They just don't make 'em like they used to

Like a lot of card collectors, I collected as a kid, took a break for awhile, and then returned to the hobby as an adult. My original run was from about '87-00, and my second, or current, run started up around 2010. It probably goes without saying, and it might be cause for a captain obvious comment, but now after having collected cards for almost a decade again, I've noticed quite a few differences between these two runs.

I'm sure that there's more, but the three biggest things that I've noticed since returning are: a) how people collect, b) where people buy their cards, and c) what kind of cards are currently being produced.

I could probably dedicate an entire post to each one of those topics, and no matter in-depth, they would still likely just scratch the surface of each, but I'm not motivated enough to do so at this time, so for today I'm just going to be scuffing the polish on C.

My original collecting run took place primarily during the 90's, and as any of you out there who collected during that time period already know, the sky was the limit as far as what was being produced goes. Everybody and their mother were making cards, and sets were being created for just about every subject matter under the sun, from Beanie Babies to Penthouse (the adult magazine) -- if you were into something, there was probably a card set for it!

I guess there's still a lot of sets being produced these days, but there sure is a lot less variety. As far as sports go, we get five new sets a week from the "Big Two", the only problem is, they all kind of look the same, and even from year to year, those designs don't seem to change too terribly much. And if you collect non-sport cards, well, the good news is that non-sport sets are still being made, but the bad news is that more often than not, those sets are only going to feature whatever's currently most popular with the mainstream crowds.

Then there's the modern chase cards (those are inserts for you younger folks), they certainly still make them, but again, there doesn't seem to be a lot of variety with those anymore either. Innovation seems to have fallen by the wayside as well, during the 90's there was never a shortage of new and innovative chase cards, while the card companies of today are completely content with producing the exact same looking inserts/parallels from year to year, or even worse -- trying, and failing (hard), to replicate what everyone loved 25 years ago.

I'm sure that's it probably doing so, but my intentions aren't for this post to come across as me bashing newer cards, or anyone who collects contemporary products. I'm not the sort who cares about what people collect, or how even how they collect, if it brings you joy... DO IT!

I do like some of the stuff that's been made during this current card collecting run of mine, I even collect some of it, but with each passing year, I find myself missing the stuff from my original run more and more.

Holograms are something that I really miss, and I know for a fact that a bunch of other people do as well. Holograms were very innovative in the early 90's, and were still exciting to pull even by the mid 90's, there was just something about opening a pack and seeing that sliver of shiny silver peeking out at you from somewhere inside, I can think of no other chase card that ever induced that kind of excitement.

When it comes to nostalgia, you'll often hear people say things like "I sure wish that someone would bring that back", or "Why can't someone bring that back?". I'm not one of those people though. I don't like bastardized things (cough* Ghostbusters *cough) from my youth, or anybody else's youth for that matter (cough* Charlie's Angels *cough), so since I know that they wouldn't be done right, there's no way that I would ever want Panini or Topps to bring back holograms. The answer to the "Why can't/won't they?" is pretty easy too, as they could bring them back, but the folks that they're currently catering to aren't the right crowd for holograms. Hologram technology is considered to be old (i.e. obsolete) by most, so trying to bring it back probably wouldn't go over so well. Even if one of these companies tried to do something really crazy and make them into some sort of rare case "hit", I still don't think that modern collectors would except them as such, and would probably then take to social media in order to complain endlessly about the sucky the new case "hits" are.

Averaging out at two per box, refractors used to be quite rare, and quite desirable. In their earliest  days, collectors would get genuinely excite about pulling them, nowadays you can find one in every pack, and they've basically been reduced to just slightly above base card status, or in other words... dome box fodder!

As much as I would like for it to occur, there really is no way to make refractors desirable again, at this point they're a genie that can't be put back in the bottle.

Thanks to the many film adaptions, interest in comic books has seen a resurgence over the last two decades, one could even say that the public's interest in them has almost reached the level that we saw during the 90's, but even so, could you imagine a non Marvel or DC comic set being put out in 2019? No? Me either! With Marvel now being owned by Disney, and Disney being owned by China, don't expect to see a lot of other non-Marvel related projects from this point on, at least as far as projects related to comic books go. DC is still hanging around, but one has to wonder how much longer they can continue to do so, the deck is certainly stacked against them.

