1990 Pro Set Progressive Proofs

I'm digging into a somewhat forgotten folder in order to provide something a little different for today's post, that being a pair of 1990 Pro Set Proofs that were part of my COMC horde that I received after last years Spring sale.

As a kid I was a big fan of the Pro Set football cards, that and the 1989-92 Score products. So much so in fact, that after Pro Set went under, and Score started releasing cards that were no longer appealing to me design wise, I pretty much lost interest in modern football cards altogether. At the time when I saw these proofs, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia, enough so that I even ended up buying an $8 box of the 1990 series 1 edition not too long afterwards.

I have almost no information on these, other than going by the one example on the Trading Card Database site, each Pro Set card had four proofs showing the progression at four (go figure) different stages of the cards design. Other than that, I have nothing! I can surmise from what I've seen, that these are indeed true 1/1 (before 1/1 was a thing) blank back proofs that were made and used by Pro Set, but I, nor anyone else, seems to have any idea how they got out for public consumption.

First up we have Bob St. Clair, who if I'm not mistaken, might have been the only player from one of the four major sports to hold political office (Mayor of Daly City, CA) while still actively playing.

Here's a side by side comparison with the finished product:

I really enjoy seeing them next to their completed counterpart, especially this one.

And then there's Bob Griese, winner of two Super Bowls, the 1971 MVP... and of course, captain of the '72 Dolphins team, still the only team to have completed a perfect season (Super Bowl included):

 

Another side by side:

As you can see, this one is a little closer to the finished product than the St. Clair.

From what I've seen, these proofs could be considered somewhat rare, although this is one of those instances where rare doesn't necessarily equate to valuable... due to the fact that there aren't too many collectors for this type of thing out there. Price wise, I can't remember exactly how much I paid, but I think it was somewhere in the $5-$6 apiece range, which was probably a little more than I would have paid had I not been using earned credit. So because of that, I only went with the two hall of famers that were available at the time. At some point I would love to find the other three proof cards that would make for a set on each of these, as well as try to get a few more reasonably priced hall of famers.


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Just sayin' hey! With a little help from the "Say Hey Kid"

The last couple of days have been very busy for me, and as someone who tries to lead as stress free of a life as possible, I can honestly say... I don't like it one bit.

My mom will be having what she calls a "minor surgery" tomorrow, although I'm of the opinion that if an anesthesiologist is involved, it no longer qualifies for minor surgery status. It's kind of funny, she's not nervous about it at all, while I would be lying if I said I wasn't, which should tell you a little about her, and a lot about me. My nervousness probably stems from the fact that as a kid I spent more than my fair share of time around doctors, and in hospitals, so I tend to now have what could be called a strong aversion to both. So needless to say, I have been trying to help out in anyway I can, since she won't be able to do a whole lot for the next couple of weeks.

So because of that, I have a very short post today, in which I take a recent page out of Tony's playbook, and show you my Willie:

I am of course referring to this 1964 Topps Willie Mays that was part of my COMC stockpile. Shame on you if you thought I was talking about something else, I'm trying to run a family friendly blog here:)

This was yet another card that COMC had listed in poor to fair condition, which like the Nellie Fox bowman I posted about recently, I just don't see. While far from mint, crease free as it is I would have at least designated this as good. But I guess it doesn't really matter, I got it, and I'm very happy with it... so who cares what someone else classified it's condition as.

P.S. To the couple of people that I said I would be sending stuff out to, because of the above mentioned stuff, I'm a few days behind on that. So everything will be going out this Saturday, my apologies for the delay.


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An Unexpectedly Good Card Show Part 2

Back again with the second and final round of cards gotten at the New Year's Eve show.

Since I ended the first installment with a Topps parallel, it only makes sense to pick-up where I left off.. that being with more Topps parallels of course!

2011 & 2012 were really good years for parallels. I'm starting to find the emerald green's on a more regular basis in the dime boxes, but it has to be close to a year now since the last time I found any of the 2011 platinum diamond anniversary cards.

That ends the Topps parallels section... and starts the Topps Chrome parallels section:

I love me some 2015 sepia refractors. I seem to be finding more and more of these on the cheap, which means my pursuit of them will keep increasing.

Two different years worth of purple refractors.

I ended up getting around 15 of these pink refractors, so obviously this was just a partial cross section.

