It started with a hunch -- a reminder to myself about a past visit to a certain store, a dash of the "hit 'em where they ain't" philosophy and a whole lot of the ol' instant gratification habit established years ago -- long, long before The Buzz or even BlowoutCards.com existed.

At 5 p.m. sharp yesterday, I started what ultimately became a three-hour tour that included a few stops and some surprises with the name Ronald Acuña Jr. all at its core.

If you don't have a card shop, there's always the click-here-to-buy approach that works every single time -- but on this day it was a fresh forum post that reminded me of a previous hunch about a chain you might not think of for cardboard that finally got me to go look.

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You should know by now that Ronald Acuña Jr. is having a historic year with the 30-30 Club already set to appear on his 2020 baseball cards -- and there's a serious chance he could become the youngest member of the elite 40-40 Club before the season is over, too.

But it's The Atlanta Braves outfielder's 2018 Rookie Cards that you should be thinking about right now as there's been a serious uptick in interest -- and there's still a lot to choose from that's not priced out of many collectors' budgets.

Acuña appears on more than 3,500 unique baseball cards since he arrived in prospect and minor-league sets back in 2016 and that number has gotten there rather quickly. Amidst his arrival and National League Rookie of the Year award-winning season last year, for example, he appeared on more than 1,700 new cards and more than 1,000 of those were made by Topps just last year.

For simplicity's sake here, we have carved out all of his Topps Now and several other small-set cards sold as online releases as well as Panini America's meaty lineup of Acuña RCs (those could be their own future rundown ... and likely will be). We've also punted all autographs and Relic cards from last year to make this a starting point with the widest affordability net possible -- though ink and parallels in the sets where he has basic RCs will get mentions. That said, even with this starting point, there's still a good mix of high-end and low-end cardboard -- and even the low-end stuff can generate some good Acuña Cash when professionally graded.

Keep reading for a rundown of Ronald Acuña Jr. Rookie Cards.

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Hotlanta doesn't just apply to the city this time of year -- right now it also applies to one if its rookies.

Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. hit a lead-off home run for the third consecutive game on Tuesday night and that was his fifth consecutive game overall with a homer. (And he hit two.) At just 20 years old, he's the youngest to do that in the last 100-plus years and he's the first player since Brady Anderson back in 1996 to open three straight games with a longball. (Anderson did it four times during his record lead-off streak.)

The MLB record for most consecutive games with a homer? That's eight -- a mark held by Ken Griffey Jr. (1993), Don Mattingly (1987) and Dale Young (1956). For the Braves, a franchise with a rich home run history, he's tied the consecutive games mark held by eight players -- a group that includes Hall of Famers Rogers Hornsby, Hank Aaron and Chipper Jones. (How many homers does Acuña have in his last eight games? Eight -- just not in every game in a row.)

For the season, Acuña is hitting .288 with 19 home runs and and 43 RBI -- and since the All-Star break (24 games) he's hitting .358 and 12 of those home runs have come during that time. And for collectors, it's also at a time when his Rookie Cards are beginning to regularly appear in baseball card sets released this season.

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