The Super Bowl of scan dumps (Part 2)

I'll probably jinx it, but I was surprised by how many people stopped by the previous post. I was gonna say in that one that two football posts in a row is akin to blog suicide, but maybe I'm wrong for thinking that? I'm guessing that the two-part scan dump that'll have to do for basketball in a few months might be a bit rough though. I'll probably have to follow those with a free stuff post just to get folks to come back again.

Similar to the first post, a lot of today's stuff came from COMC, and has been sitting in folders for a few years now. There are few exceptions though, like the above SI for Kids Eric Dickerson, which I had marked as just "TCDB". I don't recall getting it, but it must've been part of a trade some years back. I may not remember getting it, but I do really like the card. It's always fun to be able to add those cards to player collections. Even more so if said player collections are in binders, as these cards can really brighten up a page.

I'm pretty sure that this was the only time that Ernie Ladd was ever referred to as "Little Samson". Someone at Fleer must've thought that he needed a nickname. It didn't stick. A few years later people would come to know him as "The Big Cat", which was a moniker that he proudly wore for the rest of his life. If you're like me and gonna own only one '63 Fleer, this is a pretty good one to have.

I originally bought this card for myself, as I really liked the colors when I first saw it, but somewhere in-between the buying and getting I fell out of love with it. That happens to me more than it probably should. At least in this case though, Steve was able to find a good home with Fuji.

Wild Card stripes are a real bitch for player collectors, especially those elusive 1000's. I think this 50 is the only one I have for Ronnie's "rainbow" so far.

I don't know who, or if, anyone still owns the Action Packed name, but if it could be done right, i.e. look like it used to, I'd be all for seeing the brand's return. Of course the way things are now, it'd probably end up being a Leaf product, and end up being Action Packed in name only.

This card had been on my want list for quite awhile prior to getting it. I know I had bid on, and then subsequently lost out on multiple copies on eBay. Under the photo in my scan folder I had noted the price of $1.50, which I must've thought was good at the time to have wanted to save it. This was, and still is, my only card of Fran as a Giant. I really should work on getting more.

Despite not being very interested in modern happenings, I found myself quite enthralled with Alex Smith's situation a few years back. As far as comeback stories go, his was one of, if not the most impressive that I can recall. Not only was his determination to return amazing, but his story also highlighted just how far sports medicine has come (now if the rest of the medical profession could just catch up). Like all modern players, Alex has close to 3 trillion cards out there, which I didn't want to collect all of, but did, thanks to his saga, want to pick up a few. I ended up targeting red cards only, mostly just because he played for three teams who had red in their jersey colors, which all look really good on red parallels.

I got all of the card in this post (as well as a few more) right around the time of his return, and despite the media attention, there didn't seem to be a lot interest from other collectors in his stuff. Because of that, I was able to get pretty much all of the cards I did for less than a buck apiece, including some that were serial-numbered.

I'm not really all that big on refractors anymore, but this one is just awesome in person. I think too that this was the only card of his that I paid more than a buck for. It's also my favorite. My collection as it were, ended up at around a dozen cards. I haven't been actively looking for anything to add to it, but I probably will start doing so at some point.

This scan and next one contain the oldest purchases from these last two posts. I'm not as into the Kellogg's 3-D cards as a lot of the other bloggers seem to be, but I do really like the two football sets, and if I weren't afraid of them all cracking eventually, I'd love to collect both sets. It's been so long that I can't even remember why I got Ed Meador. Dave Wilcox is one of a handful of former Ducks that I actively collect. And I had an idea to start seeking out cards of guys doing the Heisman pose, hence the Lance's inclusion. I didn't get very far with that collection, but it's not one that I've abandoned either.

All six of the Kellogg's came from the same seller, and if I remember correctly, the ones in the first row were around a dollar each, while these three were around two dollars apiece; which seemed like a pretty good deal given their collective star power. I actively collect all three of these guys, Mel, because of Ducks again, Alex, for his post football career, and Deacon, because he was a destroyer of worlds.

