Some firsts

I thought cutting back to two posts a week would help me with posting more consistently. If the first two weeks of the year are any sort of an indicator though, my plan seems to be having the opposite effect, as I've only managed to finish two posts up to this point.

For what it's worth, I did start three posts last week, with every intention of finishing them, but I guess it just wasn't in the cards (pun intended) for me to do so. Some of it was my fault for allowing myself to be distracted by other non-blog things, namely reading (I finished my fourth book of the year already), TCDB stuff, and doing challenges on COMC (my credit is low, and lots of good things are being added to the site again). Then there was the stuff that I didn't much control over, migraine on Tuesday, and not quite migraine-level headaches on Wednesday and Thursday (it was just one of those weeks), all three of which made computering difficult, and not very desirable. There was also the snow that came at the beginning of the week, and now the snow that has arrived in time to close out the week, which doesn't physically prevent me from blogging, but does have a profoundly adverse affect on my mood, thus making me not want to write anything, or at least not anything that someone would want to read.

There were some high spots though, I worked out a couple of more trades on the TCDB, including a slightly bigger one. I made up the $15 in credit that I spent on COMC last weekend (really good sale on newly added vintage non-sport cards) by doing the challenges. With things starting to move on the site again, I'm thinking we might get a Spring Cleaning sale, and if so, I want to have some play money in place before it starts. The best thing to occur though came on Thursday, that being the arrival of a very unexpected package from, Dennis, he of Too Many Verlanders fame. Not only was the gesture itself a wonderful surprise, but the cards were pretty good too, a few of which were firsts for me.

Jamie Moyer has relic cards? This was news to me! Not that I'm overly surprised mind you, I mean anybody who's played in the last twenty years or so, probably has a dozen plus relics out there, I just hadn't ever looked to see what he had available. Now that I have, I can say that I'm a bit surprised that he doesn't have more. 2004 Upper Deck Awesome Honors Jersey is not a set that I had heard of/seen before. There appears to be two different versions, Gold and Silver, as well as an Update set that has a completely different checklist. As far as Jamie goes, the silver version has white fabric, and the gold contains a dark blue swatch. The gold are not serial numbered, but are supposedly limited to 165 copies of each. I don't usually seek out the relics, but this one is pretty neat, and was a first for me. It's probably silly, but now I kind of want the silver, if only because I could then say that I was able to complete my first relic rainbow.

Moving onto another first, my first Pro Magnet. I've seen these plenty of times online (always scanned as poorly as this one), but had never encountered one in person before. They're much shinier than I had imagined, and just better looking in general than I would've thought. I need more!

I haven't acquired any new Tim Brown cards for quite awhile now (at least a year), Dennis didn't know this (nor did anyone else), but thanks to him I can no longer say that. Oh, and for the record, this is the first card from 1999's Collector's Edge 1st Place that I've ever owned.

Colbey did a Litho-Cel break a few months back that I kind of regret not getting in on, as I can't really afford to get a box anymore, and had always kind of wanted to open one. Participating in that break might've helped with that some. I know that Dennis took a chance on it, but don't know if this card came from that opening or not. I do own one other card from this set, one of the Cels, but it's just a random one that I found in a dime box a few years back, and isn't of someone that I collect, so... I guess I could say that this my first Litho-Cel of someone that I collect, eh?

Coming out of college, I guess it wasn't too much of stretch to think that Ricky Williams might be a "Future Legend", but things don't always go according to plan, they certainly didn't with Ricky's NFL career. Still a fun insert though, my first from this set.

Upon first sight, I thought this was my first football Triumvirate, but once I loaded the scan into the post I remembered that I already had one of Herman Moore, which after a brief search I found sitting in a scan folder waiting to be posted about, so while this Terrell isn't my first football Triumvirate, it is the first one that I've ever shown here on the blog. I don't care who's featured on the card, I absolutely adore these. A lot of 90's stuff has really gone up since the Rona got going, but a lot of great football inserts from that era, like these, are still quite affordable. Some day I'd like to complete one of these trifectas, I have 2 out of 3 on a couple of basketball ones, but have been too forgetful to remember to look up who I need to complete them. In case anyone's curious, John Elway and Shannon Sharpe make up the rest of this particular trio.

