30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

A Few of My Favorite Things: The 70's

Although I was born in the early 70's, I've always considered myself a child of the 80's.  It comes down to the fact that most of my childhood memories come from the 80's, while the 70's are sort of a blur.

Thankfully there are things like baseball cards, movies, and music that keep me in touch with the 70's.  Today I'll be sharing my personal favorites as part of our community's latest Blog Bat Around, which was inspired by The Collector a few weeks ago.


Baseball Set1970 Kellogg's

1970 Kellogg's #27
1970 Kellogg's #12
1970 Kellogg's #2

There was no shortage of fantastic baseball card sets during the 70's1972 and 1975 Topps are two of my all-time favorite Topps flagship baseball card designs.  There were also some spectacular oddball issues produced by Topps like the 1971 Greatest Moments and 1979 Comics sets.  And you can't talk about 70's oddball issues without mentioning the Hostess and Kellogg's sets from that era.

After looking over all of my options, I narrowed it down to the 1972 Topps set and the 1970 Kellogg's set.  Ultimately I went with the inaugural Kellogg's issue, because it inspired over a decade's worth of lenticular awesomeness.  And much like the 1964 Topps Giant set... it features a simple yet gorgeous design that just oozes vintage appeal.


MovieStar Wars (1977)

1981 Topps Movie Pin-Ups #5

If you have followed my blog over the years, then you knew this was coming.  I can't think of another movie that has impacted my life as much as Star Wars IV: A New Hope.  My parents took me to see it back in 1977 and I was instantly hooked.  My entire birthday and Christmas wishlist revolved around the blockbuster's action figures and vehicles.  I begged my mom to buy me the sheets, books, pajamas, and lunch pail.

1977 Topps Star Wars Set

And if all of these things weren't enough... I'm about 98% sure that the first packs of trading cards I ever opened were 1977 Topps Star Wars cards.  Talk about opening a can of worms.


Song: Fire and Rain (James Taylor 1970)


When I was a little kid, my brothers introduced me Boston, The Eagles, Van Halen, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Kansas, Blue Oyster Cult, The Cars, Black Sabbath, Steve Miller Band, Rush, and Pink Floyd.  Since then... 70's rock has been one of my favorite genre's of music.

Unfortunately there's just too many great songs to choose from.  That's when I started leaning towards using a Bob Marley or Stevie Wonder song.  In fact, I had No Woman, No Cry written up and scheduled to be published.

Then I heard Fire and Rain on my drive home from work earlier in the week and decided to go with it.  There's just something soothing about James Taylor's voice.  I've been a fan of his music ever since I was a kid, but I'm guessing my sister and mom were the ones who introduced me to him... and not my brothers.

Well that wraps up the 3rd segment in this Blog Bat Around series.  I'm looking forward to sitting down and writing the 4th segment.  I've said it before... and I'll say it again.  The 80's are my jam.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

10 comments:

Hackenbush said...

Ah, something I can relate to. Don't know why I didn't collect more of the Kelloggs cards or maybe I had them and don't know where they went. Sorry, I've never been a Star Wars fan. I didn't even see the first one until a re-release in the 90's. Loser right? That leaves JT. I played the hell out of all his 70's albums and still have them. I even have two of brother Livingston's. There is something about his voice and his demeanor in general. He's very soothing without being boring. He still sounds good too.

Collecting Cutch said...

This is an awesome post. I might want to do something like this in the future. I was born in the 80s so I didnt experience any of the 70s. I love the Kellogg's set, but have to hand it to the 71 Flagship set. I love black border sets and parallels even though theyre tough grades.

Movie wise I gotta go with Rocky.

Music-any of the early AC/DC releases would be my favs from the decade

night owl said...

Child of the '70s here: Collected Kellogg's cards straight out of the cereal box, saw the first Star Wars movie when I was 12.

James Taylor? More my wife's kind of music. The '70s had arena rock, new wave and, even some great dance music, more my speed.

Angus said...

Nice choices in all three categories.

I'm pretty sure that I bought hockey and baseball cards before Star Wars cards as a kid, but I did get my share of Star Wars cards when they came out. I wish that I had kept them.

Matt said...

I'm slowly trying to put together my favorites for a blog post, and Star Wars is definitely on my short list for 70's movies!

gregory said...

Quite a list of music hall-of-famers there!

Steve at 1975BaseballCards.com said...

Totally relatable on many counts. I clearly remember opening Star Wars packs too. Do you own that Star Wars poster? That’s a nice item in a sw collection!

Fuji said...

hackenbush - yeah jt's voice is just very chill. even though i'm usually listening to rock or hip hop... i always have time to sit down and play his greatest hits album

collecting cutch - if i had to pick a topps flagship set, i'd go with the 1972... then 1975 right after that. i love me some ac/dc too.

night owl - i wish i had the sense to collect kellogg's cards from the 70's. my first cereal box ones were most likely from the 80's. i like a variety of 70's music. i just went with jt, so i didn't need to choose between boston, kansas, and black sabbath.

angus - i didn't keep my original sw cards either, but a few years ago...i ended up buying all 5 series on ebay (or maybe a card show)

matt - star wars was a no-brainer. it was the easiest movie choice so far.

gregory - i tend to like the pop stuff. if it wasn't on the radio, there's a good chance i haven't heard it

steve at 1975baseballcards.com - yeah... i opened a box of this product a few years ago. wrote a post back in 2012:

https://sanjosefuji.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-love-80s-9-1981-topps-movie-posters.html

Steve at 1975BaseballCards.com said...

Thanks for sharing the link. I've read just about every one of your posts at some point but didn't remember that one. Feels like a new discovery for me :-)

Fuji said...

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Wouldn't expect people to have seen this post unless you were around the first few years. This post has been buried for a long, long time. I could probably start going back and writing about cards I wrote about 7 to 9 years ago. Actually... I'm pretty sure I have on multiple occasions.