California Raisins... and baseball cards

It's been said by many people, on many occasions, but the generosity of bloggers seemingly knows no limits. I have fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of such generosity a few times now, but this most recent mailing really takes the cake Cinnamon 'N' Raisin biscuit.

A few of you might remember that I just recently did a Goodwill/thrift store post which featured a California Raisins bank that I had found. When it comes to views and comments, the thrift store posts usually do surprisingly well (which I'm always grateful to everyone for btw), that one being no exception, and positive reception aside, that particular post ended up yielding something else as well, that being... more Raisins!

Greg, from The Collective Mind, inquired in the comments section if I had any of the Raisins figures, knowing that he was talking about the Hardee's figures, I said that I didn't have any -- he then sent an email saying that I needed to keep an eye on my mailbox, and like twenty minutes later a box showed up in my mailbox (twenty minutes may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it did arrive pretty darn quick).

The box had a bag of Raisins (see above), and a team bag of cards (see below). Greg deciding to send me these was special for a couple of reasons: a) It's the first time that a fellow blogger has sent me something that wasn't card related, and b) We haven't had a lot of contact up to this point, so for someone that you don't know all that well to send you something like this is kind of amazing, it also speaks to the character of the sender.

For anyone who might be unfamiliar with, and actually care about, them -- Hardee's first introduced the first four figures in 1987, which could be had for .99 cents apiece after purchasing two breakfast biscuits or a desert. Six more figures were released in 1988, Hardee's then went the plush route for their '89 campaign, and after skipping 1990 altogether, they brought back four more PVC figures in 1991 -- but by then, Raisinsmania had pretty much run it's course, so...

I can't remember if there were any Hardee's locations in Portland at the time, but I know that I never had any of these as a kid, although I do remember seeing some of the figures at friends houses. Even if Hardee's was in, or around, Portland at the time, you still couldn't have convinced a young me to eat at a fast food place that didn't have Happy Meal's, and as mentioned in my previous post, I was a huge California Raisins fan, but the pull of the Happy Meal would have been too great even for them.

By the by, Greg didn't specify exactly what he would be sending, so I was more than pleased to see that he had included the entire second series (1988), with an extra Captain Toonz, which is pretty cool since he's my favorite from that series.

It was funny too, I was so enamored with the Raisins that I almost didn't even notice the cards that were at the bottom of the box -- oh, but before I get to those, I've got to show you the bag that the Raisins came in:

See that, such a wonderful touch! [Editor's note: If anyone out there is thinking "What's the big deal, it's just a Ziploc?", well, feel free to leave now, because you obviously don't have a sentimental bone in your body, and you've probably clicked on the wrong blog by mistake]

I added a new tab to the top of the blog not too long ago, "Recent card interests" -- and yes, I know that title sucks, but it's all I could think of at the time -- anyway, Greg obviously took look at it before sending the Raisins, and was kind enough to include some cards that fit some of my recent interests.

I started an Ichiro collection a couple of months ago, so far it's just made up of inserts/parallels/refractors, I'm not opposed to adding base cards, I'm just not ever anywhere that has base cards (other than vintage, there is almost never any base at the card show) to look through. All three of these cards were new to me, with the 2004 Opening day being my favorite trio.

Oh man, I looked these up to figure out what set they were from, and then promptly forgot! Now they're in a binder, and I'm feeling a bit lazy on the morning of this writing, so I'll just call them mystery Ichiro's! But rest assured, just because I can't tell you what they are off the top of my head, doesn't mean I don't appreciate them, or Greg for sending them.

Now don't get me wrong, the Ichiro's are great, especially considering the fact that I wasn't even expecting them, but the real MVP of the cards sent, goes to this 2011 Cognac Yogi Berra. My want for these Legends variations are another thing that was added to the new tab, I only have a few so far, and Yogi wasn't one of them. As an aside, I've scanned these Conac's multiple times now, but I still can't get over the funky image that's produced from the scanning process, it's like it practically creates a whole new card.

Thank you again for sending the figures, and the cards, Greg! Receiving these meant a great deal to me, more so than I'm able to fully express with words alone, so hopefully my appreciation for them was at least partially conveyed here today.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.