Everyone misses Dufex... everyone! Don't try to argue otherwise, because I'll know that you're lying, and are just trying to be difficult for your own amusement. Will we ever see a company try to use Dufex again? I can't imagine so, it takes too long to do, and time most certainly isn't on the side of today's card producers.

Despite the overabundance of "stickergraphs", on-card autographs are still being produced today, and a lot of them still look pretty good, but back in the 90's, that's all we had, and that's the way we liked it (anyone?)! Granted, sometimes they were signed on the back, which wasn't ideal, but even those still felt like they had more of a connection to the athlete than some ugly stickers that were signed, and than later affixed to a card. You didn't have to worry about smearing, or signatures that didn't fit on the card (unlike stickers) either, at least I've never seen a 90's auto that suffered from those problems, so if there were any, they were obviously not the norm.

Prism was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, truly innovative printing processes to hit the scene back in the 90's. It was a brand, it was a parallel, it would make you chicken soup when you didn't feel well!. Sure, the technology would later evolve into cracked ice, but it wasn't the same, cracked ice would never put a Band-Aid on your skinned knee and kiss it until it felt better, Prism would, and has! And yeah, we got the Prizm now, some of which has been pretty neat, but it's still not the same, I don't see Prizm coming to make sure that there aren't any monsters in the closet, Prism would, and not only would Prism make sure that there weren't any monsters around, it would also be sure to let any monsters that might be lying in wait, know just what would happen to them if they did decide to try and scare you. What I'm trying to say is that whether you appreciated it or not, Prism was always there for you, and always will be.

I said earlier that that I'm not one to ask for things from the past to be brought back, and that's true, I like a lot of things, meaning that there's never a shortage of things for me to collect, so why would I want some new version of an old thing, when there's still so much from the past to collect? I also alluded to the differences between collecting runs earlier as well, and while I don't want to take the time to list all of those differences, I will quickly mention that one thing that's different, and better, about this current stretch, is the existence of this blog. Having a blog has allowed me to connect with so many great people, people who actually collect things, which is something that I always had trouble with during my original run. One of the people that I've been most fortunate to meet, and become friends with, since joining the blogging world, is Marc (you can find him on the Twitter). Not only do we have a bunch of similar interests, but he's also just a pretty cool person in general. And in case you couldn't tell, Marc is also very generous when it comes to sending out stuff, the cards in today's post being a perfect example of that. It's worth noting too, that this package was sent before I had my current want lists up, and I've never discussed some of these cards on the blog before, and yet he knew, or at least thought, that I would like them... and he was right!

It took me a few months to get this post done, but that wasn't a reflection on the cards, or the generous nature of the sender, it was just a matter of me trying to do them, and him, justice. So in an effort to finally put a bow on this post, thanks again for the cards, Marc! I really did appreciate the thought that went into this package, and on a more personal level, I'm even more very grateful for your friendship :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A tale of two Roby's

A few weeks back, Rod (Padrographs) showed off a bunch of autographs that he got from a trade with John Miller (Johnny's Trading Spot). Amongst those shown was a 1990 Pro Set Reggie Roby, and as some of you might know by now, that's somebody who I'm collecting - one could even say super collecting - so it was kind of a downer to see that Johnny had an auto available that I didn't know about. I left a quick comment saying as much, and while the comment was just supposed to convey some minor disappointment before moving on to the next blog to read, it apparently was  interpreted much differently than I had intended by the two folks who had been involved with the trade.

I would soon find out that my dumb comment had set things in motion, things I truly didn't expect, for less than two weeks later I was to become the proud owner of not one, but two new Reggie Roby IP auto's!

Rod was secretly sending the Pro Set Roby (along with the Karl Noonan from the last post), right around the same time that John was letting me know that he might have another autograph for trade, which was soon confirmed by the arrival of a wonderfully signed 1992 Fleer.

Reggie only has one certified autograph ('91 Pro Line Portraits), so getting both of these was really cool, and they've made for a wonderful addition to my still relatively small collection, but I still can't shake the feeling that I unintentionally guilt-tripped my way into both of them. My apologies to both guys if that's the way that the comment came across, I would hope that most people know that that's not the way I operate, and if you don't, please try to remember that in the future.

