Stan Musial & The Facts of Life

I learned a lot from the boob tube as I was growing up during the 70's and 80's. Alex P. Keaton taught me the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Kevin and Winnie proved to me that fairy tale endings don't always happen. Macgyver showed the world how to save yourself with a gum wrapper, but more importantly he showed me that mullets are cool.

And last, but not least... Blair, Jo, Natalie, Tootie, and Mrs. Garrett told me "you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have... the facts of life".

So today, I'm going to demonstrate how The Facts of Life affected the way I collect cards.

First, let's start with the good: A few years ago, I bought a pack of 1998 Donruss Signature and was fortunate enough to pull an autograph of one of the greatest pure hitters of all time. Mr. Stan Musial. I was so excited... for about two, maybe three seconds.

Next, let's take the bad: As I was telling my buddy (who worked at the card shop & picked the pack for me) what I pulled, I noticed that the bottom edge of the card had been embossed by Donruss. Now, I'm not talking about the special stamp that Proline put on their autos in the early 90's. Not the ones that Pacific used to use for their limited cards handed out at shows. Nope, this is quite possibly a rare, 1 of 1 job done by Donruss in their factory. Go ahead... see for yourself:



If you look very closely at the bottom of the card, you can see that the whole bottom edge is crimped. When Donruss sealed the pack, this card slid down and was caught between the wrapper and the machine that is used to seal these wrappers. Ironically, it was the only card that was damaged in the pack. All of the other cards alluded the dreadful sealing machine.

The scans don't do the card justice. It's kind of hard to see in the pictures, but it actually goes to the bottom edge of his name. The damage is obvious when you hold the card.

Well, finally... you take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts are:

a. I pulled an autographed card of one of the greatest hitters of all-time.
b. The autographed card was damaged when I pulled it.
c. It's now the centerpiece of my Damaged Card PC.

I've written about it before on Sportscardforum in one of the threads, but just in case you missed it. I have a small, yet unique PC that I've been building. All of these cards are in one way or another damaged. There are creased cards, dinged cards, crimped cards, scratched cards, chipped cards, and even a few that were just mishandled by owners. I've obtained these from a variety of sources. Some were acquired from packs, others in trades, some in purchases (Beckett Marketplace, eBay, YouTube mystery packs, etc.), and a few were actually given to me. Unfortunately, I'm not looking to trade for anymore DAMAGED cards at the present time. If you're interested in seeing some of the major cards in this PC, click here.