A Big Rafaela Post, Including a Major Relic

This is a post covering several days worth of maildays.  All Rafaela cards.  I was a little annoyed on Sunday.  Saturday night, Rafaela leaped and stole a home run from an Arizona Diamondbacks player.  Later in the same game, Blaze Alexander of the Diamondbacks also stole a home run from Alex Bregman.  Alexander got a Topps Now card, but Rafaela didn't.

Quite a bit here in this scan.  The 1/1 Pre-Production Proof is a little annoying.  First of all, it's not really on any kind of card stock, it is more of a piece of flimsy foil.  Secondly, it was only after receiving it that I figured out these cards are not listed on the TCDB.  So, my count on that page is not accurate.  Apparently there are issues with Leaf providing an accurate checklist, so they don't list any of these.  So, even though it is my first 1/1 of Rafaela, it doesn't really feel like it.

I tried valiantly to get the Flagship Blue in a trade, but couldn't get a response from the other party.  The Bowman card in the middle is the Retro Logo Foil, and looks much nicer in person.  The bottom row came in one lot together.

A couple weeks ago, I had a jury trial and missed bidding on an auction that had three nice Rafaela cards in it that I wanted.  I ended up buying them separately, but spent more than I would have had to had I been able to get the lot.  The first card in this scan and the second card in the second row were two of the three cards.  As of today, I am still waiting on the third card.  I like the Prizm autograph at the end of the scan too.  I might have to track down some of the parallels.

Here's something interesting at the top of this scan.  A dual relic of Rafaela with Rafael Devers.  Sort of like Devers passing the torch to Rafaela as my favorite player.  I really like the Prizm card in this scan as well.  I have said before that Prizm makes some of the best parallel sets.  It's a shame Panini doesn't have a Major League license, and at this point, can't even make active players anymore.

Closing things out today is one of the biggest items in my collection to date.  This is a game-used (maybe) fielding glove card.  I kind of wanted to grab this since defense is still Rafaela's top tool.  He's fast and can hit for power, but defense is still what carries him.