I may have obtained both of these through "nefarious" means, but both fellows will be rewarded for their generosity, Johnny's went out on Sunday, and even though I got a little sidetracked last week, I'm still looking for something to send Rod, hopefully whatever it ends up being will have been worth the wait.

Many thanks once to again to both Rod and Johnny! I really (really) dig these cards, I just wish that I could've acquired them in a slightly more honorable way.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

A direct line to Rod

It took me a long time to get acquainted with Rod, and his blog, Padrographs, but now that I have, we seem to be making up for lost time, as he's sent three packages my way in just over a month -- and I've sent two back (I'm still working on the third).

You've already seen the first one, and today I'll be showing off the other one and a half (I'll explain about that other half below).

I've already stated multiple times that Rod's autograph frankenset is probably my favorite frankenset that's currently being shown on the blogs, not only because of the content, but also because there seems to be plenty of interesting cards that keep coming up for trade as the set continues to evolve.

Gary Garrison was multiple time Pro-Bowler, as well as an AFL All-Star, he's also another guy that's going to be added to my ever growing list of player collections. Tom Woodeshick was the third leading rusher in 1968, he also had an uncredited role in M.A.S.H. (the movie), and I've been thinking about starting a binder for athletes who have appeared in films and television, so if I do, he'll be going in there. And Al Denson appeared in two AFL All-Star games, which isn't that exciting, but Fuji sent me the regular base card last year -- so now I've got a regular version, and an autographed version, both coming from other bloggers, and that to me is pretty neat!

After a brief email exchange that was led off by a question that I asked on one of his posts, Rod recommended, and then sent, this book with the three autograph's. I haven't read it yet, but it is next in line, and I've been looking forward to it, so maybe I'll have more to say about it in a future post.

And here's part of the most recent PWE, it's the "half" that I mentioned at the beginning. The other card from this envelope is being saved for the next post, as it pairs nicely with another recent bit of generosity from someone else.

Karl Noonan was injured in the preseason, and even though he recovered in time to play, he wasn't ever activated for the Dolphins 1972 "perfect season". It's debatable whether or not someone who never took a snap during the season should be signing his stuff with "17-0", but either way it's a cool card to own, especially since the PWE that it, and the card that'll be shown on Wednesday, came from, were completely unexpected.

Thanks again for everything, Rod! I'm having a bit of trouble trying to keep up with all of your generosity, but I will hopefully have something of merit headed your way much sooner than later.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Pack Sampling: 2009 Donruss Classics

The original plan for today's post was to finish up with the last of September's card show haul, but that's looking like it's going to be a long one, and I didn't have nearly as much time (or desire) this weekend to finish it -- so I'm gonna call an audible (pun intended), and open up one of the smaller packs that I bought at that show instead.

2009 Donruss Classics was completely new to me, I think I came back to card collecting around 2009, but I wasn't paying any attention to what was currently out there at the time, I was actually only interested in working on vintage basketball sets when I returned -- in case you haven't noticed, that plan didn't work out very well.

Not being familiar with the set was part of this pack's appeal, although $1 for only five cards did seem a bit steep, and I did find out later that it was a retail pack, so that dollar probably wasn't going to give me much of a chance at anything good, but it was still worth the risk.

After bringing the packs home, I intentionally didn't look into the couple of sets that I hadn't heard of before (this being one of them), that way my first time seeing them would be when they were opened, so let's see what this set looks like!

Right off the bat, I'm not overly fond of the design (the background doesn't fit, and the white borders are bit much), and the first player out of the pack certainly could've been better. Me saying that I'm not a fan of Chad Johnson would be quite the understatement, I loathe prima donna receivers, and his name change ranks up there with one of the dumbest, if not the dumbest name changes ever -- even Prince's symbol thought that Ocho Cinco was lame!

Wow, this pack's a real winner so far! Santonio had a couple of really good seasons, but in my mind, all of his off the field troubles negate any of the praise that he received while playing.

I know the name, but I can't place him... so off to the Google! Apparently he was Detroit's starting running back for a couple of seasons, had a knee injury, came back in a limited role, and then seemingly disappeared off the face of the map, or at least from the NFL. There doesn't seem to be any info out there about what happened to him, or why he never tried to sign with anyone else.

