Thursday, November 2, 2023

#30

I have had zero luck this year in adding any more copies to my "hoard" of 1961 Topps Billy Muffett's. Online prices have gotten silly, I don't do shows anymore, and my attempts to trade for any via the TCDB have all been met with silence. Once those avenues have been eliminated, there aren't a whole lot of other options available. Cue the email from, Greg, everyone's favorite Borgophile (if that hasn't already been trademarked, I'm doing so now) over at The Collective Mind, who let me know that he found one of my coveted Billy Muffett's at a recent show. 

I'm not the sort that people usually go out of their way to find things for at shows, so that, combined with my having been shut out on any new additions thus far in 2023, makes this a greatly appreciated mailing. That being said, if someone was gonna find a copy at a show for me, Greg was probably gonna be the one to do so. Finding things on other people's want lists is kind of his thing.

I hadn't had any reason to get into the binder that this "hoard" is in as of late, so had anyone asked me prior to yesterday how many I had, I wouldn't have been able to tell them. Turns out that this was #30. That might not sound like a lot to some, but I think thirty copies of a card from 1961 is pretty impressive. 

Greg, being Greg, also sent along another fella to keep Billy company...

I didn't have time yet to look and see if I needed this card, but it doesn't look overly familiar. I feel like I'd remember an instance of Reggie defying gravity. And if I do somehow already have one, it's certainly not a bad card to have two copies of. I suspect that at some point down the road my Reggie collection is gonna have a few pages that are just dedicated to multiple copies of certain cards.

Thanks again to Greg for taking the time to find one, or possibly two, of my wants. They're greatly appreciated!

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Scaring up something for Halloween

I've been trying to come up with something fun to do on here for Halloween this year, but me and fun don't seem to be on the same wavelength as of late.

I hate to be yet another blogger using 'I've been busy' as an excuse, but I'm gonna have to in this instance. Things have been go, go, go since summer started, and have somehow managed to move into an even higher gear over the last few weeks. I don't expect this pace to continue much longer; which will be nice, because I. Am. Tired. Mentally and physically. In the meantime though, all of my blogs have suffered. Creativity and desire have been on back order for many months now, and I don't know when the supply chain will get caught up.

Between a couple of COMC orders (that now go back at least three years), some select items from the Sportlots box I got earlier this year, and about half a dozen eBay wins from last year, I'm sitting on quite the stockpile of scans. Not being able to think of anything else, I decided to look through all of my scan folders and see if there was anything that would be appropriate for a Halloween post. To my surprise, there was; quite a bit in fact. So, as it turns out, I guess I'm doing an old-fashioned scan dump for Halloween. And while isn't creative in the least, I think I can honestly say that there's a few things in here that you don't see on the blogs very often, if ever, so that's something, I guess.

Starting with the COMC folders...


Ray Milland garnered a bit of a reputation later in life for accepting pretty much any role he was offered, and as such ended up appearing in a number of low budget horror films; often times being the best part of said low-budget horror films. He did make a few earlier in his career as well, including one of my all-time favorites, The Uninvited

This "card" is from my oldest COMC scan folder of unshown items. I think it was purchased during the height of Corona-mania, back when we had to wait years to get our items shipped. Ah, good times! I really like the old Dixie ice cream lids, but rarely think to search for them. This one is from '42, and I wanna say that I paid around two bucks for it, which I thought was pretty good considering it's immaculate condition.


Elsa Lanchester appeared in a number of horror films as well, none more famous than The Bride of Frankenstein, which incidentally was the first Frankenstein picture that I ever saw. Conversely, she also appeared in my second favorite Christmas film, The Bishop's Wife. This card was actually gotten for a themed Bishop's page that's still in progress.
I like the '75 and '76 Marvel sticker sets quite a bit, and if I didn't have a so many other things to collect already, I'd probably try to complete the sets. As it stands as of now though, I'm only really trying to get a few choice ones, this Dracula being one of them. If I recall correctly, Dracula has three total stickers from those two sets. This one is my favorite of those three.

Alien was one of the first modern scary horror/sci-fi pictures that I saw. As such, I don't think I'll ever forget a couple of those jump scares. There pretty ingrained in my head. This card is part of my Kolchak
collection. I don't expect anyone reading this to care, but he starred in the episode "The Devil's Platform"

There was nothing scary about Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but without any context, this card could appear to be of a scary nature. Horrors of the deep? Most of the cards in this set are surprisingly boring, mostly because they're all just from the first season. Had they made any follow-up sets, cards based on future seasons would've been a lot more interesting, as the fun stuff really picked up after that first year. This is by far the best card in the set, and had been a want of mine for many years. And at around $4, it's also the third most expensive card in this post.

