BBA: Sunglasses on Trading Cards

The summer cleaning project has begun and my scanner is buried under and behind stacks of cards and Lego sets.  I'm in the middle of dusting and organizing my office.  How does that impact the blog?  Well... since I won't be able to scan cards in the near future... any posts published this week will feature saved scans.

That kind of sucks, because it would have been fun to pull some cards out of the 70's and 80's binders for today's post... which is my submission to our blogosphere's current Blog Bat Around.  Yesterday was National Sunglasses Day and Collecting Cutch inspired the BBA by asking his readers to show off our "sunglasses cards".  His post included a ton of Andrew McCutchen cards featuring him with his shades.

John Sharp and Elliptical Man joined in too.

Here are some of my favorite athletes wearing shades:

2010 Sport Kings Series D #180

I know Mr. Padre isn't technically wearing his sunglasses, but I'm just following Collecting Cutch's lead.  Plus Elliptical Man used the Gwynn card I originally wanted to use.

Even though many of the cards in today's post have been featured before, I did try to include a variety of trading cards.  Here's my obligatory rookie card:

2001 Topps Limited Edition #726

Going back to my childhood, one of the most iconic baseball players to wear sunglasses was Teke:

2016 Archives 65th Anniversary Auto Printing Plate #A65-KT

I don't think I've shown off this card before.  Picked it up back in 2016 with a four other autographs and some singles from the Archives 65th Anniversary set for $22.50.  I also have the actual autographed card from this product, but it hasn't been scanned.

One more autographed card...

2015 Gypsy Queen Autographed Relics #AR-RH

Back in the 90's, it seemed like all of the "cool" kids wore Oakleys.  Including the Black Mamba:

1996-97 Upper Deck #58

Not 100% sure... but I think Michael wore them too:

2001 UD Prospect Premieres Heroes of Baseball Dual Jersey #J-JJ

What about you?

Do you wear sunglasses?  Oakleys?

Me?  I was more into Ray-Ban and Revo back in the 90's.  These days... I don't even wear sunglasses, but I do own some trading cards with guys wearing them.  Now if I could just add one of those 1970 Topps Lowell Palmer cards to my collection.

Happy belated National Sunglasses Day and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #153: Cookies, Kings, and Stamps

Three weekends.  Two flea markets.  One card show.

It's going to be a "good" kind of busy.

Last weekend was the monthly Branham High School Flea Market.  The highlight was running into a buddy I hadn't seen in quite some time.  He's a vendor who always has unique stuff.  I picked up a pretty cool item for my San Diego Padres collection, but before I show that off... let's review two purchases I made earlier.

Purchase #1:  1990 Donruss Set $7

I have little interest in adding another 1990 Donruss set to my collection.  However the vendor pointed something interesting about this particular binder.  At the very back, there was also a complete set of 1990 Donruss Super DK's:

Collectors could send $10, three wrappers, plus $2 for postage and receive an oversized (5x7) set of Diamond Kings.

The set includes twenty-six Diamond Kings, a checklist, a twelve piece puzzle of Carl Yastrzemski, and this Nolan Ryan:

1990 Donruss Super DK's #NNO

I know it looks like the same King of Kings card from the base set, but this card isn't numbered.  The regular sized version is card #665.

Sadly... the 1990 Diamond King checklist is a bit underwhelming in regards to big names, but it does include this really cool Ken Griffey Jr.:

1990 Donruss Super DK's #4

These two cards alone were well worth the seven dollars I pulled out of my pocket.  The Super DK set will be added to the collection.  I'm hoping to recoup some or all of the money by selling the binder and regular set at the next show I set up at.

Purchase #2:  More Sets and a Rookie Card $3

Nothing too special here.  The same vendor who sold me the Donruss set also had a box of miscellaneous cards.  I pulled out three Star Company sets, a beat up 1988 Fleer Exciting Stars boxed set, and a Jake Cronenworth rookie insert and offered him $3 (pretty much to make it an even ten bucks).

I like adding oddball issues like those Star sets... and I don't own many Cronenworth cards.  As for the Fleer boxed set, it's missing three cards (McGwire, Mattingly, and Clark)... so I'll be breaking it up and adding singles to certain player collections if I don't already have a copy.

Purchase #3:  1971 Dell Today's Team Padres Stamp Book $5

My buddy picked up a bunch of these books at another local flea market and was flipping them.  He said he's made a tidy profit off of them.  I was hoping he'd sell me the Oakland A's book too, but he decided to keep that for his own collection.

Anyways... if you've never seen one of these books before, they come with a bunch of player stamps:

I've added a few individual stamps to my collection over the years, but I'll be keeping this book intact.

Purchase #4:  Mother's Cookies Albums $20

My big purchase of the day were these three card albums featuring complete sets of San Francisco Giants Mother's Cookies SGA cards:

For over a decade, Mother's Cookies gave away envelopes filled with 28 baseball cards to San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's fans on trading card day.  The Mariners, Astros, Dodgers, Angels, and Padres also participated in this promotion.