Ooh... my first pack pulled Tom Brady! I know that there are plenty of folks out there who don't like him, but I'm not one of them. I don't know if I'd call myself fan or not, as I don't follow any modern players career too closely, but I do respect what he's been able to do during his tenure, and tend to think that we won't ever see another quarterback have as much success as he's had.

Despite some injuries in recent years, Greg Olsen has had a pretty solid career too. He's been with the Panthers for awhile now, so it was slightly jarring to see him in an orange Bears uni.

Five cards sure goes by quick! Definitely not the best pack ever, and this certainly isn't the most pleasing set design that I've ever encountered (not the worst either), but at least I now know of the set, and can say that I've opened at least one pack of it. Would I ever buy another pack? No, I've seen enough. Will I ever buy any more singles from the set? No, I've seen enough :)

By the by, Tom Brady is only keeper from the pack, so if you need/want any of the other four cards, don't be shy about saying so.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Doling out for Doby

Even though I spent over four hours at the big card show back in September, I could probably count on one hand the amount of minutes that I spent looking at vintage stuff. There were a number of reasons why this was, but I think the primary reason was that there was just too darn much of it!

It may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure seemed like just about every other one of the 180+ tables had at least one box of discounted vintage. And those boxes ranged from your average two-row shoebox all the way up to fruit boxes full of off-condition cards that were just strewn about, sometimes in toploaders, and sometimes just in penny sleeves.

I'm sure that a few people reading are probably thinking to themselves that there's no such thing as too much vintage when it comes to card shows, and that's cool, but for me it truly was too much.

I've mentioned this before, but ever since I stopped working on all of the various sets that I was building, I've been somewhat rudderless when it comes to cards, especially those of the vintage variety. This is part of the reason that I decided to start the Reggie Roby collection, which has been fun, fun even to start a bunch of other player collections. These new collections are made up  primarily of guys who played during the 60's and 70's, all of whom have much smaller checklists than Reggie, so this should give me some more focus, and a reason to start looking through the discount vintage boxes again. I also have a large vintage baseball project that I've been thinking about starting for years, but I know it's going to be a lot of work to get started, which is why I keep putting it off -- but if I ever do get it up and running, I'll really have a reason to scour those vintage baseball boxes.

Back to September though, I didn't have these player collections going yet, and obviously the big project hasn't bee started, and I'm no longer working on any vintage sets, so there just wasn't much reason for me to spend a lot of time digging through mountains of old cards. I did however spend a few moments at a couple of tables looking for some cheap '61 Billy Muffett's (to no avail), and I did stop at a table that had a monster box of vintage football, but there were no prices and the dealer was deep in conversation with someone who was set up next to him, so I just walked away. But other than that, the only vintage cards I really saw (and bought) were the one's that came out of the bargain boxes from the last two posts, oh, and there was...

... this bitchin' 1955 Larry Doby Red Man!

It was only after I had paid the fellow for all of the stuff that's been in the last two posts, that I noticed the cards that were laid out on the table in between his bargain boxes. I find myself not even looking cards that are in glass cases, or in this case, laid out in toploaders, very often anymore, because I just assume that there going to be out of my range, so why bother looking? This time though, I did, and when I did I found myself being drawn to the trio of Red Men that were laid out, Larry in particular.

I picked him up and asked how much he was (expecting the worse of course)? Five bucks was the answer I got, I definitely wasn't expecting that! I noticed a faint crease going across the back horizontally, and the guy noticed me looking at it too, so I when I looked back over at him he held up four fingers, and I said four dollars? He nodded yes, and that was that. And as for that faint crease, it truly is just that, it's so faint that it doesn't even go all the way through the cardboard, meaning that there's no sign of it from the front.

This is only my second Red Man, and is far nicer than my other one (Carl Erskine). It's still got the tab, and it's just a great looking card of Larry during his last year in Cleveland. And in case anyone cares, the other two on the table were Carl Erskine and Warren Spahn. In retrospect, I should've inquired into the price of the Erskine, as it was much nicer than mine, and I probably should've tried to do some haggling on the Spahn -- but oh well, I got the one that I wanted the most, so that's all that really matters.

At $4, this was my largest single purchase of the day, and looking back, I still can't believe that I was able to get him so cheap!