Seems like another time when pictures like Alien and Jaws 2 got card sets that were marketed towards children, though Jaws 2 was a PG film. I don't think it would get a PG rating in 2023. It would've been a lot neater if the first film hadn't gotten a card set, but the set for Jaws 2 did provide a couple of cool cards, like this sticker. I'd like to fill a whole page with this one, but I'm a ways away, as I think that this was only my second or third copy.

Like a lot of folks my age, I grew up with GPK; for better or worse. I think I might have lost interest in them a lot sooner than most kids though. One can see a Cabbage Patch kid vomiting or being maimed in some terrible way only so many times before it becomes repetitive and/or repulsive. That being said, I bought these two strictly because of their theme (and because they weren't gross). Had the sets been more like this, I might've stuck around a little longer. 

[Note: I can never remember which way to scan things side by side so that they appear in order, hence these being backwards]

Despite my having seen all of the original Nightmare on Elm Street films, mostly at parties or sleepovers, I am not a fan. I couldn't tell you why, they just never did anything for me. That being said, I am a fan of Robert Englund's other work, and of him as a person. I have a page in a binder just for him. I've never watched any iteration of Babylon 5, so this card of his flew under my radar for a long time.


Bo Diddley's "Bo Meets the Monster" has been appeared on a few Halloween compilations over the years, and is probably on a million internet playlists these days, so I think that's enough to warrant his inclusion into this post.

Another 70's set from Topps to target a slightly older audience was 1976's Shock Theatre. It was marketed as set celebrating all things Hammer (Films), but instead focused very heavily on their Dracula pictures. It's still an awesome set , albeit a little expensive, if you're into their Dracula series, but could've been a lot more interesting had they featured scenes from the studios entire horror catalogue. And I think I've mentioned it before, but I'm not big on assigning "rookie card" status to non-sport subjects. That being said, for those that are into that sort of thing, despite not being mentioned anywhere, the card on the right could be considered Caroline Munro's "rookie card". Oh, and Caroline Munro 😍. She was one of my early crushes.

It's not very impressive, but I do have a bit of a Jack O' Lantern collection going. I probably could've save myself a bunch of time and just showed for today.

If it were even remotely possible to collect all of the dozens (hundreds?) of Dutch Gum sets that came out from the 50's through the 70's, I would probably try to do so. That'd be a lifetime endeavor, and I'm much too old to start such a pursuit at this point, but that's okay, I'm more than content to just pick up a few choice cards here and there. I have a bit of a Yvonne De Carlo collection going, which, like a lot of my collections, probably wouldn't impress many, but I thought that this was a nice add. The Munsters were a staple of my childhood, and I'm a big fan of her earlier, non-horror, pictures. Like Ray Milland, she didn't seem to turn down anything later in life, and as such appeared in a ton of bad horror films; much more than Ray.

Bonanza was on, and extremely popular, during most of the time that Dutch Gum were producing sets. Knowing that, it should come as no surprise that it's stars appeared on dozens of cards over the years. And given that sets were marketed to young people at the time, it's even less of surprise that of the show's stars, Michael Landon seems to have appeared the most. To me, he'll always be Tony Rivers in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and to a slightly lesser extent, Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven.

There's nothing that I can say about Boris Karloff that hasn't been said by many people before. He and Bela Lugosi were a major part of my childhood, as 30's and 40's horror was a mainstay on our television. Boris had a much more successful career, thus he appeared on considerably more trading cards than Bela. It's not very often that I can add a "playing days" card of Boris to my collection, so it's always kind of a big deal when I do.

That's the end of the COMC portion of the post. I guess if I'm trying to go chronologically, scan-wise, a pair of eBay gets from late last year should go next.

I've tried on two separate occasions over the years to get into Twin Peaks, but I just can't seem to do so. As the kids might say, it's apparently not my jam. Never getting past the first two episodes, I have no idea how large of a role Everett McGill played in the series, but I do know that he had a major role in Silver Bullet, as Reverend Lowe; which is why this had been yet another card that I had wanted for a few years before finally winning this semi-cheap copy (I think it was around $15 at the time). Silver Bullet had a big impact on me as a child, and not in a good way. I love the film as an adult, but that wasn't always the case. This post is already getting longer than most of you would want, so I'll save my Silver Bullet story for another time. That'll probably be one for my Nonsense blog, as there'll be no cards involved.

