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.

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! 

*****************************************

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.

**************************************

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.

I couldn't stop with just one

I didn't start out life as someone who enjoyed collecting duplicates, in fact as a young collector  (a young set collector to be more precise), who rarely had anyone to trade with, duplicates were the bane of my existence. There was nothing worse than buying a pack of cards, only to find that you already had 90%, or more, of the cards in said pack. Sometimes I would try to circumvent this problem by starting multiple sets of the same thing, but more often than not, my duplicates would just end up in a box in my closet. It wasn't the ideal way to deal with them, but it was the only way I knew. Eventually I stopped collecting cards, and then a few years later, donated the bulk of my collection, including all of those duplicates, to a charity auction.

Fast forward a decade, and I unexpectedly started collecting cards again. And of course I just had to resume with my set collecting ways again, which meant more duplicates! A curious thing started to happen with some of those duplicates this time though, this being that I wasn't getting as perturbed as I used to be by all of the extras. Some were starting to become welcome. I wasn't full on collecting them, yet, but I was intentionally keeping them together in my keeper boxes (or as I was calling them, my "I'll do something with them later" boxes). I also wasn't going out of my way to seek out duplicates, yet, but was quietly grabbing extras of guys that I liked from dime and quarter boxes, especially those guys who appeared on cards of the vintage variety (Snapper Jones is the first example that comes to mind).

Fast forwarding a few more years, and I was finally able to break free from the shackles brought on by set collecting (that's just how it felt to me, I'm not knocking set collecting, or set collectors). Ever since then, I've been all over the place collecting-wise, which I think of as just trying to find my way. I was treading in completely new territory after all. Things are a lot more settled as of late. I'm pretty sure that I know now how I'll be collecting, and what I'll be collecting going forward. One thing that has emerged from all of this, that I shouldn't be surprised by, but still kind of am, is that I now enjoy collecting multiple copies of certain cards, and will actually go out of my way to seek them out.

I'm sure that no one remembers, but I did post last year after I had found out that not only had Alan Autry (aka Bubba), played football prior to going into acting, but that he also had exactly one card out there (well, technically he has two, but the short printed Topps Mexican is way out of my price range). At the time, I had just gotten a copy of that card from Sportlots, and even though I didn't mention it in the post, I kind of already knew that it wasn't gonna be the last copy that I'd be purchasing. I tried to fool myself a bit initially, by thinking that I'd get just one more, and send it off to see if I could get him to sign it. Well, I got that second copy, then found out that he's apparently not too keen on signing TTM requests. Not willing to risk the loss, I just held onto that second copy.

The trouble was, just two of the same card doesn't look very good on a page, so I bought a third from Sportlots to complete the row. The page did look better after that, but then the problem of what to fill out those other six slots with arose. He only has one card, and putting cards of someone else in that page wouldn't look very good either. Have you figured out where this is going yet? There really was only one option, for me, and that's to get six more copies to fill out the rest of the page. I was able to get two of those six just last week, from Sportlots again.

Although my goal is to complete this page, I already know that I'm not gonna stop with just four more. I'm sure that if I wanted to delve into it a little more, I could probably figure out why certain cards are appealing to me so much, I mean I have at least one row of duplicates in most of my paged player collections, and for a lot of them I don't need any more than that (unless I find some more in dime boxes), but there's just certain cards that I now want as many copies of as I can get. And honestly, I don't even care why this is, as flipping through these pages just makes me happy. That is what collecting is supposed to be about, isn't it?

I don't know if the Bubba pages will ever reach...

... 1990-91 Fleer Shawn Kemp (14 pages and counting) or...

... 1961 Topps Billy Muffett (3½ pages and counting) status, but that's okay, I've got a number of just single full page duplicate collections as well, and those are fun to flip through too.

Moving on...

The seller that I got these last two Bubba's from, twinrick, has a really good combined shipping rate for 4 cards (90¢), so I picked myself out two more cards to round out the order, neither of which were duplicates.