Each fan would get twenty or twenty-one different cards and seven or eight copies of one specific player.  The goal was to encourage fans to trade their duplicates for the cards they needed.  Pretty ingenious, right?

There was also a special card you could mail in with some money for these four pocket albums.  This vendor had a bunch of Giants sets from the 80's, but I didn't want to pay his $10/set asking price.  I ended up pulling the 1983, 1985, and 1986 sets and asking if he'd take $20.  He did.

Here's a peek at what each set looks like...

1983 Mother's Cookies #1

1983 was the first year Mother's Cookies participated in the stadium giveaway.  It's also the only Mother's Cookies set that I own that doesn't featured the trademark rounded corners.

1985 Mother's Cookies #10

Here's a cool action shot of Vida Blue.  He headlines a solid checklist.  The only names I didn't recognize as Giants from my youth were Doug Gwosdz, David Green, Gary Rajsich, and Scot Thompson.

1986 Mother's Cookies #7

This is my favorite card out of all three sets.  Why?  This card brings back one of my favorite baseball card memories.  I was at the game when these envelopes were passed out.  Sadly, I didn't keep it... but I did hold onto the Will Clark.

Purchase #5:  1959 Idaho Basketball Tournament Pamphlet $1

There's a regular vendor who has a variety of pop culture and random periodicals that he tosses onto his dollar tarp.  Last month I picked up that Digable Planets photo.  This month, I grabbed this pamphlet.

Inside one of the teams signed their page:

It caught my attention and figured it was something old and unique for a buck.  Plus I spent over an hour looking up each of these guys to see if any of them went on to play in the NBA.  To make a long story, very short... they didn't.  Sadly I did come across a few of their obituaries though.

That wraps up another trip to the flea market.  This Saturday there's a card show at a local mall.  Ryan (SumoMenkoMan) is flying in for the day and we're going to hit it up, check out some card shops, and hang out.  Then the following Saturday is the De Anza Flea Market.  Like I said at the start of the post... it's a "good" busy.

Happy Wednesday and sayonara!

Immortal Help from a Legend

When it comes to adding new cards to the collection, I don't really discriminate.  Sure... I might not go out of my way to purchase Panini baseball cards, but that doesn't prevent me from adding singles to my collection when the price is right.  Heck... I even collect damaged cards, Broders, and draft busts.

But when I first started collecting baseball cards back in the early 80's, my collection lacked diversity for several years.  It primarily consisted of flagship Topps, Fleer, and Donruss... with the occasional oddball issue like Fleer Star Stickers or Donruss HOF Heroes.  Why?  It had to do with what I had access to.

If the local pharmacy, 7-11, or Long's didn't have it on their shelves... then it wasn't part of my collection.  That's why I completely missed out on cool sets like the Baseball Immortals in the 80's.  Based on my limited research, I'm pretty sure these colorful cards that resemble the 1975 Topps set were sold and distributed as complete sets.  I remember seeing them offered for sale in older trading card price guides like Tuff Stuff and Baseball Cards and even sports magazines like Baseball Digest.

Unfortunately... my parents never allowed me to order anything from a magazine ad... which meant I didn't have access to these cards as a kid.

Fast forward several decades... and a CCW buddy of mine sent me a generous package of these cards consisting of over 80% of the set... leaving me with 39 cards on my wantlist.  In 2020, Jon over at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts sent me four cards for my set build.

Back in April, Night Owl wrote a post on his blog celebrating the completion of his set.  In the comment section, I mentioned my set build and gave him a link to my wantlist.  Two weeks later a PWE arrived in my mailbox.  It sat in my office for almost six weeks, but I finally got a chance to open it up last week and inside were five more cards for my set:

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #44

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #54

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #70

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #128

1980-87 SSPC Baseball Immortals #139

I'm now thirty cards away from completing this set myself:

Four years ago, I talked about placing a Sportlots order to get me closer.  It never happened.  But Night Owl's PWE motivated me to get off my butt.  I was able to find one dealer with reasonable prices and enough cards to make it worth the price of shipping.  Five dollars ($2.50 + $2.50 shipping) later, I'm eleven steps closer to completing the set:

While we're on the subject of set builds, my most recent purchase from the Online Dime Box added twenty-one cards to my 1991 Starline Hollywood Walk of Fame set build:

It's a shame non-sport cards aren't available on Sportlots.  Anyways... getting back to Night Owl's care package... he also tossed in these two 2021 Big League cards:

I debated on buying a box of this product.  I like the simplicity of the design, but ultimately saved my money for some upcoming card shows, flea markets, and set builds.  Heck.  Maybe I'll even flip through the Fritsch Cards catalog and place a good old fashioned mail order.

What about you?

Did you ever buy cards through magazines ads or catalogs back in the 80's and 90's?

My first catalog/mail order purchases were made after I got my hands on a credit card.  I bought a bunch of Signature Rookies boxes from a company called Mail Order Concepts.  I also bought cards from another mail order company that carried discounted wax boxes.  Can't remember their name though. 

Thank you Greg for helping me out with this set build.  And thanks to everyone who took the time to read and comment on this post.

Happy Monday and sayonara!