Three Trading Card Finds: Juliana Miller, Wrenna Monet and Bo Jackson

These three eBay pickups each move a personal collection in a different direction: one opens a new subject area, one brings a small themed run close to its planned finish, and one nearly completes a long-running set build. The cards also show how collecting goals can be as individual as the items themselves. A first autograph can matter more than a checklist milestone, while a card with visible wear may still be the one that finally closes a difficult gap.

More cards are on the way from COMC, where an order has reached the packing stage. Until that shipment arrives, these recent finds offer a good look at what’s currently taking shape in the collection.

A first “Gal” from Granite

For a collector with a couple thousand cards in a “Guys From Granite” minicollection, Juliana “Killer” Miller makes for a notable first: she’s the first woman in the run. The card also appears to be the first MMA autograph in the collection, giving it two distinctions at once.

The connection that first drew attention to Miller was personal: she attended the same high school as the collector. Finding out that Leaf had made cards featuring her turned that passing interest into a collecting opportunity. This copy is a purple refractor numbered 4/6, and it joined the collection at a price the buyer was happy with.

That low serial number needs some context. Leaf uses many parallel versions, often with small print runs, so the number alone doesn’t tell the whole story of how scarce a card is across the product. The collector points out that even a 1/1 can sit among a larger group of one-of-one parallels. For this pickup, the appeal is clearer: a striking color variation, a signed card, and a subject with a direct hometown connection.

Miller’s record is given as 4-4-0. The card’s value to this collection rests on its place in the personal story and the new corner of the hobby it represents, rather than on its serial number alone.

One card from a “Sign Here” run

The second pickup belongs to a collection built around a charmingly direct idea: cards that can be signed. The subject here is Wrenna Monet, a model, actress and artist. This particular card had a practical role before it became a keeper: it was set aside as an example to show Monet where to sign a stack of cards. Somehow, the sample escaped the discard pile and found a home in the collection.

The reverse is part of the story too. A quick search suggests Monet has added many tattoos since the image was made, giving the card an extra snapshot-in-time quality. The collector’s tentative plan is to stop at nine cards, enough to fill a page. This one is number eight, so the project is nearing its self-imposed endpoint, though the final addition could arrive at any time.

Small themed runs like this give a collection a clear shape without requiring a large checklist. The finish line is easy to see, and every new card can change how close the page feels to complete.

One major gap remains in the Pristine Legends set

Bo Jackson brings the biggest checklist milestone of the three pickups. His card nearly completes a 2005 Topps Pristine Legends frankenset, a collector-built version of the 140-card set assembled in non-base form. Jackson’s early baseball path makes the card especially fun to consider: he played catcher when he was young, and the Yankees drafted him in the second round of the 1982 draft. He instead accepted a football scholarship to Auburn.

The set’s format makes the remaining hunt more involved than simply finding any missing card. Most of the collection consists of refractors, along with several Gold refractors. Those Golds are numbered /65 and have a die-cut deckle edge that recalls vintage OPC cards. This Jackson copy has extra wear along the top. The condition flaw is visible, but reaching the card still brings the collector closer to finishing a set that has taken shape around its non-base versions.

Parallel scarcity varies across the checklist. In the “The Early Years” subset, regular refractors are numbered to /25, making the Gold versions nearly three times as obtainable there. Across the rest of the set, Gold is the tougher parallel. That uneven pattern helps explain why a set can have one last difficult card even after most of its checklist is complete.

Only one expensive card remains, another “The Early Years” entry. It also happens to be the final card on the set’s checklist, a tidy coincidence for a project nearing completion. A planned series of posts featuring the frankenset a few cards at a time could turn the last stretch into its own collecting story: the collection is nearly there, and the final card still has to be found.