Even though I'm getting a little tired of doing them, I've still got one more card show post to do, and then I probably won't have another one until February. I thought I was gonna have to go to one next weekend to do my Secret Santa shopping, but I found some pretty cool stuff elsewhere, and no longer need to go to the show... so I ain't gonna!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Clever title for another card show post

Editor's note: I couldn't think of a title for today's post, so... yeah!

As mentioned on Monday, the guy who had the dime boxes from that post, also had a bunch of $0.25 (5/$1) boxes - those of the two-row shoebox variety - as well.

He had never had these at any of the shows that I've been to, so it was nice to see him roll something different out. The boxes themselves were separated by baseball, basketball, boxing, football, hockey, and wrestling.

I actually started with boxing because that's not a common category to see boxes of around these parts, unfortunately all of the cards were from the 1991 (?) Kayo set, and since I know where I can get a box for $8, which I have been thinking about trying, I didn't want to buy any singles just in case I end up splurging on a box.

Wrestling was next, all of them were from the 1990 Classic (series 1) set, and all of them had badly dinged corners. I knew that I probably wouldn't find anything, because I don't know who anybody is, but I tried the hockey box next, my attempt to try and find something for someone else didn't go so well, because again... no idea who anyone is? Of the remaining boxes, the baseball looked like it was the most packed, so that was next, and that's where I'll start with the pictures (all three of the remaining sports are covered here today though).

There was a group of maybe 25-30 of those newer deckle edged cards, Heritage, I think, anyways those are of absolute no interest to me, but I thought they'd still be worth going through, just in case I could find something that someone else might want. Much like the hockey cards though, I didn't recognize any of the faces, and the signatures weren't helping any either, so after the first couple I just kind of shuffled through them (they were in toploaders) in one fell swoop, while doing so I noticed one that didn't look like the rest. It took my brain a second to catch-up, but after it did I went back through and found Willie, who indeed wasn't like the rest. I've already got one of these, but he looks pretty darn good for being fifty years old, so I certainly didn't mind shelling out twenty cents for another one.

That must've been one heck of a bird!

I'm not a big fan of the newer Tek baseball sets, but this card is kind of nice looking, although it helps too that I actually know who's on it.

These are from one of those Ted Williams sets. They seem to be serial numbered, but I don't know to what though, as it's just some random crazy high numbers on  the back.

I'll grab just about any cheap Eric Dickerson that I come across, and won't leave behind any cheap colored legends from 2018 Classics, so these two required absolutely no thought before being added to the stack.

I think that this is my third copy of this Barry Sanders insert, it's considered to be lower end, therefor no one cares about it -- which is just fine by me, I'll keep grabbing these beauties, and every one else can have whatever the latest hot cards are. It's hard to tell from the scan, but Eli is a refactor, and a very nice one at that.

I don't see old stickers at shows very often, and even if I did I probably wouldn't be buying too many of them, but this one's alright, it's from '87 I think.

I never knew that Wild Card did any inserts like these, I really like'em, very difficult to photograph/scan though.

These were the only two vintage cards in the football box, at a quarter apiece there was no way that they weren't coming home with me. I don't imagine that too many people have noticed, but I've added some wantlists/what I'm collecting tabs back to the top of the blog. If by chance anyone has actually seen them, and has clicked on the football tab, you might've noticed that I've started a bunch of new player collections (inspired by the Reggie Roby chase). I only mention this because I think old John David Crow is going to be added to that list pretty soon, I've just got to go through some boxes and see if I have any more of his cards before I do so.

The QBC set is one that I still don't fully understand, I mean I think it's one of the one's that does the bronze or copper, silver, and gold tiers, but how it's broken down is a bit of mystery (to me). Apparently it also has a parallel called... uh... hold the line while I go look up the name again... okay I've got it, they're called Preferred Power! These Preferred Power's seem to be tiered as well, at least that's what it seems like to me what with them being serial numbered to different things and all. Jim here must be one of the more common one's though, as he's #'d to /500. Great looking card though, sort of refractory, but also sort of not.

I know that they're considered "junk wax" at this point, but I still really like Upper Deck Heroes cards, especially those from the basketball releases. Twenty cents is a bit much to pay for a Broder, but I hadn't seen this Bird before, so I didn't mind overpaying a tad to get it. The late 90's Jerry west insert is just cool! And as far as the Dirk rookie goes, well, a lot of you already know that I don't give two poops about rookie cards, but for the price it was kind of hard not to grab it.