Many thanks to Dennis for this wonderful surprise, it brought some joy to an overall not-so-great week. And even though he said that these were belated Christmas cards, last Christmas already feels like it was months ago, so I'm gonna choose to go ahead and just think of these as early 2021 Christmas cards :)

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

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.

Changes (and other things)

I've never done a year in review post before. Nor have I ever done any sort of a goals, collecting or otherwise, post. I don't set personal goals, so the latter would be especially difficult to pull off. That being said, I do have some plans for this new year, and since some of them are blog related, I thought I might do a bit of a year in preview if you will (followed by some odds and ends - this going to be a long one).

I don't really know where to start, or in what order to do this in, so my apologies in advance if any of this feels disjointed.

I've talked about wanting to make changes to the blog title, the blog's content, and other things, off and on for what feels like years now. Some small ones have been made over the years, but never anything too drastic. I'd like to change that!

As card collecting continues to lose it's luster with me, I find my attention often turning elsewhere. Last year that meant returning to a past favorite of mine, reading. Prior to 2020, I hadn't read more than 10 books in a year in at least a decade, while 2020 saw me finishing... well, unfortunately I didn't keep track, but it had to have been at least 35-40 books, as most nights were spent reading. With that in mind, I'd really like to do more book related posts on here, and not just more "here's some books that I got" posts. I'm talking reviews, or at least what passes for a review in my mind, which could be interesting, especially since I haven't done a book review since grade school.

I can't recall if I've already talked about it on here or not, but a few months ago I finally unpacked all of my toy (or action figure if you prefer) boxes. Most of these boxes have been sealed up since my move to TN, which was almost six years ago now. Since I had to leave my good display case behind (it would've never survived the trip), I didn't have anywhere to display this stuff, so the boxes sat mostly undisturbed for all that time. In recent years though, I've acquired three display cases, two are up, and other, which needs some repairs, should be up and running by spring. With some places to display things now, I figured it was time to finally break into the boxes. Having just finished sorting my card collection, and weeding out quite a few unwanted things, I figured that I'd probably be able to do the same thing with my toys, and I was right!

I ended up with a couple of boxes worth of toys that I no longer needed. This process turned out to be much easier than I thought it would, it basically just boiled down to taking something out of a box, figuring out if this something that I hadn't seen in six years still stirred up any emotions, and if didn't, it went to the get rid of pile. As it turned out, a lot of stuff wasn't doing much for me anymore, a couple boxes worth of stuff even. There was however quite a few things that did still do something for me, things with stories attached to them that I'd like to blog about.

Stamps are another thing that I've "threatened" to start posting about more for years now. I'd like this to be the year that I start doing so. I took up stamp collecting in/or around 2008, and it indirectly led me back to card collecting a few years later, so for me they kind of go hand-in-hand now. And like with the cards, I went a little overboard with stamps, and now have quite a few that I no longer want. My stamp collecting has dropped off a bit over the last few years, but I'm planning on going through that collection this year and weeding out the unwanted stuff. The stamps have been calling my name, and I'm hoping that by honing the collection some, I'll be able to focus more on the things (i.e. countries) that I do still care to collect. Who knows, this process may even lead to the first all-stamp Free Stuff Friday? Will that be the least popular edition of Free Stuff Friday ever? I'm thinking so!

