Saturday, October 5, 2019

Rolling in Roby's

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

... awesome!

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

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


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

8 comments:

  1. Topps was very late to the party with action shots in football.

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    1. They did do some here and there, but not nearly as much as everyone else was doing.

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  2. Still need to check and see what I have. That way I can help you hang out with your Robys' (homies)

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    1. There's no rush, I would imagine that you have more important things to do than searching through boxes trying to find cards of someone that most folks could care less about.

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  3. It's not out of the ordinary for me to predict the success of my posts either. My non-baseball stuff typically receives less views/comments than the baseball ones... and my flea market finds tend to be the series that people associate my blog with. I'm glad your Roby posts are popular. I've gotta admit, I don't think of punters (or kickers) anymore without thinking of this collection.

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    1. Well, the first Roby post did well, this one... not so much!

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  4. Congratulations on making so much progress with the collection already!

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    1. I get by with a little help from my friends :)

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