Topps Flagship Black

Topps Flagship Black parallels are the new bee's knees.  It's not uncommon to see a Ronald Acuna or Juan Soto flagship black rookie parallel go for near $1000, or even more if graded well.  Not bad coming from a $2 pack.  It's hard to fathom how we got here, but it's easy to blame inflation and of course "FOMO" which we use to affectionately refer to "Fear of Missing Out."  I recall a thread on Blowout recently of someone trading a Mike Trout black flagship update parallel for a PSA graded 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle which was well centered.  The pinnacle of collecting.  And people thought the guy trading the Mantle away got a steal.  Crazy times we live in.

I'm not really on board the hype train with the black flagship parallels, but I really liked the Shohei Ohtani rookie card from 2018 Topps Flagship Series 2.  Just something about the white uniform and the black background looks really nice.  While Ohtani autographs are astronomically high, these parallels were reasonably affordable.  To this end, I think by now I have some 14 of them, including a few key numbers including his jersey number.  I've never really thought too highly of the father's day blue /50, mother's day red /50, or the independence day parallels, but these black backgrounds are kind of timeless.  At least they all look good next to each other.