This quest was a long and frustrating one, but after 17+ years it is finally over. Way back in 2001, Topps released a 10 card insert set featuring some of the more well known stars of the Negro League. From the moment I saw this set staring back at me from a pack of Flagship(series 2, I think), it was one of my favorites. I finished the set relatively quickly and was excited to see that Topps Chrome would apply its shiny base and refractor technology to the set. I immediately knew I'd have to track down a refractor version of my favorite player in the set, Josh Gibson. In the weeks after Chrome was released, I happened to find 2 different copies at my local card show. I was young and the asking prices weren't in my collecting budget so I had to leave them behind. I remember seeing a few more on eBay and the end result was the same, too rich for my blood. As time went by, I had trouble finding any available copies at all. Over the years, I had a few near misses which I wrote about in this post showing my top 5 white whales. I couldn't even find a picture of a sold copy of the card for that post so I just subbed in a picture of the base version. I published that post in early November 2017. Close to six months passed and there were no signs of an available copy on either eBay or COMC. Then it happened. I was performing searches on COMC for a list of cards that I don't usually find available. I typed in '2001 Topps Josh Gibson' as I'd done a hundred times before. Only this time, among the few results was a copy of the refractor I was searching for. It was listed a bit high for my liking, but fortunately I had earned a good bit of credit by doing challenges. I added some store credit via PayPal just for good measure. I wanted to be ready for negotiation. I quickly made an offer I could live with. It seemed like it took forever for the seller to respond(it was actually only a few hours). They countered and I felt it was reasonable(and I didn't want to lose out again) so I accepted. A huge weight was lifted! However, I knew that I wasn't very likely to request shipment until the Black Friday promo. So, seven months after I purchased one of my most sought after cards, I finally had it in hand and here I am finally writing about it four+ months after that. Better late than never I suppose.
I only wish the scan actually did this card justice. It is extremely satisfying to finally acquire a card I'd searched for so long to find. Quite honestly it's a feeling I'd really like to replicate again in the near future(fingers crossed). Anyway, thanks for reading.
