Stocking Up for a Rainy Day

The advent calendar adventure continues with the next six days of presents from SumoMenkoMan.

On Thursday, we left off with a bunch of packs and we'll continue with more...

December 7th

1997 Team Vans Pack

Although I've never seen these packs before, I am familiar with the set... because it features Steve Caballero's first card:

1997 Team Vans #1

I'm a big fan of him and his collectibles.  During the lockdown, I discovered this card and picked it up on COMC for $12.75.

It'll be fun to see if I can pull one for myself when I get around to writing another APTBNL post.  

December 8th

The next two packs contain eight Ben Baller cards:  

2021 Topps Chrome Ben Baller Packs

Three years after hearing Ben Baller's name... I still have no idea who this guy is.  But I do own a couple of singles from this set.  Never had the pleasure of opening up a pack.  Now I get to bust two.

Here's what I pulled:

Pretty happy to pull a pair of guys I collect... and a decent rookie card.

December 9th

Day 9 features nine packs of Holiday Inn baseball cards from sixteen years ago:

2007 Upper Deck Holiday Inn Packs

Kerry reviewed this product back in 2011 on APTBNL.. but his pack only contained four cards.  These packs contain eight cards:

The first five cards were the five Ripken inserts, while the final three cards were singles from the sixty card set.  The remaining eight packs will go into the rainy day pack stash.

December 10th

Next up are two packs of 2021 Topps.... only these were the ones sold in Japan:  

2021 Topps Japan Edition Packs

I'll be keeping one sealed for my unopened pack collection... while the other will eventually be reviewed and inserted into my Japanese trading card binder.

December 11th

The next present isn't something you open... it's something you wear:  

At first glance, this looks like an ordinary tie featuring some San Jose Sharks logos, but upon closer inspection... it was actually designed exclusively for the 1995 NHL All-Star Game.

What's special about that?  Well that game was cancelled due to the 1994-95 NHL Lockout, which makes this collectible kind of unique.

Another interesting thing about this tie is that it's individually serial numbered to only 360... which makes it a pretty rare collectible. 

December 12th

The last advent item of the day is this figure produced by Topps in the late 90's:

1999 Topps Action Flats Barry Bonds

This oddball issue sort of flies under the radar.  I remember the card shop I worked at had these.  A decade later, I purchased a complete set of the 1998 Topps Action Flats football set, because it contains a Peyton Manning rookie card.  But this is the first baseball version to enter my collection.

Here's a peek at the back of the box:  

When you open it up, there are two parts.  First is the trading card:

1999 Topps Flats #S1-6

Topps used a different photo from the one used in the flagship set.

Then there's the flat figurine:

I love how it's modeled after the player's photo on the card, so when you put them together it look like this:

This oddball issue is kind of cool and since they were overproduced... they're really affordable.  The only thing that's preventing me from picking up a complete set is the lack of storage space.  But I have added it to my saved eBay searches, so who knows... you might see a few more pop up in future blog posts.

Well that's another day of awesome stuff from SumoMenkoMan.  There are still thirteen days worth of goodies to go, so stay tuned.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!