I've stood in some of the world's great cathedrals: Notre Dame before the fire, and others across Italy, England and Europe. Having spent the Sundays of my childhood in church, I've always found stained glass beautifully elegant and fragile all at once. It says something powerful and profound without saying a word.
Panini borrowed that. Stained Glass, a short-printed insert from Panini Mosaic and the kind collectors call a case hit, sets a player inside a cathedral window. Then a signature crosses it. No one would sign the Mona Lisa or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; that would be sacrilege. But this is pop art, and pop art invites the hand. A rare card becomes a true one of one, because no two signatures are ever the same, and the slab keeps it safe.
Who can tell you how to see art? That's the point. These are the ones that speak to me.
Scott, Curator
The one we can't wait to show you
At the authenticator now. Coming soon.
In Florence, the finished David stands at the end of the Accademia's gallery. Along the way, Michelangelo's unfinished figures are still emerging from the stone. They hang in the same building because work in progress is worth seeing too.
This Stephen Curry is the work in progress of this exhibition: blue ink straight through the arch of the window. It's with the authenticator now, and it will take its place properly when it comes home.
Same window, different light
The first Luka was signed in the tunnel, in Sharpie, on the move. Nobody picked that pen. A player at that level often carries his own Sharpie, or takes the first one held out at the rail, and keeps walking. There's no swapping pens and no second try. You get what you get, and you're grateful for it. The second Luka is signed in blue paint pen. Put them side by side and you can see what the ink does on glass.
The ones that aren't going anywhere
We found it in a small card shop outside San Diego, priced better than it had any right to be: Paolo Banchero's rookie Stained Glass. The signature, in blue paint pen across the colored glass, turns a beautiful card into something you stop and stare at. If we're being greedy, we wish there were an inscription. It's Christian's favorite, and it isn't for sale.
A Christmas present from Mario Matos, the man who taught us this hobby. He'd noticed how much I loved Stained Glass, and that's the whole story. Some cards are kept for what they are. This one is kept for who noticed.
Ready for their next collector
Anything in this exhibition marked “Available to acquire” is ready for its next collector. The Museum sells nothing; each one leads to its own page in the Gift Shop & Registry.
The artifact may go. The story stays.
Damian Lillard's Stained Glass has gone on to a new collection. It still hangs here, because a museum doesn't forget what passed through it.