People still get all excited over rookie cards, right? I'm guessing that Bob Golic's Topps rookie probably won't move any needles, even for those who answered yes. Apparently this is one of those cards that has those silly C*, D*, and C* D* variations on the back. I don't think you can choose which one you get when buying on Sportlots. Mine is the C* D* version, and for the moment, that's good enough for me. Maybe I'll get the other two at some point, but it's no rush.

Please excuse the dust bits on the scan.

Three-Mile Lyle's got old Joe Theismann marked for death, and it's doesn't look like Washington's O-Line is gonna be able to prevent this murder from happening. 

Lyle is one of those guys that I'm gonna start pushing a little more to try and complete the rest of their playing days stuff. His cards are very cheap (Late edit: I forgot that he has a Topps Mexican too!), so there really isn't much of an excuse I can put forth for having not finished his catalog already.

With shipping, these four cards came to $1.62 total. Since I wasn't looking to spend much, I was rather pleased to get all of these for roughly 40¢ apiece. I'm sure I could've found Bob and Lyle for a less at a show, but I didn't have to get up at 3am, travel a couple of hundred miles to Nashville and back, or spend $30 in gas to do so. Sometimes it's worth paying a few cents more to get cards like these online, at least for me.

A Baseball Card Store Top 10

Everybody loves top ten lists, right? Wrong. I don't care for them all that much. I care even less for scanning lots of cards though, so when my accumulated order of around 125 cards arrived from the Baseball Card Store a few months ago - while I was away from the blog - I knew I wasn't going to want to scan them all, so I plucked out ten of my favorites, scanned them, and sat on the scans until I returned to the blogging fold. I've been back for a weeks now, and figure that this is as good of a time as any to make a list out of the cards and post it.

#10: 1992 OPC #645 Deion Sanders

1992 Topps is the last baseball set that I remember completing during my original collecting run. Almost thirty years have passed since then, and my memory, especially when it comes to cards, isn't nearly as sharp as it once was -- as such, I often see things on the blogs, or somewhere else online, that I know for a fact I once owned, but upon seeing now, have absolutely no recollection of ever laying eyes on it before. 1992 Topps is one of those sets that this happens with on a fairly regular basis, and did so again when I espied this Deion Sanders. It's not the most interesting of cards, that's for sure, but I don't remember it in the least... so here it is! Also, it's an OPC, so that makes it a tad different, and dare I say, better?

#9: 1994-95 Fleer All-Star Weekend #23 Clifford Robinson

This card isn't all that interesting either, but after trying to trade for twice on the TCDB, and having one show up damaged by the post office, and the other being sent by someone who was completely comfortable sending people shitty cards (that weren't described as such), I was just really glad to finally get a nice one, and be done with it.

#8: 1995 Collector's Choice Update Stick-Ums #86 Steve Atwater (and others)

Unfortunately for me, I had stopped collecting football by the time Collector's Choice had come on to the scene, and therefor missed out on quite a bit -- including these nifty quad-stickers. I haven't looked through the checklist, so I don't know if I'll ever have cause to buy anymore, but was happy to be able at least one to the collection (the Steve Atwater collection to be more specific).

#7: 1992 Donruss #470 Bo Jackson

If someone had told me by the late 90's, that a time would ever come where I'd look favorably upon on Donruss' 1992 offering, I'd have said they were batty. But here we are in 2021, and here I am saying that I actually dig the '92 design. I wasn't overly fond of it as a kid, and really disliked it by the time I stopped collecting, so I'm not sure what brought about the change? Well, that's not true, I think a big part of it is just that after the last twenty years of mostly terrible, and certainly overly busy, card designs, I now have a much deeper appreciation for the simpler, and less busy, designs of old. There may be a tad of nostalgia mixed in as well, but I'm not ready to commit to that yet.

