This Aguilitas tobacco winter league set features a large number of Latin American and Negro League players with photo-paper fronts that far surpass newspaper quality of their day. Many of its players received their best portraits in this set, thanks to higher contrast photography and light backgrounds. Acosta himself was also a five-year MLB vet, most of that with Washington, reflecting some aggressive scouting the Senators staff put into their Cuban operations, even during baseball's pre-integration era.

This SGC GOOD 2 rating reflects its superior central image and edges, similar to higher technical grades. The bumped upper right corner appears to hold it back from something higher, as its other corners show just light rounding, and centering looks well within VG or EX limits. The SGC population report shows just eight graded. Note the crack on this SGC holder does not impact its encapsulated card. We have submitted the card to SGC for reholdering, so not only will the winning bidder receive a beautiful Merito Acosta, but it'll be in a brand-new tuxedo!