Starting to Lineup a new collection

Looking back at the last 14-15 years of my card collecting, or in other words, since I returned to card collecting, I see that a good 60-70% of my focus has been on cards that were produced before I was born; which, shockingly, feature players who mostly played (or who had their prime years) before I was born as well.

I'm sure that there's many reasons for this, my love of history, bigger personalities, less gentle play, etc., but I think the biggest reason is that, despite having never seen the majority of these guys play, I just feel like I can relate to them more as people. I'll probably get into this more in a future post (one that'll feature a baseballer whose prime was during the 30's), but basically it's just a lot easier for me to identify with folks who farmed or worked another job during the offseason, and who didn't have every whim catered to, than it is guys who are making fifty million dollars a year, and having every need (and vice) catered to. Not to mention too, maybe it's just because of my mindset, but it doesn't seem like a lot of the modern athletes have very interesting life stories. I know that there's a few occasionally who do, but for the most part, they're just boring people, who are getting paid a lot of money to play watered down versions of what were once better sports. That being said, I'm still human, and still a collector, and like most modern humans (primarily those in the West), and collectors, I find myself being drawn to the days of my youth. Nostalgia after all, much like cocaine, is a helluva drug.

I'm not one of those people who think that the sports, and the athletes who played them, during my formative years were the best that they've ever been, as lot of the above applies to them as well, but still...

[Note: I was too lazy to get this card out of it's binder prior to posting, so I swiped this less than desirable image from the TCDB]

I have a number of player collections, mostly on the basketball side, for guys that I grew up watching, which has satiated my collecting itch for the last few years -- but now that my old set collecting ways seem to have returned, player collections haven't been enough. Of course, for me that presents a bit of a conundrum, as there are no shortage of set designs from my youth that, honestly, I'd be quite content if I never saw again. And even the sets that I do still have some affinity for from that time period feel like old hat, undoubtedly because I've already collected them a few times over the years. And at this point, I'm not really interested in collecting them again. 

At some point last summer I was putting a few cards away, one of which was going into the Scottie Pippen binder, and it was while flipping through those pages that I came across this 1992 SLU card, that quite honestly, I'd pretty much forgot ever getting. Seeing it again at this stage of my collecting life seemed to trigger something though. Something of the nostalgic variety.

I never owned a lot of Starting Lineup figures as a kid, maybe a dozen or so at best. G.I. Joe's and Hasbro WWF figures were pretty much at the center of my toy universe during the early 90's, but I did briefly flirt with them back in '92 and '93, which I can remember only because all of my dozen or so figures, both baseball and basketball, came with a black and hot pink card. Those figures, and their accompanying cards, are long gone, but I never forgot that design; and how much I liked it.

It seemed too daunting at the time, but I even briefly thought about trying to collect just the '92 sets six or seven years ago when I found Scottie at a show. In retrospect, I definitely should've started collecting them at that time. Something something, living and learning, right?

Fast forward a few more years and I started getting a few cheap SLU cards from various years (most of which I was seeing for the first time) on COMC for player collections, which really started piquing my interest in them; namely that it might be fun to try and build a set or two. Not too long after that, Chris, started posting about the figures (and their cards) more often than he previously had, which exposed me to even more cards that I had never seen before. It was just too much to resist!

It took a while for me to realize it, but familiar names and faces, on unfamiliar card designs, is apparently the exact thing I had been looking for; i.e. something from my early years that I haven't already collected at least once before. Sold!

And since I can never do anything in moderation, I am now (as of a few months ago) officially collecting somewhere around 20 different SLU card sets (6-7 basketball, 6-7 baseball, 4-5 football).

I think that the bulk of my collection so far is currently sitting in my COMC account, which I'll be requesting the shipment of sometime in the next few weeks -- in the meantime though, I thought it might be fun to show off what I currently have in hand (or binder). All of you 'baseball or bust' types will be SOL though, as aside from the Bo up top, all of my baseball (and football) SLU's are in my COMC account (mass exodus beginning in 3, 2, 1... 😃). 

Kareem here came from COMC a few years ago, and judging by how many copies are on the site now compared to then, it's the one card in this post that I overpaid for. That happens sometimes, it's not the end of the world. I can't even remember what prompted me do so at this point, but I bought a lot of 6 packaged figures on Sportlots 7-8 years ago. I know the price, with shipping, was less than $20 at the time, but other than that, all of the other details are a bit fuzzy. Anyway, Larry here was part of that lot. I sent the figure to Chris a few years ago, but obviously I kept the card.

