Two Collectors, One Goal: Chasing MOLINA

By David Schwartz/@Iowa_Dave_Sportscards

In August of 2020, two baseball card collectors, one in Europe and the other in the United States, began the same journey. They both finished, but not in the same place.

The first, Andy, a St. Louis Cardinals collector who lives in the United Kingdom, bought a 1/1 nameplate card from 2021 Topps Series 2. It was a Yadier Molina nameplate—the “A” in MOLINA.

That sparked in Andy a grander idea. He had the A. Why not also chase the 1/1’s of M,O,L,I and N and assemble a wildly impressive 1/1 trophy? Imagine the feat on display: MOLINA. Imagine also collecting six interconnected 1/1’s in an era where millions of sports cards float around the globe in personal collections, hobby shops, vaults, safe-deposit boxes, card shows, and trash dumpsters.

In 2012, as Albert Pujols began his new baseball life with the Los Angeles Angels, Molina, a potential Hall of Famer, signed a contract extension with St. Louis. Instead of Pujols, it was Molina who became a beloved St. Louis figure and one of the most collectible Cardinals players of the modern era.

Not long after he got the “A,” Andy located the M and the I, “but the seller on Facebook sort of ghosted me and traded them to his LCS [local card shop] in New York instead,” said Andy, whose Instagram handle is @CollectCardsUK. “In hindsight, I should have followed up by reaching out to the LCS, but living in the United Kingdom means my only routes are eBay and social media.”

The same month Andy found his A, another Cardinals collector, Michael, finally caved in and opened an Instagram account, @daveyscards, “to catalog my collection,” he said. The world closing in on itself from COVID, Michael, like so many others, used social media to connect with others.

Six months into his IG experience, Michael, who had built a reputation as a St. Louis Cardinals fan, received a message. Would he be interested in a 2021 Topps Series 1 “In the Name” 1/1 nameplate of Yadier Molina? Letter “M.” (Nameplates are a form of relic card. One type, like the one discussed in this article, inserts into the card a letter from a player’s name that originally appeared on the back of their team jersey.)

Michael and the other IG collector worked out a trade. Michael, who lives just minutes from Busch Stadium in St. Louis, in the shadows of Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, and Ozzie Smith, now owned the M. He wanted the other five letters.

“I think securing the ‘M’ first got me wanting to complete the nameplate more than anything since it’s the first letter in the name,” Michael said. “I learned quickly there are a lot of Yadier Molina collectors out there, so when one of these cards pops up for sale you must snag it quickly or else you’ll miss out.”

•••

In sports cards, there are chases, and then there are chases.

The hardest chase in modern collecting is the 1/1, a single example of a sports card that in any specific moment in time only one person in the world can own. There are no copies, no replicas, no one to share with. When you own a 1/1, you are a 1/1.

Now imagine trying to collect six 1/1’s, and not just any six. Imagine that all six must fit together, as in MOLINA. Each individual 1/1 among the six cards loses value if the other five are not present. 

Now take it a step further. Imagine trying to collect six interrelated 1/1’s while someone else is trying to collect the same interrelated 1/1’s. That’s what Andy and Michael simultaneously tried to do, unaware the other person even existed. Two collectors, joined by an interest in a baseball catcher but separated by an ocean, the mathematics of their collecting pursuits daunting.

I reached out to the two of them because the scope of their chase cried out to be told. Oftentimes we see only the end result of a chase, a single picture of a rare card or set-build that fails to tell the whole story. We see an image, briefly acknowledge it, keep scrolling, and forget about it.

We almost never learn the work that went into it. The time. The patience. The digging around. The money. All the dead ends. The successes and failures that occur in a card market where manufacturers fractionalize the hobby into rarity for profit, where the 1/1 card represents the ultimate expression of, “Look at me, and look what I have attained.”

“Between the object and the collector stands the question of motivation, the ‘motor’ of the narrative,” Mieke Bal wrote in 1994. “Motivation is what makes the collector ‘collect on,’ hence, collect at all.”

Let the story of Michael and Andy guide us on our own ambitious searches as we, too, “collect on.”

•••

At first, Michael’s chase seemed like it might not take long. About a month after he traded for the M, the O hit eBay. He saw it and bought it on the same day.

Not only was he building the full run, but he also appeared to be doing it in order. M-O. The odds of that happening—collecting six MOLINA 1/1’s in the order his last name is spelled—were 1-in-720.

We say “were” because that’s where the sequence, and good fortune, stopped. The trail went cold for 15 months.

At last, in August of 2022, Michael found a third nameplate. Whereas the M and O were from 2021 Series 1, the next discovered letter—the I—came from 2021 Series 2.

This was the exact same copy of the “I” nameplate that Andy chased a couple of years earlier, before the Facebook seller ghosted him and sent the card to an LCS in New York. Michael found it on eBay. At the time of the ghosting, that seller was asking $700 for the “I,” which was more than double what Andy paid for his A.

One thing Michael and Andy have in common is a willingness to stay within their budgets. Someone trying to build a six-nameplate 1/1 project could spend any amount of money to complete their quest, but not these two. That would be neither fun nor financially practical.

“The most [Michael] paid for one was $350,” Andy said, “which is commendable work … A lot of collectors out there have a high disposable income and would throw money at a project and get what they want quicker, whereas he played it right.”