Forever Knight was one of my favorite shows as a kid/teen. The first run of episodes were part of CBS' Crimetime after Primetime. They were on pretty late, so we used to record them to watch the next day (I wish I still had some of those original recordings, but tapes were usually reused until they started showing signs of wear). Things were made easier a few years later when the show went into syndication on the Sci-Fi channel. The marathons were especially appreciated, what with the show still being some years away from being released on DVD and all. Only three people from the show have official autographed cards out there, John Kapelos being the biggest name of the bunch. He played Nick Knight's (the main character) partner, Det. Schanke, for the first two seasons. None of the vampires from the show have autographs, or even any commercially produced cards; which is terribly annoying. I've thought about trying to get one of the blogosphere's custom makers to make me cards of them, to either try to get signed through the mail, or to just have for a binder page -- but haven't gone any further with the idea yet.

Earlier this year I got my first box shipment from Sportlots, which was mildly exciting at the time. I thought that its contents were gonna provide at least a few posts worth of, well, content -- but after getting it, and seeing that there was around 200 cards to potentially scan, my plan to post about them kind of fell by the wayside. That's just too many cards for me to scan anymore. I think I ended up doing about a quarter of them, and so far, maybe 3-4 of those have appeared on the blog. The good news is though, of those 50 or so scanned cards, I actually found 8 that were appropriate for this post, so...

Another Robert Englund card for his page, this time from one of the Charmed sets, which is another show that I never watched. The cards in this sets done on some kind of greenish/aqua colored foil, and look really good in person, not so much in this scan though.

This one is a bit of a stretch for this post, but the 1985 Garfield Halloween special has been amongst my favorite Halloween things for basically as far back as I can remember. I can't remember every specific year, but I do know for a fact that I've seen it every year since it's original airing (the same goes for the Thanksgiving and Christmas specials as well). I got a few cards from this set to make up a page for my childhood binder, this one being my favorite. And with Jim in a costume, it seemed like the appropriate card to use in this post.

The two Cornerstone Hammer Films sets that came out in '95 and '96, are in many ways what Topps' Shock Theatre should've been. They could've been a tad more expansive, but they did cover more than just the Dracula pictures. Here we get a second sighting of both Christopher Lee and Caroline Munro.

I got like 20 cards from the first series, but only scanned three, as I didn't think there'd be much interest in them. I really like the movie poster cards in the set, which if I recall correctly, I got all of them. The Gorgon is my favorite Hammer film, although depending on what day you asked me, I might also say that it's tied with Captain Kronos for my favorite (rounding out the top 3 would be The Mummy). The other card here features a wonderful shot of Peter Cushing and Susan Denberg from Frankenstein Created Woman, in what I believe is the best looking card in the first series.


Here's another one for the Jack O' Lantern collection. I don't know if anyone remembers this set, but if you don't, each card is basically a small Where's Waldo. There's a few more cards in the set that might work in a Halloween post, but this is the only one that I have so far.

Even though they weren't what he was best known for, Glenn Strange did make a few horror pictures, most notably as Frankenstein's Monster in House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

I bet you weren't expecting to see Two ALF cards in a Halloween post. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to find two Halloweeny (Halloweenie?) ALF cards amongst my scans for this post. This one makes the post for Lon Chaney Jr. era Mummy Punch Me, or Bop Bag (those blow-up punching bags were sold under many different names over the decades). I liked ALF a lot back when it was new, and I still like ALF a lot now that it's old. Even after all of these years, it's still just as funny to me, possibly even more so.

That's it, you've reached the end of my Halloween scan dump. If you made it this far, congratulations! If you didn't, I understand; it was a bit long and wordy. Though, if you didn't, I guess you wouldn't be reading this part, would you?

Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

One for the list

I've mentioned on more than one occasion in the past that I'm not one for making lists, at least not as an adult. I used to make lists all the time as a kid, and would try to get my friends to make lists for various things as well; which didn't usually go over very well by the way. At some point, I'm assuming during my teenage years, things changed, and I went from making lists all the time, to never making them at all. About the only time I make lists these days is for the grocery store or the occasional book/card want list. 

If I were a better blogger, more organized, and got any enjoyment from making lists, I'd probably be doing a bunch of them at the end of each year; if only for the filler that they'd provide for this ever decreasing little space of mine. One such list would have to be for best cards received throughout the year. The biggest hurdle keeping me from ever doing one of those lists though is simply that I just can't remember the bulk of what I've gotten by the time the end of the year rolls around. Even in a year like this one, where I've purchased less than any year since returning to card collecting (13 or 14 years ago), I could probably only recall 5-6 cards off the top of my head, and those wouldn't even make that list. All that being said, and despite it not quite being the end of the year, one card has stood out this year and would easily make it onto a list of my top 10 favorite purchases from this year...