I can't remember if these ever made it onto the blog or not, so if they have, apologies. Spud and Dee came from Sportlots a few years ago, and up until now were part of their respective player collections. I did have the Shaq figure to go along with his card, but that was another one from that Sportlots lot that I sent to Chris. Prior to this, the card had been residing on one of the back pages in Hakeem's binder.

I don't why the switch was made, but the lovely black and hot pink design of 1992 was the last time that the NBA would use unique designs for their SLU cards for a number of years; they wound up just using regular cards with the SLU logo on the front and a different number on the back. None of the other sports did that, much to their benefit. These two came from one of my old COMC folders of stuff that I still haven't gotten around to showing on here. At the time of their purchase, they were for their respective collections as well. I hadn't really planned on collecting any of post-1992 basketball sets, but there were a bunch of 50-75¢ cards from the '93-96 sets during this past Black Friday sale, and well, I just couldn't pass them up for that price. So, I guess I am now collecting those as well.

A few more from that old COMC folder (which by the way is also where that wonderful Bo at the top of the post had been sitting, in digital form, for the last few years). I really hate to take Cliff out of his collection, as it took me a long time to find an affordable copy of this card. Hopefully it won't take me as long to find another one.

Onto some more recent non-COMC gets...

I got this card on eBay a couple of months ago for $1.25, which I thought was a pretty good deal (all of the white crap on it is from my scanner tray). One curious thing though, looking at the TCDB checklist for this set, I don't see this particular card on there. The Admiral does have a card in there, but it ain't this one. I've had so little time for computering as of late that I still don't know what the deal is, but I'll figure it out at some point.

I made a small purchase from Hoody's Collectibles on the Beckett Marketplace back in November. I want to say that there were around 15 cards in that order, 8 of which were SLU's. 

The 1988 set is not one for the budget-minded collector, meaning that I have zero chance of ever completing it. I might've had a chance if I had started it fifteen years ago, but not now. Even with that in mind, I'm still gonna try and get them where I can. I'll probably have to go the off-grade route if I ever want to try and get some of the rarer ones, but if that's what it takes, that's what it'll take.

Nothing will ever top the lovely black and hot pink design of 1992, but I find myself really liking the 1990 design as well. Every sport looks good on it. Having zero recollection of them prior to one of Chris' posts, I'm not sure if I ever even knew that the 1990 figures came with two cards. One regular, and one for the player's rookie year.

The scanner crud returns!

It was kind of nice to be able to get both cards for Joe Dumars and Chris Mullin. In the future though, I should probably scan these with rookie year card on the left. It looks a bit off this way.

These three guys were pretty good at the basketball. I just won the yellow rookie year card for David Robinson the other night on eBay, so I now have three completed players from this set.

Well, that's it for now. As mentioned, I've got a bunch sitting in my COMC account, two on their way from eBay, and I think one or two sitting in my Sportlots box (including one of a guy whose name rhymes with Cycle Gordon😄). I think I have enough sets to chase now, and barring any major windfalls, I'm pretty sure that I won't be taking on anymore sets after this.

On an unrelated note: I don't know if everyone saw it or not, but after like a four or five year hiatus, Raz, has started posting again. If you weren't aware and have a few moments to do so (and of course are inclined to want to do so), it might be nice to go welcome him back. He mentioned that he might be giving it another go, and comments usually help determine whether someone is gonna stick around or not, so... you have the power!

And on a second, and final, unrelated note: Brian, also posted the other day for the first time in over a year. He wasn't very clear as to if he was planning on planning to return or not, but either way, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to give him the 'welcome back' treatment as well.

A Baseball Card Store Top 12

Like a number of other bloggers, I received a shipment from the Baseball Card Store back in early January. However, unlike all of those other bloggers, it's taken me until March to finally get around to posting about said shipment.

I wanna say that there were around 200 cards in the shipment, half of which were probably gotten on Black Friday when everything was a nickel and there was special free shipping promotion going on. The other half were just regular old dime cards that had been sitting in my account.

Since there is no way that I was gonna spend however many hours it would've took to scan all 200 cards, or even a significant portion of them, I took the lazy approach and pulled out a few that I thought were of note, scanned them, and am now doing one of my least favorite kind of posts; a top 10 list, or in this case, a top 12 list. Oh, and since my feelings on lists have already been established in previous posts, let's not dwell on that again, shall we? I get it, you all like lists, and I'm not overly fond of them. It's crazy, I know, but it's been covered, time to move on...

