Pack Sampling: 1990-91 Pro Set English League Soccer

If you saw this past Tuesdays post, than you already know that I just recently picked up a few more random cheap packs (for blog purposes of course), one of which was a pack of 1990-91 Pro Set soccer. And if you didn't see this past Tuesdays post, well, I just recently picked up a few more random cheap packs, one of which was a pack of 1990-91 Pro Set soccer.

I don't know if it's important or not, but I'll state right from the get-go that soccer, or futbol, is not my thing -- it never has been, and it never will be.

I can't remember how long it's been now, but back when the Timbers first started up in Portland, I did go ahead and give the sport a chance. I think I watched their first two or three games on television, and even though I wanted to support a local team, I just couldn't get in to it. It may be the world's most popular sport, but it ain't for me, and I'm done trying to "get" it.

Nevertheless, when I spotted this lone pack of soccer cards in the $0.25 bin at ye olde "copy/print/cards on the side" shop, I couldn't resist picking it up -- twenty-five cents is awfully cheap for a blog posts worth of material, plus I can at least now say that I have indeed opened up a pack of soccer cards before.

Now for the disclaimer: As mentioned, me and soccer are not one, as such, I may have took some liberties (i.e. tried to have some fun) with a few of the cards in this pack -- so, if you dear reader are a big-time soccer fan, and are somehow offended by these attempted liberties, please send your complaints to the following address:

Now that the formalities have been gotten out of the way, let's get to rippin'!

I don't know how much it would've cost back in 1990, but as of this typing, the cheapest flight from London to L.A. via Virgin airlines is roughly $557.

NEC (formerly Nippon Electric Company, Limited) is a Japanese multinational IT company.

After retiring, John co-hosted Gladiators, which was a British adaption of American Gladiators.

Hailing from Wegberg, Germany, David is the only player in this pack who wasn't born in the UK. Wegberg fun fact: Eight kilometers (roughly five miles) of the city's border are also the national border of Germany and the Netherlands.

 David is REALLY excited to be playing futbol.

In 1977, Howard Gayle became the first black player to suit up for Liverpool.

I think I like the back of the cards more than the fronts, at least they tell you which team that the player is representing.

John Pemberton: "The World's Greatest Laver".

 I wonder what Andy was running from?

I have boxers that are longer than those shorts!

So there you have it! I don't know if it's because I'm not a soccer fan or what, but these cards were kind of underwhelming, and that's saying something, because I had absolutely no expectations going into the pack. The design is pretty blah, especially by Pro Set standards. It would be interesting to know why they were so toned down? Did soccer fans not like cards that were pleasing to the eye?

It's also worth noting that Pro Set football packs from the same year contained 14 cards, and the hockey packs had 15 cards, these on the other hand only have 9 cards per pack -- did soccer fans get gipped?

As per usual, if you see anything you like, don't be shy about saying so (a few of the cards have some sort of dimple/factory flaw). I have no plans to keep any of them, and don't care about getting anything in return, so any and all are available to whoever wants them.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

COMC Shuffle #23

Another week, another ten randomly selected items from last year's COMC hoard.

2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures #DDG

Not gonna lie, this is one of my favorite autos from the Golden Age sets. My introduction to Donna Douglas came from the Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder", which as some of you might know is one of the more famous episodes from the show's history. I saw that years before ever seeing my first episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, or any of her other television appearances (Michael Shayne, Checkmate, Project U.F.O., etc.). I keep going back and forth trying to decide whether or not I still want to try and finish the Golden Age autograph sets, but even if I don't end up trying to complete them, this isn't one that I would be getting rid of.

2015 Topps High Tek Pattern 1 Grass/Waves Gold Rainbow Diffractor #9

I really like the 2015 Tek cards, although some of the colors and background patterns don't jibe too well with the uniforms, but that's not the case with the gold Eric Dickerson, as you might be able to tell from the multiple copies here, it's one of my favorites (I have a purple Tom Brady sitting in my COMC account right now that is really quite spiffy as well).

1995 Collector's Edge - EdgeTech 22K Gold #23

Barry didn't scan so well, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say that he (in card form) is absolutely gorgeous in person. I used to know what the odds were of pulling one of these 22K parallels, but that knowledge seems to have been lost with time. I do know though that they only fell in one out of every couple of boxes, I just can't remember how many boxes.

