The Super Bowl of scan dumps (Part 1)

One of my unofficial goals for this blog, this year, is to finally get all of my old scans, some of which have been collecting virtual dust for upwards of three years, into posts. I don't know how doable this'll be, what with me only posting a couple of times a month on here now, but I'm still gonna try to have all of the old folders cleared by year's end.

I think that the easiest way to achieve this goal will be to do a series of themed scan dumps (like I did last Halloween). One a month might be enough to get caught up, and still allow me to talk about other things in-between dumps (😄). 

The first batch for this year will be a two-parter in honor of the coming Super Bowl. 

As I've said on many occasions, I haven't watched a current sporting event in many years now, with the Super Bowl being no exception. I can't remember what year it was, but the last one that I watched was the Patriots v. Seahawks.

I'm so out of touch with what's currently happening that I couldn't even tell you whose playing this year. The only reason I know it's coming is from hearing commercials on the radio. In year's past, you could know the game was coming by all of the commercials about the "Big Game" starting up. Those are still a thing, but in recent years you also get an influx of commercials for sports betting apps/sites as well. You know those, right, the one's that promise you the potential for fabulous riches if you'd just be willing to bet next week's paycheck. I'm sure that I'm in the minority, but I can't be the only one who thinks that those ads are gross. I hear them so often now that's already becoming hard to remember that there was a time when such things were considered taboo.

Anyway, despite my zero interest in current football happenings, I do still collect football cards; though I don't get them nearly as often as I used to. And when I do, they're are usually just for player collections (there's a few exceptions to that in this post).

Everything in this post came from COMC, and I believe that it's all been sitting in scan folders for at least two years, which - since I only request my stuff from them to be shipped once a year - means some of these could've been purchased upwards of 3-4 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that I got this card and the Bethea up top from the same seller, and only did so at the time because A). They were extremely cheap, and B). I didn't own a card of either guy and thought, at the time, that I should. Now that a couple of years have passed, I'm not so sure that I needed to.

Color-matching Prizms became all the rage for basketball collectors after the boom got going (mostly thanks to "influencers"), but I don't know if that same craze ever carried over to football. My interest in all things Prizm pretty much died once the boom started, and I've since sold off the bulk of my Prizm cards. I did keep all of the ones I had in player collections though. I think that this one in particular might just be one of my favorites, and is also one of my favorite Ronnie Lott cards (that I own).

I like the 2014 purple Prizm that I have for Fran a lot more than this 2015, but for less than a buck (I don't think that I would've paid more than that for it) this one isn't too bad. John Bunting didn't appear on a lot of cards, so it's kind of neat to see him lurking in the background of this one.

I briefly thought about collecting Tim Tebow, and I must've bought these two during that period. The thought didn't last long, and honestly, if I hadn't had these scanned I probably wouldn't have even remembered getting them. They're nice enough cards, I guess, but they're not doing anything for me these days.

Speaking of cards that aren't doing anything for me. I really enjoyed watching Mike Alstott play and did start collecting him a few years ago, but it wasn't until after I started doing so that I realized that his cards appear in an awful lot of sets whose designs are unappealing to me visually (I had the same problem with Ichiro). So, while I'd love to collect him, the thought of having a binder full of ugly cards, that I'd never want to look at, forced me to stop doing so. And even though I've decided recently to take on some SLU sets, this isn't one of them, so it's expendable. Fuji recently mentioned having a couple of binders of SLU cards, so I'll give him first crack at it. If he doesn't need it though, it'll be available (for nothing in return) to whoever else might want it. 

As far as set designs go, the '62 Topps Football is arguably the most unique from that decade. The little inset photo is where it's all about for me. The photo on this card is particularly good. It's hard to tell if John got that pass off or not. It looks like he did, but who knows. I'd also be curious to know who #74 in the photo is. I only know of two players from that time that wore #74, Bob Lilly, who it most certainly isn't, and Merlin Olsen, who was just drafted in '62, so it doesn't seem like it could be him either. 

John Brodie isn't a guy that I actively collect, but if I come across any cheap cards of his I won't turn them down.

Were it still doable, I'd love to try and collect all of the 90's Dufex parallel sets, but I think I'm a couple of decades too late such an attempt though. I'll just have to continue to be content with the ones I get for player collections. I'm not sure too, but I think that that's Natrone Means that Steve is about to bring down. I haven't heard Natrone's name mentioned in years, I should probably go see what he's been up to.