Two posts in a row with football cards, I think I might be setting some kind of personal record. It's hard to tell from the picture, but these are mini's from the 2010 Topps Magic set. I had found a few of these last year and was sort of on the fence about collecting them or not, but not anymore, I will now be actively pursuing them. This set looks amazing, and I really enjoy mini's, so why not work on a set?

This will be the final card from the ten cent boxes, and possibly the best (despite the bad picture):

How's that for a find? A 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Milk Chocolate Bar promo. You would think growing up in the Pacific Northwest, and up until around the mid 90's having a decent sized Jr. collection, I would have been very familiar with this candy bar right? Wrong, until I saw this card, I had never even heard of it. And even though I would have been fairly young at the time of it's release, I don't consider that to be a very good excuse for not knowing about something... especially something like this, in your own backyard no less. Well whatever the reason, at least I know of it now. It's also kind of funny to think about a somewhat scarce regionally issued promo from back home, being found here in Tennessee -- It's probably a bit silly, but I now kind of feel like this card was meant to be found by me. Oh, and in case anyone cares, there seems to be two other promos in this set, one with a blue background and one with a white background.

Now we're finally getting to the more expensive stuff, although some of the more interesting things were bought for other bloggers, so you'll just have to wait until you see those cards on their respective future posts (hopefully).

This 1997-98 Bowman's Best Grant Hill Best Techniques refractor set me back a $1. I tried to get the rainbow effect of the refractor to show up, which didn't work out so well, I did succeed however in capturing the reflection of the cell phone on the card.

Another $1 card. I am of the opinion that 1997-98 Bowman's Best produced the best atomic refractors.

I have been slowly collecting these 1997 Donruss Signatures for the last couple of years now, and by slowly, I mean get one or two a year so that I might complete it in around forty years from now.

Getting this Kobe, I think I'm only two or three cards away from completing the 1997-98 Z-Force Boss insert set.

Here's another card destined for COMC, as I already have it. These 1999-00 Skybox E-X  E-Xceptional cards are pretty popular, so I don't think I will have any trouble moving it for a profit.

I got this King Felix 2014 Topps patch just because it made me smile when I came across it, so for $1, why not?

I don't buy sticker autos very often, but I had to make an exception on this one as I'm pretty sure this is the only officially released autograph of Marv Roberts. It's kind of cool to get another auto from one of the 1975 ABA championship winning Kentucky Colonels team, off the top of my head, I think I'm up to 4 or 5 now.

I really thought this 2012 Topps Jim Rice Historical Stitches was pretty neat when I first got it, now after a couple of weeks, I can't really figure out what I found so appealing about it. So, I guess if the patron saint of bloggers (Mark Hoyle, of course!) happens to see this post and doesn't already have it, he can consider it his.

A Yaz memorabilia card for $2, where do I sign up!

Here's another card that I'm not really feeling after a few weeks have passed since it's acquisition. It's a 2015 Cooperstown Green parallel, that I probably only got excited about because of the low print run. In my mind, it doesn't seem like someone should be able to get a card numbered to /10 for only a $1, it just seems a little off somehow.

And finally, the last card:

A 2015 Cooperstown - Etched in Cooperstown gold parallel. And here's another angle:

I absolutely love the texture on this cards surface, I don't really know how to describe it, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it's pretty neat.

Like the green George Kelly parallel above, I find it hard to believe that this card as neat as it is and numbered to /10, could be had for a mere $2. Also, it was gotten almost right before I left, so that means that four hours (at least) worth of other collectors had passed on it.

I'm sure glad these card show posts don't have to be done very often, because these two have taken me far longer to write (I'm using that word very lightly) than they should of. You can probably expect the next couple of posts from me to feature just one or two cards and to be relatively quick reads.


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An Unexpectedly Good Card Show Part 1

Neither the dealers, nor those who there just to buy, expected the show on New Year's Eve day to be as crowded as it was.

As I walked around that day, it seemed like all I kept hearing, was bits of conversation regarding the large turnout. Normally I try to get to the shows at around 7am, but since I too wasn't expecting much, I allowed myself a an extra half-hour of sleep and ended up arriving at about 8am... to a very full parking lot. The show ended up being a sellout, dealer wise, and had probably the most people that I've seen yet at one of regular end of the month shows. Even when I left around my usual time of 11am, there was still a packed house and even more still arriving, which is highly unusual. The only possible explanation that I could think of, was that maybe people just had to get out and do something by themselves after all the recent holiday/family stuff.

