A post inspired by a post about blog inspired purchases

Say that five times fast!

A semi-recent post from Jim about purchases inspired by things seen on blogs reminded me that I too had a couple of older blog inspired purchases still sitting in a scan folder.

I couldn't tell you when it was, but at some point in the not too distant past, Nick, of n j w v fame, did a post in which this card of Rita Cansino (better known as Rita Hayworth) appeared. I already had a few cards from the 1936 Moderne Schönheitsgalerie set, so I was somewhat familiar with it, but apparently not enough to know that a young Rita Hayworth (she was either 17 or 18 here) had been amongst the subjects.

After seeing Nick's post, I set off to find a copy of my own, which, not surprisingly, didn't work out very well, as there were none available for sale anywhere at the time. Since there was nothing else to do, I put it in my eBay saved searches and commenced to wait until an affordable copy popped up. I want to say that it was around this past Christmas that my saved search yielded a result, well, make that two results. The seller had two copies, one with the normal Kurmark back, and one with a Sultan back. As cheap as they were (I don't remember the prices, sorry), I knew that they wouldn't be up for very long, but for the life of me, I could not decide which back I wanted, so, I just went scorched earth and bought both...

Technically, these ado come from two different sets, but in my mind, since the fronts are identical, they might as well be from the same set (and both companies would've been under the same umbrella). Either way though, neither back is overly exciting, so let's get back to the front(s)...

In retrospect, I probably didn't need both, but... Du lebst nur einmal, habe ich recht?

For the sake of this post, I was trying to think of the first movie that I ever saw her in, and I guess it would've been Charlie Chan in Egypt. I saw most of Warner Oland's Charlie Chan pictures while still fairly young, and have seen "in Egypt" multiple times over the years. Like a number of other old franchises (Universal Monsters, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, etc.), the Charlie Chan films are my version of comfort food.

Without looking at a list I'm probably forgetting a few, but a couple of the pictures that I really liked her in were: The Shadow, Homicide Bureau, The Lady from Shanghai, and Human Cargo. [Yeah, I'm definitely forgetting a few]. 

Anyway, they're really nifty cards, and I'm grateful to Nick for posting about his, otherwise I might still have been in the dark on this one.

I can't remember if the shipping was free, or if there was no charge for additional cards, but I did get more cheap cards from the same seller.

I had been needing a Gail Patrick card for my Perry Mason collection (she was one of the shows producers and also appeared in the very last episode), and this 1934 Garbaty seemed like a really good choice. The border is a little chippy, but I sure like the design on this one, the blue really pops in person.

This card is kind of interesting because by the time it was released in 1936, Clara Bow's career had already been over for close to two years. She did appear in one of those Screen Snapshots shorts in the 40's, but those weren't really pictures per se. 

I have a bit of a Clara Bow collection, though I couldn't tell you why. I mean I've seen a bunch of her films, and am endlessly fascinated by early Hollywood, and even more so by the some of the early mega stars, but I don't think that's the reason why I'm attracted to her cards. Even though they weren't comparable in stature, or talent, I have a similar unexplainable draw to, and collection for, Marion Davies. It's one of those things that I really don't even think about the why, and if I do ever try to come with a reason, I just chalk it up to something from my childhood that I've since forgotten. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea, but it's as good of an answer as any.

Christmas in January

I'd really like to do some sort of blogging thing for Christmas (send out gifts, do a giveaway, etc.), and have wanted to do so for the last couple of years now, but planning things in advance is not a strong suit of mine. It also doesn't help that time passes so quickly these days, so even if I do actually think about it say, sometime around Halloween, it always feels like October ends and then 1.3 days later it's the week before Christmas... and I've got nothing planned! I'd like to say that this year will be different, but I'm not gonna hold my breath (even if I did, blue and purple aren't Christmas colors).

One person who doesn't seem to have this problem is, Dennis, he of Too Many Verlanders fame. I don't know how he does it, but every year, come Christmas, a rogue elf from Michigan does his best to upstage Santa Claus by sending out packages of cards to both coasts, and all points in between.

I was among the lucky many to make the nice list (what Dennis doesn't know, won't hurt him 😉) this past year, and received a top notch bubble mailer for Christmas... in January! 

Time has already begun to fuzz the details, but there was some issue with either a seller on Sportlots, or Sportlots itself. I can't remember. Either way though, the package was delayed because all of it's contents weren't available to ship until a couple of weeks after Christmas. Dennis was very apologetic about this, which he didn't need to be since he absolutely zero control over the delay. Besides, getting a package for Christmas, in January, is not a big deal, there's no expiration date on Christmas presents; unless maybe you're getting food. Thankfully, Dennis didn't send any food.

Dennis had told me in advance that my package (typing "my package" feels odd under any context) was going to be more quantity than quality, but with some of the items, like this 1988 sticker, I'd argue that there was no shortage of quality either. It's funny how the old Panini stickers use to be everywhere, and now you really have go out of your way to try and find/get them.

Because of the whole "quantity" thing, this will be a very scan laden post, and I might as well get it going with some more Reggie's...

Had I not been overwhelmed with the task at hand when it came time to scan all of these, I might've taken some to arrange the cards a little better, but even so, I still got some good pairings; such was the case with card numbers 5 and 6 here. They are a couple of years apart, and the jersey has changed, but they're nearly identical shots.

