Nearly 100,000 people flooded onto the floor of the 2021 National Sports Collectors Convention in suburban Chicago, all jostling for space while peering into glass cases. Some were there to buy, shelling out anywhere from a couple of bucks to hundreds of thousands on cards. Others just wanted a glimpse of what they had only ever read about -- the most sought-after and controversial card ever made.
Hidden in plain sight, so small and slight that hundreds of people filed past it without realizing what they were missing, sat a tiny, rectangular piece of cardboard so valuable, it was guarded by a fully armed, off-duty police officer.