A Seneca PC Christmas Miracle (with a vintage baseball bonus at the end)

Finding new Seneca Wallace cards for my PC continues to get harder and harder.  At this point, I maybe find one I need every 4-5 months, whether it be on EBay or COMC or wherever.  So when one pops up that I've never seen before, it's a really exciting time.  When I then win that card for cheap and get to add it to my PC, it's even better.  And this most recent card is especially awesome because it's Christmas themed, thanks to some Santa hats:

See, in 2003, Donruss/Playoff decided to thank some industry people and card shop owners by sending them Christmas cards.  Only these weren't the Christmas cards you and I get - they were 5 by 7 cards featuring some of the hottest rookies of the year with Santa hats on their heads.  The cards all had relics built into the cards based off of these hats, and were numbered out of either /100 (quad relic cards) or /50 (dual relic cards).

Now whether it be because of the way these cards were distributed or their weird size, these are crazy hard to find.  Before this card popped up on Ebay, I had been looking for it and its /50 counterpart for more than 6 years.  I know other 2003 rookie chasers who haven't seen a single copy of their guy's card (even the /100 version) in 12 years of searching.  So, it's a weirdly rare card to begin with.

What's even crazier is I almost had a chance to get this card before.  Blowout used to have a well known member named Madbacker, who mentioned to me that he once got a badly creased copy of this card from Tracy Hackler and that it was mine if I wanted it IF he could find it.  This was too awesome, but he never had time to find it and then was banned from Blowout, so the card seemed destined to stay out of my collection.

Well, until now.  Here it FINALLY is, in all its glory:

I somehow won this for less than $4, even with it being an ultra rare card featuring a pretty good starting NFL QB in Palmer.  The hats crack me up, especially the one on Boller's head since he wore it so low.  I also really like the tag at the bottom that mentions where all the relics came from.  It's not everyday that you get a card guaranteeing the authenticity of a Santa hat!

What's even better with this card is that my wife LOVES Christmas and decorating, and she gave me permission to bring this card out every Christmas.  So while this card will sit in a 5 x 7 binder page 11 months of the year, I'll get December to show it off in a prominent place in our living room alongside other Christmas stuff.  Pretty awesome.

Since this card is crazy rare, I'll show off the back as well:

I really like the red foil numbering at the top, and the writeup underneath is a nice little sentiment to the shop owners and industry folks who got these cards in the first place.   It's well done, and even if the original Christmas card wasn't intended for me, I'm glad it finally made it's way here!

I feel like I need to truly show off the cards 5" x 7" size, so here's a size comparison next to the other card I grabbed in this purchase:

It was only $1.50 and there was combined shipping, so I figured it was worth grabbing a 1960's Topps card of a HOFer:

The stats on the back opened my eyes a bit about Killebrew too:

I knew he was a prolific homerun hitter, but I didn't realize how few stats Killebrew acquired between his 1954 rookie year and 1959.  Despite being a bonus baby, he played only 113 games in his first five seasons, mainly due to the presence of Eddie Yost.  He was finally given the starting reigns in 1959 and responded with his first All Star appearance and a league leading 42 homeruns.  The guy already finished his career with 573 homeruns, good for 11th all time.  It's interesting to wonder how many he might have had if he had gotten the playing time he deserved a bit earlier in his career.

So a Christmas card I had been waiting on for 6 years and a nice card of a HOFer - I'd say this was a fairly successful Ebay get!