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! 

The Wonders of Time Travel

Why is it that I can remember the lyrics to a 30 year-old song that I rarely ever listen to, but can't remember what I sent to a fellow blogger a little over a month ago? 

Just within the last few weeks I listened to "Rico Suave" all the way through for the first time in a couple of years, and was a tad surprised to find that I still knew every single lyric to it, including the Spanish bits, which is interesting since I don't speak a lick of Spanish. And yet, I sent, Jeff, author and blogger extraordinaire, from Wax Pack Wonders, a card sometime in the last 4-6 weeks, and for the life of me, cannot remember what it was. It makes no sense!

I still have Jeff's thank you note around here somewhere, so I could probably go find that and be reminded of which card was sent, but I shouldn't have to, it wasn't that long ago, I should be able to remember it. I'm hoping it'll come to me while I'm typing, and then I can just circle back and add an update; but until then...

My one card sent yielded around 20-something in return (most of which were scanned). A bit much, but the thought behind them is appreciated. One doesn't expect to get basketball cards from Jeff, and yet that's what most of them were. About half the cards were former Blazers, which is never a bad thing.

I don't go out of my way to seek out Clifford Robinson rookies, but still have more copies of these Fleer and Hoops cards than any sane person should have. I have a few copies of the Hardwood Leaders as well, but since it's one of my favorite insert sets of all-time, I won't ever turn down more, especially those of guys that I collect.

When I came back to card collecting I wasn't that interested in the stuff that I had collected the first time around, paying more attention to vintage, and the many things that had come out while I was away. Now that a dozen or so years have passed since my return, I find myself more interested in cards from my childhood/teens than anything else. I suppose it's normal for one to be drawn towards people/players that you can relate to. It may be a base card from a set that not too many people care about anymore, but the '95-96 Hoops card here is a perfect example of why I continue to find myself drawn to this era more and more. I like everything about it, the design, the photo, David's shoes, and most importantly, I can look at it and instantly identify everyone on the card; and still remember how they played. It's great card for cameo collectors, as you've got your choice of Dennis Rodman, Clyde Drexler, Kenny Smith, and Avery Johnson. Good stuff all around!

I've made the mistake of trying to read through a few basketball threads on Twitter over the last few years, and am constantly amazed at how dumb the NBA's modern fan base is. I don't understand how fans of a sport can know so little of it's history, and what's more, feel absolutely no embarrassment over their ignorance. John Stockton is often a target of these idiots. Sad as that is, it does bring me great joy to know that it'll be a very long time (if it ever even happens) before someone breaks his all-time record for assists or steals. That seems to bother those dummies quite a bit too, which makes me even happier. 

The card on the left was actually kind of rare back when it was new, but is now relegated to the dime boxes. Still a neat card though, one which features a young Gary Payton as well.

Being from Portland, being a good guy, and having had a solid career, I should collect A.C. Green, but I don't; he just doesn't move the needle for me. I thought it was kind of interesting to see him on both of these cards though.

All-Star inserts were hit-or-miss over the years. These weren't one of my favorites design-wise, but as mostly a player collector these days, I do appreciate these for being dual-sided with one guy from the East team on the front, and one guy from the West team on the back. It gives you options, as is the case with the Joe Dumars here, I don't collect him, but if you flip the card over... 

... you get John Stockton, who I do collect! I'm pretty sure that I already have one of the Pippen/Kemp cards, but can't remember who's binder it's in. Once I figure it out though, this one will go in whatever collection that it's not already in.

I got one baseball card too. It looks familiar, but I don't think that I have it. That guy in the background is kind of creepy. I'm not sure if he's supposed to be a ghost or what, but either way, he's appropriate for the season.

Thanks again, Jeff! 

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In other news, I was able to get in on one of the now famous monthly Time Traveling trades from, Matt, over at Diamond Jesters. 

I think that this was only the second or third time that I've participated on one of these, if only because there usually isn't much for me, and even when there is, it's often the sort of stuff that I know someone else will want more, so I just leave it for them to claim. This past month though, I had to get two. The Cliff Branch was a just because card, I like it, and wanted it, so here it is! I don't have a list for my Alzado's yet, but I do know what I don't have by sight, and this was one that I didn't have. Unfortunately for me, I didn't look at it close enough, and missed the slit under his armpit. I just saw the nice corners, and made my claim.