Cheap 90's inserts are always a good thing! I got all of these knowing that I probably already had at least one copy of each, at least that's what I thought until I got home and noticed that The Admiral was a Gold Medallion. I still haven't looked yet, but I'm pretty sure that that one will be new to me. As an aside, I really don't like the subtle Gold Medallion's (or Platinum's), that was a bit of misstep on Fleer's part, not that it really matters at this point, but I'm just sayin'.

Now that I've covered the nickel and dime (so to speak) stuff that I got from this fellow, I'm gonna save my "big ticket" item, also bought from him, for Friday. I'm not a big fan of doing the one-card posts, but I think this one will be worth it.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Diverse dime boxes

Now that this year's Secret Santa has officially been set in motion, I can start catching up on things that normally would've been covered by now, namely the rest of the haul that I brought home from September's super mega card show.

I do have a few more thank you posts to do, but with the aforementioned Secret Santa, I've got some shopping to do, which means another card show will likely be in my future, and hey, there just so happens to be one in less than two weeks -- and if I do go, I can't imagine that I won't end up bringing anything back for myself, so I'm gonna try and get the last show's stuff taken care of real quick, that way I don't end up having two shows worth of stuff to catch up on. Hopefully the people that I owe public thanks to for items sent my way, won't be upset by having to wait another week or two before I gush over their generosity.

For those that don't remember, and why would you, the end of September show was one of twice a year 190+ table affairs, hence the super mega card show distinction. Oh, as a quick aside, I just saw that the next big one, which is at the end of February BTW, is set to have 240 tables with wares from 130+ dealers! Just goes to show what can happen when shows are promoted by someone who isn't motivated by greed, after all who would've thought that Nashville could hold shows that are now being compared to The National, and according to dealers who have set up at both, The National is losing ground to what's going on here. Oh, sorry, aside #2, I also just read that the September show had the usual array of dealers from various states (midwest to upper east coast), but apparently there was even a guy from California there. California to Nashville is a long way to travel just to try and sell some cards! I wish I would've known what table(s) was his, as I would've tried to buy something from him, but unless you're the sort to talk to every single dealer (I am not), there's really no way to know where everyone is coming from.

Anyhow, I've already mentioned that despite there being a gajillion sellers to choose from, I only ended up buying from four, two of which have already been covered (here and here), so let's move onto the third (even though it was actually the second purchase of the day). There's an older seller who's always there, and who always has a bunch of 3200 ct dime boxes from the three major sports, as well as some higher end vintage and autos. I've bought stuff from him many times over the last couple of years (although I still don't know his name), so I do always stop to check out his wares. He was obviously bringing out the big guns for this bigger show, as in addition to his normal set-up, he also had a dime box of non-sports (3200 ct), as well as a bunch of quarter boxes (or 5/$1) that were separated into baseball, basketball, boxing, football, hockey, and wrestling. Even though I bought from both tiers, I'm just going to focus on the dime boxes today, and save the quarter boxes for Wednesday.

Seeing as how non-sports cards are a bit of a rarity here (despite the bonkers amount of dealers), and don't ask me why, they just are -- so with that in mind I opted to search through the new non-sport dime box first (don't worry, there's some sports further down in the post). I found the three Bart Broder's within the first couple of cards, with my recent propensity for collecting duplicates, I of course had to grab all three. This particular Broder is new to me, given it's subject matter though, it's not too hard to figure out roughly when it would've been made.

As exciting as it was to find a dime box of non-sport cards, I was a little disappointed to see that at least half of the cards in the box were in pretty rough shape, with the bulk of those being from mid 90's DC and Marvel sets. This Deadpool was just about the only one that didn't have any smushed corners, otherwise I probably would've bought just about everything in there.

I was surprised to find these in there, and even though I don't normally go for cards that are this rough, I couldn't leave them sitting there. I'll be hanging on to the Man on the Moon, at least for the moment, but the Monkees are available to whoever wants them.

The one bad thing about dime boxes is, that because everything is only a dime, it can be awfully difficult to say no to things, even things that you normally wouldn't give a second look. Here's a perfect example, did I need expired game cards from the 1992 Winter Olympics? I'm pretty sure that I didn't, but they were only a dime, so...