I like this card for many reasons, but the main one is that it feels like a perfect blend of the 80's and 90's, or at least the early 90's. Were you to remove the title of the card, Dan Marino, and all of the other football references, this image would be right at home as a poster up on some kid's wall circa 1987 (It's very Miami Vice-ish). Add Dan, and all of his accoutrements, back to the image, and you've got yourself a folder for your Trapper Keeper anywhere from 1990-94 (or in my case, your knock-off Trapper Keeper -- not complaining though). Some might say that the presence of Dan's Zubaz make this more of an 80's image, and while I do believe that they came out in '88 or '89, I think of them more as product of the 90's.

Despite this card being from 1992, I didn't see it for the first time until late last year when I came across it while just randomly looking at things on COMC. I think I stopped collecting football cards in 1992, but I don't recall ever opening any packs of Skybox Prime Time; nor do I recall ever hearing of the set since. This must be a popular card because even though it's just a base card (from a subset to boot) from the early 90's, the online prices are mostly a dollar and up. I got mine (and a bunch of other things) from a seller on Sportlots earlier this year for fifty cents -- which did seem like a lot, but it was better than all of the alternatives at the time. In a perfect world, I could see myself getting at least 8 more copies of this card to fill a page, but I suspect that I'm just gonna have to be content with owning this one. There's also a metal (?) version of this card that I'm assuming was either an insert or some sort of promo. Either way, it's kind of expensive and I don't see myself getting one of those.

By the by, Warren Moon has a really nifty card in this subset as well. I don't own one yet, but I could see myself getting a whole page of those too; and that one might actually be doable!

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Were you #8?

Thanks to everyone who entered last weeks anniversary contest. Thanks for all of the kind words too. They weren't necessary for you to be eligible, but were still much appreciated. 

There were 20 entrants (Gavin declined the chance to win back-to-back gift cards), the list, prior to randomization was as follows:

The Angels In Order
Dennis
Bo
Matt
kcjays
night owl
John Sharp
gregory
RJ Sahl
Vrooomed
Crocodile 
The Snorting Bull
Derek
Elliptical Man
Johnnys Trading Spot
POISON75
Mark Zentkovich
gcrl
Chris
Nick

And before I show the results, remember, since I was celebrating 8 years, the list was being randomized 8 times and who ever landed in the #8 spot would be the winner. So, without further ado...

Looks like the winner is kcjays. Congratulations to Merlin! Whenever you get a chance, let me know via email if you already know where you want your gift card to, or if you'd like me to send a list of the places.

I'm gonna try to do another one of these for Christmas (a few weeks before), and if money allows, I might try to kick it up a notch. In the meantime, thanks again to everyone who entered.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

It's that time of year again

I've made no secret that this blog is basically just limping along at the moment, and unless something drastic happens, it'll probably continue to do so for the time being. My heart isn't in cards or blogging right now, but even so, I still wanted to acknowledge the blog's 8th anniversary; which is today. And as promised a few months back, I also wanted to do something for the folks who are still kind enough to stop by from time to time, i.e. run another small contest.

Just like back in July, this'll be another contest for a $25 gift card, though I'm gonna let the winner pick where they want the gift card to be from this time. Kroger is the best place locally for me to get gift cards, as they have a pretty large selection, which includes all of the usual suspects: eBay, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, as well as a whole bunch of other places that I've never heard of. I'll send the winner a link to the site that lists all of the places so that they can see everything that's available (unless of course the winner just wants a card from one of those four places already mentioned). 

If anyone is interested in entering, just leave a comment below. I'll leave it open for a week, and then, since I'm celebrating 8 years, I'll randomize the list of names 8 times, and whoever lands in the #8 spot will be the winner.

I think that covers everything. Sorry I don't have a more elaborate post for you today; hopefully the contest will make up for that.

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Reggie MelBo

Despite the title, today's post will not be about a current NFL'er, nor the famous aborigine. No, this is just gonna be a quick thank you to a couple of folks who've been kind enough to send a few single card mailings over the last few months; and the title is just a not-so-clever amalgamation of the names featured on said single cards.

Going oldest to newest...

I can no longer remember how many have passed, but "some" months ago an unexpected PWE showed up from, Greg, the collected mind behind, The Collective Mind. At first glance, it appears to be just a regular old copy of Reggie Roby's card from the 1992 Skybox Impact set; but if one were to turn it over...