Fingers! You can see the gash much better here. That's the sort of thing that'll bug the shit out of me, so he's gonna need replacing. I wonder if this one would be good enough for Fuji's damaged card collection?

Thanks for doing what you do, Matt! You seem to be making a lot of people happy with this series of yours.

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Well, I've made to the end, and still can't remember what I sent to Jeff. I guess it'll just have to remain a mystery.

Oh, and "Rico Suave", yeah that hasn't aged very well. It's hard to believe that I could've liked that back when it was new.

Jewels from Jules

 [Me thinks that Julie's not gonna like this title]

I read an article semi-recently about some "doctor's" (his PhD was of the social sciences variety, hence the quote marks) latest studies on the nature of procrastination. Yeah, apparently people are still getting paid to 'research' such things. Anyway, it turned out to be a crap article, that basically just tried to further the modern narrative of procrastination being a mental illness, one that gives certain people yet another excuse not to have to work, thus allowing them to get paid with everyone else's tax dollars to sit home all day and procrastinate... really makes you want to pay more in taxes, doesn't it?

In my mind, procrastination is just a fancy word for laziness. 

As far as real-life stuff goes, I'm pretty good about not procrastinating. And I've certainly gotten better about not doing so with age. Probably because I now know that we as humans only have a finite amount of time to do things, which is something that I never thought about as a child, not that I think that a lot of other children do either, nor should they.

And I'm not talking about the stuff that I just don't have the time to do right now, we all have 'someday' stuff, no, I'm talking about the daily chores, or tasks, that need to be done. The not so exciting things that you do have the time for, but instead say "Uh, I'll do it tomorrow" or "I'll do it next week instead", those are the sort of phrases that you'll almost never hear come out of my mouth, at least not as an adult. 

When it comes to blog stuff however, procrastination has practically become my middle name -- Jon Procrastination Pennysleeves, or just JPP for short.

It'll probably come off as me making excuses, but a lot of blog laziness, especially this year's worth, has been due to lack of time, and/or just being too tired to jot down anything that I think's worth you reading. I mean I due often have the time to work on posts in the evening, but am usually so tired that I just don't feel like doing so. More often than not, after dinner, I just want to grab a book and spend the rest of the night reading, which is what I normally do these days (or rather, nights).

This has led me to fall way behind in publicly thanking people for all of the things that they've so graciously sent me. And even worse, in some cases it's been so long since I received certain things that have yet to be covered here, I can no longer remember why I received them.

The cards in today's post are perfect example of this, they come from a scan folder titled "Julie1" (there's also a "Julie2" and "Julie3"), and it's been so long since I received them, that I can no longer remember why, Julie, obviously she of A Cracked Bat (it's not like there's any other bloggers called Julie!), sent them.

Thankfully we don't do any formal trading, so there's really only two options here, A) They were sent just because, or B) They were sent in response to something that I sent. It doesn't seem like it should be that important, but knowing is half the battle -- seriously though, the point is that it shouldn't have taken me so long to get to them, and if I had gotten to them in a more timely manner, I'd probably remember more details about the shipment.

Another side effect from their images sitting in a scan folder, and their actual selves sitting in a binder, for so long now, I don't even recall getting some of these, it's like I'm seeing some of them for the first time again. I do recall the couple of Ichiro pairs above, but not this one...

[As an aside, I can only imagine how otherwordly it must've been for Ichiro to go from Japan to Arizona. For all intensive purposes, he may as well have gone to Mars.]

... or this one.

I do remember this card though, if only because Ichiro looked so old here, and seeing an old Ichiro makes me feel old. Plus too, I don't have a lot of Heritage cards, or at least I didn't, so this card really stands out when flipping through the Ichiro binder. Speaking of standing out...

It didn't scan very well, but this card sure was something. It's crazy shiny, and purple too. The digitally added background is the only thing that detracts from it, not being a fan of Heritage, I don't know why Topps just couldn't have a photographer or two on location, unless it was just because they didn't want their '69 tribute set to look too good. And yes, I know, the idea would've been bonkers, but I'm just sayin'.