I don't remember this particular contest, but I do recall quite a few others from the time, as well as a number of the promotions that were linked to that year's Winter Olympics. My favorite was the free plastic hockey stick that one could get if you bought X amount of Wheaties boxes, I think it was two or three. We lived in Beaverton (OR) at the time, and there was an Albertson's not too far away that was participating in the promotion, it was a pretty big deal for me and a lot of the other kids my age (9). The details are a little fuzzy, but basically you just went there and bought a couple of boxes of Wheaties, and they would hand you this beautiful blue and white plastic hockey stick (it came with a puck too) right there in the store, no sending away for anything, no waiting for it to arrive, talk about your instant gratification! This promotion also just so happened to start right around the time that rollerblades were exploding in popularity, so it didn't take long before a lot of us kids were playing roller hockey, even though no one was familiar with hockey in the least. I had two of those sticks, both had been broken and duct taped back together, until my mid teens, but a garage cleaning would eventually see them being thrown away. At this point in my life, it should come as no surprise to hear that I wish that I still had them, as they'd look really great up on the wall... duct tape and all!

There were some A&G mini's in the baseball boxes, but this was the only one from the non-sport box, and in case you can't tell, it's pretty fantastic! I kind of want to talk about the Carpathia some, but this post is getting kind of a long, and I don't even think that I'm to the halfway mark yet, so maybe I'll revisit the topic another day.

My days as a wrestling fanatic are long gone, but it was still pretty cool to find some of these 1987 NWA Wonderama cards. I remember seeing ads for this set in the back of magazines, always sold as a complete set BTW, but I had never seen any in person before. It's hard to tell from the crappy scans, but these are basically like mini photos, the image quality is that good.

I was such a big fan of The Powers of Pain when I was a kid, so the group shot featuring part of Paul Jones' Army is definitely my favorite of the bunch.

I don't know if anyone cares, but here's a back just in case.

See, I told you, sports! Another new to me set here, but Sportflix was a brand that I never bought any cards from, no reason why mind you, it just wasn't on my radar. The lenticular action of these backgrounds is pretty nifty, they sure don't scan well though, and the photograph that I used here isn't much better.

You're now looking at the first card from the '86 Topps set that I've ever owned (I've since gotten another one from Robby). I forgot about this one when I went to scan everything, so I've added this photo right before hitting publish. It has a bit of a punky corner, but was still probably a pretty good deal, what with it being The Fridge's rookie and all.

Some random shiny stuff, finding cheap Prism is always a good thing!

T-Mac was hanging out with The Fridge, and as such is a late another addition to the post. As far as base cards go, this one is pretty nice, now if I could just spot a famous person in the background...

I've mentioned many times before that I wasn't a Jordan fan growing up, but for some odd reason I still have an affinity for a number of his early 90's base cards, these two being a couple of my favorites. My fondness for these cards has grown even more since I started created my dozen or so player binders earlier this year, and since I also now enjoy finding as many duplicates of cards that I like, I'm not about to pass up a few more cheap copies of these two.

If memory serves, the 1994-95 Collector's Choice gold signatures averaged about one per box, maybe it's just me, but with those kind of odds, one shouldn't expect to find any in dime boxes -- yet I've done so in the past, and I did it here again. Obviously Clyde wasn't no scrub either, so why he was relegated to such a box, I do not know, I can guarantee you though that he's now in much better place... that being in a binder with other Drexler's! Anybody who's ever tried to scan or photograph these probably already knows that they are difficult to get a decent image of, this photograph isn't too bad, certainly better than the scan...

Wow, that looks terrible!

It's amazing how much difference can be made just by taking the photo at a slight angle. Definitely another one of my favorites from that day. I thought that finding one was pretty fantastic, but then...

... I found four more! Not quite on par with Clyde, but I'm not going to complain any. I've got player pages for Otis Thorpe and Jeff Hornacek, and Scott Skiles and Anthony Peeler will be headed to my team binders, which are basically just where by put all of the neat stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else -- although if I could find a few more interesting cards of Scott Skiles, I would likely start a page for him as well.

Looks like we've reached the end, but not a bad a couple of bucks spent if I do say so myself! They weren't as diverse as these dime boxes, but I did alright with his quarter boxes as well, and as mentioned I'll be taking a look at that stuff next time, so until then!


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.