Michael paid less than half for the “I” than what the Facebook seller had tried to extract for the card years earlier.

He was halfway to his goal. Three cards. Then, again, nothing.

The M, O, and I sat in his collection for some time, orphans searching for the other half of their six pack. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

A quick scroll through Michael’s @daveyscards IG reveals a far more diverse collection than just Yadier Molina nameplates. You’ll find ultramodern Masyn Winn rookie cards; 2000s Albert Pujols; vintage and pre-war St. Louis baseball players; even a few cards of players from other teams.

A broader interest in collecting made his hunt for the obscure nameplates tolerable, perhaps even more exciting. If MOLINA was all Michael cared about, it might have been excruciating. Instead, he played the long game.

“I never really considered stopping the chase because it was never something that was in the forefront while I collected other cards and finished other sets,” he said. “Every day I’d check eBay a few times to see if anything new had been listed.”

In July 2023, 11 months after Michael found the I, he uncovered not one but two nameplates. First, he found the Molina “N” 1/1 from 2015 Topps Series 1, then the Molina “L” from 2023 Topps Sterling. Both were within his price range.

Five down, one to go. M-O-L-I-N.

•••

All Michael needed was an A to complete a full 1/1 MOLINA nameplate run.

Andy’s MOLINA chase, meanwhile, had stalled. By the second half of 2024, he’d owned his “A” for four years, a lifetime for some collectors.

He liked the card, yet his discipline prevented him from overpaying for the other five letters in MOLINA. At this point, Andy and Michael, despite hosting similar ambitions for years, still did not know each other. “I must follow and interact with dozens of Cardinals collectors on Instagram,” Andy said. “I could not believe we hadn't crossed paths all these years on a similar journey.”

Andy said he wasn’t ready to give up, but he also began to consider other goals. He thought about combining his Molina “A” 1/1 with 1/1 nameplates from other St. Louis players to create a “CARDINALS” run. He also briefly thought about doing something similar to create “ANDY,” a way to spell out his name by using nameplates of players from the team he collects. As a kid in the UK, American baseball games were shown for free late at night on TV. He watched Mark McGwire blast homers and became a Cardinals fan.

Years later, he planned a trip to the U.S. that included seeing the Cardinals play an interleague game against the Red Sox in Boston. Then the pandemic happened. No trip to Fenway. No chance to see the Cardinals in person.

“I thought buying cards and memorabilia would be a great way to reinvest the money to feel close to the sport that's so far away from me,” Andy said.

In August of 2024—four years after Andy got the “A” and Michael first joined hobby Instagram—Michael received a note over the platform. Aware of his chase, another Cardinals collector, this time one based in Ireland, told him about someone named Andy who had a 1/1 Molina “A.” 

Michael reached out to Andy. He sent him a picture of his M-O-L-I-N and explained he’d been trying to complete the 1/1 nameplate run for more than three years. He wanted the A, which just like the I, came from 2021 Topps Series 2.

Andy was impressed, even moved. And, obviously, he could relate. The two had friendly, respectful chats for a bit, but “understandably [Andy] was not interested in trading or selling the card as a passionate Yadier Molina fan himself,” Michael said.

Michael accepted Andy’s decision and went back to what he’d been doing since the beginning: checking eBay, shaking the trees, looking for that final missing piece.

Two months later, in October 2024, he found it.

It was Andy.

Andy still enjoyed his Molina “A” card. He still wanted to continue a chase, but he also realized the truth of their shared situation and determined it was time he parted with the card.

“When [Michael] initially reached out,” Andy said, “I always knew the card would end up in his hands and no longer in mine or anyone else's collection.”

They struck a deal, an incredibly fair $550 USD. It was compensation for Andy for the work he had put in for four years—work that was never fully realized despite his good efforts. And it was compensation for being the sort of collector who values community, who empathized with Michael’s chase and knew it was time for Michael to finally be able to put the MOLINA project to rest.

It was time for both of them to be done with it, each in their own separate way.

•••

The final card sits there in St. Louis now, in a box next to its five siblings, spelling out a name that means so much to a devoted fanbase: MOLINA. But before it found its final home, that single letter—the “A”—lived for four years on a separate continent, holding within its tiny sports-card frame a story about discipline, drive and patience, about things that bind us together even when we don't know we're connected.

Someday soon, Michael will have his six 1/1 nameplates custom framed by a small business in St. Louis, Missouri, that specializes in sports collectibles.

When it’s ready, he will be able to look each day at his accomplishment, six 1/1 nameplates that spell out “MOLINA,” the last name of the greatest catcher in the history of one of Major League Baseball’s most historic franchises.

He said he’s forever grateful to Andy for making the card available.

“When the card arrived,” Michael said, “it was sort of emotional seeing the six cards together as my pipe dream project was finally finished.”

On Oct. 30, 2024, Michael shared an image of the six cards together—MOLINA—on his @daveyscards IG feed (see image atop this story). Comments of congratulations poured in, including one from Andy, @CollectCardsUK.

“That looks unreal,” Andy wrote. “Where it was meant to be.”

Now that Michael’s—and, in a way, Andy’s—project is finished, Michael said he realizes his reward was far more than six cards that combine to spell an athlete’s last name.

“It was fun scouring the Internet for what I needed to finish it,” he said. “In a lot of ways, the chase was just as fun and rewarding as having completed it.”

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