Funny thing about this Bo too, I actually received two copies in the order, which I'm sure I did accidently, as these cards were purchase over about a six-month period, and I never keep track of what I've already bought from the site. I don't mind owning two copies of this particular card, and they were only ten cents apiece, so it definitely isn't a "loss" by any stretch of the imagination -- but when I went to enter the card onto my TCDB list for Bo, I noticed that it was one of those ones that had the annoying period/no period variations, and as luck would have it, I had gotten both in my order

This example would've been much easier to see had I layered the cards on top of each other, but I didn't, so in case you can't tell, the card on the left doesn't have a period after INC, and the card on the right does. These variations are terribly lame, but like a lot of people, I feel like I have to get both for player collections. At least in this instance though, I didn't have seek them out, they both just came to me of their own volition.

#6: 1994 Topps Ren & Stimpy All Prism #46 Come on and get your Log!

I was big Nickelodeon kid. Aside from the little kid stuff in the mornings, I loved pretty much every show on the channel. Cartoon or live-action, new or old (Nick at Nite), it didn't matter, I loved them all. Except for The Ren & Stimpy show, I never did understand what the appeal of that one was. However, I was an anomaly, and all of my friends liked it, so even not being a fan, just from the time spent at other people's houses, I probably saw every episode at least once. And while I may not have been a fan of the show as a whole, I did enjoy bits and pieces from time to time. One of those bits being the commercial for Log (*from Blammo!). Looking back, it's still my favorite thing to come from that show, and so when I saw this card (from a set that I don't recall ever seeing), I knew that I had to have it. As per usual with cards like this, it looks much better in person. 

                  

#5: 1994 Classic Pro Hockey Prospects #239 Manon Rheaume

A hockey card? From a Canadian site? I know, it's crazy, right? I've only got like a dozen cards in my Manon Rheaume collection, so I wasn't surprised to find one that I didn't have, but was a little surprised to find one with her as a Knoxville Cherokee. I didn't even know such a card existed! Pretty neat though.

#4: 1996 Playoff Contenders Open Field #3 Herman Moore

Herman made the list simply because I think that this set is really cool! Oh, and I miss holograms, that's all.

#3: 1993-94 Topps Stadium Club #173 Shawn Kemp

High Court was kind of a boring subset, but this card makes the list on the strength of the photo alone, particularly for the way the fingers of Shawn's off hand are grazing across Chuck's head (for good luck?) as he soars in for the finger roll.

#2: 1987 Topps Who Framed Roger Rabbit Stickers #3 Jessica Rabbit

Do I really need to explain why this card made the list? :)

#1: 1984 Fleer V #24 Willie's Our Friend

It seems like it's become very trendy to attribute rookie card status to all manner of non-sport cards. Personally, I see it as kind of silly, and a rather piss-poor attempt to inflate the values on what have traditionally been low-value cards. But what do I know, apparently modern collectors are willing to fork over gobs of cash for Iron Man "rookie" cards, and are willing to take out a second mortgage to afford that elusive PSA 10 Volkswagen Beetle "rookie" card. I don't get it, but if I did, I'd be pointing out that this right here is a Robert Englund (best known as Freddy Krueger for you non-film fans) rookie card, and to my knowledge, hasn't been talked about very much, and therefor might be something worth trying to get. But I don't get down like that, so to me it's just a neat card, and one that I had never seen before. I have kind of a side collection going of actors and actresses who appeared in horror films, and this was great addition to that collection.

Fleer sure didn't put a lot of effort into these backs, did they? By the by, any fans of the original V series reading this? I don't expect there to be, but if there is, let yourself be known. I'm a big fan of the original films/series', and go back and watch everything about once every two or three years. My copies are still on VHS, but someday I'm hoping to upgrade to DVD.

I've got about 200 more cards waiting to be shipped from the Baseball Card Store, and since this was a lot easier than scanning crap-tons of cards, don't be surprised if you see another one of these lists pop up here sometime in the next few months.

