A Short Break from Baseball

The 2024 NFL Draft is finally over.  No.  I didn't watch it, but I did keep an eye on who the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers drafted.

Let's face it.  As much as I love baseball (my favorite sport)... neither of my teams are doing well.  In fact, I've been following the A's and Padres more closely this year than last year... and neither have winning records.

That's why today is a good day to take a short break from baseball and focus on some football cards and memorabilia that a few fellow bloggers sent my way.

Let's start off with this cool postcard featuring my all-time favorite football player:

Rod over at Padrographs included this in his latest care package.  At first I thought that it was signed on the front.  But while trying to figure out the history behind this postcard... I discovered it's a facsimile signature.

There's also another facsimile on the back:

It's printed on the left side with the Bible verse.  Steve did sign his first name when he responded to Rod's question.

At one point, I climbed into the #1 spot in the TCDB rankings among Largent collectors.  I've slid back down to #3 and was hoping this postcard would help me out.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find it on their site.  No worries... it's still a cool collectible for my collection.

I received another Largent autograph from another Pacific Northwest blogger:

1997 Upper Deck NFL Legends Autograph #AL-8

Kevin (aka The Diamond King) included this with some Japanese MLB cards (that I'll show off in another post).  The signature is a tad bit faded, but if you look closely you can see he signed it across his legs.

I actually have a copy of this card for my Largent collection, but this card is a huge addition to my Damaged Card PC.

Next up are some Seahawks and Packers rookies and inserts from Woody over at Sports Card Forum:

I don't open up a lot of football, so it's nice to add rookie cards of guys like Boye Mafe and newer inserts of Brett Favre:

2022 Donruss Press Proof Blue #368

2022 Score First Ballot #FB-BF

Woody also tossed in this sweet rookie card of Kam Chancellor:

2012 Topps #157

I've always been a huge fan of hard hitting safeties... and Bam Bam is one of my all-time favorites.  A member of the Legion of Boom, he was selected to the Pro Bowl four times in his first eight seasons.  Sadly his career was cut short with a severe neck injury.  However it's only a matter of time before he becomes a member of the Seattle Seahawks Ring of Honor.

Moving along, let's check out this jersey of the #2 pick in the 1993 NFL Draft that Chris, The Collector sent me last year:

Before Russell Wilson wore #3 for the Hawks... Mirer did.  Although he's remembered by many fans as being a bust, I'll proudly wear this jersey during the season.  I'm sure there will be a ton of kids who are scratching their heads wondering who this guy is.  But it'll give some of my coworkers a chance to reminisce (and probably laugh).

Chris also sent me some cards... including this rookie card of Seattle's leading rusher the past two seasons:

2022 Panini Chronicles #PA-13

And some cool San Jose Sharks cards:

2018-19 UD MVP NHL Player Credentials Access #NHL-JP

2021-22 OPC Platinum Red Surge #298

Don't really have enough new Sharks to justify it's own post... so I figured I'd lump it into this one.  Sadly... I haven't been following the San Jose Sharks as closely as I did when Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton, and Joe Pavelski were teammates.

In fact there are only a handful of guys I can name on the current Sharks roster... and William Eklund is one of them.

Let's wrap things up with two more football items: 

1993 CARDZ Team NFL The Flintstones Set

The first is a complete set of Flintstone NFL cards from John over at Johnny's Trading Spot.  Last Christmas I found a partial set of these in my office.  I started purchasing singles on Sportlots, but now it looks like I don't have to anymore.

I'm sitting on a bunch of cards that need to be scanned from Johnny.  He sent me several care packages dating back to last year that I'm still organizing.  Not going to be able to fit them into today's post, but I will wrap things up with a baseball card he sent me that's related to the gridiron:

2019 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCP151

I know the Broncos and their fans wish they could forget Russell's tenure in Denver... but I'm still a fan of him.  There was part of me that was secretly hoping he'd be traded back to Seattle this past off season.  Hopefully he can lead the Steelers past the Wild Card round this upcoming season.  If he does... I'll quietly root for him unless he ends up facing his old team or the Packers in the Super Bowl.

Hope at least a few people out there appreciate this football post as much as I appreciate the bloggers who sent me these cards and collectibles.

Thank you Rod, Kevin, Woody, Chris, and John!  Happy Saturday and sayonara!

