Saturday, June 3, 2023

Christmas in January

I'd really like to do some sort of blogging thing for Christmas (send out gifts, do a giveaway, etc.), and have wanted to do so for the last couple of years now, but planning things in advance is not a strong suit of mine. It also doesn't help that time passes so quickly these days, so even if I do actually think about it say, sometime around Halloween, it always feels like October ends and then 1.3 days later it's the week before Christmas... and I've got nothing planned! I'd like to say that this year will be different, but I'm not gonna hold my breath (even if I did, blue and purple aren't Christmas colors).

One person who doesn't seem to have this problem is, Dennis, he of Too Many Verlanders fame. I don't know how he does it, but every year, come Christmas, a rogue elf from Michigan does his best to upstage Santa Claus by sending out packages of cards to both coasts, and all points in between.

I was among the lucky many to make the nice list (what Dennis doesn't know, won't hurt him 😉) this past year, and received a top notch bubble mailer for Christmas... in January! 

Time has already begun to fuzz the details, but there was some issue with either a seller on Sportlots, or Sportlots itself. I can't remember. Either way though, the package was delayed because all of it's contents weren't available to ship until a couple of weeks after Christmas. Dennis was very apologetic about this, which he didn't need to be since he absolutely zero control over the delay. Besides, getting a package for Christmas, in January, is not a big deal, there's no expiration date on Christmas presents; unless maybe you're getting food. Thankfully, Dennis didn't send any food.

Dennis had told me in advance that my package (typing "my package" feels odd under any context) was going to be more quantity than quality, but with some of the items, like this 1988 sticker, I'd argue that there was no shortage of quality either. It's funny how the old Panini stickers use to be everywhere, and now you really have go out of your way to try and find/get them.

Because of the whole "quantity" thing, this will be a very scan laden post, and I might as well get it going with some more Reggie's...

Had I not been overwhelmed with the task at hand when it came time to scan all of these, I might've taken some to arrange the cards a little better, but even so, I still got some good pairings; such was the case with card numbers 5 and 6 here. They are a couple of years apart, and the jersey has changed, but they're nearly identical shots.

The images on Reggie's cards basically fall into four categories: 1). Head shots. 2). Ball being dropped prior to the punt. 3). The punt. And 4). The after punt. 

My Reggie Roby collection is currently paged in chronological order, which is kind of neat, but there's a part of me that would like to organize it by image category. Maybe if I ever complete it I'll play around with that and see how it looks. I'm still a ways away from that though.

This was not a good scan!

I'm always hesitant to buy any tall boys from Sportlots, or to try and trade for any of them on the TCDB, because I figure with my luck, they're probably gonna show up bent in half. Dennis' luck must be considerably better, for not only was he able to acquire two of them, that were then sent to him undamaged, he also managed to get said two to me; also undamaged.

17 needed Reggie's (and the Bo at the top of the post) would've been more than enough for me, but Dennis didn't stop there...

Reggie Roby is my #1 collection when it comes to football, and even though it hadn't been planned, Dennis Smith has worked his way up to #2 (he won't be passing Reggie though). Neither are of much interest to most collectors, and are of zero interest to investors, so it's nice to still be able to collect a couple of guys who's card prices haven't been inflated over the last few years.

It looks like a couple of receivers were wearing #81 back in 1992, so I don't know who this is, but it doesn't matter, it's all about Dennis getting the pick; one of four that he had that year. Awesome card!

I'm hardly the first to say it, but I'd like to see Action Packed make a come back, provided of course that it's not under the header of one of the current card companies. I can't even imagine how ugly the set would be under Leaf's management 💩.

I have to do a double-take almost every time I see a card from 1992 Score, as the design always makes me think that it's a TRU set.

I hadn't noticed until I was marking everything off their respective checklists, but 1992 was very well represented in this package. 

Getting a cards lone parallel at the same time as the base is always nice. And I've probably said it before, but I really like the first couple of Collector's Edge sets for football. If I cared about more of the players in those sets, I'd probably go back and try to complete them. But I don't, so I won't be.

Prior to getting this package, I don't think that I'd ever seen a single card from the 1993 Fleer set before. I wasn't collecting football at the time, and the design doesn't look familiar at all. I know that collectively were all supposed to hate grey/silver borders, but I've always kind of like them; this despite not being a huge fan of the color itself. 

More stickers! Mongo is one of those guys that I always mean to look for cards of when I'm putting together in order somewhere, but just can't ever seem to remember to do so. Apparently Dennis didn't have that problem...

By all accounts, Steve has always been a standup guy, liked by seemingly everyone who ever met him, which makes his current situation seem just that much worse. Why is it that you never hear about assholes getting ALS? It's always the good people who have to have it inflicted upon them. From the last update I saw a couple of months back, it sure doesn't sound like he's gonna be able to fight it for too much longer either.