I have a few ideas for some new series' as well, although one of them has been rattling around for a while now, that being "From the Vault" (I'm not completely sold on the name yet), which would feature some of my favorite possessions (everything from cards to artwork). My mom recently came across a number of mostly forgotten family photos, which have all been really fantastic to see, especially since I had never seen a lot of them before. These photos have made me want to do my version of a throwback Thursday, although I came with a name for "something" Tuesday while laying in bed one night, and figured that there was no way that I would forget it by the next morning, and you know what? I forgot what it was by the next morning! "Partial Memories" is another series that I've been toying with, which would be just as it sounds, partial memories (I have a lot of those, about a lot of things) of an event, place, etc. If I do start doing any of these, it'll only be on a once per month basis, as some of them may require a little more time than usual to gather the accompanying items/photos, and to compose.

Seeing the recent changes (at least on the desktop version) that, Matt, has made to his primary blog, have made me really want to make some aesthetic changes of my own around here. Not being computer-minded will likely hinder this want though. I'm not going to tell you how long it took me to do what I currently have, but it was a lot longer than it should have. With the changes to content coming, I'm also going to be putting some effort into changing the title. I that a few people like it, but I've grown quite tired of it, I just can't seem to come up with anything else that I like. It would make things considerably easier if I could just start another blog, and move all of the non-card content over there. But I can't maintain two blogs, and even if I could, I'd probably just start posting on the other one and let this one fall by the wayside.

I guess too before I move onto something else, I should note that I'm not sure how soon these changes will come into play, as I have a number of commitments to attend to in the coming months, and am not sure how quickly I'll be able to do the things on here that I want to. Also, even though I've kind of already been doing it more the last month or so, my posting schedule from now on will likely be capped at two posts per week, and if all goes well, that number will probably drop to one per week by year's end. I'm not expecting most of these content changes to be very popular, so to counterbalance that, I'm going to make sure that at least one of my two posts per week will remain card related, or at least sports related.

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A rare-ish Reggie Roby popped up on Sportlots a few weeks ago, and I just so happened to be in the right place at the right time to get it. And when I say rare, I mean that I hadn't ever seen it come up for sale anywhere. Thankfully it's scarceness wasn't reflected in the price, as it only set me back a quarter + a buck for shipping. I was so nervous about wasting any time to purchase it, that I didn't even bother to look through the seller's other items. And speaking of the seller, a big thanks go out to jetcards, not only for listing it, but also for knowing how to properly ship a card, which is highly unusual for a seller on Sportlots.

Other than the fact that this is Reggie's only post career/tribute card, I know next to nothing about the 2005 DHL Miami Dolphins set. I have to assume that it's a regional issue, but beyond that... no clues! But honestly, I don't really care either, I got the one card from it that I wanted, and that's all that matters.

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In other life news, a falling piece of broken cement board siding tried to dash my brains out earlier this week. The corner of it did successfully open up the back of my head as I was leaning down to pick something up, and didn't have time to move. The only time that I ever wear hat is when I'm outside working, and that thin piece of fabric was probably the difference maker as far as me not needing stitches goes. It did bleed, but I was able to stop it by myself. I think I might've gotten a slight concussion too, as every time I stopped moving for the next day and a half, my surroundings did not. Inanimate objects moving around in your peripheral vision isn't as fun as it sounds, it's certainly no Disney movie, let me tell you! Other than the bump, and healing wound, everything seems to be back to normal now (or at least that's what the voices in my head tell me 😝).

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I've been spending more time on the TCDB lately, and am finally learning how to use most of the features. I got really bored entering my collection, or at least the parts of it that I was planning on entering, so I decided to switch to adding trade bait instead. This has been considerably more enjoyable, and I even have three deals in the works already, plus an announced RAK headed my way. I'm thinking that I should've figured out how to use the site much sooner. And I don't know why anybody reading this would want to, but if you ever wanted to look me up there, you can do so here. 

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Did anyone have time off around Christmas? I did, and spent part of it painting the hallway. The trim around the doors still needs to be done, and possibly the doors themselves, but the hard part is done. I took a dozen photos trying to get one the color (pumpkin butter) to show properly, and wouldn't you know it, the one that came closest was in the one photo that I didn't mean to take? Oh well, what are you gonna do. 