BBA: 5 Best Pack Pulled Hits

I'm always down for a Blog Bat-Around.  The topic currently trending around the blogosphere is posting your five best pack pulled hits.  It was inspired by Matt over at Diamond Jesters who utilized TCDB to create a list of all of his relics, autographs, and serial numbered cards in his collection.  He then isolated which ones were pulled from packs and voilà he formed his list.

Regretfully... I have yet to inventory my entire collection of anything outside of my Steve Largent PC on TCDB... so my process will be a little more challenging and probably inaccurate (in the sense that I might be forgetting some cards).

For the sake of this BBA, I'm going to follow Matt's guidelines of only counting relics, autographs, and serial numbered cards that I have personally pulled from a pack.  I haven't been opening up a lot of packs or boxes since the pandemic, but thankfully there were a few periods in my life when I did.  All of these hits were from those times.

Let's start things off with a few honorable mentions...

Honorable Mention #1:  Gehrig Bat Card

2004 Topps Clubhouse Collection

Career Legends Relics #CL-LG2 (#'d 158/184)

This card would definitely make my Top 5... but there's an asterisk attached to it.  Technically I wasn't the one who pulled this sweet card from a pack.  That honor goes to Colbey over at Cardboard Connections who hosted a group break and I happened to purchase the New York Yankees.

Honorable Mention #2:  Printing Plates

2020 Topps A&G Framed Black Printing Plate #30 Eloy Jimenz

2009 Topps 206 Printing Plate Mini Piedmont #104 Mark Melancon

2007-08 Topps Signature Printing Plate #TS-DJ Deandre Jordan

2017 Topps Bunt Magenta Printing Plate #132 Carlos Gonzalez

I felt like I should at least recognize the printing plates I've pulled.  There might have been one or two more.  Maybe one day it'll come to me.  Maybe it won't.

Honorable Mention #3:  Golden Babe Ruth of Higo 

2022 Topps Chrome NPB

1958 Gold Refractor #58-20 (#'d 37/50)

I pulled this shiny refractor from a box of cards that SumoMenkoMan sent me last Christmas.  Munetaka Murakami is one of the best hitters in the NPB and he's only 24 years old.  We'll just have to wait and see if he can carry his big numbers over to the MLB in a few years.

Honorable Mention #4:  An Under-Appreciated Relic Card

1996 Press Pass Jersey Card #J3

This was the first jersey card I ever pulled from a pack.... which makes sense when you see the year this card was produced.  Upper Deck gets credit for producing the first memorabilia cards in 1996, but Press Pass wasn't very far behind.

Honorable Mention #5:  Jumbo Jeter

2003 Flair Sweet Swatch Jumbo Jersey #DJ-SSJ

This is one of those questionable pack pulls.  Did I pull it from a pack?  Yeah.  But it was one of those 2003 Flair box topper packs that came in a Fairfield Collector's Cache Box from a decade ago.  Each of those packs contained either a memorabilia card or an autograph.  I actually pulled a Jeff Bagwell autograph too... but I like the Jeter more.

Honorable Mention #6:  Secretariat's Saddle

2012 Panini Golden Age Museum Age Authentic Collection #20

In regards of coolness... this card can be swapped into any of the Top 5 spots.  I've only been to the track a few times in my life, so my knowledge of horse racing is limited.  But I definitely know the name "Secretariat".

Alright... enough of the honorable mentions.  Let's get to my five best pack pulled hits...

#5:  A Fundamental Signature

1999-00 Topps Gallery Autographs #TD

I knew this was a pretty nice hit when I pulled it back in 1999 or the early 2000's.  But years later, I discovered it was a pretty significant one.

Some players don't have a lot of certified pack inserted autographs.  Tim Duncan is one of those guys.  

#4:  One Joe Leads to Another

2008 UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius

Redemption Card for Joe Montana

Back in 2011, I opened a case of this product and as luck would have it... I pulled a redemption card of one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time.  Too bad it was expired.

I reached out to someone over at Upper Deck and this card eventually showed up as a consolation prize:

2008 UD Masterpieces Stroke of Genius #SOG50

I didn't hold onto this card for long.  Flipped it on eBay for a nice chunk of change.

#3a:  Beautiful Bird

2009-10 Bowman 48 Locker Room

Autographed Relic #LRCAR-LB

There was a short period in my life when I enjoyed buying cases on clearance and opening them.  2009-10 Bowman 48 was one of them.  There are a few cards from that case break that could make this list in regards to monetary value, but I'll keep it to two and let you decide which one makes the cut.

