2013 eBay purchase #23: the A-Train attained comes mainly in a frame

Alternate title for those of you of the more literary persuasion:  "Pigskinmalion, or, My Bear Tony."  Major geek respect points if you can identify those references!</Englishnerded!>

So my most recent eBay pickup that arrived on my doorstep (not in my mailbox, because it was too large) kind of appeared out of the blue on the site, as some of my favorite items sometimes do.  I had been looking for something like it for a few years, but for some reason (maybe the price of the product from which it came?) had struck out until now.  Here's what I'm so excited about:

Anthony Thomas 2002 Absolute Memorabilia Signing Bonus framed manujersey auto (#43/50)

I'm not sure how many of you were collecting back in 2002, or aware of this product even if you were, but Playoff's Absolute Memorabilia baseball and football products that year came with a unique twist of a special box-topper-type item:  a framed piece that included a faux jersey-like background, complete with the player's number, next to which was placed the player's base card.  Below that, in a specially designed window would be a sticker auto of that player.  Also, for the sake of completeness, here's the back:

It's somewhat hard to see, but there are fold out pieces for hanging or standing up the piece just like many other frames.  You also get a COA with a serial number that should match the one in the upper-right on the back (you can take my word that this one does).  There are one-to-three versions of these, and in Anthony's case, they're #d to 10, 50 (like this one) and 150.

I always thought these were very cool but never had a realistic chance of buying one until now because of their relative scarcity--both because they're hard to find, and when they do show up, the prices are often unrealistic.  This seller was apparently more than willing to be accommodating with the price, though, since he accepted my best offer of $15+$10.50 shipping.  For an item this cool and unique of the A-Train, that was a price I was definitely willing to pay, and now I have something interesting to display with my other Michigan items!  It represents my 29th Thomas "hit" with #30 just around the corner, I'm sure.  I sort of debated whether or not I'd include it in the football PC instead of lumping it in with my autographed memorabilia, but since it came from a card product and includes a base card and auto, I went with my gut.  Now I just need to track down one of the versions each of his former teammates Brian Griese and David Terrell!