#12: 1993 Ted Williams Card Company #119

Full disclosure, I originally started this post over a month ago, got bored, left, and hadn't come back to it until today (Sunday). Generally, I don't like to leave drafts laying around too long, if only because I can always remember why I did something months after the fact. Case in point, I no longer have any idea why I pulled this card out. I had a few of the Ted Williams lady baseballers in this shipment, but don't know why Marge is here. It is a nice looking card though.

#11: 1992 Score #344

The concentration that can be seen in Mongo's eyes is what makes this card. It's like watching a lion stalk a zebra.

Speaking of eyes...

#10: 1993 Leaf #316

I found out, after scanning it, that I already had one of these in the Bo collection. I don't mind at all though, as this is one of those cards that makes a page pop; even more so when there's multiple copies of it on a page.

#9: 1996-97 Fleer Ultra #73

This shot is from LJ's "Welcome to the Knicks" presser. I may not like lists, but I absolutely love "What If's?". I don't think about it much these days, but I used to often wonder what if LJ and Alonzo Mourning could've co-existed? And what if he didn't have the back problems? And then of course, what if he hadn't left Charlotte? It would've been very interesting to see Charlotte continue to build around Zo and a healthy LJ. Depending on the pieces, they might've been a real contender during mid to late 90's.

#8: 2009 Rittenhouse The Complete Twilight Zone #19

This Twilight Zone set is great for those that collect certain celebrity's, or for those like myself who are working on themed collections/pages. The cards feature an episode on each side, so there's twice as many opportunities to get that certain someone that you're looking for. There's also a few people featured in this set who had never been on a card before, or since (despite all of the TZ sets in recent years). I picked up about half of this set (for a nickel apiece) for various collections. You'll be seeing more of these in the future, but for the moment I just chose to highlight the great Keenan Wynn, who was needed for my Kolchak collection.

#7: 1992 Fleer Ultra #54

I don't collect Jim Thome, but after coming across this card, I decided I had to have it nonetheless. I like that you can tell exactly what's happened just by looking at him. The non-rookie Rookie banner is kind of annoying, but it's small enough that I can look past it and still enjoy the card.

#6: 2016 MTG: Oath of the Gatewatch #017

I know nothing about MTG, and until just the last few years, never really cared about it. It's too late for me to learn about the game itself, but I have come to appreciate some of the artwork, and have quietly been picking up a few cards (cheap cards) here and there just for said artwork. In this case, a lion sporting a pair of ethereal antlers was just too cool for me not to get.

#5: 1992-93 Topps Archives #80

I had this complete set at one time, but that was a long, long, time ago. Despite it's being one of my personal favorites, I'm not looking to build it again. I do however still need a few cards for player collections, though not as many as I did before this shipment. Now if the BCS would just put up some of the gold stamp versions...

#4: 1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame #'s 103,16, 176, and 54

Yeah, I know, I'm kind of cheating here. This set is really great for person/themed collections too. Unfortunately, I think with the dozen or so cards that I had in this order, I now have everybody that I need from it (insert sad faced emoji here). Ann B. Davis is for a Brady Bunch themed page. Chuck is for, well, I don't really know yet. Maybe I'll do a themed page for him, at least then I'd have an excuse to get a Jill Ireland card 😉. Scatman is for the Kolchak collection. And Jane is for the smokeshow small collection of hers that I've got going.

#3: 1990 Pacific Andy Griffith Show #279

This card has proven rather difficult to find cheap. I had been looking for one for the last few years, but never thought to check the BCS for it before that fateful Black Friday evening when I spent multiple hours scouring the site. I was starting to think that I was gonna have to buy the whole set just to get this one, as well as few others that I still need. In another timeline, Elinor Donahue and Andy Griffith clicked better, and she became a much more permanent fixture on the show. As it is though, they didn't, and she only appeared on part of the first season. As much as I enjoy The Andy Griffith Show, her appearance on the program isn't why I wanted this card, no, I needed her for yet another themed page, one that'll be revealed at a later date (if it ever gets completed, that is).

#2: 1993 Upper Deck #175

I am of the opinion that this is about as close to a perfect baseball card as you can get, at least as far as modern cards go... maybe even vintage too!

#1: 1991 Impel Terminator 2 #10

Robert Patrick RoOkIe CaRd! For those of you that actually take such things seriously, Robert Patrick has multiple "rookie" cards in this set, and the much inferior Topps T2 set from the same year. This is the best looking one. This was another set that I had never thought to look for on the site prior to Black Friday, I'm glad I did though, as I was able to get a few more "kEy" cards (Arnold, Linda Hamilton, and James Cameron) for other themed pages as well.

After going through this list again, I can't say that these cards are in the exact order that they should be, but I guess it's close enough. Although Mongo probably should've been higher than #11, just sayin'.

