The miniscule amount of creativity that I possess seems to still be on vacation, so this is probably as good a time as any to dump another batch of scanned stuff from February's card show.
Everything this time will be of the basketball variety, which is basically just more cards that didn't fit into this post, or this post.
Being a card show post, there is of course going to be some shiny! Focus Pocus is one of those sets that I didn't ever see during my original card collecting run, but have grown quite fond of them since coming back.
What the Buck?
It's no secret that a lot of basketball inserts from the 90's have gone up in price over the last few years, however a few have also gone down, 1994-95's The Center Stage being one of them. It's a good thing that I don't care about such things though, I was still very much happy to find this new to me kissy faced Pippen.
Off the top of my head, I could probably only rattle off the names of around a dozen horizontal insert sets, two out of the three here would be amongst those listed. I know that there are a few more than that, but I just don't see them enough to remember them by name. I don't usually go for a lot of modern inserts, but I can make an exception for Dr. J, who had to of course go and scan poorly, so...
... here's a slightly better look at him.
A couple of base cards from sets that I don't come across very often.
I love getting inserts of guys like Robert Horry and Jim Jackson, I just wish they would've been included in more sets. And Jim is from one of those mythical Hot Packs, which were made up of an entire insert set. It would've been so cool to open one of those way back when, the only person that I know of who did hit one of those packs, on the baseball side, is Oscar.
Game Breakers ('96-97 or '97-98) are not something that I would expect to find for fifteen cents, although I don't know how much actual demand there is for this particular pairing, as it's not like there's a ton of Jerry Stackhouse and Clarence Weatherspoon collector's out there.
Hobby Masters was, and still is, one of my favorite sets of all-time, easily in the top three. I am still just as enamored with them as I was when they first came out, maybe even more so -- especially when they're found in a dime box, or in this case, a 6/$1 box.
In a (or my) perfect world all three of these guys would have played out their careers with their respective original teams.
Look Wahad my scanner did to Tariq's Zebut card!
Another trio that should've stayed where they started!
This photo was supposed to go in one of the previous posts, but I stuck it in the wrong folder, and forgot all about it. Oh, and here's a pro tip, if you ever come across a Frequent Flyer in a dime box, buy it! You'll thank me later :)
It's only taken four months, but I'm very happy to say that this was the last of the stuff from February's card show!!! This too could be the last card show post in general for a little while longer. I haven't felt like going to Nashville, and I really haven't felt like getting up at 3am on a Saturday, hence the no shows for four months and counting. Plus there's whole lack of money thing, that doesn't help either. I'm sort of thinking now that the next one that I go to will be September's super mega show, and then that might be it for the rest of the year... such a strange year!
Another week, another ten randomly selected cards from last year's COMC hoard!
1970 Topps #380 (Error)
No need to adjust your eyeballs, as this card is as off as it looks. When it comes to errors, I usually am only interested in blank backs, but I made an exception for this one. Tony showed up in a batch of Challenges that I was doing, and I immediately fell in like with him (do people still say that?). I added the card to my watch list, and then spent the next month checking in on it every single day, just impatiently waiting for it to be added to the site. Such efforts rarely pay off for me, but in this instance it did, as I logged in one morning to find that it had been added to the site during the previous night -- and not only had it not already been bought, but the price attached was considerably lower than I had expected it to be. When I saw that it was there, and that it was only $0.95, well, as you can probably imagine (especially after that build up), I could not hit that buy it now button fast enough!
2015 Topps High Tek Pattern 1 Grass/Waves Confetti Diffractor #18
I haven't been pursuing it as much as I was last year, but I have the want to fill up a page of these Tim Brown's. I'm no matholigist, but I believe that once the goal is completed I would then own roughly 10% of the to /99 print run. Without looking, I think I'm sitting at seven right now (4 from COMC, 2 from a card show, and 1 from eBay).
2014 Panini Prizm Red, White, & Blue Prizms #12
I got a mention from Trevor a few weeks ago in connection with this card, and now that's it come up in the Shuffle, the least I could do is reciprocate the shoutout :)
Also, I have no idea why that middle card scanned so poorly, but it don't look like that in person.
1952 Bowman #72
This was just one of those "it's too cheap not to get" kind of purchases. It doesn't really fit into any particular collection right now, but I'm hoping that inspiration will strike at some point, and I'll find a use for it.
2009-10 Upper Deck 3D Stars #3D-AR
I don't what the deal is with this set (and I don't really care), but some of the cards have just one player, while other's, like this LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy, have two. LaMarcus is who you see when the card is at rest, which I'm assuming is just because his last name comes first alphabetically, as Brandon was a much bigger name at the time.
1998-99 Topps Stadium Club Triumvirate - Luminous #T11c
One of my favorite players of all-time, on a card from one of my favorite insert sets of all-time... I believe that's called a "win-win"!
