINBOW! MASTER RAINBOW!

Truth be told this is a project that had been on my mind since November when I saw that ALL FOUR of these pieces were available on eBay. On one hand I really didn't want to spend too much money on this. On the other hand I had the mental gymnastics to talk myself into this by justifying it as a New Years present (as a Japanese American, New Years matters more to me than any other holiday around) AND a delayed college graduation present from me to me. Also, it's just one of those things where if you see every last piece you need out in the open for the taking, you kinda just have to do it. Or spend the rest of your life wondering "what if".
Note, all of these were purchased in 2019 so they're not recognized in the 2020 budget.

Especially if it's only four fucking cards. Except for what I paid for the 1/1, this was as close to perfect as I could get. Only four cards, all available at the same time.

Now to wait and see if Pereira returns to Staten Island in 2020. I didn't ask Torrens to sign my rainbow in full because asking a guy to sign like 15 cards in one sitting for free is a dick move. Four is a lot more doable. *rubs hands*

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).