More Roby's from Robby

As someone who had never been a serious player collector before, and who had most certainly never even considered trying to super collect anyone, I've learned a few things rather quickly in the months since deciding to do so -- things that most player/team collectors probably already know, but all of which have been new to me.

a) This is definitely going to be more of a marathon than a sprint! I probably already knew that this would be the case, but it's become much more of a reality as of late. Other than blogging about them, I didn't spend a whole lot of time doing any card stuff this past summer, and October was the busiest month I've had in years, so adding new things to this new(ish) collection has been slow at best so far.

b) Even by little kid standards I was terribly impatient when I was young, nowadays when I look around at our modern have-to-have-it-now world, I often feel like I might be one of the most patient people around. I mention this because I've found that working on this Reggie Roby collection of mine is going to require plenty of patience, especially when it comes to acquiring a few of his more difficult to find cards, and the online sellers that are in possession of them. I feel no pressure to rush things, nor do I have to have everything right now, so I don't mind waiting until prices fall into my range, or just waiting until another lower priced copy of whatever shows up.

c) I'm very glad that I chose to super collect someone who has a finite amount of cards, and who isn't likely to have too many more made of them. Reggie has 143 cards, which is kind of a lot, but is nowhere near the amount of cards that are being produced for most modern players have, or even the more popular retired greats. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to collect a modern player (I'm now convinced more than ever that Brian aka Collecting Cutch might be a bit touched in the head... ha!), but since I don't have much interest in most modern players, this isn't something that I will ever have to concern myself with.

d) People seem to really like helping with player/team collections. Case in point, Robby, he of Detroit Tigers Cards and Stuff (and Twitter), no sooner had I finished posting about the first batch of cards he sent, when another unannounced PWE showed up...

Up until the end of September I had never owned a card from the '86 Topps set before, now I own two! I found a "key rookie" from the set in a dime box (future post) at the super mega card show, which was cool, but not nearly as cool as being gifted the most important (to me) card in the set.

Reggie missed a few games due to injury in '87, which caused him to set career lows in punts and total yards, but on the flipside he also established a career long punt that year as well, 77 yards.

I've talked in the past about Topps' lack of action shots when it came to Reggie's base cards, but unbeknownst to me they did give him at least one "In Action" card fairly early on -- it would only take them five more years to picture him in motion again. BTW, I really dig this card!

1989 saw Reggie being selected to his second of three Pro Bowl's.

It was a bit fortuitous of Robby to send this 1990 Topps (w/ disclaimer) along, as although I already had one, it had minor accident a few weeks before -- to be more specific, it, along with one of his two 1992 Upper Deck cards had a rather unpleasant meeting with a wood floor. I had been carrying my now growing stack of Roby's, along with the binder and a laptop, over to a table where I was going to commence putting said stack of Roby's into said binder, but on the way there my laptop started slipping and when I went stop it from doing so any further... two cards fell onto the floor! Until I moved to my current dwelling, it had been many years since I lived anywhere with wood floors, and if there's one thing that I've learned in the last few years, it's that when cards fall onto wood floors, they always land corner first, and the aftermath is never pretty. On a semi-related note, I do have an unopened box of '90 Topps, which I'm hoping will have the missing disclaimer version in it, but it might be another month or two before I find out (I want to get a bunch of other cards cleaned up before I open any boxes).

Thanks again to Robby for the surprise mailing, I don't get them very often, so when I do it's always a treat. Getting another batch of Roby's also encouraged me to finally make a want list, which has been at the top of the blog for a few weeks now -- although with the Secret Santa now upon us, I would've made a list for that anyway. Speaking of the Secret Santa, if you're interested in participating, and haven't already signed up, you can do so here.


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Rolling in Roby's

I don't know if other bloggers do this or not, but I will often try and predict how well a certain post, if not all posts, are going to go over with the reading audience.

From the initial idea, to the "writing" of, and all the way up until the moment that the publish button is being clicked, a prediction can be made -- and you know something? Even after four years of blogging, I still can't predict what is, or isn't, going to generate interest!

A perfect example of my inability to predict successes and failures, occurred just a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about starting a Reggie Roby collection. I truly didn't think that too many people would be clicking on this one, it was long, rambly, and most damning of all... it was football related! But to my great surprise, this post about a punter who's been retired for over twenty years, actually generated interest, on the blog, and on Twitter.

Aside from the positive reactions, the post also yielded another unexpected (and unplanned)outcome, which was... cards in my mailbox!

