Starting to Lineup a new collection

Looking back at the last 14-15 years of my card collecting, or in other words, since I returned to card collecting, I see that a good 60-70% of my focus has been on cards that were produced before I was born; which, shockingly, feature players who mostly played (or who had their prime years) before I was born as well.

I'm sure that there's many reasons for this, my love of history, bigger personalities, less gentle play, etc., but I think the biggest reason is that, despite having never seen the majority of these guys play, I just feel like I can relate to them more as people. I'll probably get into this more in a future post (one that'll feature a baseballer whose prime was during the 30's), but basically it's just a lot easier for me to identify with folks who farmed or worked another job during the offseason, and who didn't have every whim catered to, than it is guys who are making fifty million dollars a year, and having every need (and vice) catered to. Not to mention too, maybe it's just because of my mindset, but it doesn't seem like a lot of the modern athletes have very interesting life stories. I know that there's a few occasionally who do, but for the most part, they're just boring people, who are getting paid a lot of money to play watered down versions of what were once better sports. That being said, I'm still human, and still a collector, and like most modern humans (primarily those in the West), and collectors, I find myself being drawn to the days of my youth. Nostalgia after all, much like cocaine, is a helluva drug.

I'm not one of those people who think that the sports, and the athletes who played them, during my formative years were the best that they've ever been, as lot of the above applies to them as well, but still...

[Note: I was too lazy to get this card out of it's binder prior to posting, so I swiped this less than desirable image from the TCDB]

I have a number of player collections, mostly on the basketball side, for guys that I grew up watching, which has satiated my collecting itch for the last few years -- but now that my old set collecting ways seem to have returned, player collections haven't been enough. Of course, for me that presents a bit of a conundrum, as there are no shortage of set designs from my youth that, honestly, I'd be quite content if I never saw again. And even the sets that I do still have some affinity for from that time period feel like old hat, undoubtedly because I've already collected them a few times over the years. And at this point, I'm not really interested in collecting them again. 

At some point last summer I was putting a few cards away, one of which was going into the Scottie Pippen binder, and it was while flipping through those pages that I came across this 1992 SLU card, that quite honestly, I'd pretty much forgot ever getting. Seeing it again at this stage of my collecting life seemed to trigger something though. Something of the nostalgic variety.

I never owned a lot of Starting Lineup figures as a kid, maybe a dozen or so at best. G.I. Joe's and Hasbro WWF figures were pretty much at the center of my toy universe during the early 90's, but I did briefly flirt with them back in '92 and '93, which I can remember only because all of my dozen or so figures, both baseball and basketball, came with a black and hot pink card. Those figures, and their accompanying cards, are long gone, but I never forgot that design; and how much I liked it.

It seemed too daunting at the time, but I even briefly thought about trying to collect just the '92 sets six or seven years ago when I found Scottie at a show. In retrospect, I definitely should've started collecting them at that time. Something something, living and learning, right?

Fast forward a few more years and I started getting a few cheap SLU cards from various years (most of which I was seeing for the first time) on COMC for player collections, which really started piquing my interest in them; namely that it might be fun to try and build a set or two. Not too long after that, Chris, started posting about the figures (and their cards) more often than he previously had, which exposed me to even more cards that I had never seen before. It was just too much to resist!

It took a while for me to realize it, but familiar names and faces, on unfamiliar card designs, is apparently the exact thing I had been looking for; i.e. something from my early years that I haven't already collected at least once before. Sold!

And since I can never do anything in moderation, I am now (as of a few months ago) officially collecting somewhere around 20 different SLU card sets (6-7 basketball, 6-7 baseball, 4-5 football).

I think that the bulk of my collection so far is currently sitting in my COMC account, which I'll be requesting the shipment of sometime in the next few weeks -- in the meantime though, I thought it might be fun to show off what I currently have in hand (or binder). All of you 'baseball or bust' types will be SOL though, as aside from the Bo up top, all of my baseball (and football) SLU's are in my COMC account (mass exodus beginning in 3, 2, 1... 😃). 

Kareem here came from COMC a few years ago, and judging by how many copies are on the site now compared to then, it's the one card in this post that I overpaid for. That happens sometimes, it's not the end of the world. I can't even remember what prompted me do so at this point, but I bought a lot of 6 packaged figures on Sportlots 7-8 years ago. I know the price, with shipping, was less than $20 at the time, but other than that, all of the other details are a bit fuzzy. Anyway, Larry here was part of that lot. I sent the figure to Chris a few years ago, but obviously I kept the card.

