30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Change of Scenery

When it comes to baseball cards, the 1956 Topps Jackie Robinson is the hands down favorite sitting within my collection.  After that... ranking my favorite cards gets much less clear, because a lot of it has to do with the mood I'm in.  One day, I might be into vintage hall of famers.  The next day I could be into on-card autographs.  And we all know how much I enjoy shiny 90's inserts and 80's rookie cards.

The exact same thing can be said for my favorite non-sport cards.  Earlier in the month, Billy over at Cardboard History ranked his favorite non-sport sets which inspired me to look into my collection and pick out some of my personal favorites.

After sifting through tons of scans and past posts, I came up with eighteen cards that were considered candidates.  This process also gave me a deeper appreciation of Billy's posts, because it wasn't a very easy task.

I decided to tweak and simplify things a little bit and focus on specific cards instead of actual sets.  I also quickly realized that it was very, very difficult to rank all eighteen of them, because I kept shifting the order every time I looked over the scans.

That's why I'm going to take the easy way out and only rank my Top 10 and list 8 honorable mentions.  C'mon it's the start of the second semester, I have 160+ new students, and I just wrapped up my 2nd Quarter grades.  Maybe this summer I'll come back and revise this post.

Until then... here are my Top 10 favorite non-sport cards:

#10:  2008 Topps Campaign #C08-BO


I don't even need to travel down the political path to appreciate this card.  Our first African American president standing in front of The United States flag speaks for itself.


#9: 2012 Allen and Ginter Framed Mini Relic #AGR-KU


Of course Kate's relic card is going to make the Top 10.  Six year's later, she's still as voluptuous as ever.


#8: 2010 Marvel Heroes and Villains Sketch Card #NNO


I'm not a big fan of Captain America or the Red Skull, but this is the coolest sketch card in my collection.


#7: 2009 Topps Heritage Heroes of Spaceflight #SSC3


I'm a product of the 80's, which means I grew up in an era when they'd televise all of the space shuttle launches and it was super exciting.  This card reminds me of those days.


#6: 1961 Topps Sports Cars #43


A vintage card of my vintage dream car.  The only problem is this card looks so good, I feel guilty about leaving it out of my Top 5.


#5: 1966 Topps Batman Black Bat #3


I have a deep appreciation of artwork... which will become apparent as I reveal my final five.  If DC and/or Topps were smart, they'd turn this card into a poster.  It'd look amazing hanging up in my classroom.


#4: 1956 Topps Flags of the World #1


Old Glory makes another appearance on this list... and she looks marvelous.  Seeing Mount Rushmore and The Statue of Liberty painted in the background doesn't hurt.


#3: 1967 Henerle #110


There are so many cool things about this card.  It's a vintage German trading card.  It features the first photograph of Earth from the moon's orbit.  And it was a generous gift from SumoMenkoMan.  This card is definitely a treasured piece of my non-sport card collection.


#2: 2002 Artbox Spider-Man Filmcardz Autograph #A11


Without Stan Lee, the world would be without The Fantastic Four, Hulk, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, and Spider-Man.  Can't even begin to imagine how many hours of entertainment he's provided for comic book enthusiasts and people who enjoy all of the awesome Marvel movies.


Honorable Mentions:




Sketch cards.  Relics.  Holograms.  DJ Kitten.  And a Doctor.  There's a lot of variety on my list of honorable mentions.

And now... for the moment of truth... here's my favorite non-sport card sitting in my collection.  Drum roll please...


#1: 1910-11 T59 Flags of All Nations


The Stan Lee autograph almost landed in this spot, but I decided to go with this card at the last moment, because it features museum quality artwork, it represents my family's heritage, and it's one of the oldest cards in my collection.

Okay, you know the routine.  It's your turn...

Do you collect non-sport cards?  Do you have a personal favorite?

As usual... I look forward to reading your responses.  Happy Thursday and sayonara!

12 comments:

Hackenbush said...

I love non-sports cards. There's so much variety that it's hard to choose a favorite. This one's pretty awesome:
http://canthavetoomanycards.blogspot.com/2010/03/card-of-day-joseph-jordan-skating.html

Zippy Zappy said...

Ooh, this should be a fun topic. I might just steal it...

Billy Kingsley said...

Very cool! I think picking specific cards would be much, much harder than sets. The lure of the space relic helped me get back into non-sports, but I never have been able to get my hands on one. I'm glad that I was able to inspire this post!

Matt said...

I am missing the Obama for my set lol.

I love non sport cards almost more than sport cards some days

Nick Vossbrink said...

I think I've only had one non-sports card in my collection and I had to hot-potato it to someone else.

JediJeff said...

Why am I just learning about space relic cards like this?

SumoMenkoMan said...

Great post! I love the Space Shuttle card and DJ Kitty!

Reds Card Collector said...

I think the Heritage Heroes of Spaceflight cards are fantastic. I've been on the fence about trying to chase down this set but I just can't pull the trigger. Beautiful cards, but I'm not sure I want another project to start when I have so many still to complete.

GCA said...

Love the Heroes of Spaceflight cards too. I'm down to one (Gemini IV) and have one of the Skylab relics, but now really want the others.

I have a whole binder of Space/Moon/Apollo cards, including most of the '69/70 Man On The Moon set and a couple other newer ones. Also completed all the astronauts from Donruss Americana a couple years ago.

The other classic sets that come to mind are 1977 Star Wars. Still looking for cheap sets of the orange and green ones.

Would love to find a cheap set of the old Donruss KISS set. I've got a couple rock & roll sets and several autographs from UD Spectrum from '09.

night owl said...

Geez, I need to do this with my nonsports cards. They won't be nearly as fancy as yours though.

Commishbob said...

I definitely collect non-sports cards. At some point soon I plan a rundown of my favorite sets but honestly it changes frequently. Gonna be difficult to select a favorite card but I'm guessing it's going to come from one of my three favorite sets: Civil War News, Mars Attacks or Batman (black bat).

Fuji said...

hackenbush - dang... mr. jordan sure had a lot of flair. great card.

zippy - go for it! might inspire some of my future purchases

billy - thanks for the idea. i'll definitely be coming back to this idea and making some updates

sport card collectors - they're cheap on comc

nick vossbrink - i don't foresee that card entering my collection anytime soon ;)

jedijeff - gotta admit... they are pretty awesome. i paid a decent dime for them though

sumomenkoman - dj kitty was battling obama for that final spot

reds card collector - i hope you have some money set aside... they can be pricey. i think i paid $40 for these three cards. could be wrong... but they definitely weren't in a dollar bin.

gca - i'm embarrassed that i left off a 1977 topps star wars card. that was the first pack of cards i ever opened. definitely deserves a spot somewhere on this list.

night owl - just read your post. loved your list. that hulk card is fantastic!

commish - yeah, that's the challenging part of making these lists. it really depends on my current mood.