It's My Burfday! Here's a Holy Grail card!

Happy baseball birthdays to Tom Glavine and Hyun-Jin Ryu!  Also, happy birthday to Jim Lovell, Elton John, Tatjana Patitz, Anders Fridén (\m/), Bob Sura, Wladimir Klitschko, Lee Pace, Danica Patrick, Arnošt of Pardubice, first Archbishop of Prague (only included him because his name contains "Arno"), and many, many others!

I thought I would wait until today, my birthday, to post a recently acquired baseball card of most epic proportions:

1998 Donruss Signature, Significant Signatures #R3 Sandy Koufax autograph, #'d 0905/2000.

"Yurp," believe what you are seeing ladies and gentlemen!  Gaze upon madness.  Gaze upon prismatic card-stock perfection.  Indeed, I obtained a "Holy Grail" card of mine.  It is quite possibly a "Holy Grail" for many other collectors too.  No, I did not purchase this Sandy Koufax auto for my birthday.  I received a substantially large tax refund this year because I apparently overpaid thousands in taxes last year.  This card represents my big refund splurge.

I bought it a few weeks ago, in fact, at All Star Cards in Santee, CA.  They are one of my favorite card stores in California, so check them out if you happen to be in the San Diego area.  My girlfriend and I were in the card shop when I noticed an Albert Pujols signature card.  I said, "Man, I should just buy that instead of a risky box of cards."  However, I then looked behind the Pujols autograph on the shelf and saw the beauty you see above.  It was an epiphany of sorts, and love at first sight.  The awesome father-daughter team at All Star Cards even knocked several dollars off the asking price.  The black ink of the "K" and "O" in "Koufax" is imperfect, but to me the card is perfection in cardboard form.

I got my Koufax!

(Sweet trade post from Brad to come soon.)