Staking claims

If you were to take a peek at my current list of scan folders, you'd probably notice one of two things right off of the bat, or maybe you'd notice both things, I don't know -- the point is that most of the blog related folders share one of two characteristics: Half of the titles start out with "COMC", and the other half are just listed under single names... blogger's names!

I've mentioned many times in recent months how fortunate I've been this year when it comes to receiving cards from fellow blogger's, but due to some very sporadic posting, and a serious lack of creativity, have been slow to give public thanks. Wanting to give everyone their own post hasn't helped either, but that's the way I've always done it, and the way that I will always do it. As such, I find myself looking at 15 folders with names on them, one of which even dates back to before Christmas! This really is quite unacceptable, so in an effort to try and resolve this "problem", I'm gonna see if I can will myself to do at least one thank you post per week until I get caught up.

Ideally I'd like to do these in the order that I received them, but that might end up creating too much pressure if I feel like I only have one option, so I'm just gonna go with whichever one feels right that week, which is sort of what I'm doing this week, by focusing on the most recent PWE(s) to arrive here in Sleevesville.

Rod, the apparently mad genius behind, Padrographs, has taken the "Free Stuff" concept to it's absolute extreme as of late, by offering up free cards on a daily basis, for what seems like at least a couple of weeks now... a number of which I have laid claim too!

Redemption cards were still a fairly new concept back in 1992, and I'm pretty certain that I didn't fully grasp this new concept (despite very clear instructions on the back), which is why when I pulled the now famous Shaq rookie redemption (minus the punched hole) from a jumbo pack of the then newly released 1992-93 Upper Deck, I put it in a binder... instead of sending it in to be redeemed!

Since I didn't send my redemption in, and don't recall ever hearing anyone talking about sending one in, I never realized that when you did, Upper Deck sent it back with a hole punched through it, and a big "TRADED" stamped on the back.

Of course too, if you weren't a dumbass (like me), and you did what you were supposed to do with the card, i.e. redeem it, Upper Deck sent you one of these...

[Note: It took seeing this scan for me to realize that it was time to clean the tray... so much dust!] By the late 90's, I had nearly completed this set, in fact I was only missing one card, this card! I don't know what the going rate for it is these days, but back then it was a bit pricey, and in that pre-internet as we know it era, I never did come across a cheap one, thus I never completed my set. Most of the cards from that nearly completed set are now long gone, but it's still really cool to finally own a copy of this card, and in a way, it sort of feels like I have completed that set after all of these years.

A number of Junior's have come up for grabs, and I've been able to grab most of them. By the by, how great is this Topps Laser?

I didn't realize until just recently how many Vlad Guerrero's I've been picking up at shows over the last couple of years, now that I have, it seems like the only logical thing to do is to go ahead and add him to my list of player collections. And for the record, both of these were new to me.

I don't think that I was necessarily ever in the market for a Joe Theismann autograph, but I love the '84 Instant Replay subset, and I love his signature, and it's placement on the card... so why not try and get it?

Many thanks to Rod for the cards, and for the incredible generosity that he's been spreading by doing these daily Free Stuff posts! If you haven't checked out these posts yet by chance, you might want to do so sooner than later, as I can't imagine that Rod will be able to keep this pace up forever, that is unless a few of us feel like donating some stamps and envelopes to the cause?


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.