Framing a Giant Baseball Card

There are no top loaders for cards that are 18" by 25" by 1/2", so I had to bite the bullet and get this guy proper framed. Armed with a clutch of Michael's gift cards (a perpetual item on my Christmas and birthday want lists) and impeccable taste (kinda), I brought it to my framer who I am lucky to be great pals with.

At the framer

I always let her tell me how she would do it, then tell her what I had in mind, and we meet in the middle. We tend to have pretty comparable taste, so this process is a lot more fun than picking out what color paint to put in the bathroom with my wife (which can be stressful until I simply give in). My framer will usually let me do whatever I want within the limits of taste and reason.

She had suggested matting it normally, covering up some border to create focus on the image. That's what we normally do with posters and such, but I wanted to preserve the overall "cardiness" of it, so we landed on a flush mount in a thick shadowbox. Homegirl made it happen. Hard.

She picked out the perfect mat, too: a grassy green number that almost feels like Astroturf. She also told me she would line the inside of the frame with the stuff. It looks amazing from every angle.

Witness the thickness

That's actually two frames put together, what framers call a stack. We were originally going to go with just the black shadowbox, but I wanted a little bit of gold in there, too.

The card appears to float on top the mat and a half inch under the glass which is of the UV-resistant Masterpiece variety. All the materials used are archival, so this card should stay looking new for years to come.

It's super-thick, too, as you can see.

Here it is hanging on the wall in my card room/office.

And here it is in perspective with the stuff that's around it. That Star Trek poster is going away soon, though, to make room for something else completely awesome and Griffey-related. I should have it up next week.

Thanks for reading! Also a big thanks to my always-excellent framer, and again to Upper Deck's Random Acts of Kindness for this insane gift! Ever grateful...