I was eight years old when Action Packed first came onto the scene, and I can remember being completely blown away by their look the first time I saw them. I never got more than a few packs, but have as of late I've really been thinking about trying to build the set via a box (or two if need be). These two came from Sportlots last year, and both went towards my Reggie Roby run. I can't keep track of the Collector's Edge parallels, but this was one of them.

And from another Sportlots order, this Silver Die-Cut(?). Part of me wishes that Reggie had been able to play longer so that I'd have more cards of his to collect, but then the other part is glad that he didn't, otherwise I'd have considerably more kooky parallels to have to try and track down.

   

I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to tack on a newer purchase to the end of this second post. A recent lot from eBay really helps my burgeoning 1990 SLU set. 

The lot was made up of eight cards, and as you can see, four guys were "complete". Finding cards paired together like this really makes things easier. It seems like though, despite each figure coming with two cards, more often than not you just see singles being offered for sale. I think that this lot was a perfect example too of why I'm getting so much enjoyment from the SLU cards, in that these were all guys that I remember from my earliest days of getting football cards, but they're being shown on cards that A). I haven't already collected once before, and B). that I haven't seen a million times over the years. Both of which make collecting a set much more fun for me.

I'm getting this one in just under the wire. As mentioned in the previous post, I won't be partaking in tomorrow's festivities, but for those that will be doing so, have fun; but don't overdo it. And for those out driving, be careful, there's probably gonna be a lot of drunks out there on the roads; before, and after, the game.

The Super Bowl of scan dumps (Part 1)

One of my unofficial goals for this blog, this year, is to finally get all of my old scans, some of which have been collecting virtual dust for upwards of three years, into posts. I don't know how doable this'll be, what with me only posting a couple of times a month on here now, but I'm still gonna try to have all of the old folders cleared by year's end.

I think that the easiest way to achieve this goal will be to do a series of themed scan dumps (like I did last Halloween). One a month might be enough to get caught up, and still allow me to talk about other things in-between dumps (😄). 

The first batch for this year will be a two-parter in honor of the coming Super Bowl. 

As I've said on many occasions, I haven't watched a current sporting event in many years now, with the Super Bowl being no exception. I can't remember what year it was, but the last one that I watched was the Patriots v. Seahawks.

I'm so out of touch with what's currently happening that I couldn't even tell you whose playing this year. The only reason I know it's coming is from hearing commercials on the radio. In year's past, you could know the game was coming by all of the commercials about the "Big Game" starting up. Those are still a thing, but in recent years you also get an influx of commercials for sports betting apps/sites as well. You know those, right, the one's that promise you the potential for fabulous riches if you'd just be willing to bet next week's paycheck. I'm sure that I'm in the minority, but I can't be the only one who thinks that those ads are gross. I hear them so often now that's already becoming hard to remember that there was a time when such things were considered taboo.

Anyway, despite my zero interest in current football happenings, I do still collect football cards; though I don't get them nearly as often as I used to. And when I do, they're are usually just for player collections (there's a few exceptions to that in this post).

Everything in this post came from COMC, and I believe that it's all been sitting in scan folders for at least two years, which - since I only request my stuff from them to be shipped once a year - means some of these could've been purchased upwards of 3-4 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that I got this card and the Bethea up top from the same seller, and only did so at the time because A). They were extremely cheap, and B). I didn't own a card of either guy and thought, at the time, that I should. Now that a couple of years have passed, I'm not so sure that I needed to.

Color-matching Prizms became all the rage for basketball collectors after the boom got going (mostly thanks to "influencers"), but I don't know if that same craze ever carried over to football. My interest in all things Prizm pretty much died once the boom started, and I've since sold off the bulk of my Prizm cards. I did keep all of the ones I had in player collections though. I think that this one in particular might just be one of my favorites, and is also one of my favorite Ronnie Lott cards (that I own).

I like the 2014 purple Prizm that I have for Fran a lot more than this 2015, but for less than a buck (I don't think that I would've paid more than that for it) this one isn't too bad. John Bunting didn't appear on a lot of cards, so it's kind of neat to see him lurking in the background of this one.

I briefly thought about collecting Tim Tebow, and I must've bought these two during that period. The thought didn't last long, and honestly, if I hadn't had these scanned I probably wouldn't have even remembered getting them. They're nice enough cards, I guess, but they're not doing anything for me these days.

