30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Not Feelin' It


Some of you find sorting therapeutic... others don't.  I'm one of those who currently isn't feeling it.  I know it needs to get done.  I have thirty-one stacks sitting in the middle of my office floor that I'd love to clear out... but that requires me to finish sorting the remaining cards from those mystery packs.


I probably could kill it off in less than ninety minutes... but like I said... I'm not feeling it right now.  Maybe tomorrow.

Instead... I decide to dig through my insert binders and find some cards that I was feeling.  Like literally feeling.  I found ten cards from the 90's that have feature some form of texture.  Most of them can be found in dime boxes or quarter bins and most are cooler than 90% of the inserts produced today.

Let's check them out...

1992 Action Packed All-Star Gallery #3

Figured, I'd start things off with an Action Packed card.  They're pretty much the company known best for embossed cards.


I decided to scan both sides for this post... which shows you that I'd rather scan than sort right now.  In addition to card scans, I also took photographs so you can get a better feel of the texture on these cards.

After flipping through three or four binders, I quickly discovered that Fleer definitely specialized in embossed cards.  In fact that seems to be one of their specialties from 1996 to 1998.

1997 Fleer Ultra Fame Game #17


One of their themes was "leather"...

1996 Fleer Ultra Prime Leather #2


1997 Fleer Ultra Leather Shop #1


1996 Fleer Ultra Rawhide #4


1998 Fleer Ultra Kid Gloves #3KG


All three of these insert sets are nice, but personally... I liked this particular set produced by Topps a little more:

1997 Stadium Club Patent Leather #PL6


This is one of my favorite insert sets from the 90's.  If you'd like to see the complete set, I wrote a review back in 2018.

Here's another Jeter...

1995 Action Packed Minor League #1

This time he's featured on an Action Packed minor league card.


This card looks really cool when it's in your hands.  You can actually see the creases in the jersey and pants.

Getting back on the Fleer train...

1998 Skybox Circa Thunder Boss #15B


And last, but not least is an embossed acetate insert of Slammin' Sammy...

1999 Fleer SI Diamond Dominators #7DD

This card is another beauty and it comes from one of those insert sets that don't get a lot of press.


But they're nice looking, tough to pull (1:180 packs), and reasonably affordable.  And it's way more fun to hold this in my hand and stare at... than sitting down on my office floor and sorting cards.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

21 comments:

  1. man I hate sorting and cataloging my cards - I keep meaning to update Trading Card database so I can start trading more actively there, but every time I start the process, I just get burned out after about 20 cards or so... I might need to hire an intern to come and sort/catalog everything for me!

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  2. I miss Fleer. They always had wizzy stuff.

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  3. I like be Action Packed. I have a big stack of Angels I need to sort, and I'm dreading it.

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  4. Yeah sorting can be a drag. Need to be in the mood for it.

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  5. I say wait until next week, it's not like those stack are going anywhere!

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  6. I enjoy sorting on weekends or any non-work day, but sorting that amount of cards would be a chore. Those inserts are awesome, especially the Ultra. I've never seen a Fame Game card before. Don't think I've seen a TSC Patent Leather, either.

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  7. Great post. I loved Ultra Prime Leather.

    All of these look better than current inserts.

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  8. I feel ya!

    I can't get into the sorting mood much either. Back and knee aches just really make me not want to sit in the "sorting position" for too long these days!

    I do remember that 1992 Action Packed set, it was so novel being able to feel the surface of the card like that. Cool stuff!

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  9. Embossed cards were such a treat as a kid. My friends and I always felt they were worth more because of it.

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  10. The '90s were certainly a wacky (and great) time for inserts. I understand why it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I personally love sorting. Might explain why dealing with inventory has always been my favorite part of my retail jobs...

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  11. The time you spent photographing those touchy-feely cards could've been spent SORTING. You could have been done by now!!!

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  12. I like sorting if I can take my time and enjoy the cards. But if it's too many cards it becomes a chore and I forget to look at the cards.

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  13. The thing I like about sorting cards is you can always put them in your own personal order(numerical,teams,players, etc.),and when you are done you have a sense of completion.

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  14. You inspired me to head over to COMC... and I ended up with a Patent Leather Caminiti. Fun post!

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  15. Man I love 90's insert posts

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  16. I love sorting, but like was said above, the eventual back pain spoils it. It's an eternal quest to find the right chair. Or just don't get old.

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  17. brian - 20 cards? that's more than i could handle. i've thought about uploading my gwynn pc to tcdb, but i don't think my attention span could handle more than 10 cards at a time. at that rate, it'd take me a long time to finish

    captain canuck - i had no idea they had so many embossed insert sets. i also found a 1996 gold medallion parallel that's embossed after i had published this post.

    the angels in order - i love action packed cards. i'd love to add more of their baseball cards to my collection. most of the ones i own are football cards

    jeff b - sometimes it's fun. but right now, it's not. i do plan to do sit down and finish up these stacks today though

    jon - i would, but my ocd won't allow that. it's been cluttering my floor long enough. i think today is the day i finish them ;D

    chris - nice call. sorting a small set isn't too bad. but sorting thousands of cards definitely feels like a chore.

    the lost collector - i will say this... i found a few panini inserts that had a nice feel to them. but i didn't bother including them because i was short on time and they're logoless

    sean - yeah... my bad back plays a huge role in the lack of desire to sit down and sort. but i need to just sit down and finish it off

    base card hero - i feel like they should be worth more. there's a whole extra step to making them. at the very least... they deserve more appreciation ;)

    nick - it's funny nick. sorting was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. i sat down and sorted and resorted my 1981 fleer baseball set time after time. i even enjoyed sorting up to a few years ago. like sean pointed out... a lot of my issue has to do with my bad back.

    night owl - i know. i'm going to try and hammer it out this morning during my office hours

    nick vossbrink - yeah... chris mentioned the same thing. quantity of cards definitely plays a role on whether or not sorting is fun or not fun

    sg488 - i'm hoping to feel that sense of completion in a few hours

    defgav - nice. it's such a beautiful set. i don't think you'll regret it

    sport card collectors - me too

    gca - maybe i should try to sort at a table again. the problem is... i just don't have the space to do that. so for now, all sorting takes place on the ground :(

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  18. Pretty cool cards. I didn't know about any of them before.

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  19. yeah the only sorting that "I put off" are the birthday guys, and player collections. I love sorting for the set builds though. The PC guys (all in all there are over a thousand when you put the Hall Worthy and the Topps Cup guys (not just with the cup). That why at best I only update the PC pages once a year. At best, sometime I've gone 2+ years but I wont do that again, had 200K to sort, not fun then.) I stay on top of it pretty good right now. I will do an 2nd update for this year towards November ish.

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  20. Sorting is a pain in the ass. I hate it. I hate everything about having to move things into a binder or monster box.

    Those embossed cards are awesome!

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  21. peter k steinberg - glad i was able to show you some new cardboard. i'm always learning about new cards from all of the blogs i read

    johnnys trading spot - whoa. 200k cards needing to be sorted? have fun bud. my back wouldn't survive that

    collecting cutch - lol. it's a pain in the back for me ;D

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