2012 Panini Golden Age Historic Signatures #JO
Fun fact: John went to the same high school (different years though) as Otis Redding and Little Richard. Fun fact #2: Otis Redding and Little Richard went to the same high school!?!?
1968 Topps Game #15 blank back
Here's a bit of a rarity. Not only is this the first blank backed Topps Game that I've ever seen, but it also appears to be the only one that COMC has ever had. For the longest time I was buying blank back lots of say, 1975 Topps baseball, with the goal of trying to get as many from specific sets as I could, but also still picking up the occasional outlier like this. Like everything else card related, my focus has shifted quite a bit, now when it comes to blank backs I'm primarily interested in trying to get just one example from as many sets as I can.
1954 Topps #23
I had never heard of Luke Easter until I read an article about him last year (which I of course can no longer find). He seemed like a really interesting person, and was probably one of the great "what could've been if it hadn't been for injuries" guys. Because of these things, I decided to try and get a few (or all) of his cards. I got this one during last year's Spring Sale, and haven't gotten any more since. I have found that other than his '54 Topps, COMC is not a good place to get his cards, and I just never think to look on eBay, hence the owning of only one card.
2014 Panini Prizm Orange Prizms #105
It looks like Dan wasn't too impressed with today's post. I guess I'll just have to try harder next week then!
My recent struggle's with trying to come up with a creative way to show off the contents from February's card show are still very much alive and well. So instead of wasting any more time on an effort that ultimately won't end up working out the way I want it to, I am just going to dump the remaining scans.
Today's dump will be made up of the remaining baseball and football, which is just a bunch of cards that didn't fit into this post, or this post. There's enough basketball left to warrant it's own post, so that'll be happening sometime in the very near future as well, but until then...
First up is a pair of shiny pitcher's who did in fact Own The Game!
I don't know how anyone else would feel about it, but I'd like to see Jeff Blake in a modern set.
The Big Hurt is trippin' balls, yo!
Jerry can't wait until he turn's 18... then he can finally get a real motorcycle!
I don't see Adrian Beltre cards here very much, so if I find one that's cheap and shiny, I tend to buy it!
Running backs just don't intimidate defenders by coming apart at the seams like they used to!
This is the first Panini made Pinnacle card that I've ever bought, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think it's a pretty good one. I believe that this card is part of some sort of tiered insert set, no ideas on the odds, but COMC only has "single's" and "double's" of Bo for sale, and I can't seem to find a Bo "Triple" for sale anywhere, so it must be a little bit on the rare side, which makes the fifteen cent price tag that much better!
Absolute is one of those brands that I never know what's a parallel and what isn't, so, when buying them at card shows I usually just look for interesting color combinations, and then try to figure out what's what once I get home. Turned out that Aaron here was just a base card, but's that's okay, I don't have very many cards (maybe two?) of his, and I really do like the colors on this one, which are much more yellowy in person.
More shiny! This Vlad must be a fairly common insert, because in the last year or so, I've found (and bought) four of them. Now if I find one more I'm gonna be awfully tempted to try and complete a page of them, okay that's a lie, because even with just four I'm already wanting to complete a page!
I love finding Tek football at shows! I didn't have any Roger Craig's yet, so this one was a neat get, although without looking it up I couldn't tell you which pattern this was... circuit board?
I'm sure that Omar Vizquel has more inserts than I know, but to me he's one of those guys that I don't think of as having very many, so I'm always bit surprised when I come across one. Also, even though I'm not trying to complete it and won't ever be making a list for it, I'm pretty sure that I've got at least half of this Hands of Gold set now. I think that it too is a fairly common insert set, so having more than half of it probably isn't a big deal, but it seemed like it was still worth mentioning.
Thrice the shine! Cards like these are no-brainer's when they're found in bargain boxes. The Natrone Pacific Prism is the prize amongst these three, and would probably make it on to the top five cards that I got from this show list, provided there was such a list of course. It's always nice to find a Rodney Hampton as well, I've got like 6 or 7 of his cards now, so old Matt better be careful, as I'm clearly getting closer to challenging his status as the #1 Rodney Hampton supercollector :)
One more post to go, and I AM DONE!!!! I tell you, if these struggle's are going to continue to be a thing, I might just have to go the "best of" route for a little while, as trying to show everything is starting to feel like way too much of a chore. That being said, there was some decent cards in here amongst the leavings... is it any wonder why I rarely look at anything other than the bargain boxes anymore?
The response that I've gotten from the last couple of early 90's packs has been far greater than I expected. I'd like to think that it's because of how well the posts are written (is there an eye rolling emoji that I could insert here?), but I'm pretty sure that it's just the nostalgia that most collector's have for this particular era that's driving the interest (how else can one explain a pack of Pro Set hockey generating 10+ comments?).