Speaking of cards that aren't doing anything for me. I really enjoyed watching Mike Alstott play and did start collecting him a few years ago, but it wasn't until after I started doing so that I realized that his cards appear in an awful lot of sets whose designs are unappealing to me visually (I had the same problem with Ichiro). So, while I'd love to collect him, the thought of having a binder full of ugly cards, that I'd never want to look at, forced me to stop doing so. And even though I've decided recently to take on some SLU sets, this isn't one of them, so it's expendable. Fuji recently mentioned having a couple of binders of SLU cards, so I'll give him first crack at it. If he doesn't need it though, it'll be available (for nothing in return) to whoever else might want it. 

As far as set designs go, the '62 Topps Football is arguably the most unique from that decade. The little inset photo is where it's all about for me. The photo on this card is particularly good. It's hard to tell if John got that pass off or not. It looks like he did, but who knows. I'd also be curious to know who #74 in the photo is. I only know of two players from that time that wore #74, Bob Lilly, who it most certainly isn't, and Merlin Olsen, who was just drafted in '62, so it doesn't seem like it could be him either. 

John Brodie isn't a guy that I actively collect, but if I come across any cheap cards of his I won't turn them down.

Were it still doable, I'd love to try and collect all of the 90's Dufex parallel sets, but I think I'm a couple of decades too late such an attempt though. I'll just have to continue to be content with the ones I get for player collections. I'm not sure too, but I think that that's Natrone Means that Steve is about to bring down. I haven't heard Natrone's name mentioned in years, I should probably go see what he's been up to.

Seeing as how his cards are still so cheap, I really should put more effort into completing my Papa Nerf collection. As it stands, I've only got like 4 or 5 of his cards; though one of his better one's is in my coming COMC shipment. I don't how unique it is amongst kickers, but I always thought it was kind of interesting that he never missed a single game during his 15-year career.

Looking through my old scan folders sometimes leave's me wondering what I was thinking when I scanned certain things; this one being a perfect example. I mean, aside from both being for player collections, these two cards have zero things in common (okay, I guess they're both parallels, but...) and don't even look good scanned together.

It looks like shit in the scan, but those old Collector's Choice gold parallels still look really good in person. And their one-per-box ratio means that they can still be difficult to find (depending on the player, of course) thirty years later. This is another set that I wish I would've started working on back when they were new. I don't know if it would be completed by now if I had, but I'm sure that I'd have more than the three cards from it that I currently have.

The J-Stew is kind of an ugly die-cut from his stint with the Giants, which I never saw any of, but it's still sort of color matching, and had to be very cheap for me to have bought it.

Speaking of J-Stew...

All of these are blue parallels of one kind or another too, which look a bit better with his Panthers jersey than the light blue/Giants combination up above. I can't remember what it's called, but the Prizm on the right is my favorite from group.

I think if I didn't have anything else to collect, I'd seriously consider trying to complete full runs (i.e. all of the colors) of the old McDonald's sets. I really do like them. It's just not in the "cards" right now. 

My Steve Young collection has really fallen by the wayside since I stopped going to shows. The same could be said for Eric Dickerson too. In fact, I think that these last two cards might've been the last two that I've added to their respective collections. If you blink you might miss that this is a 1st Day Issue. The stamp doesn't stand out quite as much as it does for those of the baseball and basketball varieties. Still a neat card though.

The last three cards in this post are a bit off-beat for a football card post, but I don't know where else to put them, so...

Saved by the Bell: The College Years was the shits, and as a kid I found it to be a bit depressing as well. In my opinion, this card, a Prism insert of Bob Golic as Mike Rogers, is the only good thing that ever came from this shows existence. I think I have three copies in my Bob Golic collection, and am always up for getting more.

Ted Fritsch is best know for his time with the Green Bay Packers, but he also played in the NBA during it's early days, and even spent a year playing minor league baseball. I believe that this 1977 Fritsch One Year Winners is his only baseball card. I had an idea for a mini-collection that never panned out, and therefor no longer need this card, so if anyone wants it just say the word.

