The Generosity Box Project

I'm always amazed at the camaraderie among sports card bloggers.  Most of us have never met or even seen photos of each other, yet we're still willing to ship care packages all over the world.  Society could learn something from the acts of generosity I've witnessed among us over the years.

Last December, The Junior Junkie kicked off his Griffey Generosity Project which is a box of his extra Ken Griffey Jr. cards.  The goal was for Griffey collectors to help build each others' collections a few cards at a time.  Collectors who received the box could pull out as many cards as they wanted.  The price?  All TJ asked was for collectors to contribute some of their duplicates to the box.

Back in October, I received a huge white box from Corky over at Pack War.  Unfortunately between my sore back, reorganizing my collection, work, some light traveling, and life in general... I didn't get around to cracking the box open until yesterday.

I honestly thought it was a huge care package, but to my surprise it was The Griffey Generosity Box.

Over the years, I've collected a fair share of Griffeys including a bunch of inserts, most of his rookie cards, a handful of relics, and at least one autograph.  But I wouldn't necessarily call myself a Griffey collector.

However Corky specifically thought of me when he received the box, because he wanted me to have this:

2016 Topps Now #AS1

I've have yet to jump on the Topps Now bandwagon, but I gotta admit... this card is awesome!  It honors the 1992 All-Star Game MVP which was played in San Diego that season and their hometown hero and my favorite player.  This is only the second Topps Now card to be added to my collection.  Thank you Corky!

While the box was open, I figured I might as well see if there were any oddball issues I could add to my binder.  And there were:

1990 Toys R Us #13

I love the Toys R Us Rookies sets of the late 80's and early 90's.  I think it was really cool that Topps decided to use the same design every year, but change the border colors.  I've been wanting the Griffey from this series for awhile now and thanks to TJ's project... I have one.

I also grabbed this card:

1994 Super Nintendo #NNO

I've seen this card before... probably on TJ's blog... or maybe somewhere else.  Anyways... I was excited to have the opportunity to add it to my collection.  People who bought Ken Griffey Jr. Presents: Major League Baseball for the Super Nintendo received one of these.  I don't think it's exactly rare, but it's definitely a really cool oddball issue.

The last two cards I grabbed were a pair of Ken Griffey Jr. custom cards created by Gavin over a Baseball Card Breakdown:

1989 Upper Deck#7

1992 Topps #8

I'm a huge fan of custom cards... and Gavin produces some of the finest within our blogger community.  I just couldn't pass up the chance to grab these two.

Both of these Simpson mashups will join the Wade Boggs he gave me a while back in my Cool Cards binder.

There were a few other cards I considered grabbing, but I honestly don't have a lot of extra Griffeys laying around.  In fact, I was only able to scrape together nine inserts and parallels for the box.

The one card that I really, really, really wanted to take was this one of a kind sketch card created by Corky:

I love sketch cards, but ended up leaving it in the box for a true Griffey collector.  I did keep this sketch that Corky drew on the package:

Thank you TJ for starting this very cool project.  Thank you Corky for giving me the opportunity to add some new Griffeys to my collection.

Today's question...

Are there any bloggers out there who wants a shot at the Griffey Generosity Box?

I emailed TJ for suggestions, but if one of you out there is interested go ahead and leave me a comment and I'll reach out to you.

Happy Monday and sayonara!