Splurging on Sportlots: Part 1

I mentioned at the end of my previous post that I was expecting this week to be busy, and surprise surprise, it has been!

The weather is getting really nice, really quick. Meaning that any free time (during daylight hours that is) has been, and will continue to be, spent getting things ready for spring/summer. All of the various storms that have rolled through in the last year or so, have really taken their toll on the house's siding, and I've been waiting for a stretch of dry weather to fix all of the various problems before any major summer storms can come and make them worse. It's been slow going so far, but I think I'll be done with as of Friday. It's almost time to start planting things as well, so there's plenty of garden prep to do as well, including my "favorite", tilling :(

All of these hours spent doing extracurricular work has got me plumb tuckered out, mentally and physically (I suspected that it would). As such, I'm not looking to write the card blog equivalent of "War and Peace", at least not this week. So as planned, I'm gonna drop a two-part Sportlots order on you. 

Thanks to an eBay sale, I had some extra money last month (scroll down to find out what I sold), and decided to treat myself to some cards. Normally I would've just saved it for a show, but I'm not feeling the idea of driving to Nashville any time soon, and with eBay being kind of sucky right now, I decided, after doing some looking around, to spend some of my ill-gotten gains on Sportlots. I ended up buying from three sellers (acardman, shaner18, and whoops24), and to my great surprise, wasn't disappointed with anything from them (are the sellers on Sportlots actually getting better?).

Today's post will cover baseball(warning: there's not very much)/basketball portions, and if I can get it done by then, Friday's post will be all football (and I know how excited you'll all be for that one).

I grew up in Mother's Cookies country, but only ever encountered the various Mariners issues (which were so plentiful at the time that you couldn't even give them away). In fact, until my late teens, I was under the impression that the only cards Mother's made were those of the Mariners variety. Of course I've learned otherwise since, but it's still a little off-putting to see an MC card featuring a non-Mariner. This one does spotlight a future Mariner, but it still looks odd to me.

Jamie looks so young here! And to my knowledge, this is the only card in which he can be seen sporting his ill-advised hoop earring. I know that almost of us went through a rebellious phase when we were growing up, and probably made a few poor decisions during said phase, but even so, this earring was an especially bad idea on Jamie's part. I know that he got rid of it fairly quickly, and refuses to ever talk about it, so if it weren't for this card, most people might not have ever remembered what the media dubbed, "Earring Gate".

I guess it's because I wasn't collecting in the mid-aughts, but I am not familiar with Topps Cracker Jack in the least. I remember the mini '91 Topps' that came in Cracker Jacks, but that was about it. I see that Topps did all of the usual stuff with this set, mini's, parallels, 1/1's, etc. I've looked at a few other cards in the set, and am not overly impressed. I did like this card though, which is a mini by the way. 

Speaking of mini's...

This Bo is so mini, it's Micro! MicBo? Bocro? I had actually never seen one of these in person before. I had always just assumed that they were about the size of the above mentioned Cracker Jack cards. Turns out that I was wrong though, as they're even smaller...

I don't know why, but I really love this photo! The only thing that would've made it better is if Bo had been playing for one of the 'bird' teams.

I don't know if anyone's noticed or not, but I haven't been doing much baseball here on the blog in recent months. In case anyone has noticed, and wondered why, it's simply because I still don't have the majority of my player collections inventoried. I'm kind of burned out on adding lists to the TCDB, and am down to adding about one player a week at this point, which makes for some very slow inventorying. I think that Bo is the only modern baseball player that I've done so far, so I didn't have to get up and go look at what I already had while placing these orders. And I don't have very many cards of Jamie Moyer, so it's pretty easy to remember what I do and don't have. Everybody else is a little more difficult.

All of the baseball or bust folks can probably bounce now, as that was the extent of my baseball purchases. Whoops24 had a few more $1 and up baseball cards that I was interested in, but I wasn't looking to go too crazy with my spending. If they're still available in another month or two, I'll probably go back and grab a few of them.

I think it's because a lot of newer collectors are just finding out about it, but I feel like I've heard and seen more talk about the 1988 Fournier Estrellas set in the last year or so, than I had in the previous thirty. Of course most of these people only care about the MJ card, which isn't a bad thing if you're of the sort that doesn't, because the rest of cards in the set can, for the most part, still be had for very little. 

It's been a long time since I last acquired any new 1991-92 Fleer Wheaties. If the shipping wasn't so prohibitive, I'd just try to get some of the full sheets and cut out the cards that I still needed, but as long as it saves money, I'm okay with going the singles route too.