American Gladiators was a huge part of my childhood/early teen years. For fans of the show, who are also card collectors, aside from Topps' 1991 Gladiators release, there aren't a whole lot of options out there. To my knowledge, only two autographs of Gladiators have appeared in sets thus far, Lee Reherman, who was Hawk, being one of them (Jim Starr in Topps' 75th Anniversary set being the other). It's a bit of a stretch, but Lee did play football at Cornell University, hence his inclusion in this post.

My recent health issue (as mentioned on my non-card blog) has made computering rather difficult as of late, so this post is showing up much later in the week than I wanted, but I'm still gonna try and get part two out before the "Big Game", which I'm assuming (based, again, on the increase of radio ads) is this Sunday.

The harbinger

Something strange has been happening.

Over the course of the last six weeks or so, four of my fellow bloggers have seen fit to send me something. And these haven't been just any old something's, no, these mailings have all been of the extremely thoughtful variety.

I'm at a bit of loss as to why I've been on the receiving end of so much generosity all of sudden. I haven't done anything of note for anyone in real life, or online, as of late. In fact, I've been feeling kind of prickish for the last couple of months, and have done very little to hide it. I'd like to think that this hasn't been one of those instances of good things happening to bad people, but if it isn't, I don't know how else to explain it. Although, I suppose with my ever increasing forgetfulness, that I did something awesome for somebody, and either can't remember it, or didn't realize that I had even done it? Or maybe, I'm about to do something awesome for someone, and these have all just been a universal pre-thank you. I think I'll choose that one. So, lookout world, I'm about to do something awesome! 😉

In the meantime...

I fully intend to post about all of these recent gifts, although I'm doing so out of order. I just covered the second one the other day, and am now circling back to the one that kicked all of this off.

I don't recall when it was exactly, but I got an email from, Greg, everyone's favorite Borg connoisseur from The Collective Mind, asking if I'd be interested a couple of extra Bo Jackson Star sets that he had picked up during he and his friend's annual week-long card shop crawl (I don't know how they do it!). Not having much to send out to people anymore, I usually decline (politely) offers like this, but having never come across any of these at a show, or even online, that I know of, I found myself unable to turn them down.

Having only been acquainted with them since returning to collecting, I admittedly know very little about the early nineties Star sets. I know that a lot of popular athletes of the time got their own sets, and that the sets are usually "limited" to a certain amount that were produced, but other than that, I've got nothing. 

Not being right in front of me at the moment, I believe that this Silver one is from '91. A couple of decent images in there, but I think I like the variety...

... offered in this Gold 1990 set a little bit more! I have my Bo binder arranged a little differently than my other player collections. I have his baseball playing days Royals, White Sox, and Angels separated by team, with the post playing days stuff after that. The playing days football is separated from the post playing days stuff. Broder's are separated as well. I guess now I'll be adding some Star pages to the mix as well.

Greg sent about two team bags worth of stuff to go along with the Star sets, which was way too much to scan, so I'm just gonna hit some of the highlights. I've seen a lot of Bo Broder's over the years, but this one was new to me. It's one of those double-sided affairs.

Moving on to some of the non Bo's...

I never bought any packs of Skybox Impact, and aside from possibly a Reggie Roby, I'm not sure if I even own any cards from the set. Apparently Ronnie was featured somewhat prominently throughout one of it's subsets. One of these days I'll have to look and see if anyone else got this many cards in it.

Few guys can say they could hit as hard as Ronnie Lott, Stevie Atwater is one of those guys. Both guys probably wouldn't even be allowed to play in today's NFL. Two of these four were new, and the other two were much appreciated upgrades.

I think I've only mentioned Mike Alstott once on the blog, and that had to be a couple of years ago. How Greg was able to remember that I do not know. There were a lot of Alstott's in this package, which is kind of good news/bad news sort of thing. The bad news is that at some point since I mentioned him, I realized that he has a lot of uninteresting cards, and decided to shelf the idea of collecting him. I took what I had, which wasn't much, and just added them to my random binder of 90's football. Now for the good news, most of the cards that Greg sent were pretty neat, and will also be going to that binder, or possibly a second one, as the first one is getting awfully full. I seem to like a lot of different 90's football cards, many for different reasons.