1964 Topps #580

1964 was not a good year for Johnny, and one could say that it was sort of the beginning of the end for him. Between an elbow strain, then being hit by a pitch from Warren Spahn on the very same elbow, and eventually needing surgery on that elbow, Johnny only made it into two games that season, both of which were lost.

2012 Panini Black Friday Progressions - Yellow #6

It feels a little weird to buy a card of a relatively contemporary athlete that I've never seen play before, but that's exactly what I did with this Arian Foster Progressions, although I have listened to his podcast, so that's got to count for something, right?

2014-15 Panini Prizm Blue and Green Mosaic Prizms #174

I've mentioned on here more than a few times now about Larry Johnson being my favorite player growing up, so I watched as many Hornets games as I could, and once he was traded to the Knicks, I then watched as many Knicks games as I could. Neither of these teams were MY team, but after watching so many games of both, it was kind of inevitable that I would become a fan of some of LJ's teammates as well, Allan Houston was one of those guys that I eventually became a fan of. It was pretty hard not to like him, or his game. Not only could he flat out ball, but he was also (and still is) a high character guy, and by the late 90's those kind of guys were becoming rather scarce, which only made me gravitate towards him more.

1971-72 Topps #44

To say that the '71-72 season was not a good one for Eddie Miles would be an understatement, as he suffered a career ending Achilles tendon injury, although by then he had already seen ten years of action, and his once very promising career was already on the downward slide. That being said, you don't ever want to hear about someone's career ending because of an injury.

2014-15 Panini Prizm Yellow and Red Mosaic Prizms #160

It is virtually impossible for me to see, or hear about, Dikembe Mutombo, without thinking about this commercial:

                 

1962 Topps Mars Attacks! #12

This is going to sound absolutely terrible, but for as long as I can remember, I've always associated this card with this image of Ted Williams (sorry Mark):

Don't ask me why I associate the two, because I don't know, I just know that I can't see one without thinking of the other.

1972-73 Topps #65

Although he's not often credited for it in print, Tom Boerwinkle was a key component to the success of the early Bulls teams. As far as Bulls history goes, he's second in all-time rebounds (MJ is first?!?!), and he still holds the franchise record for most rebounds in a game, 37, which was set back in 1970.

Is it me, or did those ten cards go by really quick this week? Heck, the week itself has flown by, of course they all seem to be doing that these days... they just don't make weeks like they used to :(


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Things

I've got a few things that I'd like to talk about, none of which would be worth doing individual posts for, so... looks like you're gonna be getting a bit of a potpourri today!

Thing #1:

I already shared this on Twitter, but since I know that everybody isn't on there, I'm gonna give it a quick show on here as well. I've mentioned the "copy/print/cards on the side" shop on here a few times before, it's the source for the packs in my "One Random Pack" series, of which I still have plenty of unopened packs (and a couple of cheap boxes) for -- but it's been awhile since I last stopped in there, so since I had to go through town last week, I decided I'd stop in and see if I could pick up a few more $0.25 packs.

I don't think that the bins are being added to anymore, so there wasn't anything too terribly exciting to choose from, but I did find a buck's worth, including what was my first ever soccer related purchase (it was the only pack in there). I've since found out that Vinnie Jones' (the actor) rookie card is the only real thing of interest that could come from that pack (fingers crossed).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of there with just these four packs...

Damn cheap boxes, they get me almost every single time I go in there! And I definitely wasn't looking for a box of Super Stars, but how was I supposed to pass up entire box of something for two dollars? The other two were $8 apiece, just in case you were wondering. I'll probably wait until winter to open them, I'm hoping they'll be able provide a little bit of joy during what is usually the most depressing time of the year for me.

Thing #2:

The last couple of weeks have seen me trying to put together a few RAK packages, which means that I've been looking through all of my card boxes, and of course inevitably that means that I will be coming across things that I didn't know I had, or things that I knew that I had, but had forgotten about.

This 1992 Action Packed gold Lou Boudreau falls into the category of not knowing that I had, I don't recall seeing it before, and I have no idea where it came from?

