what is real?

ever since i bought that pack of 1970s cards reimagined by idrawbaseballcards, i've been following them on instagram. a couple of months ago (or longer), they showed off their take on steve garvey's 1982 fleer card:

i screenshotted the image as i usually do when i see digital/virtual garvey cards on the interwebs. many years ago, i actually printed out some of the customs and topps bunt cards to put in my garvey binder, but i don't bother with that any more. i plan to eventually have my garvey collection fully scanned and so will have these other items included in that version of the collection.

anyway, i checked instagram a couple weeks later, and there was a related post that showed up in my feed from something called millburg trading cards. this post announced a collaboration between idrawbaseballcards and millburg that resulted in this physical card being produced:

it's a cut autograph sort of card that uses the 1982 fleer, a signed index card (or some other paper), and a largely washed out photo of garvey. the fleer image lost a bit of its color as well.  here's the back: 

it features a more visible photo of the garv from the 1977 world series. the qr code takes you to garvey's baseball reference page.  the card was advertised as a 1/1 but that designation is not given anywhere on the card. there are quite a few other cut auto cards offered for sale by millburg, but sal bando (with a reimagined 1976 topps design) is the only other one i saw that was a collaboration with idrawbaseballcards.  i am glad i saw this and was able to add it to my collection - it's a nice way to get that virtual card actually printed for my physical collection, and it's as close as i will ever get to having a 1982 fleer card signed by steve garvey.

millburg also included this custom joe jackson card

which i thought was well done.

i encourage you to check out both idrawbaseballcards and millburgcards on the 'gram!

bonus content!:

since this post is about virtual cards (for the most part), i thought i would share another screencap of an "unreal" card

that's a 2021 topps bunt dynasty steve garvey card with a virtual patch piece. the concept of a virtual relic card is really weird, but the use of the 1980 all-star game patch is pretty sweet. and, it matches the patch on garvey's sleeve in the photo.  this card reminds me of a couple of cards that i actually have in my collection - they are real and they are spectacular!