I have the foil version of the card on the left, so that'll be nice to be able to pair them up now. And I thought that I had scanned them together, but I'm not finding it. Either way, there was three copies of the middle card included, which is something that I'm all about. The card on the end is an insert, and like most 90's inserts, scanned like 💩.

Greg must have the memory of an elephant, because I'm pretty sure that I've only ever mentioned Jim Everett on the blog once before as well. At least I haven't stopped collecting him though, I'm just not doing so actively at the moment. I'm sure if I ever start going to shows again, I'll pick his collection back up. In the meantime, I'm just setting aside any cards of his that I come across. There were about a dozen cards of his in this mailer, many of the shiny variety, and yet, my favorite of the bunch was the very un-shiny 1993 Topps in the top left corner. Such a great action shot!

Though a longtime fan, I didn't realize that Stan had gotten so many neat cards over the years until I started actively seeking them out.

See what I mean! Of the 50 or so cards that I now have of him, I can't say that a single one is uninteresting. He's gotta have some, everybody does, but I just haven't seen any of them yet.

Many thanks to Greg for the Bo sets, and for all of the unexpected extras that were accompanying them. 

Also, sort of inspired by this mailing, I decided to put back up some want lists, at least temporarily. People do occasionally ask me about such things, so hopefully this'll prevent them from having to waste any of their time sending me an email. Also, even though it worked out okay this time, the lists should prevent any confusion as to who, or what, I'm currently collecting. They're still a work in progress, but since I always get so uncomfortable having anything like that up, there's every possibility that I'll take them down again before they get finished. I'm so uncomfortable even mentioning them, that I'm more than half tempted to delete them right after this post goes live. I guess if you're reading this a couple of days from now and there's no longer any pages at the top of the blog, you'll know what happened 😓.

Oh no, not another top 10!

My interest in trading on the TCDB comes and goes. It can be fun, but more often than not it requires a lot more effort than I like to put into things involving cards. And as shocking as it may sound to some of my fellow bloggers, I'm not always convinced that the reward is worth that effort. I guess it just depends on the week, or whether or not I have anything else going on, or even if I just don't feel like spending an hour or two packing things up -- as that often feels like "work" work to me, and that's not how a hobby should feel.

Prior to my blogging absence, I accepted like 12 (possibly more) trade offers over a 1-month period, got burned out on trading, and have only done one since. Much like last week's post, I knew I'd want to show a few things off when I started blogging again, but wasn't about to scan all 100+ cards that came from those trades, so instead I picked out twelve for scanning purposes, and am now making yet another top 10 list (12 going in to 10 will make more sense momentarily). Originally I wrote down who sent what, but have since misplaced the piece of paper, and wasn't about to go look at old trades and write it all down again, so here's some cards from some people...

#10: 1988 Topps #750 Bo Jackson 

I led off the previous post with a 1992 Donruss Bo Jackson, which led me to mentioning that now that almost 30 years have passed, I have softened quite a bit on the '92 Donruss design. Today's post sees me leading off with a 1988 Topps Bo Jackson, but unlike the last post, I'm not gonna be able to wax poetic about the '88 design. This is the first set that I can recall opening packs from, and yet I have absolutely no affinity for it. I don't think any amount of time will be able to pass for the nostalgia factor to start kicking in, as I just don't like the set, and I can't imagine a day coming where I will ever feel any different about it. Bo's card is okay, although it would've been a lot better had his right foot not been amputated by that dumb name stripe.

#9: 1984 Topps #127 Reggie Roby

It took longer than expected, but I finally got ahold of Reggie's rookie. It's not a valuable card by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it difficult to come by, it's just kind of a boring card - in fact, it may be his most uninteresting card - and I wasn't in any sort of hurry to acquire one. I knew I would get one at some point, and as expected, I did! As mentioned, it's a terribly boring card, and I'm not a fan of '84 Topps, it's easily my least favorite 80's football set, so why is it making the list? Well, it was my last "new" Double R, so... yeah, moving on...