First up is this low numbered, patch auto of Larry Legend.  Even though I grew up hating the Celtics... I was pretty stoked to add this card to my collection.  I don't normally sell cards, but I did end up selling it at a card show a couple of years ago.

Here's the other card I really like from that case...

#3b:  The Baby Faced Assassin

2009-10 Bowman 48 #106

If there was a Mount Rushmore of all-time Bay Area sports legends voted on by fans... I'm pretty confident Steph would be on it.  The guy is very popular around here and his rookie cards sell for crazy money.

I ended up pulling two copies of this card and two of his blue bordered parallels.

It's not one of his most attractive rookie cards, but it's serial numbered and people are willing to pay a lot of money for it.

#2:  The Only Rickey Autograph

2014 Panini Hometown Heroes Scripted Legacy #SLRH

This card has the least monetary value on the list, but it has a ton of sentimental value.

I have accumulated a bunch of Rickey Henderson autographs over the years, but this is the only one I pulled from a pack myself.

#1:  My Sweetest Pull of All-Time

1999 UD Retro Inkredible #WP

As a child of the 70's and 80's, I had the honor of watching Walter Payton play.   Ask football fans from that era and they'll tell you he was special and one of the all-time greats.  Sadly he passed away only a few months after turning forty-six.

I pulled this card from a pack a few months later (shortly after pulling the Duncan auto) and it became the cornerstone of my autograph collection.  One of my buddies is a huge Chicago Bears fan, so I eventually sold this to him when I sold off the bulk of my collection in the early 2000's.  Thankfully he held onto it... and was willing to sell it back to me over a decade later.

Well that's my list of best pack pulled hits.  This was a pretty challenging post to write... and there's a chance I'm leaving some cards off this list.  Even as I'm wrapping up this post, I just remembered a couple of hockey cards I pulled in the mid 90's that are probably worth mentioning.  But it's in the wee hours of the morning and I don't have the time to dig them out and scan them.

So I'll wrap things out with a quick thank you to Matt for kicking off this Blog Bat-Around.  

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

A Hobby Hazzard

1992 was a big year for me in regards to card collecting.  I worked at the card shop located less than a mile from my parent's house and spent most of my hard earned money on building a master set of 1992 Fleer Ultra baseball.

That didn't leave me with a lot of money to spend on other products that year.  Fast forward three decades and I decided to add another master set of 1992 baseball cards.  This time it was Leaf's turn, but I wouldn't be opening up boxes and trading with card shop customers.  Instead... I headed over to eBay and purchased a complete base set as well as a complete set of the (Black) Gold parallels.

Why Leaf?  Honestly... the gray bordered base cards don't do much for me.  However I've really grown to love those black bordered parallels.  They're beautiful.

Unfortunately when my sets arrived... several of the cards were damaged... hence the title of today's post.

If you utilize binders to store cards or you've been in the hobby long enough, then there's a good chance you've seen cards get pinched between the binder rings and the cover of the binder.  Sadly none of the damaged singles were worthy of my Damaged Card PC, so I don't have an example of what the damage looks like.

Just imagine me closing my binder with my 9-pocket page in this position:

If I'm lucky, the page will slide into position onto of the 2nd page.  The seller wasn't as lucky.  As a result, cards in the 1, 4, and 7 slots were damaged on the first few pages.  Not familiar with those slots, I've numbered them on this page for you:

The purchase took place back in 2021... right before the lockdown.  Since then, I've slowly been marking cards off the wantlist.

1992 Leaf Gold #4

1992 Leaf Gold #7

John over at Johnny's Trading Spot got me two cards closer to completing the set... so now my front page is complete:

I'm now down to only needing four cards for my set build:

The Hudler and Hernandez are sitting in my box over at Sportlots.  I'm waiting on a few more packages before requesting shipment.  By the way, the Sandberg wasn't damaged by the binder.  It was just missing.

For those of you who are wondering how to prevent binder pinching... I use these plastic things that hold the sheets down:

Hopefully you don't have to deal with this issue too often.  At least my encounter with "pinching" involved a cheap Junk Wax Era set.  Can you imagine this happening with a vintage set?

Thank you John for helping me get two steps closer to completing my 1992 Leaf (Black) Gold set build.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Overtime

Since I'm writing about set builds... John also hooked me up with two cards that I needed for my 2018 Sport Kings set:

2018 Sport Kings #4

2018 Sport Kings #27

It feels so good to cross names off my list...

Thanks again John!