I've mentioned before about wanting, because we a share a birthday, to start a collection of his, a collection of the vintage variety. Now after seeing this card, which I think is pretty neat BTW, I'm starting to wonder if I'd enjoy collecting his newer cards as well? I wonder how many post-retirement cards he has?

Thing #3: Speaking of collections, I've been fortunate enough to have had three people, in as many weeks, inquire into what I collect. No longer having any want lists up on the blog has made my return emails to these generous souls much longer than they needed to be.

I took the want lists down earlier this year, primarily because they were terribly outdated, but also because I trying to dissuade people from sending anything. Don't get me wrong, I love getting mail (who doesn't?), and I'm very grateful for all of the things that have been sent my way since starting this blog -- but I knew that I wouldn't be going to as many shows this year (only one so far), which meant that I would have much less to send people in return (no one's going to want any of that overproduced wax at the top of the post). So since I'm not comfortable with receiving things, and then not reciprocating the kindness, well, that just gave me more reason to take down the lists.

These last couple of inquiries though have made me rethink my decision to remove the lists, so I will be adding some back to the blog, might take me a bit to do so, but at least people won't have to wonder anymore. My collecting interests continue to change, so these lists will probably be quite a bit different than before, but on the plus side, they'll probably contain a lot more cards that are of the easier to find variety, which I'm assuming will be a good thing.

Oh, and for the record, I did try to talk those three people out of sending anything, but I guess time will only tell if I was successful or not.

Thing #4:

I found a piece of coal last week! I'm sure that this isn't all that exciting to anyone but me, but it's still a thing that happened, so it makes into the "Things" post. This part of the state used to be a big coal mining area, so one might expect to find some coal here and there, but I've spent an awful lot of time out in the woods over the course of the last 4 1/2 years, and have never seen any coal! The most surprising thing was that I found it right next to the house, and it hadn't been there the day before. We did have a thunderstorm roll through the night before, the heavy rain from which was responsible for exposing just enough of it for me to notice a black edge protruding from the ground the the following day. Like I said, it's probably not very interesting to you, but I thought it was kind of neat.

Thing #5: Did you see last week's "COMC Shuffle" post? No? That's the problem, nobody else seems to be reading them either. Those posts have become my lowest viewed, and often receive the fewest comments, heck, posts about videos from the thrift store are more popular then the Shuffle posts. I thought folks would like the variety, especially since the items are being chosen by a randomizer, but it would appear that I was wrong. I will continue to do them until the COMC folder runs dry, but I won't be bringing it back once I get this year's COMC hoard, I'll just have to figure out another way to show that stuff on the blog.

Thing #6: In other COMC news, I added $10 to my account the other day. Now I'm sure that everybody's like "And? People add money to their account all the time!", and this is true, but I haven't added any money to my account since the Challenges started, which was like 5 or 6 years ago. I have spent a lot of time doing the Challenges since they opened, and have earned quite a bit of credit for doing so, at least up until late last year. The appeal seems to have worn off, and I just haven't wanted to waste all of my free time doing them, as a result, there's been a lot less money/credit in my account to play with. This hasn't been much of a problem though as there hasn't been a lot of cards that I'm interested in being added to the site, and where this, they're usually priced at 10-25 times more than they should be. Then July showed up, and everybody seems to be adding all this great, and reasonably priced, stuff to the site... and guess who has next to know credit left?

I've been trying to do some Challenges again, but the times that they've been open haven't been conducive to me doing them. A couple of cards that I really wanted were on sale the other day, and priced much lower than they should've been, so since my hobby spending stayed under budget last month, I had a few extra bucks this month, hence the $10 being added to my account (that felt so weird to do). Although, between this, the boxes that I led the post off with, and my trip to Goodwill and Hobby Lobby the week before, I am now pretty much tapped out for the rest of the month -- save for a few bucks to mail out a package or two.

Thing #7:

I won a small item on eBay last month, an item that was going to be coming from Israel, meaning that I would likely be getting a most interesting looking piece of mail, and I did! Obviously I've covered up the juicy parts, but that doesn't take away from the overall appeal. As for the item, you'll have to wait to see that, as it's destined for a future blog post -- a really long, and difficult to write, future blog post.

