Free cards, contest winnings, and a surprise

                                         
My mailbox has been jumping as of late [note to self: mounting the mailbox to a pogo stick probably wasn't the best of ideas]. Thanks to a couple of small purchases, numerous TCDB trades, and some generous mailers from my fellow bloggers, I have officially been inundated with cards. First world problem, yo!

I said at the beginning of the year that I'd be dropping down to two posts a week, and that has been working well for me, but I'm thinking that I might have to increase my output for the next month or two if I want to catch up on everything. Either that, or I don't show everything, and that's never been my way -- so you can probably expect to start seeing a few more "LOOK AT ALL MY NEW SH*T" posts in the very near future.

Since mail from bloggers is always the best, I'm gonna catch up on a few of those packages here today, starting first with an unexpected PWE from Matt, he of the recently anniversaried, Matt's Wonderful Blog of Hobbies, that I received a couple of weeks back.

I don't talk about my Tim Brown collection very often, mostly because there's not much of a collection to talk about, but I did so a little while ago, and Matt saw the post, and decided to add to some new Brown's to my miniscule collection. The biggest addition is 2016 Panini Absolute Spectrum Red up top. I did have to look it up to see what it was called, but that doesn't take away from it's coolness, I'm just not familiar with a lot of the newer sets. With the thousands of 1/1's that now come out each year, I don't think most collectors are overly impressed by something that's numbered to /100 anymore, but to me they're still kind of awe inspiring, especially too since it's not like I'm receiving them in the mail everyday.

I'm not very computery, but I think this is one of those arted up photos (digitized photos?), as opposed to an actual artists rendering.

Was fantasy football around back in 1997? I never heard about it if it was. And if it wasn't, I don't understand the point of the card. I do like the look of it though, I'm just curious as to why it is.

A few non Tim Brown's made it into the envelope as well. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something awfully similar about these cards 😉

Thanks for the surprise mailing, Matt. All were new to me, and all were greatly appreciated!

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Next up is a prize from, Brendan aka Elliptical Man, of The View from the Third Floor fame. 

A couple of bloggers ran Super Bowl contests, all of varying degrees of difficulty. Brendan was one of those bloggers, and since his contest was the easiest (I didn't even understand how to enter Kerry's, sorry Kerry), it ended up being the only one that I participated in. 

The contest was a simple guess "the total points scored" affair, and even though I don't remember what my guess was, I 'guess' I ended up being closest. I will say for the record too, that I knew the Bucs were gonna win before the playoffs even started, and not because of some grand conspiracy, no, I just knew that Tom Brady wasn't going to let his team lose this past post-season. I didn't have any clue on the score though, that was just pulled out of my backside.

The winner got their choice of prizes, and I chose the "Ghost Cards" lot, or in other words, the retired players lot. Given a choice, I'm always goona go with past greats!

In case you haven't noticed too, there was a lot of neat cards in here, featuring guys that actually accomplished things. I'll take these cards over current rookies any day of the week!

This last group is especially interesting. Bob St. Claire is a guy that I collect, and don't get "new" cards of very often, so I was kind of excited to see this one, even if it did use same photo that graced his 1990 Pro Set card. The Sayers is a rookie reprint (obviously). You can't ever go wrong with retired greats from 2018 Classics. And the Bledsoe is a Prizm Prizm Silver, very shiny in person!

Thank you very much for the contest, and the prize, Brendan! You might be the most difficult blogger for me to try and figure out what I could possibly send you, but I will crack the code at some point.

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And finally, there's not a lot of Free Stuff posts anymore, but Kerry, of the long-tenured Cards on Cards, is still plodding on with the occasional Friday giveaways, one of which popped up just a couple of Friday's go.

Stan Humphries is quickly moving up my player collection list, at least in terms of how much I enjoy collecting them. Numbers-wise, I still don't have very many of his cards, which is why this one was an easy claim. I hadn't seen one of the SC football Super Teams in person before, and am really impressed by it's overall attractiveness. The foil sections really pop. Barry Sanders was an easy claim too, why? Because it's Barry Sanders, duh!

