A Goat Says, 'It's Chess Not Checkers'

The best items featured on Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010) are those that lead to other avenues of inquiry: 'What is this?' and 'What is that?' The item pictured below was titled 'Piggybanx Tom Brady Refractor 1/1 Chess Not Checkers Patriots'. It sold 'Pre-Owned' for $600.00 or 'Best Offer'.

The description of the item added only,

Piggybanx Tom Brady 1/1 Refractor. It is missing one screw for the box; it came that way. Otherwise a very nice card.

'Tom Brady' is easy enough, especially if you follow American football. In Tom Brady (wikipedia.org), Wikipedia informs,

Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. (born August 3, 1977) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 23 seasons. He spent his first 20 seasons with the New England Patriots and was a central contributor to the franchise's dynasty from 2001 to 2019. In his final three seasons, he was a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Brady is widely regarded as the greatest quarterback of all time

'Piggybanx' leads to piggybanx (@piggy_banx; instagram.com). The cards on display there mostly use the same style header as on the Tom Brady card. The page explains itself as:-

Pop Culture Inspired Concept Art • Medium: Cards • Rarest in the World. No Commissions. No Customs.

As for '1/1 Refractor', Wikipedia comes to the rescue again. In Refractor card (wikipedia.org), we learn,

A Refractor Card is a trading card that has a reflective coating and displays a rainbow when held at a specific angle. They are parallels of base set issues and were introduced with the release of the 1993 Topps "Baseball's Finest" set.

Later on the same page, we find,

The rarest refractor variant is called the "SuperFractor". It is a card that has a production run of just 1 and is serial numbered 1/1.

The phrase that ties the eBay item to this blog is 'Chess Not Checkers'. The page Tom Brady Doubles Down on NFL Criticism: 'Way More Checkers Now Than It Is Chess' (bleacherreport.com), quotes something that Brady said in November 2023:-

I think the pro game is reflecting more of what the college game is, as opposed to the college game reflecting what the pro game is. We're asking pro players to play college football, and that's the biggest difference I see. This is way more checkers now than it is chess.

If you look carefully at the card, you'll see that the White pieces are checker, not chess, pieces. On top of that, there's a goat hanging from Brady's neck. As we all know by now, GOAT stands for 'Greatest Of All Time', which echoes Wikipedia's 'greatest quarterback of all time'.