Cards
Rare Mike Trout card prompts collector to return to hobby, build cool set of Topps Negative Refractors
Travis Rowe returned to his childhood roots last year.
All it took was one 2024 Topps Chrome Baseball mega box to get the juices flowing again. When he ripped open the packs, there was a parallel card Rowe had never seen before. It was a Mike Trout image entirely in black and white.
Rowe jumped online to find out what he pulled was a Negative Refractor.
“It piqued my curiosity,” said Rowe, who was a big collector during the late 1980s and early ’90s. “A lot of the Refractors and stuff are all numbered, so because this one wasn’t, it just really captured my attention. I started kind of researching it on eBay and different outlets and started kind of buying more because I thought they were cool. Next thing you know, I was headed down a rabbit hole chasing all 300 cards.”
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It took about eight months of scouring eBay and other marketplaces before Rowe finished off the project at the end of May. It was a culmination of dedication, determination, a supportive spouse and a little help from the card community on Reddit.
“One of the reasons I got into the 2024 [product] and bought the boxes originally is just because of all the rookies that were available that year,” Rowe said.
“You’ve got some really great players and potential prospects coming out—[Wyatt] Langford, [Jackson] Holliday, [Jackson] Merrill, all those guys. It just made it a little more appealing to like, this is something I should go after; it’s kind of cool.”
SEARCH PAYS OFF
In October 2024, Rowe put a checklist together and started tracking Negative Refractor cards on eBay.
“A lot of them were really easy to find, especially if you kind of wanted to pay top dollar aftermarket,” Rowe said. “I really only pulled one of them out of a pack. Everything else I either had friends give me or kind of digging through the bargain bins at card shows or wheeling and dealing with people to try to get stuff.”
Rowe learned a great deal throughout the process having never relied on eBay as a main source to purchase cards.
“Kind of learning how to time things and win the bid in auctions, kind of how to use a watchlist and do research to see what fair market value was,” said Rowe, a St. Petersburg, Fla. resident. “At one point, I realized I was into it pretty deep and kind of set a budget for myself and would just monitor auctions and new listings. When they popped up and if it was in my target range, I would pull the trigger on it.”
It was smooth sailing for the most part for Rowe. However, as he got deeper into building the set, he hit a hiccup. Rowe was waiting to find a cheaper Negative Refractor for Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto, of all players. But a few opportunities on eBay slipped through his hands.
“I started to go on other sites where you can buy stuff and wasn’t finding it anywhere,” Rowe said. “I just waited and waited, and I was getting towards the end. In the last 10 or 15 cards, he was still on my list. I was just hanging out one night at the house, talking about it with my wife and I asked her like, ‘Hey, if you had to find a baseball card’—and I told her all the avenues I had exhausted—and she recommended Reddit. I kind of had this epiphany like, duh, I should have been on there.
“I think maybe within two hours of posting, someone’s like, ‘Hey, man. I’ve got four of them, and I’ll send you one.’ We kind of worked out a little trade. I kind of slapped my forehead, like, oh, man, I should have posted on here months ago. I probably could have saved myself a little bit of time and money. But it was a good learning experience overall.”
Rowe’s initial post on Reddit went viral after Topps reposted the plea throughout its social media channels. Rowe certainly wasn’t expecting that level of attention from a simple request for a card.
REWARDING EXPERIENCE
Rowe really enjoyed piecing together the 2024 Topps Chrome Negative Refractor set. It brought him back to his childhood when he was fixated on cards.
“I always tell people, you could show me just about any card from the late ’80s and early ’90s and you can cover the name and I can probably tell you who it is,” said the 43-year-old, who still has his cards from when he was a kid. “I feel like I’m starting to get back to that again. It’s been fun.”
This is the first set Rowe has completed since he was a teenager. Despite the Negative Refractors not being numbered, they have a lower print run. Being that the cards are scarcer made the chase more challenging and rewarding when he finished the 300-card set.
“When I first started looking and researching, everybody’s like, oh, is this a mistake or an error card? When you see a bunch of them, you’re like, no, they’re definitely doing this on purpose, and this is kind of cool,” Rowe said. “I just love the black and white, the way the rainbow shines off of it in the right light. When you put them all together, it’s pretty awesome.”
Rowe is contemplating ideas to work on some sort of project relating to this year’s Topps Chrome set that was released at the end of July.
When he first bought his first 2024 Topps Chrome mega box, Rowe never intended on building a set. But the Negative Refractors really caught his eye. That’s all it took.
“It kind of just brought me back to my youth, got me inspired and kind of gave me a goal to work towards,” Rowe said.
