Finding a scrap amongst the remnants

My attempt to build the 1969 Topps football set was short lived. I was earnest in my attempt, but in my heart of hearts, I kind of always knew that it wasn't gonna get very far. 

Aside from a couple of cards, it's not an overly expensive set to collect, and might've been doable had I not been trying to work on so many others at the time. I think I had around 50 cards by the time I stopped working on it. 

Not being that far along, it was actually one of the first sets that fell by the wayside when my interest in set collecting started to wane a couple of years ago. I was trying to narrow my focus down to just a couple of sets at the time, but it was too little, too late. My interest in set collecting was already gone, I just wasn't willing to admit it yet.

Two (three?) years later now, I still have around 40 random 1969 Topps cards just sitting in a box. I took out a few for player collections quite awhile ago, and haven't gone through them again since. That is until just a few weeks ago, when I was trying to see if I had any for somebody else's set build. I didn't end up having any for them, but did after all of this time, find one more thing for me...

I know that I had to have known that there was a puzzle to be made from some of the backs in the set, but with my memory being what it is, and now being a couple of years removed from last seeing one of these backs, it kind of feels like this is a completely new thing to me. I mean I did have them in a binder at one time, meaning that I did have to put them in order, which meant looking at the back --- but still, I just don't remember this puzzle piece.

One of the greatest last names in football history.

Even though I had to have known about the puzzle itself, I apparently only ever got one of the pieces, so I'm almost certain that I never bothered to look up who the puzzle was of.

Image "borrowed" from eBay.

Hey, it's Fran Tarkenton! And hey, I collect Fran Tarkenton! Sure, it's not the greatest image ever, but still... [Also, this isn't the full puzzle, but I couldn't figure out how to copy and paste this one]

Before committing myself to the idea of trying to complete this puzzle, I wanted to make sure that none of the pieces had guys named Starr, Unitas, or Namath on the front. They don't. In fact, the checklist doesn't look too bad at all:

#137 Billy Lothridge

#145 Johnny Robinson

#168 Willie Wood

#174 Steve Stonebreaker

#177 Bobby Walden

#194 Bruce Gossett

#211 Tom Sestak

#219 Darrell Dess

#224 Paul Martha

#256 Jack Snow

There really isn't anyone on there that commands a premium these days. Willie Wood might be a few bucks, but this is definitely doable. So, I'm gonna do it. Or rather, I've already started doing it. With Steve out of the way, I went over to COMC to see if I could knock anyone else off the list.

Seventy cents was all it took to cross Paul's name off of the list. Obviously this won't be in hand for a bit, so try to look past that watermark.

This piece is only slightly more interesting than the one I already had, but after swiping this scan of theirs, I did notice that it's the piece directly above mine.

I am now just one piece away from completing Fran's arm. It doesn't get much more exciting than that! These pieces will probably matchup better color-wise once I get the new one. I cleaned up my scan, but didn't bother with COMC's, hence the difference.

For the moment, Paul was only other one I could get, as I don't want to pay very much for the pieces, but do still want them to be in fairly decent shape. 2 out of 10 isn't a bad start though. I'm not in any hurry to finish this, so I don't mind sitting back and waiting for some better deals to pop up.

Road trip (sort of)

After being away for almost two months, I'm finding that getting back into trying to blog on a semi-regular basis isn't quite like that old tried and true "riding a bike" analogy.

Words aren't exactly flowing well, and ideas seem to be non-existent, I guess that's what I get for staying gone so long, well, that and being of the mindset that I didn't really want to come back for so long. But alas, I will trudge on in the hopes that these things will return with time.

As a quick aside, I tried out that NEW Blogger that everyone's been talking about, and yeah, it's just as bad, if not worse, than everyone's been saying. I couldn't figure out how to do anything, literally, I mean I couldn't even find whatever you're supposed to click on to start a new post! It should come as no surprise that I've switched back to the old Blogger for the time being. I even took a moment to let Google know what I thought of this NEW Blogger, and am hoping that everyone else has done so as well. Maybe if they get enough complaints they'll let us keep our old Blogger?

Anyhoo, since card posts don't seem to be working for me today (Sunday), I'm gonna go rogue and show off the goods from my trip to McKay's (aka the entertainment capitol of Knoxville) earlier this month.