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I've been seeing a lot of predictions for the new year, especially those of the card variety, in recent days, and thought that I'd add my one and a half cents. Contrary to many peoples hopes/predictions, I don't see this boom ending any time soon, and I'm talking years. Too many people have already "invested" too much money to let it falter that quickly. Like with most sucky things, it's gonna get a lot worse before it starts to get better.

I do see one positive outcome from all of this though, and that's with card shows, I think post-Rona, card shows are going to see a boom like they haven't since the 90's. After all, they're just another way to make money off of cards, easy money, at least for the promoters, so you have to know that folks are gonna try to capitalize on it. I obviously can't say how good all of these new shows will be, but if they start popping back up in areas that haven't seen any for decades, I would think that pretty much any show is better than no shows.

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And finally, I'm sure many of you have already heard, but China's gift to the world got another one this week, a good one!

Rest easy, Mary Ann.

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Thanks for taking a moment to skim through the page.

I hadn't been dreaming of a white Christmas

When I got up Christmas morning it was 16° with a real feel of 3° outside, making it our coldest morning of the year. And if that wasn't bad enough, it had done this during the night/wee hours of the morning:

At 18/10°, Christmas day became the coldest day of the year, The real feel never got above single digits. It wasn't cool. Or I guess technically it was cool, but it wasn't cool. 

It snowed it a bit more during the day, even though it wasn't supposed to be doing so. I don't know about the weather people in your area, but the so called "forecasters" here, haven't been doing their job so well as of late (or really all year for that matter). 

Knowing ahead of time that it was at least going to be colder than normal on Christmas, my mom and I's now annual Christmas hike had to be taken two days earlier when it was a slightly more comfortable 54° out. [I mention it every year, but for those that don't know, or don't remember, my mom's birthday is on Christmas. A few years ago she suggested going for an impromptu hike on that day, and not being one to deny a birthday request, or need much persuasion to go wander around in the woods, we did; and it's sort of been a tradition ever since]

I didn't take a lot of pictures this year, but did have a nice time nonetheless. Well, save for a pitbull that was briefly pushing my patience to it's utmost extreme. It was obviously someone's pet, but I'm not  huge fan of dogs in general (incident when I was young), especially when they're being aggressive, and pet or not, this one was walking that very thin line between just being annoying and being a threat. 

As I said, the day itself was pretty good, but Wednesday night was a whole 'nother matter. The coming cold front met up with the "warm" air that was already here, which produced big winds all night, and dumping rain the next day. Before eventually turning into snow. I didn't get a lot of sleep Wednesday night (I think I might have a slight case of PTSD from the big storm earlier this year), but at least no trees came down this time, branches yes, trees no.

Despite the snow, and cold, Christmas day itself wasn't too bad. I spent most of the day doing small projects around the house, even completing a few.

And even though I'm long past the asking for anything on Christmas age, I still got a few things, two of which did fit in with the blogs normal content, so...

My mom did really well with this one! Horror magazines are always a welcome sight, Eerie being one of the more desirable for me. It's also a SPECIAL CHRISTMAS ISSUE, so that seemed rather appropriate for the day.

I don't own a coffee table, but am still partial to certain coffee table books.

I haven't started reading it yet, but did skim through the pages. This book is loaded with images of expensive books that I will never own, and hopefully the content will be able to live up to the pictures.

I wasn't feeling very Christmas-y this year, but all-in-all the holiday season turned out to be better than I expected. Given the less than stellar year we've had, I hope that all of you reading this were able to say the same!

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Merry Christmas!

                                                
In case you haven't heard, it's Christmas today, all day even, so I'll make this quick. 

I sincerely hope that everyone who celebrates the holiday is having a good one, and for those that don't, well, I hope that your day is awesome too.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

First Christmas

Childhood amnesia is the common term used for people's inability to remember anything from their first few years of life.