Despite the many offerings, I only made one other claim, and it was a little bit bigger than your standard trading card...

Anyone know what's in here before I open it? I'll give you a sec to guess

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Give up? 

Look at that beauty! Apparently these were in a magazine, but I never saw one before.

I love this breakdown of the various subsets, all of which were included in the opposite pages sample.

I've seen a lot of people rag on 1991-92 Fleer over the years, but I've always liked it. Was is it the best looking Fleer set ever? No, of course not, but it wasn't the worst either. And it looks a helluva lot better than most of today's sets. That's a hill that I'm willing to die on btw. I appreciate Fleer for trying something different at the time, and like I said, I like the design, nothing else ever looked quite like it. I also dig the fact that there's so many different versions of this set, you've got the normal set, these nifty promotional samples, this was the first year of Fleer and Tony's Pizza brief partnership, so you've got them in that form, and there's the uber-great Wheaties cards (just picked up a few more of those too). 

I was quite content with those couple of claimed items, but if you know Kerry, then you know that he's almost always going to try and toss in a few more items, it's what he does!

Even with the possibility of extra cards being added, I would've never expected this one. Kerry has now provided both of the cards that I needed from this set (Ronnie Lott being the other), and as much as I dig the design, it's kind of nice to know that I don't have to get anymore of them if I don't want to.

I can't remember if I've told this story before or not, but back in 1993 we moved from Beaverton (west of Portland) to Gresham (east of Portland). I loved where we lived in Beaverton, it was my favorite place we ever lived when I was growing up, and even though we only lived there for 2 years, it was still very difficult to leave. It didn't help too that I absolutely hated the apartment complex that we moved to in Gresham, it was right on a busy road, and was surrounded by nothing but other apartments and businesses. The previous two years had been spent roaming around countless acres of forest/creek areas (most of which is now gone) in what was almost a Lord of the Flies existence. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but us kids were practically feral, and lived by our own code. I might go into that more in-depth at some later date, but the point is, it was very difficult to try and adjust to my new concrete jungle, and I was pretty miserable there. It didn't help too that I only ever made one real friend there (this after having dozens for the previous two years), Steven, who I just recently mentioned. I guess his older brother, Scott, was a friend too, but I always thought of him more as a protector/bodyguard (a lot of teens in this new world thought that they were gangsters, and would try to prove it any time they could. And you know nothing says "gangsta", like picking fights or trying to attack an 11-year old).

Anyway, amongst all of the establishments that were now around me, was a 7-Eleven right down the road (2-3 blocks away). 7-Eleven was never my kind of place, so I rarely went in there. But on one particular afternoon (probably on the weekend) back in '93 or early '94, I found myself in there with Steven, and who of all people should walk in? None other than Jerome Kersey himself! I remember that we were the only two customers in there at the time, and I was looking out the window/towards the door while Steven decided what he wanted, when a silver Mercedes (my memory says Mercedes, but I guess it could've been a Beamer too) pulled up out front. A tall black guy got out on the drivers side, while an attractive blonde (who was also tall) stepped out from the passenger side. Both were dressed extremely nice. Being a basketball fan, and more specifically, a Blazers fan, I instantly identified the tall guy as Jerome Kersey, and I'm assuming that the blonde was his wife. As he was walking in, I nudged Steven and said "Hey, Jerome Kersey just walked in". Steven not being a sports fan in the least, said "Who?", which probably generated a 'Really?' look from me, decades before "Really?" was a thing. But I digress, as Jerome came in, I heard one of the two guys at the counter say "Hey, it's Jerome Kersey!", and a few seconds later heard Jerome say "No autographs". The pair must've only needed one thing, because they were in and out within two minutes or less. I had gotten his autograph at a signing a year or so prior, so there was never any thought of me bothering him for one, plus it's not like I always carried around some Jerome Kersey ephemera just on the off chance that I would see him in the wild someday, so no regrets. It was kind of a surreal experience though. In retrospect, it was about the last place that I would've ever expected to encounter a Blazer. I have always kind of wondered how it was that they came to be in Gresham that day. I wish too that I would've seen what they stopped in for, as I think it would've made the story just a little bit more interesting. I remember too that Steven and I went back to his apartment afterwards, and he said "Hey, dad, we saw..." turns to me and asks "who did we see again?" Me: "Jerome Kersey". "Oh yeah, we saw Jerome Kersey". His dad wasn't overly impressed either, but at least he knew who Jerome was. Despite Steven and his dad's lack of interest in our encounter, I thought it was cool. It probably doesn't make for the most interesting read though.

