My Side Hobby

A few weeks ago, I went to a card show held at a local mall.  Like most card shows I read about on blogs, there were mostly dealers specializing in Pokemon cards and or modern graded sports cards.  Out of the 100 or so tables advertised, I only found one dealer with dime boxes and his table was swarmed with customers.

Normally I would have circled around the show and come back when the crowd thinned out, but I had purchased some cards at the flea market earlier in the morning.  I stopped off at my buddy's table instead, chatted with him for a few minutes, then headed home without making a single show purchase.

It kind of makes me wonder if card shows are still something I enjoy attending.  I have already cut out local shows that charge admission or parking.  Now the lone free show near my house is filled with dealers selling stuff I don't have a lot of interest in and the crowds are getting a little too large for my liking.

Maybe I need a change.

Last week, The Shlabotnik Report featured a post summarizing his trip to a postcard show.  Now I've shown off a few postcards on this blog, but there have plenty of others that I've kept to myself since there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest among my readers.

In spite of that, I figured I'd show a few that I have picked up in the last year.  Let's start off with a pair featuring Milwaukee Downer College:

After going to the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the early 50's, my mom transferred to Milwaukee Downer to get her degree in occupational therapy.  Less than a year after moving to Wisconsin, she met my father at a Hawaii club dance and the rest is history.

Another interest of mine is the Kintaikyo Bridge in Iwakuni City.  On my father's side of the family, I have relatives who were caretakers of this bridge.

My dad's uncle and cousin's husband helped with the reconstruction of the bridge during the Showa Period in 1953.

His cousin's son was the master carpenter for the Heisei reconstruction in 2005.  When my parents visited Japan in the mid 2000's, they met him for the first time and walked across the newly constructed bridge.

All three of these postcards have very similar backs.

The only difference I spotted was the small text printed on the lefthand side of each postcard.

I have one more postcard related item I'd like to share.  While searching for cards related to the Golden Gate Bridge, I came across the 1993 Skyline San Francisco set:

I purchased it on eBay back in October, but when I received it... I thought it might be a set of postcards based on the back of the packaging:

Actually... like the cover of the set states, there were actually trading cards inside:

Since this is more of a postcard related post, I won't spend too much time going over this set.  However here's a quick look at it:

Here's the card that inspired this purchase:

1993 Skyline San Francisco Scenes #1

Does anyone else think the borderless design resembles 1992 Stadium Club?

The back of the card features a write up on the famous bridge, which is a symbol of San Francisco.

Well that's it for today.  I know postcards aren't exactly trading cards.  But they're still photos printed on cardstock that people enjoy collecting.  And as luck would have it... I've discovered there's an event held three times a year at Golden Gate Park called the Vintage Paper Fair.  All of the 2025 dates have passed, but the promoter says he's planning on three more dates next year.  I'm hoping to attend at least one.  I bet I don't see a single Pokemon or graded sports card there.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Pair of Personalized Presents

This post wasn't suppose to be written and published for another few weeks, but an unexpected loss moved up the deadline.

The story begins approximately a decade ago... when my best friend mentioned her cousin's daughter was dating a cornerback on the Oregon Ducks.  Now I love football, but I typically follow the Packers and Seahawks more than college football. Everything I know about Oregon Ducks football comes from ESPN highlights or posts over on Cards on Cards (the #1 Ducks fan in the blogosphere).

So I did a little research on the guy and discovered that Ifo Ekpre-Olomu was the top cornerback in college football.  Holy quack.  Ifo officially had my attention and a new fan.  Unfortunately, he suffered an injury getting ready for their Rose Bowl game versus Florida St.

A few months later he was drafted in the 7th round of the NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns.  I remember being super excited to see him play and collect his cards.  I went to Sportlots and bought a bunch of his cards.  The collection was eventually passed on to my friend and her mom.