Before this particular trip, it had been over six months since I had gone to McKay's, which was quite a while considering I normally try to make it there about every four to six weeks. Not surprisingly, it's because of the Rona that I've stayed away. Although it's not any sort of fear of catching it that's kept me away, that's of absolutely no concern to me, I was actually more concerned that I'd make the hour plus drive only to find that half the store was depleted, or something similar along those lines, especially after them having to be closed for two months during the lockdown. From what I've seen online, people buying anything and everything, I just kind of assumed that when they reopened, folks would come through like a plague of locusts and clear the shelves faster than the store could replenish them.

Thankfully my fear seems to have been unjustified, as there were no shortage of goods when I went, although there wasn't a lot for me this particular time, but I did make up for that by making a few more stops on the way home, the items of which can be found a little lower in the post.

It's not very often that I come across an old horror movie that I've never even heard of, and yet I was able to so just a few minute into my searching through the $1.95 and under DVD/Blu-Ray section. Generally speaking, I'm not usually a fan of the Dr. Moreau theme, but this one turned out to be surprisingly good, although in less your the sort who enjoys old horror movies, I probably still wouldn't recommend it, of course I'd say the same for just about any old horror movie, or even just b/w movies in general, modern mindsets seem to be preventing a lot of people from enjoying such films.

"Samurai" is one of those words that'll always get me to stop and pay more attention to whatever it's attached to, case in point, Samurai Resurrection, which I hadn't been familiar with, but stopped for a closer inspection when I saw "samurai" in the title. I still haven't watched it yet, so I can't yay or nay it, but at $1 it would have to be pretty bad for me not to like it, just give me a little bit of sword play and I'm good.

I thought after I found these first two so quickly that I was going to hit the motherlode, but it didn't end up playing out like that, as these were the only two that I found amongst the thousands(?) from the cheap bins. I did see a guy though that must've had well over 100 Blu-Rays in his cart, so at least somebody was doing well in the bargain section that day.

I had the choice of getting this in paperback for $2, or hardback for $3, and while I normally prefer hardbacks, I like saving money more, so I opted for the paperback. I've sort of been looking for a cheap copy of this book for a few years now, and it was nice to finally find one. This is the third book of Simon Winchester's that I've read (technically speaking, I'm only halfway through it as of this writing), so I kind of knew what to expect from him, lots of research, history galore, and plenty of obscure facts; that being said, this one seems to be much denser than his other works that I've read, but is still really good, it just makes for a bit of a slower read.

Keep those pithy comments to yourself, please.

I read this book as a kid, but never owned it. It was fun to read it again after all of these years, and was glad to see that it's held up really well, well enough in fact that I'll now have to keep an eye out for the two sequels.

Few things remind me of childhood more than books of this subject matter from either Time-Life or Reader's Digest. I had, and still have, plenty of them, and will almost always grab any cheap ones that are new to me, like this one. Unfortunately this one wasn't very good, but it was only fifty cents, so not the end of the world.

Five items isn't very much to come away with after two and half hours of total driving, but it happens. I got out of there relatively early for once, but wasn't in the mood to go anywhere else, so I just decided to come home. The drive back went really quick (mostly due to some stretches where the flow of traffic was over 95 mph), so about thirty miles from home I decided to make a pit stop, or three...

First up was the Hilltoppers thrift store, which I hadn't been to in quite some time, I'm not absolutely sure, but it feels like I hadn't been there since Christmas. They've reduced their price on videos since I was there, but didn't have anything for me, still worth the look though. I did walk away with this nifty puzzle for a buck though, which made the stop worth it.

The second stop was just a few miles away, that being the Book Cellar, where I picked up this book, which I had very high hopes for, hopes that were dashed about two stories in. This book is sh*t, don't ever buy it, there's maybe 1 1/2 good stories in here, and I'm being generous on that half. Everyone seemed to be trying too hard to be edgy with their stories, and in my mind they come across as disingenuous at best, and pathetic at worst.

And lastly, I found this big ol' puzzle (sorry about the glare) at the Thread of Hope thrift store, which is just a couple of hundred feet from the bookstore. This is the third big puzzle (more than 1,000 pieces) that I've found there this year, which is cool, because I can never have too many. Paid a dollar for this one too by the way, but would've paid a couple more if had been necessary.

Looks like we've reached the end of the line, but there's no need to fret, as I'm planning on heading back to McKay's later this week (I thinned out the hoard some, and will be taking a bunch of stuff to trade in), and will hopefully come away with enough for another post some time in the next couple of weeks.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.