A Wheaties back for anyone who may be interested.

As a kid, I thought that there was almost nothing cooler than the Tony's Pizza Fleer sets. The only thing that edged them out in terms of coolness, was the McDonald's Hoops/Upper Deck sets. I used to have a complete set of both of the Tony's sets, but that was long time ago. Owning complete sets doesn't really do much for me these days, I'm mostly just trying to fill out player collections. 

More Tony's! If I was actively adding cameo cards to my player collections, I'd have to get two more Thunder Dan's, as both Buck Williams and Terry Porter are clearly shown (same goes for the Cliff up above where James Edwards reaching into the frame).

1989-90 Fleer has really shot up in price as of late, which seems a little weird to me, but it's the usual, MJ, and graders. It doesn't really matter to me either way, as long as I can still upgrade a few more cards on the cheap, like this uber-crispy Moses that cost me all of 18¢.

Some months ago I decided to open up my 1989-90 Hoops Superstars boxed set, and pull out all of my player collection needs. Before doing so though, I did decide to check eBay, and despite all of the current card craziness, was still surprised to see how much these sets that you couldn't sell at any price two years ago, were currently going for -- but then again, MJ, and the graders! I already had a loose MJ, as well as a few others, so I decided to sell my set, and just buy the couple more that I needed for 18¢ apiece off of Sportlots. My set sold like six hours after I listed it, the funds of which covered this Sportlots splurge, and then some. 

Oh, and I'm assuming that most of you are familiar with this set, but in case I'm wrong, yes, the borders are supposed to be yellow, my scanner just didn't pick it up very well.

Panini stickers were one of my favorite things to collect as a kid. There was so much variety, and they could be found at every grocery store, for not very much money. All of my stickers are one of the few things that I wish I had held on to when I stopped collecting, but how was I to know that I'd be so nostalgic for them 20 years later. Oh well, most of the singles can still be gotten on the cheap too.

I got a bunch of 91-92's. These can be a real pain to get off of the scanner tray, hence the bad photos.

I don't have a checklist going, but I'm fairly certain that I only need a few more from this set now.

If you didn't know any better, you'd swear I was a Celtics fan. I'm not by the way, I just collect a number of the teams former players. Larry is from one of those team sheets that were given out at games. I always liked the Tower of Power inserts. Top Flight? Not so much.

I still like the '93-94 Hoops set quite a bit, though I never owned a lot of it as a kid, which is kind of weird in retrospect since Hoops was my primary basketball brand. The LJ is a promo, and the other two are obviously 5th Anniversary parallels.

Seeing as how I rarely buy from Sportlots, I took this opportunity to grab some cheap Cliff Robinson inserts and parallels. I didn't scan the back, but this particular Stick Ums is of the Italian variety.

With this blue parallel, my Cliff E-XL rainbow is now complete. Granted, said rainbow is made up of only two cards (base and blue parallel), but a rainbow's a rainbow, right?

My scanner made this Topps at 50 look like absolute 💩.

Ditto on the blue Fleer Brilliants. I've never been a fan of the Mystique set, but a gold for 18¢ was awfully difficult to pass up.

Post-2000 basketball sets do very little for me, but I kind of like the looks of this Fleer Tradition. I also really dig the shade of green that they used for the parallel. It's very close to the color of my bedroom walls (center stage green).

I'm not sure how it is that I've gone the last ten years without knowing that Topps went back to the tallboy well at some point while I was away, but apparently they did back in 2001 with their High Topps release. Seeing as how I'm just now finding out about them, they obviously went over about as well as Fleer's attempt to bring them back in the previous decade. Collector's by in large didn't care for them in the 90's, and clearly still didn't in '01. Given how unpopular they are today, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I don't think that we'll ever see another set of tallboy's released. I mean seriously, can you imagine what would happen if Panini made a tallboy set? Today's "investors" would lose their collective sh*t! 

I don't have my LJ cards inventoried yet, but was certain that I was buying a duplicate hologram (because it was cheap), turns out though that I didn't already own a copy, so I guess that was a small win on my part. And t's impossible to tell from the scan, but the Metal is a Silver Spotlight.

My 1997-97 Metal Universe Reebok Silver didn't scan so well. I think I can almost guarantee too that you won't see a worse looking scan on the blogs today, it's that bad. I already had two of the Starquests, but wanted at least one more so that they could fill the row of a page.

That'll do it for this group. If you're one of the few folks out there that enjoy football cards, you might like Friday's post. If you're not one of those few, well, Sunday's post will be baseball related (another card bought from the sale of that Hoops Superstars box), so you can just wait until then to come back around.