Unlike more recent years where you would get multiple silver packs per box, at the 2002 National, a box of Absolute Memorabilia would get you a single card numbered to five.

In three decades of collecting, I’ve never owned a serial-numbered card that matched the player’s jersey number - until lightning struck twice this week.

I nabbed this 2002 Upper Deck 40-Man Rainbow of Orlando Hudson #’d 3/40. When I received a shipment of cards from Burbank a few days later, I found that the 2004 Leaf Certified Materials Mirror Gold Richard Hidalgo I purchased was #’d 15/25. Just like that, $3 cards immediately became $5 cards (that’s retirement money!).