Tuesday, July 18, 2023

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 collectionLast 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.

17 comments:

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

i GRAB THOSE si FOR kIDS EVERY TIME i SEE THEM. Oops, Caps lock was on. Oh well.

John Bateman said...

Never seen a checklist for SI kids cards - I wish I started collecting them from Day 1 - I but if anyone has it is one helluva collection

Crocodile said...

I don't have many of those SI for Kids cards, but may start grabbing them when I see them.

The Angels In Order said...

I have a file folder of card sheets out in garage somewhere. Some day I'll have to go through them and see what I have. Hopefully I have a Tony Hawk.

Nick Vossbrink said...

I try to grab whatever Stanford SI for Kids cards I can find unless they're insanely priced like the Tiger Woods.

Xavier Higgins said...

That Reminds me of the Salvadore Dali painting, The Persistance of Time.
Be Wise with your Time as there isn't anymore For Sale...

The Lost Collector said...

I love the old designs!

What's cool is you often end up with inadvertent rookie cards. It's not so much a secret anymore, but it's cool to look back and see. My best one is probably the Tony Hawk. I wish I had the Tiger.

Matt said...

I also loved choose your own adventure books, but I don't recall ever seeing Dungeons & Dragons series before. Pretty cool!

The Snorting Bull said...

I transferred schools last year. My new school has a monster collection of SI Kids magazines, at least a decade. I need to go check them out one of these days. Really cool cards.

Jupiterhill said...

I'm with you, I wish I would have started subscribing much earlier than I did. I likely would have missed the first decade or so, but would have likely got a subscription around the time the Tiger Woods card was hot, and even getting the Lebron card. A couple years ago I let my subscription run out more because I wasn't keeping up with sports as much and not getting a lot of cards. If I had been a longtime subscriber I'd still be getting it.

As for books, I'm not the best book reader, but I do plan to do a post on the books I've read so far this year which is a lot more than I thought I would. Thanks to the urging of a few bloggers, I figured it was time to start reading books since I've bought so many in recent years.

Jafronius said...

My aunt gifted my kids a SI for Kids subscription about 10 years ago. I was kinda bummed when she forgot to renew it a couple years later. I'll have to see if I still have them. Great saves on those Choose Your Adventure books!

SumoMenkoMan said...

I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

John Sharp said...

Like that Pudge Fisk SI for Kids card.

Jon said...

I don't know if it's because they're still popular with people looking to buy back a piece of their childhood, or if it's just because no one thinks that anyone will want them in this day and age; but either way, I almost never see CYOA books in the wild.

Fuji said...

johnnys trading spot - NO PROBLEM JOHN! :D

john bateman - you can find a checklist online. it's pretty cool... where you can sort them by athlete and sport

crocodile - it's never too late to start collecting. si for kids cards are perfect for collecting cards of women athletes and a variety of sports that don't often get a lot of hobby love

the angels in order - hmmm... i wonder if i have the tony hawk card. i know it's gotten very popular in recent years.

nick vossbrink - i got really lucky and found a tiger woods sheet at the flea market. it was actually one of my greatest flea market finds of all-time.

xavier higgins - you should really start a blog. i'd love to see your collection... and you're a poet with words.

the lost collector - tom mentioned the hawk too. now i really need to go through my binders to see if i have his card.

matt - i don't remember seeing these books as a kid either. if i had, i would have definitely bought them or asked my mom to buy them

jupiterhill - i'm really bad when it comes to reading books, but i'll add them to my library every now and then.

jafronius - hope you find them. you might be surprised at how valuable some of the singles are

sumomenkoman - me too. i think i brought my entire collection of them into my classroom back in the late 90's. sadly... after moving schools and teaching 25 years... i don't have any of my original library anymore.

john sharp - me too. always happy to add a new pudge to the collection

jon - me either. there are two book vendors that set up at a local flea market and i never see them with cyoa books.

Anonymous said...

I wished I had kept my subscription to SI FOR KIDs looking at that Wemby value
Matt-SCC

Fuji said...

matt scc - i hadn't looked up what victor wembanyama was selling for until a few minutes ago. that's pretty silly. it'll be interesting to see if he's able to fill those shoes.