And on a related note, anybody notice the changes that have been occurring over on our favorite dime cards site? I can't say that I'm liking them too much, but if it proves to be beneficial for the couple running the site, then I'm all for it. Those two deserve all that's coming to them... in a good way! [Geez, that sounded menacing 😮]

Two trades, two purchases, and some videos

                              
I haven't been feeling very bloggy lately. My dear old friend, depression, has decided to pay me a visit, and as per usual, is making it very difficult for me to want to do anything -- especially if that anything requires me to be on the internet. This has led to no new posts for the last ten day, and I'm probably a week or so behind in my blog reading (I am planning to hit a few of those before this goes live though).

Despite not posting for the last week and a half, I see that the view count on all of my recent posts is way up, which can mean only one thing, the bots have been active during my absence. I guess I should be thankful that I haven't been spammed into oblivion during this time as well. Although, some of those spam comments have been getting kind of funny, so maybe them showing up wouldn't be the worst thing ever.

Thanks to a bunch of trades on the TCDB, as well as some of that famous blogger generosity, cards have been coming in fairly steady for at least a month now, mot of which I've yet to scan though. It's just piling up, waiting for me to want to spend a few hours scanning. It might be waiting a while.

I do have a few (two) older trades ready to go though, like this one from a fellow called, OC2410, who just so happens to live in the same state, about two hours down the highway from me.

The trade was made up of all things Steve Atwater on my side, the "highlight" of which was this 1998 Finest refractor. I kind of hate this card though, hence the "highlight". I know I talked recently about my general dislike of the Finest brand, so I won't rehash that, but I don't like this design, I loathe the peel, and am not enamored with the refractoriness of it. That being said, it is considered to be a "good" card, and I did need it for the collection, so I wasn't about to pass up an offer from the only person on the site who had one up for trade.

Most of my trades have been of the base card variety, which has been fine, as I do seem to need more than I thought I did before joining the Database. Also, most of my trade bait isn't the sort that's gonna land me many SiCk HiTz, or at least that's what I thought, as I was able to trade a pair of semi-recent serial numbered football cards to, briznuts (I have no idea what that means), for what I consider to be a 90's sIcK hIt...

I don't remember what the odds were on the Player's Club Platinum's back in 1995, but I'm pretty sure that they averaged out to about one per box. I never got a box of this year's CC way back when, and wasn't fortunate enough to pull any of the Platinum's from from the few packs that I did get. However, I have been in the right place, at the right time, to find a few in dime boxes over the years. I've also gotten a few ridiculously cheap copies from COMC as well. That being said, none of my cheap finds were on the level of this Reign Man. Many thanks to briznuts (unfortunately I can't remember his real name) for making it happen.

Between all of the stupid-high prices, and lack of reliable places to buy from, my card purchases have continued to dwindle. I never would've thought the day would come when I'd be extolling the virtues of Sportlots, but it has, and I am! For my money, it's the best place to buy cards these days. The site's list of sellers is continually increasing, and most of their prices are still those of the pre-Rona boom.

I made a pair of small purchases recently, starting with a pair of vintage variations:

A lot of my basketball focus as of late has been on former Blazers, and while I already had both of these fellows in white-back form, I didn't own their grey backs...

This pair of '77-78's came from a seller called chevyvan, and after shipping was added, were 90¢ apiece. Given their awesome condition, I was more than happy to pay less than a buck for each of these. There was also a Geoff Petrie available, which I would've bought, had it not been all wonked up from some sort of printing issue (smeared ink on the front).

My other purchase, a 1998 Upper Deck Arby's Jerome Kersey, came from a guy called kbartell:

I only just recently learned of this set's existence from the TCDB. Jerome is the only card from it that I had to have, though I wouldn't walk away from the Gary Payton were a cheap copy ever to present itself. The seller had a number of Seattle based regional issues, so it wasn't much of a surprise to see that were located in WA, in a town that I know quite well by the way. Anyway, it's a neat card, and I'm glad I was able to find out about it all these years later.

