A Baseball Card Store Top 12

Like a number of other bloggers, I received a shipment from the Baseball Card Store back in early January. However, unlike all of those other bloggers, it's taken me until March to finally get around to posting about said shipment.

I wanna say that there were around 200 cards in the shipment, half of which were probably gotten on Black Friday when everything was a nickel and there was special free shipping promotion going on. The other half were just regular old dime cards that had been sitting in my account.

Since there is no way that I was gonna spend however many hours it would've took to scan all 200 cards, or even a significant portion of them, I took the lazy approach and pulled out a few that I thought were of note, scanned them, and am now doing one of my least favorite kind of posts; a top 10 list, or in this case, a top 12 list. Oh, and since my feelings on lists have already been established in previous posts, let's not dwell on that again, shall we? I get it, you all like lists, and I'm not overly fond of them. It's crazy, I know, but it's been covered, time to move on...

#12: 1993 Ted Williams Card Company #119

Full disclosure, I originally started this post over a month ago, got bored, left, and hadn't come back to it until today (Sunday). Generally, I don't like to leave drafts laying around too long, if only because I can always remember why I did something months after the fact. Case in point, I no longer have any idea why I pulled this card out. I had a few of the Ted Williams lady baseballers in this shipment, but don't know why Marge is here. It is a nice looking card though.

#11: 1992 Score #344

The concentration that can be seen in Mongo's eyes is what makes this card. It's like watching a lion stalk a zebra.

Speaking of eyes...

#10: 1993 Leaf #316

I found out, after scanning it, that I already had one of these in the Bo collection. I don't mind at all though, as this is one of those cards that makes a page pop; even more so when there's multiple copies of it on a page.

#9: 1996-97 Fleer Ultra #73

This shot is from LJ's "Welcome to the Knicks" presser. I may not like lists, but I absolutely love "What If's?". I don't think about it much these days, but I used to often wonder what if LJ and Alonzo Mourning could've co-existed? And what if he didn't have the back problems? And then of course, what if he hadn't left Charlotte? It would've been very interesting to see Charlotte continue to build around Zo and a healthy LJ. Depending on the pieces, they might've been a real contender during mid to late 90's.

#8: 2009 Rittenhouse The Complete Twilight Zone #19

This Twilight Zone set is great for those that collect certain celebrity's, or for those like myself who are working on themed collections/pages. The cards feature an episode on each side, so there's twice as many opportunities to get that certain someone that you're looking for. There's also a few people featured in this set who had never been on a card before, or since (despite all of the TZ sets in recent years). I picked up about half of this set (for a nickel apiece) for various collections. You'll be seeing more of these in the future, but for the moment I just chose to highlight the great Keenan Wynn, who was needed for my Kolchak collection.

#7: 1992 Fleer Ultra #54

I don't collect Jim Thome, but after coming across this card, I decided I had to have it nonetheless. I like that you can tell exactly what's happened just by looking at him. The non-rookie Rookie banner is kind of annoying, but it's small enough that I can look past it and still enjoy the card.

#6: 2016 MTG: Oath of the Gatewatch #017

I know nothing about MTG, and until just the last few years, never really cared about it. It's too late for me to learn about the game itself, but I have come to appreciate some of the artwork, and have quietly been picking up a few cards (cheap cards) here and there just for said artwork. In this case, a lion sporting a pair of ethereal antlers was just too cool for me not to get.

#5: 1992-93 Topps Archives #80

I had this complete set at one time, but that was a long, long, time ago. Despite it's being one of my personal favorites, I'm not looking to build it again. I do however still need a few cards for player collections, though not as many as I did before this shipment. Now if the BCS would just put up some of the gold stamp versions...

#4: 1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame #'s 103,16, 176, and 54

Yeah, I know, I'm kind of cheating here. This set is really great for person/themed collections too. Unfortunately, I think with the dozen or so cards that I had in this order, I now have everybody that I need from it (insert sad faced emoji here). Ann B. Davis is for a Brady Bunch themed page. Chuck is for, well, I don't really know yet. Maybe I'll do a themed page for him, at least then I'd have an excuse to get a Jill Ireland card 😉. Scatman is for the Kolchak collection. And Jane is for the smokeshow small collection of hers that I've got going.

#3: 1990 Pacific Andy Griffith Show #279

This card has proven rather difficult to find cheap. I had been looking for one for the last few years, but never thought to check the BCS for it before that fateful Black Friday evening when I spent multiple hours scouring the site. I was starting to think that I was gonna have to buy the whole set just to get this one, as well as few others that I still need. In another timeline, Elinor Donahue and Andy Griffith clicked better, and she became a much more permanent fixture on the show. As it is though, they didn't, and she only appeared on part of the first season. As much as I enjoy The Andy Griffith Show, her appearance on the program isn't why I wanted this card, no, I needed her for yet another themed page, one that'll be revealed at a later date (if it ever gets completed, that is).

#2: 1993 Upper Deck #175

I am of the opinion that this is about as close to a perfect baseball card as you can get, at least as far as modern cards go... maybe even vintage too!

#1: 1991 Impel Terminator 2 #10

Robert Patrick RoOkIe CaRd! For those of you that actually take such things seriously, Robert Patrick has multiple "rookie" cards in this set, and the much inferior Topps T2 set from the same year. This is the best looking one. This was another set that I had never thought to look for on the site prior to Black Friday, I'm glad I did though, as I was able to get a few more "kEy" cards (Arnold, Linda Hamilton, and James Cameron) for other themed pages as well.

After going through this list again, I can't say that these cards are in the exact order that they should be, but I guess it's close enough. Although Mongo probably should've been higher than #11, just sayin'.