Thing #8: Anybody who's familiar with the blogs should know that there are some very talented folks out there when it comes to making customs. I have admired all of these talented individuals for many years now, and have longed for the day when I could try my hand at making customs, well, I'm happy to report that the long awaited day seems to have come.

Since I didn't know if I would be sticking with it, I wasn't about to shell out a bunch of dough for Photoshop, but I will spring for a free download! I recently found out about an editing program called GIMP (I'm sure that I'm the last to find out about it), which from what I've been able to gather, is like a poor man's Photoshop. Computers have never been my thing, because of that, I wondered initially if I would ever even be able to figure out how to use it -- but after watching a few tutorials on YouTube, and just messing around with it for a bit, I was very pleased to find that I was kind of actually understanding what was going on. And while I still have much to learn, I'm slightly excited to see what the future might bring, at least as far making customs goes.

Thing #9:

I am a fairly healthy eater, at least by American standards, and have been for quite awhile now. However, in recent years I seem to have developed a bit of a vice come summertime, that being popsicles! My want for them tends to show up right around the time that the weather starts warming up, although it doesn't seem to last until the warm weather begins to fade, I just seem to get tired of all of the extra, and honestly, unnecessary, sugar. For example, as of this writing, my "vice" has already come and gone, and there is still plenty of summer heat to be had, at least around these parts.

Anyways, some of the popsicles still come with jokes, most of which are wonderfully cheesy. Every year one or two seem to stand out from the rest, with the one above being my favorite from this past summers crop, so I figured why not share it with everyone else!

Any guesses yet? I'll give you another second to think about it before revealing the answer...
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Good show! Not only was the joke clever, but finding it on a cherry flavored popsicle made it just that much better. And for anyone who may be wondering, the answer is yes, I will be keeping it.


Thing #10: Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page :)

Tales from the Thrift Store vol. 12

The last couple of posts in this series have been dominated by Goodwill, which isn't necessarily a good thing, as the original plan for the series was to feature items from a variety of thrift stores, but you know what they say about best-laid plans...

Not counting those from July, my extracurricular activities have been pretty minimal this year. Going to Goodwill's monthly half-off sales has been the exception, but even those have fallen by the wayside over the last couple of months, as getting up (and going out) early on Saturday mornings isn't always as easy as it sounds, no matter what it's for.

But then July showed up, and I started going out to places again, including Serenity Thrift. Now ST isn't one of my favorite thrift stores, they're very clothes oriented, which is great if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm not -- in fact I can think of only a few things that I would rather do less than shop for clothes. That being said, they do have a few other things, including videos and DVD's, as well as books and a small selection of records, so I do like to try and go at least every six months or so.

Serenity Thrift also has the distinction of being located right next door to one of the few Dollar Tree's in my area that will occasionally have the $1 Blu-ray's and DVD's. Unfortunately this was one of the times where they didn't have any of the dollar media, but them's the breaks, and besides, I ended up getting more than usual from ST... so it balanced itself out.

A large donation of videos must've recently been received, because they had 3-4 times more than I've ever seen there, which for someone like me, really is quite exciting -- who knows what treasures might be lying in wait!

I seem to have a bit of a mental block when it comes to the shows that were part of Disney Afternoon's. I mean I know that I spent many an afternoon watching the cartoons, and I do recall drawing Darkwing Duck, and a few of The Gargoyles quite a bit, but as far as specific memories or plots of episodes go... I've got nothing! Which is kind of weird because I have almost total recall of most of the Nickelodeon shows form exact same time period, Adventures of Pete & Pete, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Salute your Shorts, etc. -- heck, when it comes to most of those shows, I can even remember some of the small details from the days that the episodes first aired, which makes the block of all things Disney Afternoon just that much more perplexing. 

On the plus side though, on the rare occasion that I come across a tape like this, I know that it'll basically be like watching the episodes for the first time again, which in a way is kind of nice -- especially when people often say that they'd like to go back and watch something for the first time again, well, with these I can.

Everything that I just said above applies to TaleSpin too. I don't remember any of the episodes, but I do fondly recall both the McDonald's toys, as well as the hand stamps that came in Kellogg's cereals -- in fact I still have both sets from when I was a kid.