... one would see that it is instead the prototype version of the card. Greg mentioned getting this card in a trade, and subsequently thinking of me. I'm not the sort that people think of very often, so it's awfully nice when they do; and even more so when they mention having done so. Being sent a needed card is nice, too. Thanks again, Greg!

Sometime in the last few months, Tom, of the resurgent, The Angels, In Order, opened up a pack of cards from the film, Maverick, as part of his weekly junk wax series. I was never interested in the James Garner series, and therefor wasn't interested in the 1994 updated big screen version either. I was, however, interested in acquiring a card of Mel Gibson for the binder that I usually just refer to as my "childhood" binder (it really needs a better name though). It's basically just a binder full of things that remind of certain people/things from my childhood and early teen years. It's terribly unorganized at the moment, and I'm thinking that I need to start a second one, but the idea behind it/them is that I can use the items in there to recall specific memories; memories that I'm trying not to lose. If the binder(s) do ever get organized, I fully intend to start showing off pages on here, and hopefully then discussing the memories that each card provoke. In the meantime though...

I had inquired about this specific card after reading Tom's post, and he was kind enough to set it aside for me, and then out of the blue it showed up sometime later. On a negative note, I have realized now while sitting here typing this that I forgot to send Tom a thank you email after receiving the card, which is probably only the 3rd or 4th time that I've forgotten to do so in all of my years blogging. So, many apologies to Tom for not acknowledging his kindness sooner, which hopefully will not be considered a slight, as the card was very appreciated.

I never thought the time would come where I'd be seeking out any '91 Fleer again, but I found myself doing so after putting away the sun-bleached Bo '91 Fleer mod from Gavin, which revealed that I didn't have a copy of the original to pair it up with. And being the way I am, I actually need two copies to balance out the page's row. I was thinking that I'd have get them via Sportlots at some point, but, Randy, who some of you frequent blog readers might know as RJ Sahl, intervened and offered to send the two copies that I wanted. I really appreciate Randy doing so, mostly because I know with great certainty that this would've been one of those things that I'd only remember when I flipped by that page in the binder, and then would immediately forget again after I closed said binder. And it would've happened often, much more so than I would've ever admitted. Thanks for sparing me from that, Randy!

Many thanks once again to Greg, Tom, and Randy for their generosity.

Saturday, September 2, 2023

I should've passed on this one

I've been a lot more careful in recent years when it comes to buying. A large part of that is due to the fact that I just don't have as much as play money as I used to. I also seem to have reached a point where I don't want stuff just for the sake of having stuff. Stuff takes up a space, and space is always at a premium. Because of these two things, I will often go back and forth over whether or not I really need a particular item or not, especially when it involves something for sale online. When it comes to cards, and more specifically, those of the auction variety, more often than not, other folks usually end up making my decision for me by pushing the price of whatever it is up; and out of my range. Occasionally though, something will slip through the sewer grate...

The listing for this card ended two days after the Joe Rudi that was in the last post. Had there been a larger gap in which Joe had been able to arrive before this one came up, I never would've bought this one. I do sort of collect Bert Campaneris, though I'm still a bit down on him for not signing the 1969 Topps card I sent him about 5-6 years ago, which I only did because he was supposedly signing quite actively at the time (and yes, I know, this is a terrible reason to be down on someone). That being said, and despite my usual waffling, the seemingly complete lack of interest from other bidders is ultimately what swayed me into bidding on this card. I figured, for five bucks, I couldn't go wrong. Well, I went wrong!

Having never owned any autographs from the 2001 Topps Archives set, I didn't know about the glossy finish, and if you saw the last post, then you already know how I feel about it. If you didn't, I hate it. It's so distracting. If that wasn't bad enough, Bert's card also features a slightly blurred image (it wasn't noticeable in the auction photo), which wasn't a feature of his rookie card. One would think that Topps could've reproduced one of their own cards without blurring the image, but I guess that was too much to hope for in this particular card.

I haven't looked, but I really hope that there isn't anyone else on this checklist that I feel like I need to own, because I do not like these cards, and if there is, I have no doubt that I'll forget at some point and buy another one. 

Despite my dislike for the card, I have hung onto it, and will continue to do so for the time being. Though, if I end up dropping Bert's player collection (which is very possible), I will find someone else to send this too, as it won't be worth me keeping just because it's an autograph.


I realized as I was starting this post this morning (Saturday the 2nd), that this'll be my third post in six days on here. That may not seem like much to some, but I haven't done that on this blog in what seems like years. Seeing as how Monday is a holiday, I won't be doing four in eight days, but I should have something up on Tuesday. After that, I'll probably work on some stuff for the other two blogs, one of which has been terribly neglected this summer (there's only so many hours in the day!).