Here's a weirdo puzzle card, which I'm very glad that I don't have to collect all of.

I have no idea how it's come to be, I've never mentioned wanting them, and have never gone out of way to acquire them, and yet somehow I find myself possessing 4 of the 8 1972 World Series subset cards. And I know what you're thinking "Big deal, as far as vintage Topps go, those are hardly rare". Which is true, but mine aren't of the Topps variety, no, I'm talking OPC, or as the back of this penny sleeve called them...

... 'French Backs'! Obviously I know where this one came from, and I know that I got one for like fifty cents at a show just because, but I'm at a loss as to how the other two found me. I have no plans to complete the set, which means that in 2.5 years I'll have completed the set.

I do remember these being in the envelope, if only because one doesn't expect basketball cards to be sent by Julie. I only have a couple of Gold Standard's, so these were a nice surprise. Plus both of these guys would be on my top 10 favorite players of all-time list too, which makes the cards just that much better.

If the last two cards were a surprise, then I don't know how to describe this one! SI Kids cards don't get me all tingly like they do for other folks, and I never read the magazine when I was younger, so I couldn't tell you what year it was from (although from the photo I'm guessing either '95 or '96), but I do like this particular well-loved card. It's a nice action shot, which is only enhanced by the cameos from Shaq and Horace Grant.

I may not remember why the envelope was sent, but many thanks go out to Julie for sending it nonetheless. Many boxes were ticked. I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more, spent a few minutes looking menacingly out the window, and this was all before I even opened the mailer :)

Seriously though, the cards were fun, and were greatly appreciated.

Next time on the blog, we'll be looking at scan folders Julie2, and Julie3, so that just might be worth coming back for.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Is this thing on?

If there's three things that I've learned from my years of blogging, it's that a). People go wild for basketball card posts, b). "Look what I got" posts generate more comments than any other kind of post, and c). Analytically speaking, there is no better day of the week to publish a post on than Sunday... Sundays are absolute money!

So it's with this great insight that I'm presenting part 2 of my order from the Baseball Card Store...

I received an unexpected package from Kerry a few weeks ago (which I of course haven't gotten to yet), in it was, well, a lot of stuff, but one of the main attractions was around 40 or so cards of Uncle Cliffy. I've been focusing quite a bit on Cliff in recent months (mostly just picking up rare-ish items on COMC), so I found this package to be rather timely, and believe it or not, was the impetus for my finally giving the Baseballcardstore a whirl.

Most of my card stuffs are currently covered in, or are blocked by, toys, but having just recently finished sorting all of my basketball cards, I had a pretty good idea of what I currently own, and now with a new unsorted stack of Cliff's in hand, I decided to see if the site had anything of his that I didn't. They did. Around 15 cards I'd say, which not surprisingly ended up leading to a much larger order.

I don't normally chase early 2000's stuff, but with me not collecting at the time, I'm finding that I need (or want) an awful lot of cards from that particular era, so it was nice to be able to find some of them listed on the site. The SP Authentic is a really nice card, but the Finest sure looks snazzy in person (side note: I'm glad that Topps stopped using those dumb peels at some point).

Oh, and just for the record, Kerry's package arrived about two weeks before Cliff's passing, and my order was finalized a little over a week after that.

Since I was already looking up one Blazer, I figured that I might as well search for a few more of my past favorites. I already had the '89-90 Fleer (it's in a set), but needed another one for the Kersey collection.

Found a cool trio of Buck's too! It's hard to tell from the bad scan, but the Metal is a Silver Spotlight, which is something that I never see in the wild anymore, and haven't for a long time.

One of the other things in the package from Kerry (geez, I really should've done that post first!) was a pair of 1994-95 Pacific Crown Collection Dan Majerle's, a set that I never even knew existed! Other than the fact that the set contains twenty cards, I still really don't know anything about it. I'm terribly curious to know how it was distributed, seems like it would've been done so as a set, but I could also see them coming in 2-3 card cellophane packs as well.

