The best of the rest: part 2

As promised, today's post will cover the rest of the basketball content from the now, almost month ago, card show.

Tony Battie may not have had the most successful career, but finding this 1997-98 Topps redemption was still pretty cool, as usually I only come across the expired redemption cards.

Scanning these together like this, almost makes them look like one card.

There is a high probability that I already own these, but Clearcut's are one of those inserts that I always feel compelled to buy when found in dime boxes.

While looking down at Jim's dime boxes, I spotted a card that was about as thick as seven normal cards, it turned out to be a 2012-13 Elite Series Glass Masters. It's made out of plastic, but it's heavy and see-through, like a piece of glass. I'm not terribly interested in owning cards of Amar'e (such a waste of talent), but I'll probably hang on to it for the novelty factor.

This is a really nice assortment, and I think that I actually need all of them too.

I have got to be close to completing this set, what with finding another half a dozen and all. Bobby Hurley looks like he's working out in his high school gym.

I think I have like 3 or 4 copies of the Shareef Exclusives card now, I really need to stop buying those, or at least start finding some folks to pawn 'em off on.

Fleer sure had a lot of inserts during the 90's!

The Gary Payton Planet Metal is the only card in this post that didn't cost either 10 or 25 cents, for it I had to shell out a $1, which was totally worth it by the way. I was hoping that the semi-holographic background would scan well, it didn't.

I almost never find SLU cards, so coming across Spud was a nice surprise. Jeremy Lamb is from the 2012-13 Taco Bell set, making him only second one of those that I've ever seen, not that I've really been looking for them though.

I remember these Behind The Glass inserts being kind of a big deal when they came out back in '93, now, like most of the cards in this post, they're just dime box fodder.

One thing that I don't miss about 90's inserts, is the sets that were dedicated to one specific person, I mean I guess they still do it now, but it isn't as prevalent as it once was. That being said, I still had to grab these Shaq Talk's, and they are actually the first two that I've ever owned. Hardwood Leaders is another insert set that I can't seem to stop buying, even though I finished it sometime in the late 90's.

Believe it or not, this Robert Parish Fleer Super Star is my favorite card in this post, if only because I really miss the days of being able to get an insert of someone like Robert Parish.

One of these days I'm going to have to make some sort of checklist for all of my 90's basketball inserts. Right now, I have them housed in five binders and an almost full shoebox (of the two row variety), the shoebox is reserved for the "good" stuff. Everything is sorted by year and set, but without a list, it doesn't do too much good as I very rarely remember what I do and don't have.

Technically speaking, I still have one more group of cards from the show that I haven't gotten too, but I was going to wait and see if I go to this weekend's show or not, before posting about them. I realize that that might not make too much sense, but I promise it will when I get around to talking about said group of cards.


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The best of the rest: part 1

With the possibility of me attending this upcoming Saturday's card show, I thought it might be a good idea to hurry up and finish showing the stuff from the last one.

The title's a bit misleading though, as this post (and the next post) will contain all of the odds and ends that didn't fit in with all of the other recaps that I've already done.

Since I know that lot of you do not like basketball, I've split these posts up specifically for your benefit, so this one will contain baseball, football, and a few other things. Part 2 will be all basketball (mostly 90's), so consider yourselves warned.

These guys are good at the baseball :)

The Dan Fouts up in the top left hand corner is a pretty interesting card, it comes from a 1989 set called All Time Great Quarterbacks which was produced by Channel 4 Television (from the UK). It's only a 20-card set, but they sure are attractive. The Franco Harris Wonder Bread is an upgrade (Anybody want my old one?), and I found a bunch of '83 Topps stickers as well.

I had never heard of, nor seen, 1999 Donruss Preferred QBC before, which seems like a shame, 'cause these are some really cool cards.

It's been a while since I had come across any 2001 Upper Deck Heroes, so finding three that I needed was a pleasant surprise.

It's been almost a month and I still haven't looked into these, they're all serial numbered, and I'm assuming that Curtis Martin is a parallel... but that's as far as I've gotten.

These 1999 Pacific Pro Bowl Die-Cuts are yet another insert set that I had never seen, and at 50 cents a piece, I wasn't about to pass them up. It doesn't show in the scan, but the shininess of the lava is very pleasing to the eye (both of them even).

Everybody likes lenticular cards, right? I had never seen one of the Goodwin Champions Supernaturals in person before, apparently they have different tiers, Thor is a tier 4, which I'm assuming is good?

Here's some random base cards that look like inserts, as well as some actual inserts.

Some miscellaneous football. Lori is a Lime Rock promo. I keep finding the Stadium Club Metalists in Jim's dime boxes, it might be a sign that I'm supposed to be working on the set. The Frank Gifford insert is pretty cool too, even though it's technically not a refractor, but it still has the same qualities.

Ooh, shiny Pacific! Igor (Juan) Gonzalez is from the 1993 Pacific Prisms Jugadores Calientes (if that's wrong, blame COMC), which is a set that I am not familiar with at all.

More random inserts.

A couple of needed 2017 Archives inserts.

Even though I probably won't be keeping it, this is my first astronaut relic. $2 didn't seem too bad for a swatch that supposedly came from Robert Crippen.

This Giancarlo coin, as well as the next couple of cards, came from Jim's 2/$1 boxes. I bought a number of these kinds of things for my blogging friends (some of which have already been sent out), I also plan on starting a series of weekly mini-giveaways on Twitter, which is where this card(?) will be headed.

I don't care what anybody says...

... I really like these patches! I think I have like four or five from the set now, not that I'm actively collecting the set mind you.

