Sign of the Times

Last week, we took our fall pictures at school and received our new ID cards.  Here's mine:

At first... the photographer wasn't going to allow me to wear my mask.  She didn't think my principal would allow me to use this picture in the yearbook.  Luckily I had my old ID card in my wallet:

She cracked up and told me she wasn't going to be held responsible if my boss didn't approve.  Spoiler alert... a few minutes after I took my photo, I ran into my principal and she asked me who I dressed up as this year.

I told her... I wanted this year's yearbook photo to be a sign of the times.  When I look back at all of my school pictures, it'll be obvious which one represents the Era of Covid-19.

Speaking of sign of the times... back in the late 90's, I was really, really, really into collecting pack pulled, on-card autographs.  At the time Upper Deck had a series of autograph sets called Sign of the Times that spanned all of their major sports licenses.

Today I figured I'd show off some of these oldies, but goodies.  Since most of the people who read this blog are baseball fans, let's start with them...

1998 Upper Deck Retro Sign of the Times #BF

1998 Upper Deck Retro Sign of the Times #WM

1998 Upper Deck Retro Sign of the Times #EM

1998 Upper Deck Retro Sign of the Times #GP

1998 Upper Deck Retro Sign of the Times #FT

Upper Deck had a few different Sign of the Times baseball sets, but this was the only one produced in the 90's.  I always wondered why they chose to put these autographs into packs of UD Retro... instead of SP Authentic.  That's the product that contained all of the basketball, football, hockey,  and racing Sign of the Times autographs from that era.

The 1997 SP Authentic basketball, football, and hockey Sign of the Times autographs were the first ones that popped on my radar.  I remember trading for a bunch of them back then.  However in 2001 or 2002, I sold off the bulk of my collection and most of them were included in the sale.

I'm pretty sure this was the only one I held onto:

1997 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #NNO

Can't stand the Dallas Cowboys, but I sure love this card.

When I returned to the hobby, I picked up a bunch of other 1997's...

1997-98 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #EJ

1997-98 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #CM

1997-98 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #BH

1997-98 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #MB

1997-98 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #MS

Back in the late 2000's and early 2010's... I was chasing a lot of the late 90's autographs, because the market had softened and I was able to buy them for a fraction of the late 90's prices.

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Bronze #CB

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Bronze #DK

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Bronze #MG

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Bronze #GR

Here are two from the 1998-99 basketball set that I held onto from my original collection:

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Silver #DR

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times Silver #PN

The silver autographs were tougher to pull than the bronze, so I decided to hold onto these.  I'm glad I did, because they don't pop up very often and the last time I checked... neither were very affordable.

Okay... this post is starting to drag on and when it comes to 90's autographs, I can talk about them for days.  But nobody wants that, so here's a quick look at the rest of the my late 90's Sign of the Times autographs:

1998 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #S4

1998 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #GO

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #KT

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #MH

1998-99 SP Authentic Sign of the Times #MS

I know autographs aren't everyone's thing.  Neither are ID cards.  But I wanted to document the fact that I'll have to wear a mask to work for probably the entire school year... maybe even longer.  I also wanted to show off some 90's autographs that have become buried and forgotten by the plethora of modern day sticker-graphs.  It's good to dig up some old cards and appreciate them.  Hopefully I'll be around in twenty years to dig out these ID cards and appreciate them as well.

By the way... if you have any ideas for next year's yearbook photo, leave them down below.  I'm always looking for new ways to give my students, colleagues, and principal a quick chuckle.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!