More Thunder Dan. He's another one that I've been focusing more on in recent months, basically all of my childhood favorites are being bumped up in the collecting hierarchy, something that I should've done much sooner, but dumb me, I had to be wasting all of these years working on sets, sets that somewhere in the back of my mind I had to of known were never going to get finished.

I have a lot of Shawn Kemp's, and with him I couldn't remember what I did and didn't have, at least as far as the base cards go. These three were he only ones that I was absolutely sure of.

Ditto for Stock. Like Kemp, I have a lot of his cards, all of which are in a binder that would've been difficult to get to, so I had sort of guess on these.

David Robinson gets almost no hobby love (these kids today don't know anything), so it wasn't a surprise to see a couple of pages of his cards on the site.

There aren't a lot of inserts to be had on the site, at least not that I've seen, but I did find one in the form of this 1996-97 UD Choice Miniatures, a card that I thought that I already had at least one of (but wouldn't have minded more of), turns out that I didn't though.

Holy horizontal grandmamambo's, Batman! Yeah, I know, I'll see myself out (you know in your heart of hearts that it was a pretty clever LJ reference though).

Hopefully the few of you who actually made this far today, were able to find a few things of interest. In case you hadn't figured it out at the beginning, posts like these, on this day of the week, are akin to blogger suicide -- but I don't mind playing to the ghost town crowd, it sort of serves as a voluntary humbling, which I believe all of us are in need of from time to time.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

COMC Shuffle #24

Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC hoard!

2013 Panini Cooperstown Collection Red Crystal Shard #53

Looks like we're staring off with my birthday twin! I've finally decided with complete certainty that I'm no longer going to try and finish this set, but I'll still keep a few cards, including this one (despite the blah photo) -- just in case I do decide to start collecting cards from his post-playing days.

 

1998-99 Topps Stadium Club Triumvirate - Luminous #T8a

I have around 100 cards of John Stockton (mostly inserts and parallels), and this is by far one of my favorites. Also, how great were Triumvirate's? Despite missing them greatly, I very much hope that Topps never decides to try and bring them back... because we all know that they would look like hot s*** if they ever did!

1962 Topps Mars Attacks! #10

I can't help but wonder if a card like this could be made now in our post 9/11 world?

2012 Topps Chrome Retail Orange Refractor #100

Of all of the parallels of this card from Topps and Topps Chrome, the orange refractor is probably my least favorite, so why do I have like four of them now? Simple, I love the image, and the orange's tend to be pretty cheap, well, that and my semi-recent penchant for buying multiple of the same card seems to be getting worse.

1972-73 Topps #244

 Now that was a match-up (offensively speaking), Rick Barry v. George McGinnis!

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - Magenta #38

Another piece of the completed rainbow.

2013 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures #SC

With this one, the COMC folder is now devoid of Golden Age autos. Steve has an autograph in the 2012 and 2013 sets, both of which I own. With a lot of help from Affirmed, he became the youngest jockey to win the Triple Crown (1978), and was the only jockey to ever be named the sportsman of the year by Sports Illustrated.

1972-73 Topps #176

This card is interesting because this is back when they used the total number of assists to declare the season's leader, so you have Lenny Wilkens finishing in 1st with 766 assists, and Jerry West right behind him with 747 -- yet modern statistics will tell you that Jerry West led the league in assists during the '71-72 season with 9.7 apg, and Lenny Wilkens finished 2nd with 9.6 apg.

1963 Topps #31

Another one for the "Telstar Four" collection. I was trying to figure out who was in the background, but failed spectacularly... anybody have any clues?

2014-15 Panini Prizm Yellow and Red Mosaic Prizms #223

Some of the images that Panini used for veterans portion of the 2014 checklist are a bit iffy, some are even bad enough that it leads one to wonder what the photo selector's were thinking (or smoking), but not this one, this is a solid image of Artis Gilmore, and one that I believe is from the tail-end of his time with San Antonio, maybe '85-87? I also really like dig the stark contrast of background colors with his black jersey, it seems to make image pop more.

On an unrelated note, I meant to have a couple of more posts up this past week, but the Challenges happened, and I chose to try and start building the credit back up in my account over blog "writing", so... Sorry Not Sorry :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.