Christmas from The Collector

I don't know how kids these days feel about them, and I don't know how kids from generations prior to mine felt about them, but I do know that when I was young, the vast majority of kids didn't give two rips about greeting cards. Oh sure, we'd anticipate receiving them on birthdays, and for Christmas, but that's only because we'd be hoping that they contain some cash or a check. The cards themselves were merely a vessel for our new-found, albeit temporary, wealth. The cards that appeased us with an offering were tolerated, those that didn't, were as good as trash; that is of course unless mom got to them first, then they'd be put up on the fridge, mantle, etc. where you'd have to look at them for at least a month before they were taken down, only to then be squirreled away in a drawer somewhere for safe keeping.

Greeting cards have always seemed like a waste of money, and time, but mostly money, to me. I could appreciate the sentiment that they conveyed, but more often than not, a phone call would've sufficed.

Something has changed for me in recent years though, for I now actually look forward to getting greeting cards, and don't need them to contain greenbacks for me to appreciate them. I don't know why this is, maybe I've entered the grandma stage of my life (that's normal, right?), and now appreciate just being thought of on special occasions. Such was the case a few weeks ago when I received an unexpected package from, Chris, or as he's known on the streets, The Collector. 

My initial thought was not of the goodies that undoubtedly lay inside, no, I was thinking of how nice it was that Chris had thought about me; and being so near Christmas was just that much more meaningful. 

The contents of the package were a small bundle of trading cards, and greeting card, which clearly felt like it contained something else; probably more trading cards. In years past, I can say with complete certainty that I would've started with the bundle first, but in 2022, I guess I now am the sort who starts with the greeting card, and not because of the mystery bounty that's obviously being held within it's confines -- those were set aside until I finished reading the card. After reading the card, I did a very grandma-ish thing, and went and put the card on the entertainment center, you know, so that I could look at it when I'm in the living room. Now I could look at the cards...

That's really nice looking card, isn't it? Even if I weren't collecting Luke Easter, I still would've wanted this offering from TCMA, it's just that good! This had been on my Cheap Wants list, which meant that Chris had also taken the time to peruse at least one of my lists; that's awfully thoughtful too.

I can guarantee that is the worst scan that you'll see on the blogs today!

Here was another one of my Cheap Wants. Some may recall that there was a copy of this card in my last post too, yep, two arrived on the same day from two different people. Funny how that works. Now if I decide to start collecting Carney, which I'm still thinking about, I'll have one for that collection and one for my random 80's pages. If I don't start collecting him, I'll have two for the random 80's pages, and will have to get a third to finish off the row. Although, I actually wouldn't mind having an entire page of this card :)

Terry was the point guard of youth, and John was the point guard that young me was supposed to hate, but was actually a super-secret fan of (because you couldn't be a fan of anything Jazz in Portland when I was a kid -- that might've warranted a stoning back then).

I should probably note too that in case things are looking off, none of these cards are mis-cut, I've just been getting really lazy with my scans. I don't mind wonky scans, so hopefully you all don't either.

If I were to ever start building a 90's base set again, this one would be a serious contender. It's one of those sets that's just loaded with nostalgia for me. It's also a set that I can still remember a lot of the details from it's initial announcement through it's actual release. It was kind of a big deal at the time.

Here's another Cheap Want that Chris was able to knock off of the list. With this Gold Stamp parallel in hand, I have officially completed my 1992-93 Topps Archives Jerome Kersey rainbow (it's only two cards - base and gold). It's funny too, I remember the golds being a one per pack parallel, but that's a false memory, because the golds were released altogether in a separate box set. I know that I had a bunch of the golds way back when, but I know for a fact that I never got one of the box sets, so I have no idea where all of mine would've come from. I got a box for my birthday in 1992, and I guess over the years the memory of opening it has been altered some to include a gold parallel in each pack. Brains are strange.

Of all the cards that came from this unexpected package, Fred Cox was probably the unexpectiest of the bunch. I already the Alzado, but this one was nicer than my other copy. And I didn't realize it until I opened this package, but I completely forgot to look for both of these guys during COMC's recent Black Friday sale. Which then led to the further realization that I forgot to look for a bunch of other guys too, siiiiiigh. Hopefully I didn't miss out on too many deals; though, thinking back to the lack of deals that I came across, and remembering how few cards I picked up during the sale, I can't help but assume that I didn't.

Many thanks to Chris for sending what turned out to be the only Christmas card that I received this year. The trading cards that accompanied it weren't too shabby either 😉.

And if you haven't already done so, go check out the Young Guns series that Chris is currently doing. I know very little about hockey, and even less about hockey cards, so I've been learning a bunch about both thanks to this series. And of course, in typical Chris fashion, the series has been extremely well researched, and has been written in a manner that makes one think that he should probably be getting paid for doing this.

Merry Christmas everyone!