Whoever donated these videos had some really good taste! And I consider it to be my good fortune to have gone to the store when I did, because it isn't everyday that one comes across so many 90's shows on video, especially now in 2019. As an aside, I didn't realize how popular Dinosaurs still is, I don't ever hear anybody mention the show, and I don't ever see anything about it in print, but maybe I'm just not hanging with the right crowd or reading the right websites?

I have the original Jonny Quest on DVD, but can't seem to resist picking up cheap episodes on VHS.

I know that it'll never happen, but I'd love to see serials make a comeback. They provide me with so much joy, but considering how long they were made, there doesn't seem to be as many out there as there should be. Some might say that the serial spirit still lives on in the form of web series', but I'm not one of them! No matter what anyone says, rank amateurs on YouTube don't compare with the talents of a major studios b team.

Confession time... (takes a deep breath)... I have never seen The Great Escape! There, I said it! It's crazy, I know. The only excuse that I can put forth is that I've just never had the opportunity to do so. I don't recall it being on television too much when I was young, and I've never come across a cheap copy on video/DVD, so that made it kind of hard for me to see, until now!

That's it for this trip, but six tapes for less than $3 made for a nice mini-haul, might have to try and go back a little sooner next time.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

COMC Shuffle #22

Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC hoard.

1933 Goudey #62

I couldn't find it for this post, but I'm pretty sure that I read a book about the '31 World Series when I was young, although it doesn't appear that ever was such a book, so maybe it was an article in Reader's Digest or something, and I'm just completely misremembering it? Oh well, the point is though that because of his heroics in that particular series, Pepper Martin was featured quite prominently in whatever it is that I was reading. Because of this past association with his name, it kind of felt like a big deal being able to get this card. Also, full disclosure, I was under the false impression that he was a HOFer, I was wrong -- he did win a pair of championships, was a multiple time All-Star, and led the N.L. in steals a couple of times... but he's not in the HOF!

2012 Topps Update Series Golden Moments #US272

I will never get used to seeing Ichiro with anybody other than Seattle.

1933 Goudey #115

Normally I try to avoid paper loss, but in this instance it didn't obscure too much of the back, so it didn't prevent me from picking it up, well that, and it was under $5!?!?

It's kind of amazing how many guys in this set had played their last game in '32, but were still included when it was released the following year. There isn't a lot of interesting information out there about Cliff, but this little factoid from Wikipedia seemed worth mentioning:

"On May 30, 1922, the Cardinals were playing a Memorial Day doubleheader at Cubs Park. Between games, Heathcote was traded for Max Flack. Both men appeared in both games that day".

He also passed away fairly young, age 40... pulmonary embolism :(

1997 Score Board NFL Experience World Champions #WC3

This card is much shinier in person. These were new to me, kind of an interesting concept, off of the top of my head I can't recall another insert set quite like this.

1972-73 Topps #243

"McGinnis blocks Johnny Baum's jumper".

1964 Topps #95

One for the "Telstar four" collection.


2013 Panini Black Friday Panini Collection Progressions - yellow #12

The yellow Progressions tend to be a little difficult to see when viewing online, so I've "borrowed" an image of the base card from COMC to help give some context.

1974 Topps #130

I mentioned a few months ago that I bought a small port last year (for those that don't know, a port iseither part or all of, a sellers inventory) I kept a handful of cards for myself, O.J. being one of those, and sold the rest (which is the point of buying a port). I ended up making a small profit, and getting a couple of neat cards out of it, so I guess I can say that I was successful in my endeavor -- but don't be expecting to hear about any more future port purchases from me, as it was a little too much work for my liking.


2014-15 Panini Prizm Blue and Green Mosaic Prizms #157

For someone who has ten rings (second most for a player), you sure don't ever hear much about Sam Jones. Often overshadowed by Bill Russell's greatness, Sam was an integral part of the Celtics dynasty, even leading the team in scoring during three of their championship seasons.

2015-16 Panini Prizm Ruby Wave Prizm #274

It was just a couple of weeks ago that I had the light blue version of this card in a Shuffle post. In that post I said that this card looks good in all colors, but the light blue and red versions are the two most attractive of the bunch (IMO). I'm starting to lean towards red being the better of the two, but I'd be curious to know what everyone else thinks:

After looking at the blue again, I'm sort of leaning back that way, but I don't know... what say you?


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.