I don't usually do much reading in the field of psychology, but find this particular subject most interesting. I'm not gonna get heavy into it here today, as you can find a gillion articles online, written by far more learned folks than I, but will say that the theories behind why we can't recall our earliest years are as varied as they are numerous. And depending on who's doing the research, or who has written the most current paper, the age in which people are able to recall their first memory can vary from 2 to 8 years of age, with the average being in the 3-5 years old range.

Having read a bit about this subject, paying special attention to false memories, I feel like I, and anyone else who knows anything at all about this subject, can confidently say that no person can recall their first Christmas. Although, in my case, even if childhood amnesia couldn't be used to explain my lack of memory from my first Christmas, a recently unearthed photograph (which I had never seen before btw) taken on that first Christmas of mine, may have produced another excuse for my lack of memory:

Five months old, and already hittin' the sauce!

It's hard to tell from the photo if the day was that good, or that bad. I can't even go by the red eyes, as I've been around red-eyed people who were having a miserable time, and I've also been around red-eyed people who were having the time of their life. Though I do seem to have a bit of that shell-shocked look going on, but that isn't even always the best indicator of how someone is doing.

In all seriousness, this did have to be one of my better Christmases, in fact I know that the first five would've all had to have been pretty great, even if I can't remember any of them. I feel confident in making this assertion if only because those would've been the last five that my grandma was alive for, and we were still one big happy family at that point. It wasn't until after she was gone that everything started going downhill, I should know, I remember those later Christmases.

Not wanting to end the post on a negative note, I will mention that this photo was taken at my grandparents house (in Portland, OR for those that care), where the family Christmas was held through the first eight years of my life. I used to love this couch of theirs, which my grandpa kept until I was around 10 or 11, when he replaced it with a new overstuffed brown couch that was considerably less comfortable, and got way too warm during the summer.

Damn, that still ended on a negative note. Uh, well, that's all I've got for today, so I guess I'll just have to try and be a little less of a jaded Jonny the next time we meet...

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

25 years in the making

I have a ghost of a memory rattling around from what feels like early 1995, but could just as easily be from late 1994 too (huge difference, I know).

It's me and my friend, Steven (he was by best friend for about a decade), at a card shop somewhere in Portland, or possibly Gresham, most likely near the border either way. I can still picture the inside of the shop in my mind, but can't recall for the life of me what the name of it was. It wasn't one that I usually went to, and despite it's huge inventory of all things collectible at the time, it would be gone before I stopped collecting cards in or around 2000.

Steven didn't collect cards, or anything else for that matter, but he did like Pogs, so did I, and that's why we were there, for Pogs!

Word had come down the grapevine that this particular shop had a selection of Pogs like none other, and as it would turn out, that word was correct.

I'm pretty sure that my mom drove us (his parents would never have done such a thing, at least not unless they could've took their television with them. That's all they did when not working, watch television), and upon our arrival, we found the mother lode of all Pog mother lode's. I don't know what their official name is, but have you ever seen those circular discount DVD bins at Walmart? Well, that was basically what was sitting in a corner of this shop, except instead of being full of DVD's (which of course hadn't even come into existence yet), it was full of Pogs, thousands and thousands of Pogs! It was like a mini version of Scrooge McDuck's vault.

I don't recall how they had been priced, but they must've been reasonably so, because it didn't take us long to dive in and start making stacks, or possibly filling bags, I'm not sure. Anyway, at some point, I looked up to say something to Steven, only to find him no longer swimming in Pogs. He was now standing a few feet from our Pog pool, with his back to me, staring intently at some really different looking boxes of cards on one of the shelves that ran around the shop. I remember being annoyed that he was no longer elbow deep in Pogs, especially since that was our soul purpose for being there. I asked him what he was doing, and this part I can remember like it was yesterday, he answered my question with a question of his own, "Have you heard about Magic: The Gathering?". In all honesty, I hadn't heard of it, but I wasn't going to admit that, and as I said, I was a tad bit annoyed, so I replied "Yeah, it looks kinda gay!". [And before anyone loses their sh*t, remember the time period that this took place in. That was a very common way to describe an uncool thing, kids used it a lot, parents used it, heck, I even heard a teacher use it once. I could've sugar coated it, revised history if you will, but that's not what I do around here. I used to say it all the time back then, and am not going to lie and pretend like I didn't]