I can't remember if these ever made it onto the blog or not, so if they have, apologies. Spud and Dee came from Sportlots a few years ago, and up until now were part of their respective player collections. I did have the Shaq figure to go along with his card, but that was another one from that Sportlots lot that I sent to Chris. Prior to this, the card had been residing on one of the back pages in Hakeem's binder.

I don't why the switch was made, but the lovely black and hot pink design of 1992 was the last time that the NBA would use unique designs for their SLU cards for a number of years; they wound up just using regular cards with the SLU logo on the front and a different number on the back. None of the other sports did that, much to their benefit. These two came from one of my old COMC folders of stuff that I still haven't gotten around to showing on here. At the time of their purchase, they were for their respective collections as well. I hadn't really planned on collecting any of post-1992 basketball sets, but there were a bunch of 50-75¢ cards from the '93-96 sets during this past Black Friday sale, and well, I just couldn't pass them up for that price. So, I guess I am now collecting those as well.

A few more from that old COMC folder (which by the way is also where that wonderful Bo at the top of the post had been sitting, in digital form, for the last few years). I really hate to take Cliff out of his collection, as it took me a long time to find an affordable copy of this card. Hopefully it won't take me as long to find another one.

Onto some more recent non-COMC gets...

I got this card on eBay a couple of months ago for $1.25, which I thought was a pretty good deal (all of the white crap on it is from my scanner tray). One curious thing though, looking at the TCDB checklist for this set, I don't see this particular card on there. The Admiral does have a card in there, but it ain't this one. I've had so little time for computering as of late that I still don't know what the deal is, but I'll figure it out at some point.

I made a small purchase from Hoody's Collectibles on the Beckett Marketplace back in November. I want to say that there were around 15 cards in that order, 8 of which were SLU's. 

The 1988 set is not one for the budget-minded collector, meaning that I have zero chance of ever completing it. I might've had a chance if I had started it fifteen years ago, but not now. Even with that in mind, I'm still gonna try and get them where I can. I'll probably have to go the off-grade route if I ever want to try and get some of the rarer ones, but if that's what it takes, that's what it'll take.

Nothing will ever top the lovely black and hot pink design of 1992, but I find myself really liking the 1990 design as well. Every sport looks good on it. Having zero recollection of them prior to one of Chris' posts, I'm not sure if I ever even knew that the 1990 figures came with two cards. One regular, and one for the player's rookie year.

The scanner crud returns!

It was kind of nice to be able to get both cards for Joe Dumars and Chris Mullin. In the future though, I should probably scan these with rookie year card on the left. It looks a bit off this way.

These three guys were pretty good at the basketball. I just won the yellow rookie year card for David Robinson the other night on eBay, so I now have three completed players from this set.

Well, that's it for now. As mentioned, I've got a bunch sitting in my COMC account, two on their way from eBay, and I think one or two sitting in my Sportlots box (including one of a guy whose name rhymes with Cycle Gordon😄). I think I have enough sets to chase now, and barring any major windfalls, I'm pretty sure that I won't be taking on anymore sets after this.

On an unrelated note: I don't know if everyone saw it or not, but after like a four or five year hiatus, Raz, has started posting again. If you weren't aware and have a few moments to do so (and of course are inclined to want to do so), it might be nice to go welcome him back. He mentioned that he might be giving it another go, and comments usually help determine whether someone is gonna stick around or not, so... you have the power!

And on a second, and final, unrelated note: Brian, also posted the other day for the first time in over a year. He wasn't very clear as to if he was planning on planning to return or not, but either way, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to give him the 'welcome back' treatment as well.

Trying something new

"Regrets, I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention."

As many of you undoubtedly already know, that's a snippet from the song, "My Way". Penned by hitmaker extraordinaire, Paul Anka. And performed by the great Frank Sinatra.

As timeless as the song has proven to be, many would argue that it has been played to death (wait for the intended pun), not only has corporate radio done what corporate radio does, but it's also been a mainstay at funerals for the better part of 50 years now.

The song has been covered in linear fashion, and has also been covered after being rewritten (Sid Vicious). In no way would I ever compare myself to Paul Anka, or think that I could do any of what he has done better, BUT if I were to rework the quoted lyrics in order make them sound a little more like something I might say, well, they might look a little something like this:

"Regrets, I have more than a few. But then again, far too many to mention."