This last one was gotten only because I had never seen one before, and I thought it was mildly interesting at the time. And just so nobody has to go look it up, this is a 2004 Upper Deck Play Ball Home Run Heroics. I can almost guarantee you that I will not be keeping this for too terribly long, but since I know at least two Dodgers collectors, and one Rickey Henderson collector, I can't imagine that it'll be very difficult to find someone who needs it.


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COMC Sundays: Five from the 50's

For the one person out there who enjoys these Sunday posts, I apologize for skipping last weekend, being too tired is the only excuse I have for doing so. But I'm coming off of a whole seven hours of sleep, so today's edition should be a breeze.

When I finally got my COMC stash at the end of last year, I was a bit perplexed by the inclusion of the cards in today's post. I say perplexed... because I truly didn't remember buying them.

At first I thought that I had gotten someone else's cards, but after looking at the invoice, I found that I had indeed bought these, like in January and February of that year, which I guess made sense, but still... how was I supposed to remember items that had been sitting in my account for almost a year?

1956 Topps always gets a lot of love, but you don't see too many people waxing poetic over the '55 set. I'm probably in the minority when I say this, but taken as a whole, I think that the 1955 set is better -- although if you were judging strictly on individual cards, than I'd say that '56 gets the nod.

I recently mentioned that I had stopped collecting a number of vintage baseball sets, mostly stuff from the 60's, and after over a month now, that was a decision that's starting to look better and better.

I have known for awhile that I can enjoy getting cards from the 30's and 40's without feeling like I have to try and complete the sets, but only just recently have I realized that cards from the 50's apply to that same thought process. I can't explain it, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to just enjoy owning cards from 1960 and on for what they are, without feeling like I have to complete the sets. I know that this probably makes no sense to anyone reading this, but for the time being, that's just how things seem to be... hopefully at some point though I'll be able to enjoy cards from the 60's without feeling the need to complete their respective sets.

In the same post that I talked about ending my pursuit of 60's sets, I also mentioned wanting to possibly try and take all of my existing cards from those abandoned sets, and use them to start a PCL collection. I'm still on the fence with that idea, but if I do end up going forward with it, the cards in today's post would fit nicely into that collection as all five guys played in the PCL at some point in their careers -- Bobby Adams (Portland and Seattle), Murray Wall (Seattle), Joe Frazier (Vancouver and Spokane), Les Moss (San Diego), and Marv Grissom (Sacramento and Seattle).


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This post's future is so bright, that... blah, blah, blah

So I'm still working through the card show stuff, and anybody who's seen these recaps before, shouldn't be too terribly surprised to find out that I came home with quite a few shiny cards. The scanner has effectively dullified (I know, not a word) many of them, but here they are nonetheless:

This guy seems to be having a pretty decent season. Not a ton of difference between these two, but one's a prism refractor, while the other just a plain old run of the mill refractor.

As far as post-2000 refractors go, the 2001-02 Topps Chromes are my favorite (especially the black ones). I think a couple of these might be duplicates, but I still haven't checked yet.

I think that the Gerald Wallace X-Fractor tried to break my scanner, this substitute picture didn't turn out too bad though.

As per usual, there were a few Lineage refractors to be had...

... as well as some Platinum Diamond Lineage. And speaking of Platinum Diamond...

... I was able to find a needed pair from the regular old Topps set too. I had to pay fifty cents for Ichiro, I think that he was worth it though.

I'm starting to find that it's very difficult for me to pass up cheap (50 cents each) copies of serial numbered 2015 Topps Tek football. Being able to get two of the #'d to /25 Eric Dickerson's was pretty cool, cool enough that I've decided to try find as many of the other 23 as I can. In fact I'm actually going to be doing this with a couple of other cards that I really like, but I'll save those for another blog post.

I took this picture while the Tek's were on the scanner, so it's kind of crappy, but you can still sort of see just how awesome the back of the Dickerson's are.

Just some more random refractors. This is was the first time that I had ever come across a refractor of Junior, pretty neat, although it would have been better if he was shown as a Mariner.

Nick will have to let me know if he want's the Red, it's an Artist's Proof, with a sort of holofoil look to it. Also if anybody wants the pink Cutch, just let me know. The Posey has an almost holographic background that is really impressive in person, I might have to try and find more of those Topps Shelf cards.

Some fun 5/$1 cards in this group. The three Collector's Edge Peyton's are of the Preview variety. I was pretty sure that somebody out there collects him, so I picked up an extra (as can clearly be seen) of his 2000 T3 card, don't be shy if you want it. The Favre is amazeballs in person, and even though you can't tell from the scan, Donovan is a refractor.

Even though I still can't remember what they're called, I was happy to find a few more of these whatchamacallits.

And finally, what card show recap about shiny cards would be complete without some Archives Reserve?

Usually my scanner does a pretty good job with these, but not this time (I think it might be getting ready to crap out), so I had to go the picture route, which didn't turn out too bad... I was able to catch a little bit of the rainbow.

It is going to be a sad day when I eventually complete these, as I just can't imagine not being able to look for them anymore.

Ended up with a couple of duplicates, the Doby is already spoken for, but if anybody wants the others, well, you know the drill.

Found a pair from the football side too. Even though I only bought from two different people at this particular show, I of course still walked around to see everyone else's offerings, while doing so, I spotted a Walter Payton from this set with a $5 price tag. Even though he was calling my name, five bucks was just too much, especially when I've yet to pay more than 50 cents for one of these (usually much less), so Sweetness did not end up coming home with me... maybe I'll find a cheaper copy next time.


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