I think it was about two weeks ago now that I stopped in at the Dollar Tree, and the Serenity Thrift that's right next door. DT was a bust, but for the second time in as many months, Serenity's media section was overflowing with videos. Someone older must've passed, because a good number of the newly acquired videos were of older films, you know, stuff that the youngsters won't even give a chance. It took a good 40 minutes to go through everything (this included pawing through the cassettes and vinyl as well), but it was worth it, as I found half-a-dozen videos that I couldn't leave without.

I can't remember specifically which year it was, but some time around '95 or '96, my mom bought this very edition of The Uninvited for us. I want say that it was $19.99, and probably came from Suncoast, as other than specialty catalogs, they were the only ones that carried films like this at time. Being a film that we both liked, it more than paid for itself over the years. Unfortunately, the video disappeared at some point, somewhere in the late 2000's, during a move I believe. Neither of us noticed that it was missing for quite some time, and we don't even know which of us had it at the time of it's disappearance. Between the two of us, there was a lot of moving going on that time, so there was really no way to figure out what had happened after the fact. We also established that are shared copy of Poltergeist II on DVD, vanished as well. But nothing else. Anyways, by then it was available on DVD, but only on a Criterion Collection disc, which if you know DVD's, then you know that the CC DVD's can be quite expensive. Being a cheapskate, I never forked over the cash to get the DVD, and was resolved to wait until I could find another copy of the film, in any format, somewhere in the wild -- which I obviously finally did! It was really nice to see this one again after all of these years, and the film itself is still just as good as it ever was.

I never cared to see John Cameron's Titanic, I'll leave that version to everyone else, and will take this version instead.

I've owned Father of the Bride on video for a long time, but aside from watching it on TCM, had never come across the sequel before. Once again, everybody else can have the Steve Martin remakes, I'll take the originals.

The Fugitive might be only big show from it's era that I've never seen at least one episode of. It wasn't on in syndication when I was kid, and we couldn't just plug every desired thing into an internet at the time (thankfully), so it's just been one that has escaped me up to this point. My mom watched it when she was young, and still likes it, so I grabbed this for her.

I know that I've seen it, but I can't remember a single thing about Meatballs. I can tell you though that I've seen Meatballs 4 more times than any person should've, thanks in large part to it's constantly being on late night cable back in the mid to late 90's. If you want to do yourself a favor, don't ever watch Meatballs 4, trust me, I know what I'm talking about!

In general, I'm not as big of a fan of Scooby-Doo as I used to be, and don't care one bit for any of the newer stuff. I do however still have some affinity for the films that were produced during my childhood, and seeing as how it's from 1987, The Boo Brothers fits right into my wheelhouse. I watched this the day after I got these videos (The Uninvited was the night of), and it was more enjoyable than I thought it would still be. Sometimes it's nice to not always be disappointed :)

In other news, I put in a shipment request on COMC since my last post. I had intended to wait a little longer to do so, but things seem to be getting even worse for them, and they're are starting to make me nervous. It's funny, things appeared to be getting better a few months ago, packages were starting to get mailed sooner than expected, people were getting their cards processed again, and then just like that, everything went to shit again. Only this time, it's worse than it was before. I'm really glad I don't have anything for sale on the site, as a lot of people, especially the larger sellers, could be shit up a creek if the company goes under. Knowing this, I'm a bit surprised that more sellers aren't running bigger sales in order to reduce some of their inventory, just in case. They say my stuff will be shipped in August, hopefully they can keep their virtual doors open until then. Of course too, in typical fashion, two days after I requested the shipment, a card that I've had in my watchlist for at least two years now, that hadn't ever gone on sale, went on sale, 68%, and I had to buy it. I'm also starting another collecting project that I'll cover in the next few weeks, and got a card for that too the other day. 

I also go notified a few days ago that my accumulated order from the Baseball Card Store, that I paid for over a month ago, has finally shipped -- so that's something?

And as mentioned at the beginning of the post, I'm in six kinds of funk right now, so don't be surprised if my posting becomes even more sporadic during the coming weeks. There's a lot of other blogs out there though, so I think you'll live.