Fast forward to 2024.  My friend took her mom up to Oregon to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family.  I knew she was going to see Ifo, so I asked her if she could get a few of those cards signed.  I wanted to add one to my binder and give the other one to Kerry.  Unfortunately after all of these years, the cards had been misplaced.  Oh well... that's life.

A month later, Christmas morning rolls around and I start opening up my presents.  The first one under the tree was this signed shirt:

Jen had mentioned that she went to the Columbia store while she was up there, but I had no idea she would be buying me this shirt and having Ifo sign it.  Obviously I was super excited... and figured this was the main present.

But there was one more really cool present:

I was blown away by this custom Funko Pop of the two of us with her dog, Tashi.  Here are a pair of custom cards I purchased from Topps a few years ago of her:

I've written about Jen a few times on the blog, but out of respect for her privacy... I always kept her anonymous.  Today is the exception to the rule.

She did a great job of capturing our appearance and interests with these Pops.  She's a total foodie and loves soccer.  While I love baseball, cargo shorts, and flip flops.  Here's a photo of us to compare our likeness to the figures:

This was taken back in mid-December at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.  It was my first time seeing a play in almost twenty years. The last time I fell asleep watching The King and I.  Hamilton was much more entertaining.

Thank you Jen for these awesome Christmas presents!  Thank you Ifo for taking the time to sign this shirt for me.  And thank you to all of you who took the time to read this post.

Happy New Year and sayonara!

Not Just for Kids

Life can be full of regrets.  Luckily... I don't have many that keep me awake at night.  However when it comes to collecting... it seems like there are too many to count.

One that stands out is not collecting Sports Illustrated for Kids cards from the very beginning.  These days without a deep pocketbook and a little luck... it's going to be very challenging for me to ever complete the entire run of trading cards.

Every now and then I'll add a full 9-card sheet to my collection.  Last month I purchased this 2005 issue off of eBay for $9.12 ($2.99 + $6.13 shipping & tax):

I targeted this issue after discovering it has early issues of two future hall of famers:

It's cool to Chris Paul and Adrian Peterson in their college jerseys.

One of my favorite things about collecting these cards are the female athletes.

This sheet contains the very first trading card of Lindsey Jacobellis.  She is the most decorated female snowboard cross athlete of all-time.  She won two gold medals while representing the United States at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

The other female athlete featured on this sheet is Paula Radcliffe.  Before writing this post, I wasn't familiar with her.  But according to Wikipedia, she a very accomplished long distance runner from Great Britain who has won the London and New York Marathons three times each.

Unfortunately... outside of my current bi-monthly subscription... I don't add to my uncut sheet binders very often.  However... thanks to the generosity of fellow bloggers, I will add singles to my collection fairly often.

Back in April, Rod over at Padrographs sent me a stack of five:

Four of them are from the early 90's with the very colorful 90's like borders.  Here's a Carlton Fisk from the very first series:

In May... Jon over at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts had a huge giveaway and I was able to claim these twelve SI for Kids cards:

The Andre Rison ended up being a duplicate, so it's available if anyone wants it.

In addition to female athletes, SI for Kids also offers up trading cards of athletes outside the realm of baseball, basketball, and football... like tennis and soccer.

My favorite card in the lot is the Pam Shriver, who was one of the tennis players I remember from my youth.

Thank you Rod and Jon for adding a nice stack of SI for Kids cards to the collection.  And thank you to everyone who took the time to read this post.  Just remember... just because "for Kids" is printed on these cards... anyone can collect them.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

This is a little bonus for Rod, Jon, and anyone else out there who have an appreciation of books.

Towards the end of the school year, I was helping cleaning the classroom next door and I came across hundreds of chapter books.  I ended up donating them to a few Language Arts teachers and some of the students who were helping me out.

But I held onto these two:

Mountain of Mirrors by Rose Estes

Return to Brookmere by Rose Estes

These days... I don't add many books to my private library, but I was pretty excited to see these.  When I was a kid... one of my favorite series were the Choose Your Own Adventure books and these reminded me of them.

Now if I could only get my hands on an old copy of The Cave of Time.