As for the two Franz cards, the '94-95 that shows Jerome with Otis Thorpe on his hip is kind of interesting, if only because they'd be playing together by season's end, as Otis was traded to the Blazers with like 30-something games to go that season (that was part of the trade that sent Clyde Drexler to Houston). Both players would be gone before the next season though, with Otis being traded to Detroit during the offseason, and Jerome being selected by the Raptors in the expansion draft, thus ending 11 great seasons with the Blazers. A lot of fans were upset when Clyde left, but he had let it be known how unhappy he was in Portland, so I was basically of the 'good riddance' mindset when it came to him. Jerome on the other hand, gave no indications that he wanted to leave, and even though he was starting to slow down some by '95, he was still one of my two all-time favorite Blazers, and I was not happy about him being left unprotected in the draft. It's 25 years later, and I'm still not happy about it!

Anywho, thanks again for the free stuff, and extras, Kerry! I've got a small stack with your name on it, which I've been meaning to package up and send for months now. Hopefully this latest mailing will inspire me to get to doing that.

On an unrelated note, the weather here has gotten really awesome all of sudden, and I very much hope that it's doing the same thing where all of you live too!

Something old...

                                         
As most of you reading this probably already know, I'm not married, nor have I ever been married, and at this point, unless something extraordinary happens, I will never be married. I'm not opposed to marriage mind you, it's just that... um... how do I put this? I'm about as desirable as a bridge troll, and what's more, I don't even have a bridge to my name!

There's not a lot of gals out there who are looking to settle down with a bridge troll, and I've accepted that, in fact I did so many years ago. I'm quite content to live vicariously through others.

Despite how this post is starting, it really isn't about marriage (or my trollness) per se, more like it's customs, or rather one particular custom; that being the old-ish British tradition of: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in her shoe.

I'm not sure if it's still being used or not, but I couldn't help thinking of it a couple of weeks ago when a couple of related mailings arrived on the same day. I noticed that I had two of the five covered right off the bat, and a quick perusal of my scan folders provided me with two more. And as far as the fifth goes, well, will get to that when we come to it.

In order to make this post work (or at least make it work the way I wanted to work), I had to stretch some of the meanings just a tad. For example, nobody's gonna look at the above 2019-20 Prizm Karl Malone and think "old", but it, as well as all of the other cards that have been shown, is from one of my "old"est scan folders. Matt, from the newly rechristened, Matt's Wonderful Blog Of Hobbies, sent these to me quite some time ago, and as neat as these five were, the real star of the envelope was...

... this 2012 Panini Progressions (magenta) of the great John Riggins! It's not everyday that someone sends me a card that's limited to just five copies, in fact this is the lowest 'numbered' card that anyone has ever sent me. I own a number of Progressions, and have seen even more, but this was the first one that I had seen where the coloring had such an effect on the player's appearance. Not that I care, I just thought that it was worth noting. This a rainbow that I'd love to collect, but other than the cyan that's currently sitting on COMC (which seems overpriced to me), it doesn't appear that the other two colors have ever come up for sale online anywhere.

I still have more to get to here today, so I won't go too in-depth, but did want to mention that aside from the mailing, Matt is also responsible for me returning to the blog after my hiatus this past summer. So from whenever I started back up, to whenever I say goodbye, if you like anything that I do, you have Matt to thank. And conversely, if you ever dislike anything that you see upon these pages, please direct all hate mail to Matt as well, after all he is to blame for my still being around to produce whatever it is that irked you so.