So with that in mind, I've got yet another twenty-five cent early 90's pack from ye olde "copy/print/cards-on-the-side" shop... and this time the cards are from a set that I don't remember buying a lot of way back when (happy day!)
I mean I know I bought some at the time, but I don't recall owning a ton of it like I do with the Hoops, Skybox, and Topps sets from that year. I guess there was only so much money to go around, and Fleer was the odd man out that year. It's kind of interesting too that this set was basically the last Fleer release to have minimal insert sets, because the following year would be the start of Fleer's famous insert blitzkrieg -- which, as a dedicated set collector, I didn't much care for at the time, now of course I adore the insane amount of inserts that were made during the 90's.
Before we get to the opening, I just wanted to note that this pack was an absolute pain in the butt to scan! The scanner kept chopping off the borders, and the crisp glossy finish was rendered considerably less glossy (and crisp), but I figure you people were worth the aggravation, so even though I thought about scrapping this pack, I powered through for all of you :)
I miss the days of league leader subsets. Cedric led the league in field goal percentage (57.6%) during the 1992-93 season.
I don't remember Randy White at all! Apparently he was taken by the Mavs with 8th overall pick in 1989 (ahead of guys like Nick Anderson, Tim Hardaway, Shawn Kemp, Vlade Divac, and Clifford Robinson), spent five fairly unproductive years in Dallas, and then left to play overseas.
This might be the scariest (best?) basketball card ever made!
Sweet dreams are not made of this.
I've talked about giving up on set collecting many times over the last year or so, and just recently I decided to give up on trying to finish any insert/parallel (90's stuff) sets as well. I'm still very much interested in such things, I just don't want to have to feel like I've got to complete anything anymore, especially since I already rarely pay attention to what I do and don't have when looking through boxes at shows, or even when I'm looking around on COMC -- I always just end up getting whatever appeals to me at that particular time, even if I already have multiple copies of whatever it is.
Because of this change in collecting, I've also started changing how I store and sort my 90's basketball inserts and parallels too. In an effort to make things easier to put away (and to look at), I have started sorting everything by player, and then bindering them. This will all be talked about more in a future post, but I brought up now for two reasons: A) I've been somewhat surprised by how many cards I have of certain player's, John Stockton being one of those. And 2) The image on this particular card seems to be a familiar theme on John's cards, in that there's often a defender (Greg Anthony in this case) trying to prevent him from doing what he did so well by keeping their body right up on him... hindsight tells us that this defensive strategy didn't work out so well.
There are a handful of guys who are often associated with "a dunk", John Starks is one of those guys:
If you're the sort to send out TTM requests, good luck if you ever try to send one to Chris Morris -- I've tried two different addresses, both were failure's. I wish I knew whether it was because he's hard to track down, or if it's just because he doesn't like signing autographs?
Fun fact: Reggie Williams, Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Lewis, and David Wingate all played together on the same high school basketball team (Paul Laurence Dunbar high school in Baltimore).
David Robinson is another guy that I apparently have more cards of than I had previously realized. This addition now makes for an even 100 cards of The Admiral, which doesn't seem to shabby, especially since only two of those are base cards.
Fleer backs were almost always good during those early years, they opted for less stats on the '93-94 set, but in my mind the back was still just as good as ever, if only because I really liked the secondary image over the player's last name.
Is that a young Anthony Bourdain in the background? eBay here I come! :)
People always give Shawn Bradley the business for getting dunked on (while trying to contest the shot) so much, well, Patrick Ewing got dunked on quite a bit too, and yet nobody ever tries to drag his name through the mud for doing so. Double standard?
Good player, but boy has he made some terrible decisions over the years, and in his case... age doesn't seem to be bringing wisdom.
Led the league in three-point percentage (.453) during the 1992-93 season.
Grant Long is one of those guys that seemed like he was around forever (15 seasons), and if you collected cards in the early 90's, you probably pulled your fair share of his cards (they were like water).
Spent the first eight years of his career with the Cavs and Clippers, scored a lot of points and suffered a lot of losses. Spent the last seven years of his career with the Bulls and Lakers, scored a lot less points and won five rings... funny how things work out!
It looks like Vlade's about to get got by Manute.
This is a set that I wouldn't mind opening up more of, maybe even a box (or two), but with it's glossy finish, I don't think that I'd chance buying a box, lest they all be stuck together -- $20 (that's with shipping) seems like a lot to pay for a potential brick. At least buying by the pack, you can tell when they are or aren't stuck together, this pack clearly wasn't, hence my purchasing it!
Normally this is where I would mention that if anyone's interested in anything, be sure to let me know, but there were an awful lot of keepers in this pack. There's only four that I'm not keeping: Randy White, Chris Morris, Reggie Williams, and Mark West -- so I guess if anyone's interested in those, you know what to do.