Seeing as how his cards are still so cheap, I really should put more effort into completing my Papa Nerf collection. As it stands, I've only got like 4 or 5 of his cards; though one of his better one's is in my coming COMC shipment. I don't how unique it is amongst kickers, but I always thought it was kind of interesting that he never missed a single game during his 15-year career.

Looking through my old scan folders sometimes leave's me wondering what I was thinking when I scanned certain things; this one being a perfect example. I mean, aside from both being for player collections, these two cards have zero things in common (okay, I guess they're both parallels, but...) and don't even look good scanned together.

It looks like shit in the scan, but those old Collector's Choice gold parallels still look really good in person. And their one-per-box ratio means that they can still be difficult to find (depending on the player, of course) thirty years later. This is another set that I wish I would've started working on back when they were new. I don't know if it would be completed by now if I had, but I'm sure that I'd have more than the three cards from it that I currently have.

The J-Stew is kind of an ugly die-cut from his stint with the Giants, which I never saw any of, but it's still sort of color matching, and had to be very cheap for me to have bought it.

Speaking of J-Stew...

All of these are blue parallels of one kind or another too, which look a bit better with his Panthers jersey than the light blue/Giants combination up above. I can't remember what it's called, but the Prizm on the right is my favorite from group.

I think if I didn't have anything else to collect, I'd seriously consider trying to complete full runs (i.e. all of the colors) of the old McDonald's sets. I really do like them. It's just not in the "cards" right now. 

My Steve Young collection has really fallen by the wayside since I stopped going to shows. The same could be said for Eric Dickerson too. In fact, I think that these last two cards might've been the last two that I've added to their respective collections. If you blink you might miss that this is a 1st Day Issue. The stamp doesn't stand out quite as much as it does for those of the baseball and basketball varieties. Still a neat card though.

The last three cards in this post are a bit off-beat for a football card post, but I don't know where else to put them, so...

Saved by the Bell: The College Years was the shits, and as a kid I found it to be a bit depressing as well. In my opinion, this card, a Prism insert of Bob Golic as Mike Rogers, is the only good thing that ever came from this shows existence. I think I have three copies in my Bob Golic collection, and am always up for getting more.

Ted Fritsch is best know for his time with the Green Bay Packers, but he also played in the NBA during it's early days, and even spent a year playing minor league baseball. I believe that this 1977 Fritsch One Year Winners is his only baseball card. I had an idea for a mini-collection that never panned out, and therefor no longer need this card, so if anyone wants it just say the word.

American Gladiators was a huge part of my childhood/early teen years. For fans of the show, who are also card collectors, aside from Topps' 1991 Gladiators release, there aren't a whole lot of options out there. To my knowledge, only two autographs of Gladiators have appeared in sets thus far, Lee Reherman, who was Hawk, being one of them (Jim Starr in Topps' 75th Anniversary set being the other). It's a bit of a stretch, but Lee did play football at Cornell University, hence his inclusion in this post.

My recent health issue (as mentioned on my non-card blog) has made computering rather difficult as of late, so this post is showing up much later in the week than I wanted, but I'm still gonna try and get part two out before the "Big Game", which I'm assuming (based, again, on the increase of radio ads) is this Sunday.

Quietly collecting

Normally when someone who blogs predominantly about cards, starts collecting something new, they don't tend to wait very long before letting everyone know about it.

The want to share this new collection with everyone is quite understandable. You're excited by this latest endeavor, and as a blogger, it's only natural to want to write about this exciting new thing that you're collecting. It also doesn't hurt that other card bloggers, as well as many readers of the card blogs, tend to be very generous folks. So even if it's not in the front of your mind, you do know that there's a good chance that someone reading will have some of what ever it is that you're now collecting and possibly offer to send it to you -- and I'm not saying that everyone posting about their collection's has an ulterior motive, or any other nefarious plans, but don't try and tell me that you're not aware of the overly generous nature that most of the folks in the card collecting community seem to possess, especially when that spirit of giving is a big part of what makes being part of such a community so great.

Now with all that being said, I'm here today to talk about a collection that I started last March, March of 2018 that is, and even though I was excited about this new collection, I was able to refrain from blogging about it for one reason, and one reason alone... selfishness!

You see, after I decided to start this collection, it didn't take long for me to find pieces of it on COMC, and even though I knew that the chances were slim, I didn't want to talk about it publicly and risk someone else becoming interested in said collection, then going over to COMC and purchasing any of my much desired cards before I could earn enough credit via the Challenges to get them for myself. Sounds pretty selfish, huh? This sort of behavior is pretty foreign to me, and it's certainly not very flattering that's for sure, but in this instance, I felt like it was completely necessary, even justified if you will.