Thanks again for the cards, Matt! Hopefully the ensuing hate mail won't make you regret bringing me back too much :)

Moving on the next part of the rhyme. "New" is not the first word that's going to come to mind when viewing this '87 Bo Jackson, BUT, it did come from my most recent, or "new"est if you will, piece of mail from a fellow blogger. As some folks may remember, Bo, from Baseball Cards Come to Life!, won Julie's big contest a few months ago, and then a short time later started to disperse some of the unwanted goods/duplicates. 

I think that this Bo was one of the better cards being put on the trading block, and I thought initially that I already had one, but after a quick check, I found that I didn't. I didn't know what I was going to trade for it, but Bo sent it along for what I'm assuming was future considerations. Those future considerations turned took the form of an old [Bo]wman that I had laying around, which seems to have went over well, so that was nice.

Bo was accompanied by another card from the prize haul, a card which I believe was a first for me, as in I think that it may be the first 1993 Donruss card that I've ever owned. Some of you are probably shaking your head in disbelief right now, but I'm fairly certain that aside from a few singles here and there, that I stopped collecting baseball (and football) in 1992, and just did basketball and non-sport stuff for the next eight years before taking my decade-long break from cards. I know that I never opened any of this set, and it's design doesn't register any sort of familiarity with me, so like I said, I'm thinking that this might just be the first card from this set that's ever been in my possession.

Looks like Bo knows basketball too. I however do not still know if I needed this Logo card, as I haven't gotten into that particular box for a while, either way though, it's a nice card.

Thanks for sharing some of your winnings with me, Bo!

My mom found this penny in her change a few weeks ago, and even though she, and subsequently I once I saw it, didn't think that it would be anything of note, I still wanted to "borrow" it for this post. 

Piece of advice for any and all dipsh*ts out there who have too much time on their hands, if you want to create some intrigue by adding something to hard currency, learn how to make your own f*cking punches. It took me all of twenty seconds to find these punches of the oft used, and dare I say, terribly boring, Freemason square and compasses for sale on eBay. I guess it's too much to ask that someone actually do something original for a change (pun intended), this piss-poor attempt to manufacture a mystery wasn't even worth my twenty seconds of searching.

[Note: My scanner can't handle 2013-14 Prizm, and apparently I can't even take a decent photo anymore, so apologies for this glare-y monstrosity]

Other than the daily saved searches emails that I receive, I almost never bother with eBay anymore. I don't hate it like a lot of people seem to these days, I'm just tired of the stupid prices on everything, and don't feel like wasting my time looking for anything. That being said, I did get one of those saved searches emails back in December, possibly even November, that eventually led me to buying this "blue" Larry Johnson. This card wasn't the subject of the saved search, but was amongst the sellers other offerings, and while I didn't even get close to winning my saved search card, I did win this. I thought for sure that I already had one of these, but I didn't, I only had like half a dozen of the other parallels for him. I've been trying to focus more on playing days cards of guys that I'm collecting, so I did have a bit of buyer's remorse after this arrived, but I guess it's a nice enough card for me to bend the rules a little bit for.

The only thing left is the part of the rhyme that was dropped when it made it across the Atlantic, "and a sixpence in her shoe". Hmm, what to do? I did collect coins quite actively in my early teens, and still have most of that collection, but British coins were never of much interest to me, so no sixpence's (sixpencies?) in there. British stamps aren't really my thing either (well, save for one particular issue, but that's for a future post), so I can't even use one of those for the post. There's also the little matter of me not having access to "her" shoes. I've got plenty of his, but no hers (ah, the sad life of a bridgeless troll). I guess for the sake of completing the post, I'll just have to resort to using this photo that I found on the Google...

I could be wrong here, but I'm fairly certain (at least 90%) that the coin is supposed to be in the left shoe. Hopefully this photo was just for show, otherwise this gal sure was (provided I'm right) tempting fate.

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On a completely unrelated note, China's great mistake (or so we're led to believe) got another one this past week, and this time it was one of my childhood favorites.

Rest easy, Barbara Shelley.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.