A Plethora of Devers

I really had not considered making any collecting goals for this year.  That is not something I do frequently, but there have been times.  More than anything, I usually just like to collect for the sake of collecting.  But, I did have a thought when Boston locked up Rafael Devers for the next eleven seasons.  I had a decent number of Devers cards, but he was trailing former Red Sox Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts by a fair margin.  So, I decided shooting for 300 would put Devers far ahead of his former teammates.  So that's it.  300 Rafael Devers cards is the collecting goal for 2023.

So I started off on the right foot with a couple of Ebay lots and some interesting singles.  Here is the first lot:

The highlights from this first lot (which was actually some random inserts I selected from one seller) include the Heart of the City card which features Devers standing over the Boston skyline and the Topps Fire En Fuego die-cut insert.  The Spring Has Sprung card features Devers joking with Xander Bogaerts and Eduardo Nunez.  

Up next is a single card I picked up, the Topps Black Gold card.  I remember these cards being a big deal back in 1993.  What makes this card even more impressive is the City Connect uniform.

And finally, I bought a very large lot and there are definitely some interesting cards here.  Up first is Devers's Bowman Chrome Top Prospects card from Bowman Draft.  This was Devers's first card in the Majors.  The fourth card in the scan is the image variation from 2018 Topps, his rookie card.  Then the Finest rookie card.  That's two rookie cards, including an image variation, and the Chrome version of his first-year card.  That was a pretty impressive buy.  Plus then there are all the other inserts pictured.

And we finish things out with the rest of that lot.  A couple more inserts, a base card and the purple Prizm parallel.  Then, a third rookie card shows up, this one from Bowman High Tek.  

So with the new goal in mind, I added 22 new Devers cards in these lots.  That takes me up above 200 total Devers cards.  I would say the goal is definitely reachable.