Regret is a terrible thing. From ancient Greek philosophers to modern day TED talkers, everyone seems to have a theory on the nature of regret, all of which is of course just theory, and is really only helpful to those who's beliefs are in line with whoever happens to be theorizing.

Sometimes you'll hear people say something like "What's done is done", or even worse, "When I die, I'll be doing so without any regrets". My first response to the latter is always "Well, bully for you!".   Because when my time comes, much as I hate to say it, I will be laden with regrets (hopefully a carry-on is allowed).

Having so many regrets is terribly unhealthy, I know, but that's just the way I am. Some of the bigger ones creep into my mind on nearly daily basis, there are so many things, that given the opportunity, I want to go back and change -- things that, for lack of a better term, will continue to haunt me for the rest of my days. I may poke fun at those who claim to be regretless, but in all honesty, I envy the hell out of them!

Most of my regrets involve life altering decisions that were incorrectly made, or not made at all. But I also have plenty that are centered around more trivial things, like collecting. Thankfully those of the collecting variety don't creep into my psyche very often, and when they do, they don't tend to stick around very often.

One thing that I've come to realize as of late, and wish that I had done differently, was to have taken more time to appreciate individual cards... stop and smell the cards if you will :)

Growing up as a set collector, and a rather obsessive one at that, I can remember so many times where I should've taken the time to slow down and just enjoy the cards for what they were, instead of always worrying about whether or not whatever set was getting any closer to completion. I mean seriously, there were times where I would open a pack, flip the cards over, and just go through the numbers while looking at my checklist -- it didn't matter who was in the pack, it was all about whether I needed the card or not. Now it wasn't always like that, but looking back, when it was, I don't think I was having a great deal of fun with collecting cards.

Because of my predisposition for sets, I didn't do nearly enough appreciating of individual cards, and I regret this, things probably would've been a lot more fun if I had been able to just collect cards that I liked, rather than always (and I mean always) having to work on sets. I also probably wouldn't have ever stopped collecting cards, but by the late 90's I was just so overwhelmed, and so burned out, that I just walked away cold turkey.

The only anomaly during that original run was my Ken Griffey Jr. and Larry Johnson (basketball) collections, and even then, those were only made up of duplicates, as anything that wasn't a duplicate, HAD TO GO TOWARDS A SET!

A lot of kids had favorite cards, but again, I was a weirdo, so save for a few rare exceptions, most cards just didn't stand out to me. My memory for most of my early card collecting days isn't great, but I do remember those couple of rare exceptions where a card did stand out. There was my '87-88 Fleer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I don't know where I got it, but it was one of my prized possessions as a kid. Warren Moon's 1990 Score Hot Gun was a big one as well, if only because I had never seen a card quite like that. Then there was Shawn Kemp's 1990-91 Fleer rookie, a card that I'm still deeply in lust with. And the only other one that really grabbed my attention was this one:

I know it's just a guy punting a ball, but this image still gives me the feels even today. Besides just liking the card for aesthetic purposes, and the memory of doing so as a child, there is also a partial memory of me looking like an idiot that is attached to this card.

I'm pretty sure that given the friend that was involved, what I'm about to type took place in 1990. I was over at a friend's house, and we just happened to be walking through the living room while his dad and some other guys were watching the Dolphins v. somebody, and guess who was punting the ball at that very moment? If your answer was Reggie Roby, than you'd be correct! Anyways, I immediately recognized him, and said, in a much louder voice then necessary, "THAT'S THE GUY FROM THE CARD!". You'll often hear people speak of record scratch moments, well, this was one of them. All the talking that was being done ceased in an instant, and all eyes turned to me. In that moment, I realized that a) I had not used an indoor voice, and b) nobody had any idea what I was talking about. Needless to say, eight year-old me couldn't find a hole to crawl into fast enough. Thankfully we didn't live in that area for too much longer, so I wouldn't ever have to be reminded of that incident by any of the people who were there, although it would've been nice had that memory been one of the many that has since fallen by the wayside.

I would later see Reggie play many times, all from the comfort of my own home, and was always impressed with him as a player. I would also later get more of his cards, many of which featured images similar to his 1990 Pro Set card, meaning that I would at least stop and take note of them before placing the card in it's proper place within a set.