The images on Reggie's cards basically fall into four categories: 1). Head shots. 2). Ball being dropped prior to the punt. 3). The punt. And 4). The after punt. 

My Reggie Roby collection is currently paged in chronological order, which is kind of neat, but there's a part of me that would like to organize it by image category. Maybe if I ever complete it I'll play around with that and see how it looks. I'm still a ways away from that though.

This was not a good scan!

I'm always hesitant to buy any tall boys from Sportlots, or to try and trade for any of them on the TCDB, because I figure with my luck, they're probably gonna show up bent in half. Dennis' luck must be considerably better, for not only was he able to acquire two of them, that were then sent to him undamaged, he also managed to get said two to me; also undamaged.

17 needed Reggie's (and the Bo at the top of the post) would've been more than enough for me, but Dennis didn't stop there...

Reggie Roby is my #1 collection when it comes to football, and even though it hadn't been planned, Dennis Smith has worked his way up to #2 (he won't be passing Reggie though). Neither are of much interest to most collectors, and are of zero interest to investors, so it's nice to still be able to collect a couple of guys who's card prices haven't been inflated over the last few years.

It looks like a couple of receivers were wearing #81 back in 1992, so I don't know who this is, but it doesn't matter, it's all about Dennis getting the pick; one of four that he had that year. Awesome card!

I'm hardly the first to say it, but I'd like to see Action Packed make a come back, provided of course that it's not under the header of one of the current card companies. I can't even imagine how ugly the set would be under Leaf's management 💩.

I have to do a double-take almost every time I see a card from 1992 Score, as the design always makes me think that it's a TRU set.

I hadn't noticed until I was marking everything off their respective checklists, but 1992 was very well represented in this package. 

Getting a cards lone parallel at the same time as the base is always nice. And I've probably said it before, but I really like the first couple of Collector's Edge sets for football. If I cared about more of the players in those sets, I'd probably go back and try to complete them. But I don't, so I won't be.

Prior to getting this package, I don't think that I'd ever seen a single card from the 1993 Fleer set before. I wasn't collecting football at the time, and the design doesn't look familiar at all. I know that collectively were all supposed to hate grey/silver borders, but I've always kind of like them; this despite not being a huge fan of the color itself. 

More stickers! Mongo is one of those guys that I always mean to look for cards of when I'm putting together in order somewhere, but just can't ever seem to remember to do so. Apparently Dennis didn't have that problem...

By all accounts, Steve has always been a standup guy, liked by seemingly everyone who ever met him, which makes his current situation seem just that much worse. Why is it that you never hear about assholes getting ALS? It's always the good people who have to have it inflicted upon them. From the last update I saw a couple of months back, it sure doesn't sound like he's gonna be able to fight it for too much longer either.

I don't know what the deal is with the Super Bowl stamped Stadium Club cards. Were they an in-pack parallel? Special Box set? I do know that sellers online tend to attach a small premium to them, as opposed to the Member's Only parallel that's to the left of it, those are usually just the same price as the base cards. And this was my first card of Mongo as a Packer. I do remember it happening, but seeing him in yellow and green is still a bit jarring. It was good move for him though, as he did get a ring out of it. I didn't realize that he had played every game that season though. Pretty impressive for a 37 year old playing that position.

No need to adjust your eyes, there are indeed four copies of the same sticker here. I figured these might all have different backs, but...

Well, two of them do! I suppose that there could be something different about the three Joe Morris backs, but if there is, I couldn't tell at the time.

I didn't have a want list/checklist for Steve prior to this mailing (I don't have one as of this typing either), but none of these cards were duplicates for me. That was pretty impressive on Dennis' part.

These two cards provide quite the contrast, don't they? If I recall, the Prestige card here was my first post-playing days of Howie. I never bothered to look, but I would imagine that it's got 87 parallels to collect for those so inclined. For now, I'm good with just this one.

Dennis seemed to have hit the sticker motherlode. I'm grateful to him for sharing some of the wealth from such a strike.

I think that this was the most football cards that anyone had ever sent me before, though there was that one baseball card too...

I'm thinking that all of our Bo's talk of equipment in recent months has started to wear off on me, because when I went to edit this scan, I noticed that the number on the bat didn't correlate to Bo's jersey number. Bo wore #22 with the Angels, and that second number clearly isn't a 2. I thought it was 29, but apparently that was Rod Carew's number, which was retired by the Angels in 1991; so that "9" must be a 4 (still looks like a 9 to me though). Eduardo Perez was #24. It's one thing to pose for a picture with someone else's bat, but to actually use it in a game is a whole nother can of worms. Why was Bo using Eduardo's bat? I know that he was on the downward trend, but you'd think that, Bo, of all people, would have his own bats. Have I inadvertently finally figured out something that Bo didn't know... bats? 

It's hard to believe I've been sitting on these scan since January. It feels like not more than a month could've passed since I received the package. Of course it's hard to believe that we're already halfway through 2023 too. I really don't care for this whole 'time moves quicker with age' thing. Not one bit!

Anyway, many thanks to Dennis for the extremely well thought out package. Heck, it was just nice of him to even think of me around Christmas. I do regret taking so long to get to the post though, but again, it just didn't seem like that long since I got the cards.