It's funny too, because even though I "officially" started collecting this new thing last March, the collection actually started a couple of years before, I just didn't know it yet.

2012 Panini Black Friday Progressions - yellow #1

This is probably a good time to mention that this new/old collection that I'm talking about are the Panini Progressions. If you've seen any of my COMC Shuffle posts, than you've undoubtedly seen a few of these in there. If you haven't seen any of those posts, and you're unfamiliar with Panini's Progressions, well, they're basically just blank-backed proofs that were inserted into Panini's seasonal/specialty sets (Black Friday, Father's Day, The National, etc.) back in 2012 and 2013 (there's also a few that were made in 2014 as well).

Each Progression came in four colors (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow), and were limited to just five copies per color. This scarcity is what led to my not wanting to talk about the collection, because if my talking about it led to someone else buying one of my much desired cards on COMC, at only five copies per color, this could've led to me never even seeing another copy of whatever particular card it was. And this secrecy did work the most part, I mean there's still some really expensive (overpriced?) cards on the site that I'd like to have, but as far as the cheap stuff goes, other than a Tim Duncan that I waited too long to pull the trigger on, I pretty much got everything that I wanted.

So back to the collection. As I mentioned, it actually, unbeknownst to me, started a few years ago with the yellow Jim Brown. I got it during one of those great fire sales that you almost never see on COMC anymore, I only bought it at the time because it was really cheap, and I just thought it looked neat. I didn't even know anything about the Progressions at that time, and still didn't even after I got the card. Looking back, I really wish I would've started collecting them at that time, as I'd probably have a few more completed rainbows by this time.

2013 Panini Black Friday Panini Collection Progressions - magenta #6

Then around two years ago (it was in a blog post, but I don't feel like looking for the date), I picked up this LeBron at a show for a $1. Again, I didn't really know anything about it, but I thought it was interesting looking, and it was only a buck, so why not? I did finally do some research after this purchase, but the idea of collecting them still hadn't sparked yet.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - magenta #17

Now if we fast forward to March of last year, we'll arrive to the point where I decided to start collecting these. It happened quite by accident, I was at one of the big twice a year card shows here, looking through one of Jim's (everyone here's favorite seller) 4/$1 boxes, and out of nowhere I hit a pocket of cards that looked very familiar. I was sort of thinking that looked like the LeBron, but wasn't entirely sure if they were the same thing or not, at a quarter a piece though, I just grabbed all of them, and figured that I go ahead find out what's what after I got home.

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - yellow #37

[The yellow's can be hard see sometimes, so if anyone cares, this is Jaden Schwartz] Once I got around to sorting my card show haul, I found that I had grabbed around twenty Progressions from that box, I also confirmed that they were indeed Progressions, most of the 2013 Father's Day variety. It was at this point that I my interest in collecting these was born, I guess all it took was seeing this newly acquired group altogether to do it. My want for these cards grew very fast, it was literally within just a couple of hours of having come home from the show that I was already on COMC buying up some of the cheaper copies (including the black version of the Lillard above).

2013 Panini Father's Day Progressions - black #38

There were multiple hockey players amongst the group that I got at the card show, which wasn't a bad thing, as it actually made me want to read up on some of these guys, heck, I even bought a few more Progressions of hockey players. I've completed two rainbows so far, Chris Kreider being one of those two.

2013 Panini Father's Day Studio Progressions - yellow #8

Prince was the only baseballer from the card show. Other than a cheap Whitey Ford, I don't think that I've gotten any other major leaguers. The lack of a logo kind of bugs me on the Progressions, it just seems like it's more noticeable when everything is in one color.

2013 Panini Father's Day Inked Progressions #AH

My scanner doesn't do well with the non-mirror backed Progressions, so my apologies for this terrible picture. Panini also made Progressions of the autograph and relic cards that were inserted into the specialty packs as well. I'm still kind of on the fence about these particular cards, but since I get half of this Adam Henrique rainbow for just fifty I am inclined to want to complete it. And the same can be said about...

2013 Panini Father's Day Inked Progressions #CS

... these Cory Schneider's too!

Close to half of the cards that I got from that show were the Progressions for the relic cards (the top two in the photo), those I'm really not crazy about, and have no plans to collect (don't know about the two inked cards in this photo either).