[I'm jumping ahead a bit here, but I'll be circling back around to Reggie in a minute] After about a decade away, I came back to card collecting in/or around 2010, and unfortunately I fell right back into set collecting. Things were going alright for the first couple of years, but as the years increased, so did the number of sets that I was working on. Sometime last year I started to sense that familiar feeling of being overwhelmed, which was being followed by a burnout chaser. Although unlike back in '99-00 when my first card collecting run ended, I now have a blog, and have met a lot of great people because of it, so I wasn't too keen on quitting collecting cold turkey again. Instead, I went through all of the sets that I was working on, and through a process of elimination, ended up cutting my workload in half. This seemed like it might work at the time, but it didn't take long before I realized that even half of what I was working on was still too much, so late last year I stopped working on all but four sets -- and those four were autograph sets, so definitely not your traditional "sets".

Stopping work on all sets was a good thing, as I'm no longer feeling overwhelmed, or feeling like I have to buy something. Since late last year I've pretty much just been a "in the moment" type of card collector, where I just get whatever appeals to me in that moment. As freeing as no longer working on any sets has been, it's also kind of left me feeling a tad rudderless. I've had no direction, which I think has been responsible for the waning interest in cards that I've been experiencing for the last couple of months.

I don't want to start up with any sets again, but some direction would be nice. I had the buybacks frankenset going on a few years ago, which I did enjoy for a time, but prices on those starting going up, and I wasn't willing to pay the newly risen prices for the ones I wanted -- plus a lot more people started doing them, so the semi-originality of it became lost, and so did my interest. The idea of a frankenset is still appealing though, it would give me direction, but I wouldn't have to follow any set rules. But what kind of set to do? Night Owl has his mini A&G set, Dayf has his non-sport set, both of which are quite appealing, but I don't want to knowingly copy someone else's idea. I also like the idea of doing an all vintage frankenset, especially since I've got so much unwanted vintage from now abandoned set builds (is anyone else already doing an all vintage frankenset?).

I've also thought about trying to collect a player's entire run. There would be some direction in that, but not in a traditional sense. The only problem with that is, who to collect? Modern player's are out, I don't care enough about any of them, and even if I did, with the way cards are produced these days, whoever it would be would just have too many cards to be able to complete their run... namely the gajillion 1/1's that are produced each year. So that leaves someone from the past, problem is, again the way cards are now being made, pretty much anyone I can think of has cards in modern sets, which means more superfractors, printing plates, etc. And that just won't do!

I believe the answer to the above question may have come to me quite accidently a couple of days ago while putting away some cards. I was flipping through one of my semi-newly created football binders that's sorted by team, I stopped to insert a few Dolphins, one of which was the Reggie Roby 1990 Pro Set, and it came to me, what about Reggie Roby? A quick trip to the TCDB told me (assuming that their numbers are correct) that he has 141 cards (I'm not counting the TriStar cut signature... those aren't real cards!!!!), that seems doable, especially since none of them are 1/1's. He retired right about the time that inserts started getting crazy, so there wouldn't be a ton of parallels to chase, in fact I only see three cards that could be a problem: 1991 Pro Line autograph, 1992 Wild Card 100 stripe, and the biggie, his 1992 Wild Card 1000 stripe (COMC has had two that have sold for less than $4).

As mentioned earlier, I liked him as a player, and from everything I've read, he was a good person (he passed away in 2005 at only 43 years old), which coupled with the reasonable amount of his cards to chase, means that I think I'm gonna go for it... I am now officially trying to complete Reggie Roby's entire card run!

Now that such a decision has been made, it only makes sense to go see how many cards of his I already have. Hmm? That search didn't turn out too well, apparently the only other card that I still have of his, is this 1990 Score... not a good start! I do however have unopened boxes of both 1990 and 1991 Topps, so I guess there's a chance that those boxes might have a few of his cards, but basically it looks like I'll be starting from scratch.

I must admit that I am a bit nervous about starting such a collection, but not because I haven't done anything like this before, no, it's more of a "I'm worried what Panini might do" kind of thing. Just because they haven't been including him in any of their newer sets, doesn't mean they won't start doing so at some point, especially if he ever makes it in to the HOF (a lot of people seem to think that he should already be there), because then the presses would be fired up, and 1/1's would start being printed en masse, after all... it is "their way"! So here's hoping that Panini doesn't end up making me regret this decision as well.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.