Whatever the reason for all the people being there was, I just know that where was a few too many there for my liking, which thanks to my social anxiety, caused me to feel a tad claustrophobic on a few separate occasions. One other mild complaint that I had was the at least four different guys that smelled of pee that just had to come stand next to me at some point or another during my time there. I don't know how someone can go around smelling like pee and not know it, so I'm assuming that either they peed on themselves and didn't change their clothes, which is gross -- or even worse, that somebody else peed on them, and they didn't change their clothes. I am in no way claiming to be the best smelling person out there, but when I know I'm going to be in close quarters with others, I at least make an effort not to stink, and I don't think it's too much to ask for others to do the same.

Alright I'm done talking about pee, as I'm assuming no one came here to read about that, and if you are the sort that came here for that kind of content, I'm pretty sure that you're looking at the wrong blog:)

Due to the recent arrival of my COMC stockpile, I was in need of supplies, so I primarily went for this:

And while there, I found a "few" things that really wanted to come home with me:

The two large stacks and about half of the smaller one are dime box stuff, so it looks like a much more expensive outing than it actually was. In fact I didn't buy anything more expensive than $2, and even then, those "pricier" items were primarily gotten for other people. Speaking of other people, I am very happy to say that one of the larger stacks and about half of the smaller stack is comprised of things for other bloggers, which is by far the most I have been able to find for others at a single show (hence the title of this post).

Before starting in on some the stuff, I should probably give everyone fair warning that some of these images are far less than ideal. The week following the show, I wasn't in any mood to be scanning large quantities of cards (well actually, I never am), and because of rain and then some snow, sunlight was at a premium -- so some of these pictures (and angles) are really bad.

I hit a bit of a 2001 Fleer Greats mother lode, finding around 35 or so that I needed. Below are a few of my favorites:

I've said it before about other sets, but I'm kind of glad that I was taking a break from collecting when this set came out, because I would have spent an absurd amount of money buying packs and/or boxes. At this point I can just slowly build the set through the ten cent boxes.

I also was able to get around twenty needed cards from the 2002 Fleer Greats set as well:

It's been a little while since I had a post with any football content:

The 1976 Wonder Bread All-Stars set is by no means a rare set, in fact it seems to be a fairly common one, but this was the first time I have come across any in the dime boxes. I wasn't looking build a set, but after finding 18 of the 24 card set and already having Franco Harris, I might as well try and get the final 5 cards to complete it. Also, if anyone needs Jerry Sherk, I have an extra one.

I just saw these Dover reprints for the first time on Nick's blog not too long ago. I'm not usually a big fan of reprints, but I might as well have one just so I can say that I have one.

Hey look, more football!

My first couple of cards from the 2001 Archives Reserve set. These photos are pretty bad, but at least you can sort of see their refractory-ness. If anyone wants Fred Biletnikoff, there is an extra one of those as well.

In the original draft I had considerably more 90's basketball inserts to show, but due to so many bad photos that I didn't want to redo, I trimmed it down to just a couple:

I always enjoy finding inserts that I haven't seen before, and these 1999-00 Flair Elevators fit into that category. These look absolutely amazing in person.

And I don't usually go for too many post-2000 inserts, but I really enjoy these 2002-03 Topps Coast to Coast cards:

Back to baseball:

Look at these beauties! I didn't even know there were parallels to the Chasing History inserts. Now I do, Gold Holofoil be thy name, and the are very pretty.

As shiny as these 2001 Topps What Could Have Been inserts are I knew the scanner wasn't going to be able to handle them. This is yet another set that is new to me. Topps really should have made an actual set of these instead of just a ten card insert set. Below are two Before There Was Topps cards that were in the same box as the above three:

This card came from the 2003 MLB Showdown Trading Deadline set, which is something I know absolutely nothing about. From what I've seen, not all of the cards have the colored foily part in the background, so I don't if that means anything or not. I'm not really interested in this card, I just grabbed it because I thought it might be a parallel of some sort. Seeing that it sells for a bit on COMC, I will probably include it in with my first batch of cards that I will be sending in to them in the next couple of weeks.

My first Xplosion parallel on the baseball side.

This was the first time I had seen one of these 2016 Topps Negative parallels in person, and I have to admit that I'm now quite infatuated with not only this particular card, but also with the entire concept. It just looks cool! I will definitely be on the lookout for more, although I suspect that I won't be finding too many more for only ten cents.

I guess this will be the stopping point in this one. I think this was the first time I have ever done a post that was comprised of nothing but dime box stuff. Part two will feature a few more dime box items, plus a few of the "pricier pickups".


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