I didn't take a picture of all of them, but you get the idea of what the relic version's look like. I keep meaning to try and trade some of these, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

As I've mentioned, and as you may have seen in the last couple of months, I've gotten quite a few Progressions off of COMC since I started actively collecting them. Those of course will continue to pop up in the weekly Shuffle posts, but I have gotten a few from eBay over the last year as well, so I might as well tack those onto the end here:

2012 Panini Black Friday Thanksgiving Classic Progressions #5

This Rob Gronkowski was my first completed rainbow... and this too sort of happened by accident! Last summer I was looking at something or another on eBay, clicked to view the seller's other items, and there it was, a full Gronk rainbow separated into three different listings. I can't remember exactly how they were listed, but it was something like the black and magenta together in one listing, and the other two were listed individually with a copy of the base card. This was the first time that I had seen a full rainbow, so that was kind of exciting at the time. I didn't waste any time getting my best offer's in on these three listings, and thankfully the seller quickly accepted all three offers.

As an interesting aside, at some point in the last couple of months I was going through my eBay purchase history from last year attempting to find out how much I paid for something else. While doing so, I ran across these (if anyone's interested, I paid around $16 total for these) and noticed that it said that this seller was no longer a registered user. Curious, I did little feedback searching and found out that not too long after I got these, the seller listed, and sold, a bunch of rare Tom Brady cards, but never sent them out to their respective buyers. I thought that this was kind of odd, because I had communicated with the seller and had found them to rather pleasant, they even sent me a message to apologize for taking three days to send out my cards (a message that was completely unnecessary btw). So I don't what happened, but I am sure glad that I got these when I did.

Also, I'm using the term "rainbow" to describe the four Progressions by themselves. Most of these sets have other parallels as well, cracked ice, lava flow, and autograph's -- some people might say the rainbow isn't complete until you get all of those as well, but in my mind, it's complete once the four colors are gotten.



 

Not too long after I got the Gronk's, I was actually searching for the Progressions on eBay -- and that reminds me, searching for these on eBay is a real pain in the butt, as they get listed under multiple different names. Part of that is Beckett's fault, because even though Panini calls them Progressions, Beckett lists them as Make Ready, which is what the SAGE proof's were called, not Panini's. So you got people out there listing them as Make Ready, Progressions, and then there's the folks who can't take a few seconds to any research, and just list them as proofs. And the you got the Beckett Marketplace and Sportlots, who both have them under Make Ready. Thankfully COMC knows what's what, and has them under their proper name!

So I was searching on eBay, came across this wicked awesome DJ Kool (the base card is there to help you see it better) from Steel City Collectibles, and even though the price was a little higher than I had paid on any of my other one's up to that point (no best offer option available), I still went ahead and bought it. This is a card that I'd really like to complete the rainbow of too, but I still haven't even seen one of the other colors pictured anywhere else, so there's probably a good chance that it might not end up happening.

 

2012 Panini Black Friday Kings Progressions - yellow #2

I know that this has turned into a really long post, so you'll be happy to know that we're hitting the home stretch. My final Progressions via eBay, whose presence I became aware of thanks to a saved searches email, came just before last Christmas. A seller had listed a couple of these, but I was only really interested in two of them, Broadway Joe...

2012 Panini Black Friday Thanksgiving Classic Progressions - yellow #6

... and Timmy Tebow! As usual, offer's were made, and said offer's were quickly accepted. Within in minutes of them accepting my offer's, the seller sent me a message asking if I was interested in anything else from the Black Friday sets, I didn't know necessarily if I was or not, but said that I wouldn't mind hearing about what else they had for sale. Most of the stuff ended up not being of any interest, but there was one more Progression mentioned, which a deal quickly struck on. I'm not showing that one because initially I bought it with someone else in mind, but liked it so much once I got it, that I decided to keep it for myself (more selfish behavior). So I'm not showing it, because that person would probably be able to figure out that it was supposed to be for them, and I don't want them to know that I kept a thing that was intended for them.

I realize that some folks might consider these to be a bit gimmicky, especially if you're of the anti-parallel mindset, but I really do like them. Do I think that they're a bit gimmicky? Sure they are, but most cards are. Hell, one could argue that the idea of cards coming in packs is gimmicky. How about cards that come packaged with a food item, that's a straight up gimmick right there. And yet, that doesn't stop anyone from purchasing these things, does it? Most modern "collectibles" are gimmicky, but if you enjoy whatever it is, does it really matter what someone else might classify it as? I for one certainly don't think so, and neither should you.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.