I don't know what the deal is with the Super Bowl stamped Stadium Club cards. Were they an in-pack parallel? Special Box set? I do know that sellers online tend to attach a small premium to them, as opposed to the Member's Only parallel that's to the left of it, those are usually just the same price as the base cards. And this was my first card of Mongo as a Packer. I do remember it happening, but seeing him in yellow and green is still a bit jarring. It was good move for him though, as he did get a ring out of it. I didn't realize that he had played every game that season though. Pretty impressive for a 37 year old playing that position.

No need to adjust your eyes, there are indeed four copies of the same sticker here. I figured these might all have different backs, but...

Well, two of them do! I suppose that there could be something different about the three Joe Morris backs, but if there is, I couldn't tell at the time.

I didn't have a want list/checklist for Steve prior to this mailing (I don't have one as of this typing either), but none of these cards were duplicates for me. That was pretty impressive on Dennis' part.

These two cards provide quite the contrast, don't they? If I recall, the Prestige card here was my first post-playing days of Howie. I never bothered to look, but I would imagine that it's got 87 parallels to collect for those so inclined. For now, I'm good with just this one.

Dennis seemed to have hit the sticker motherlode. I'm grateful to him for sharing some of the wealth from such a strike.

I think that this was the most football cards that anyone had ever sent me before, though there was that one baseball card too...

I'm thinking that all of our Bo's talk of equipment in recent months has started to wear off on me, because when I went to edit this scan, I noticed that the number on the bat didn't correlate to Bo's jersey number. Bo wore #22 with the Angels, and that second number clearly isn't a 2. I thought it was 29, but apparently that was Rod Carew's number, which was retired by the Angels in 1991; so that "9" must be a 4 (still looks like a 9 to me though). Eduardo Perez was #24. It's one thing to pose for a picture with someone else's bat, but to actually use it in a game is a whole nother can of worms. Why was Bo using Eduardo's bat? I know that he was on the downward trend, but you'd think that, Bo, of all people, would have his own bats. Have I inadvertently finally figured out something that Bo didn't know... bats? 

It's hard to believe I've been sitting on these scan since January. It feels like not more than a month could've passed since I received the package. Of course it's hard to believe that we're already halfway through 2023 too. I really don't care for this whole 'time moves quicker with age' thing. Not one bit!

Anyway, many thanks to Dennis for the extremely well thought out package. Heck, it was just nice of him to even think of me around Christmas. I do regret taking so long to get to the post though, but again, it just didn't seem like that long since I got the cards.

17 comments:

  1. Good stuff, and MAN could Roby get extension on his leg!

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    1. It was even more impressive once he started to chunk up a bit.

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  2. The Bo Jackson Angels card is pretty cool.

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  3. Dennis is one of those guys who is good for the hobby (and society). Nice assortment of cards/stickers.

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  4. The Super Bowl card is like the Super Teams in NBA...if you got the team that won the Super Bowl and sent it in to Topps you'd get a special set back with all the cards with the logo. There are conference finals sets for the NBA but I don't know enough about football to know if they had divisions like that. They are rarer than base cards, but about equal to members only. Neither were inserted in packs.

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    1. That makes sense, and being familiar with the Super Teams cards, I probably should've been able to figure this out myself, but I didn't. Thank you for the info :)

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  5. Rod Carew was an Angels coach at that time, and maybe he still used some bats during batting practice. Even Bo Jackson would be honored to use a Carew bat, I'm sure. Nice find!

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    1. I didn't see that mentioned in the little bit of research I did. I guess that would also make more sense since it does look like #29. I wonder now if anyone other than Bo was allowed to use any of Rod's bats during actual games. If I had more Angels cards from that year, I'd be very inclined to check them out now.

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  6. Christmas cards in June? Not too shabby. I've got cards from care packages that I still need to blog about that are over a year old... include some of Dennis's Christmas cards. My problem is I save certain cards for specific posts... and they end up getting buried in my scan folder. I'll get to them some day though...

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    1. I do that with cards from COMC, but then never end up getting to them, which results in what I have right now; multiple scan folders full of cards from COMC.

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  7. HA, I feel great, scan folder waiting for new stuff. Love being caught up. You guys will too....so get there will ya, LOL.

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    1. I've been grateful to have not been sent much lately, so I think I only have three more posts worth of stuff from other people before I'm caught up.

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  8. I love the tall boy cards, but completely understand your hesitance in getting them through the mail as single cards. I also love the breakdown on the Bo photo. Seems like something I would try to do. Carew worked with the Angels as a hitting instructor around this time. Edmonds, Garrett Anderson, and Tim Salmon all credit him with helping them as hitters. Wonder if Bo get in on some of those sessions and was using a Rod Carew bat?

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    1. I'm sure I'll anger a cardboard god somewhere by saying it, but I actually like the 90's tall boys better than the vintage ones, if only because they actually used action shots in the newer sets; it's not just all head shots.

      Between the info from you and Bo (the blogger), I would have to think that Bo did get to use Rod's bats, or at least for one game that is, we've got proof of that up above.

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  9. Dennis Smith has worked his way up, Carry On!

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