I didn't ask for any assistance in the post, but within mere hours of it going live, I had two people offer to help with this new collection. Having blogged for awhile now, I know that I shouldn't have been surprised by this, but I still was nonetheless.

Normally if I were to receive two different packages, I would show them in two different posts, but since the contents in both of the packages I received are for the same collection, I thought I'd go ahead and combine them into one post.

Going by the order of their arrival, Greg, from The Collective Mind, will be going first. I said that I was surprised by people offering to send help with the new collection, which I was, but I wasn't surprised to see Greg among those offering, after all, it is what he does. There are very few who can match his generosity, and I am grateful to have been the beneficiary of said generosity on multiple occasions now.

According to the back of this card, as of 1990, Reggie's 43.4 yards per punt average placed him 8th on the all-time leading punters list. His average wound up dropping to 43.3, and as of 2019, he is tied with Sean Landeta for the #52 spot on that list. As an interesting aside, the top 19 spots on that list are all occupied by guys who have played since 2000.

Love this card! Colbey was setting this one aside for me at the same time that Greg's was in the mail. I'm hoping to still get that one from Colbey though, as I would like to have another one (or more) to put in the Dolphins section of my team binders.

Would you believe me if I told you that until this PWE arrived, I had never seen a single card from the 1992 Skybox set? Well, it's true, this set is completely new to me. And by the looks of it, it would appear that I missed out on a pretty neat set.

The back of Reggie's 1992 All World card mentions him leading the NFL in 1991 with 45.7 ypp, that would be his only year of doing so. There's also a nice action shot on the back, which would've made for a more interesting front:

See!

I guess I can go ahead and cross 1992 Upper Deck off the list (note to self: make a list!).

One thing that I've noticed since deciding to start this collection... Topps was way behind when it came to using action shots of Reggie. Just look at every non-Topps card in this post (I'm counting the back of the All World as well), and you'll see what I mean.

Hey, it's my first Reggie as a Redskin! Looks weird to see him with anyone other than Miami, but he did recover from his down season (injury) in 1992, to give Washington two solid years while he was there.

Thanks for doing what you do, Greg! The selection was really great.

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Next up are the cards that were kindly sent by, Robby, the proprietor of Detroit Tigers Cards and Stuff, although he's much more active on Twitter. I haven't had the good fortune to have had much contact with Robby as of yet, so his offer to send some Roby's kind of caught me off guard, in a good way of course.

Looks like I can now cross 1990 Pro Set off of the eventual list! The Pro Bowl card is one of the two Reggie's that I started with, but getting another one works out really well, as I needed another one to fill the empty space in my team binders that was created when I took the card out to start this new collection. Although, for the record, if I'm ever somewhere and happen to find a few more cheap examples, I'll probably get those too... I really love that card!

Have you noticed yet what I was saying about everyone but Topps using action shots? Now I'm kind of curious to know when Topps first started doing good by Reggie, hold the line for a sec while I go look it up....................................... you still there? Okay, good! Looks like Topps gave Reggie an action shot for the '92 Stadium Club, and then didn't do so again until 1994, which must've been when they finally got the memo, because it appears that he is in motion on most of his cards that year.

Oh man, I had forgotten all about the original Pinnacle cards, can't remember the last time I saw one of these black beauties! Also, notice how even Pinnacle knew to show Reggie in action.

This is what happens when you don't have a list, and two people send stuff right around the same time, not that I mind getting a duplicate though, I'm sure that I'll eventually end up have a page of duplicate Reggie's in the Dolphins section of my team binders... which works for me!

And the capper of Robby's PWE... this beautiful Topps Gold! It's been awhile since I last had one of these in hand, apparently I had forgotten just how vibrant the gold is in person (now if it could just look like that in the scan). I feel like I now need to start collecting another player or two from this era, just so I have an excuse to pick up a few more of these :)

Thank you for reaching out, Robby! Even though you've sidestepped my questions about I can send in return, I will be figuring something out, and will be returning this act of kindness

Seeing as how these two gents finished off my 1993 Topps needs, I thought I'd take a quick look at the two cards together...

... awesome!

Thanks again to both of you for the cards! With the help that was provided, I'm down to needing only 127 more cards... my new goal is to try and get that number to under 100 by the end of the year :)

[Collection update as of 10/5/19: I bought his '95 Finest refractor on COMC this morning for a whopping $0.65!]


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