#8: 1992 Topps Football's Finest #15 Ronnie Lott

I can't remember for sure (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), but I think this was Topps' first Finest set, and even if it wasn't, I am of the opinion that they could've stopped after this one, because they never topp[s]ed this design. And I'm not sure why, but this set isn't as prone to Hulking as all of the other early Finest sets -- no silly peels to deal with either! 

#7: 2004 Maryland Lottery Baltimore Orioles 50th Anniversary #8 Mike Cuellar and #43 Boog Powell

I think that Nick and I were just finding out about the Maryland Lottery cards around the same time, or at least that's the impression I got when I saw a semi-recent post of his that featured Boog's ML offering in it. I only happened upon them by chance while looking at Mike Cuellar's checklist on the TCDB. After looking at the entire ML checklist, I added these two to my wantlist, and then received a trade offer with both of them in it less than six hours later. Was it magic? I believe so, and no one can convince me otherwise :)

I don't know how these were distributed, nor do I care; I got the two that I wanted, and that's all that matters to me.

#6: 1992-93 Topps #143 (base and gold) Jerome Kersey

Sorry for the bad scan, I didn't realize I had placed the cards on the tray so poorly.

It's kind of depressing to think that this card is less than 30 years old, and two of the four guys pictured are no longer with us. Jerome's been gone for a few years now, and Mark passed just a few months ago. Although if we're being technical, the photo itself is at least 30 years old, as it was taken during the 1991-92 season, that year's Western Conference Finals if I'm not mistaken (Blazer won the series 4-2). The photo being from the previous season is easy enough to tell because Blue Edwards (#30 in the background) wasn't with the Jazz during the '92-93 campaign. So anyway, I consider it to be a great image, albeit one that's also a little depressing at this point.

#5: 1993 SCD Sports Card Pocket Price Guide #6 Eric Dickerson

Aside from the SI for Kids and occasional Tuff Stuff sheet, I never saw/knew about any of the other perforated or "U-Cut"  magazine cards (or basically everything that wasn't a promo) when I was growing up. I learned about the Topps Magazine cards once I started reading the blogs, and have only found out about most of the rest in the last year or so. I've been kind of infatuated with all of the "other" magazine cards as of late, and was able to acquire a few through trades, including this nifty Eric Dickerson. Sports Card Digest used the '73 Topps football design for their 1993 set, and for the most part I think it looks really good, even on the non-footballers. I like the fact that these magazine sets seemed to have used photos that we all haven't seen a hundred times before, or since. Having never handled any before, I was a tad surprised by how thin these cards are (thinner than SI for Kids); in other words, one wrong move, and you're gone end up with a severely creased card!

#4: 1993 Cartwright's Players Choice #2 Manon Rheaume

From one magazine card to another, this time with foil! I have no idea which magazine this set came from, but I really dig their look (they sure don't scan very well though). Any other post, and this card probably would've taken the top spot, but Manon had some tough competition...

#3: 1992-93 Topps Stadium Club Member's Only #99 Jerome Kersey

Gerald Wilkins was no match for Jerome in his prime, so in this instance, his decision to duck out of the way was probably the wisest course of action. Love this photo!!!

2: 1992 Impel The Uncanny X-Men #41 Magneto

Despite my not wanting to build sets anymore, I'm glad I decided to go back and try and finish this set, it's been a nice little distraction, and has provided all kinds of nostalgia; enough so, that I'm already thinking of trying to build something else after this one's completed.

#1: 1993-94 Fleer #312 James Edwards

Modern basketball leaves a lot to be desired, modern basketball cards even more so. Sure, they have glitz for days, manufactured scarcity, and all the other bells and whistles that can be mustered up, but I dare you to find me a card from the last ten years, hell, twenty years, that features a better image than this. Go ahead, I'll wait; but in the meantime I'll be over here smiling at the sight of a 5'3" Muggsy Bogues bodying up to a 7'1" James Edwards. Can you capture a photo of someone's thoughts? It must be possible, because James' thoughts are as clear as day, and despite the joy that comes from their glaring height discrepancy, the "look" is what sells this card; or at least it does for me.

Formal trading may not always be my thing, but in small doses it can sometimes not be so bad -- these 12 cards being testament to that. Many thanks to all of the various traders who were able to make them happen.