So there used to be this cool cat called, Chris. A good dude this Chris was, pretty solid writer too. Some of you might even remember his blog,
The Collector, it was one of the good one's. Even if you don't remember the blog by name, you'll at least be familiar with it's standout series, The Sports Card Tour, after all it was voted as last year's blog series of the year by the reader's of "Blogger's Digest". This Chris also had a reputation for being a very generous fellow. In retrospect, I consider myself to have been very fortunate to have exchanged cards with him on more than one occasion, like I said, he was good dude... just wish I knew whatever became of him?
Just in case anyone's wondering what's going on, don't worry, nothing happened to Chris, I'm just funnin' around. He's still very much alive and kicking, just busy being a grown-up, so the blog posts, and comments on the posts of others, have dropped off a bit, but I'm sure most people reading this can relate to that (adulting isn't always as fun as the television makes it out to be).
A couple of months ago, before Chris got really busy, he and I participated in yet another exchanging of the cards, which I believe was #137 for us, or at least that's what it felt like. As you'll soon see, I wasn't kidding about his generosity, as he sent me some really great stuff, most of which I knew about ahead of time, but there were a few other surprises sprinkled in as well.
I still haven't seen a single card from the 2018 Classics set at a card show, so I was very surprised, and slightly envious, to see Chris show this card off in his last show recap post. Turns out that there was no need to be envious, as soon afterwards I was informed that it was gotten for me... FOR ME! Such thoughtfulness is very much appreciated. I think it's been close to a year now since this set was released, and my love for the colored parallels featuring the retired player's hasn't diminished in the least, if anything, it's grown even more.
Alex English is one of those guys that I think a lot of people don't know, or remember, just how good he was. So let me tell you, he was pretty darn talented, it's just too bad that he played on such a bad team for so much of his career.
Walt Frazier seems to get most of the hobby love when it to comes to Knicks from the 60's and 70's, so it's nice to see Willis Reed slip into a set every once in awhile.
How's that for a card? Despite my crooked photo, this is one sharp looking card. I forgot to ask Chris, but I have to imagine that he's already got a graded '67 Robinson, otherwise I don't think that I would now be in possession of this particular copy. I did already have one, but mine wasn't nearly as nice as this, heck, even my copy was nice, I still would've wanted this one too!
I think I've said it before, probably more than once, but I wish that I wouldn't have stopped collecting football cards in the early 90's. By doing so, I missed out on so many neat sets, Collector's Edge being one of the big one's. Now that I've been going back and buying stuff from that time period, I see that Collector's edge doesn't appear to have ever put out a bad product -- and for someone like myself who enjoys inserts and parallels, CE would not have disappointed, as they seem to have created a nearly endless supply of them (sort of like Pacific).
Speaking of Pacific! Hard to believe that this was just a base card... Karl Mecklenburg never looked so good :)
In the days before Panini (before they were making cards that is), Flair was the king of chunky cards, which also meant that they were the king of chunky inserts. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that this Charles Johnson might've been my first ever Flair football insert. I've got quite a few on the basketball side, but I don't recall ever owning a football one before.
I just realized fairly recently that with the way that I've been collecting this year, and most of last year, that I don't seem to really care about knowing the names of a lot of the sets that I'm getting cards from anymore. Sometimes I'll look up a parallel, but that's just to see what other colors of that particular card are available, but for the most part, I just don't care -- if I see something that I like, I just get it and enjoy it for the card that it is, not the set that it belongs to. This Warren Moon is a perfect example of this new philosophy, I mean obviously I can see that it's Playoff, but I don't know what year it came out, and I honestly have no interest in ever knowing. I just like it because it's an attractive looking card of a guy that I like getting cards of, what else do I need to know?
This is such a great looking card, it's almost hard to believe that such a photo could appear on a modern product from Panini. I think that if they did this kind of thing a little more often, you'd probably hear a lot less bitching from collector's. The only thing that bothers me about this card is that it's from 2016, and I'm just now learning of it's existence!
Chris got some 2015 Prizm rack packs around Christmas time, packs that were considerably better than the one that I got, thankfully he wasn't too attached to all of the cool cards that came out of said better packs. The r,w,&b Namath is really great, but I think that the green Gronk is my favorite here, if only because it'll look really good in the binder right next to the blue Gronk from the same set that I got at a show last year.
Thanks again for all of these great cards, Chris! And I'm speaking for everyone when I say that hopefully you'll be coming back to us one of these days, as your absence has been noticed, and your presence has most certainly been missed (am I laying it on too thick?).
Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.
