This is my first post on Mantel, so I had to make it a big one...

Back in 2021, a group of friends and I won the auction for Lionel Messi's membership card from his boyhood club in Rosario, Argentina: Newell's Old Boys

We paid ~ $180,000, which is obviously a lot of money, but it still felt like a steal to us as his rookie card from the 2004-05 Panini Megacracks set (19 of which are PSA 10's) were selling for multiples of that figure at the time, yet this card was and is:

— A 1 of 1, that Messi presumably carried with him for six years during his time at Newell's academy.
— His earliest known autograph.
— Representative of the first chapter in the story of the greatest footballer of all-time.

We kept it quiet for the past couple of years, but given Inter Miami are hosting Newell's tonight in Miami for a friendly (I'll be there!) we decided to post about it.

Here's the thread on Twitter: https://twitter.com/brennanjp/status/1758179809383866692