Manny Banuelos 2011 Leaf Auto - on card

For a long time now, I’ve been wanting a Manny Banuelos autographed card. I’ve had a few unsuccessful TTM requests, so I turned to eBay. A while back, I noticed that he was on Leaf’s 2011 auto line-up. Although unlicensed, I thought the cards looked great and the autos are on-card. They even had Ichiro sign for them.

I ended up scoring this card for around $12. It’s gorgeous. The design looked so familiar. I knew I had seen it before. Then I remembered! These are nearly identical to the 1998 Donruss Crusade inserts. Slight variations in the design of course, but overall not much difference in the grand scheme of things. I loved those cards back in the day and it was one of the more sought after Tino Martinez cards in my collection.