I'm not too sure about the MTG timeline, and don't feel like looking it up, but this would've been fairly early into it's still ongoing run. And a lot of those early cards are very sought after these days, some of which can fetch insanely high prices. This isn't the place for a MTG history lesson though, so let me finish the story, it's almost over...

After hearing my reply, Steven just let out a sad sounding "yeah...", turned around, and came back to the bin o' Pogs. I'll know that I'll lose most of this memory at some later date, but probably won't ever forget that defeated "yeah", sigh...

Steven never did take up MTG, and thankfully his memory was worse than mine, or maybe he just had better sense than me, either way, he never brought that day up again. And for the record too, I wouldn't have blamed if he had, I mean after all, I basically convinced someone that between Pogs and MTG, Pogs were the way to go 😞. Years later, we got into other CCG's though, namely WWF Raw Deal, and Buffy, neither of which was comparable to MTG in popularity, or potential future profit. We even started to create our card game at one point, but he got tired of all of the "work" that was necessary to create a game from scratch, and bailed on me. I never finished it. It seemed pointless to do so all by myself.

Steven and I ended up taking different paths in our early twenties, but I still think about him from time to time, a lot more so in recent years. And any time I come across one of those "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT OLD MTG CARDS ARE NOW SELLING FOR!" articles, I remember that day at the card shop. 

The ironic part too is that we didn't even stay interested in Pogs that much longer (nobody else did either), maybe a year, but probably less. AND, in recent years, I've started to develop in interest in MTG, and have often wondered if anything would've changed had I just said "No, I've never heard of them, let's find out what they are". 

It's too late for me to take up playing the game, even though it's probably something that I would enjoy, and really would've enjoyed all of those years ago. I can still appreciate the artwork though, in fact that's where my interest lies with MTG. I keep thinking that I'm gonna start buying some singles at some point, especially since I see them for sale often enough (they even sell them at McKay's, individually, and in bulk), but never take the time to look through them.

I say that I want to start picking up singles, which makes it sound like I don't already own any, but I do, one whole card in fact. And not just any old card mind you, no, I went big for my first card - big as in large, not big as in expensive - it's a box topper...

Sometime last year I was doing some challenges on COMC, when this card came up. I fell in love immediately, and put it in my watch list. I had to wait a few weeks for to be added to the site, when it was finally added, it was done so with a $2.50 price tag, and there was no hesitating, I bought it right then and there. 

I don't know which set it's from, nor do I care. And being a box topper, I don't even know if it's playable, or if it was made just for show. I just know that it's a big sexy card that I had to have, not so much for the front either, it was the back that I fell in love with.

I scanned this in the big toploader that it came in, so please excuse all the smudges and scratches.

Look how pretty that is! It's very Guillermo del Toro-ish, don't you think? Well, it is to me. I looked at all of the other box toppers from this set back when I got this, and the rest seemed rather dull compared to this one, so I don't know what the deal is, I'm just glad that they made it. Someday I hope to make a little frame for it, it'd look really good hanging over my desk.

As an aside, a lot of bloggers are showing off their COMC good from this year, but that won't be me anytime soon, I probably won't request my shipment until the spring. In the meantime though, I actually do have a number of scan folders with cards from the shipment that I got right before last Christmas in them. Apparently I've only gotten to a couple of them so far this year (where has the time gone!), so you can expect to probably see some more posts of old COMC stuff sprinkled in throughout the next couple of months -- it took a lot of time to scan them, so you better believe I'm going to show them.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.