Free Stuff leads to free stuff

When I started doing the Free Stuff Friday posts earlier this year, I did so with two objectives in mind, those being to get rid of some unwanted cards, and to hopefully connect with some more people.

The finding of new homes for some of my unwanted cards has gone well, most people do like free things after all, but even so, I was admittedly surprised by the overall response to this idea.

Me wanting to connect with some more blog people (readers and writers) has worked out fairly well too. I haven't kept track of how many "new" people I've had contact with since starting the posts, but it has been more than a few, and for that I couldn't be more grateful. I really like our "little" blog community, and am always thrilled when I get the opportunity to chat with anyone in it, new or old.

There is one thing though about starting up those posts that I hadn't counted on, and that's that other bloggers would end up being interested in doing them as well, who woulda thunk? I know that there's been a little backlash over all of the free stuff posts, but I don't see it, and think that's been really great to see, especially in recent months when other than buying things at inflated prices online, most folks haven't been able to add a lot of new cards to their collections.

As I said, a number of bloggers have jumped on board the Free Stuff train (there's always room for more BTW, I can climb out onto the roof if need be), but the first to do so was, Brian, he of the uber-intelligent sounding blog, Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. I think everyone is aware by now of just how a good of a job Brian has done with the weekly giveaways, so good in fact, that I'd argue that the Free Stuff Friday's are now his more the then anyone else's. And if somehow you weren't aware of what he's been doing, I'd highly recommend that you don't waste any time becoming aware!

Anyways, Brian was also one of the first people to claim some cards from my inaugural Free Stuff post back in... whenever it was? I don't recall what he claimed but whatever it was, it wasn't anything that spectacular (otherwise I wouldn't have been getting rid of it), so I most certainly wasn't expecting anything in return, but sure enough, a week or so later and there was a PWE from Brian sitting in my mailbox.

I hadn't been fortunate enough to exchange cards with Brian before this particular, well, exchange, and we had only had minimal contact during the previous year's Secret Santa, so had I no idea what to expect from him, and even if I had, this PWE still would've earned it's audible Wow!

The first card for my, at the time, newly started Babe Parilli collection -- well, it's the second, but the first one was gotten years ago, and that one ended up getting scribbled on. It doesn't get a lot of love, but I'm a big fan of the '59 Topps set, and was collecting it at one time, but like every other set I was working on, it's been scrapped for player collections, and the leavings are waiting to be sold at some point.

Sam was the key component in Tom Landry's newly created 4-3 defense for the Giants during the 50's, was responsible for the Redskins rise from mediocrity in the 60's, is in the pro football HOF, as well as the college football HOF, and yet you almost never hear his name mentioned these days?

Considering that the NFL is only as big as it is because of gambling, it seemed rather hypocritical of them to have kept Alex Karras out of the HOF for so long just because he bet on some games (not his BTW) during his playing days. And although it is great that they finally rectified their wrong, it would've meant more had they done so before his passing.

As you can see, this PWE really packed a punch, or in Fred's case... a kick!

It's taken me awhile to get to them, but many thanks again to Brian for the great (and they truly were great) group of cards, I would've never thought that this envelope would be that loaded!

********************* Bonus Brian related content **************************

As mentioned, Brian's been killing it with his weekly giveaways, and like many other people, I've put in a few claims, the first batch of which arrived just a couple of weeks ago:

We've got a modern base card, a vintage base card, an insert of a fan-favorite, and an insert of an all-time great; all of which fit right into new(ish) player collections. Full disclosure though, I already had a copy of Lou's 1970 Topps, but saw this one being offered, and decided that I wanted another one.

Thanks to Brian for this batch too!

And finally, on a semi-related note, I kind of F'd up last month with the Free Stuff Friday. The plan has been to do them on the last Friday of the month, but the last day of April fell on Thursday, and I didn't realize it until the week of, so no FSF was held last month. But to make up for it, I'm going to be doing one this Friday, and next Friday, and will be combining the claims. And just so no one has to check a dozen times throughout the day, these will be going live somewhere between 5-5:30pm CST, and will hopefully contain lots of fun stuff for everyone.


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