The Eras Post

Heat waves suck.  Blog Bat-Arounds rule.

Yesterday Mother Nature turned up the heat in my area and doesn't plan to cool things off for at least the next four or five days.  My happy place is in the mid 50's to mid 60's.  I can tolerate temps into the mid 70's, but anything in the 80's becomes miserable.  Today the temperature will peak in the high 90's.  Not cool (both literally and figuratively).

But what is really cool is when bloggers support each other's Blog Bat-Arounds.  It's been awesome reading everyone's contributions to Kenny's which asked people to write about their proudest collecting achievements.

On Friday, Matt over at Cards Over Coffee started another one.

Taylor Swift had The Eras Tour.  Bloggers have The Eras BBA.

The challenge if you choose to accept it is to discuss your favorite era of card collecting and show off any recent additions to these collections.  I chose the word "challenge", because it was way too hard to pick a single era for my response.  On any given day, my favorite card collecting era will likely come from one of these three...

A.  The 80's

I'm going to start off with the decade where I officially dove into card collecting.  I absolutely loved opening packs and looking for rookie cards of guys like Ron Kittle, Vince Coleman, and Mike Greenwell.  When I was a kid, they were easily my favorite thing to collect.  These days you can add in regional issues like 7-11 discs, Granny Goose A's, and Mother's Cookies SGA sets into the mix.  Yup.  I love the 80's.

I couldn't think of any 80's regional issues that I've purchased recently, but here's a Roger Clemens rookie card I purchased on eBay back in April:

1985 Donruss #273

You may (or may not) remember the 1985 Donruss factory set I picked up at a flea market back in January for $15.  Unfortunately, it was missing the Clemens.  It took a few months, but I finally completed the set for $6.81 ($4.99 + $1.82 shipping/tax).

B.  The 90's

As Matt pointed out in his post, the most innovative cards were produced during this decade.  It was card companies competing against each other at its finest.  Thanks to the 90's we have cards made out of acetate, metal, wood, and leather.  The shiniest parallels came out of that decade.  And that was the decade that introduced pack pulled autographs and game-used memorabilia.  Plus there were things like holograms, die-cuts, embossed cardboard, Dufex technology, etched foil, tree ornaments, and a bunch of other things I'm forgetting in the moment.  Yup.  90's cards were innovative and awesome.

Unfortunately a lot of these cool 90's cards are skyrocketing in popularity and prices, so I haven't purchased any from eBay or at any card shows.  Luckily, I started reorganizing my collection over the summer and I came across hundreds of cool inserts that were hidden in boxes.  Here are three that I figured Matt might appreciate and fit this segment of the post:

1999-00 Topps Gallery of Heroes #GH6

1997-98 Skybox Z-Force Zensations #18ZN

1997 Fleer Metal Universe Marvel Metal #1

I did find some cool baseball inserts too, but I like to showcase some basketball and football every now and then.

C.  The 70's

One of my favorite things to collect are 70's lenticular Kellogg's cards.  I feel like my dream flea market find involves stumbling across a collection of non-cracked Kellogg's cards at a reasonable price.  It's not likely to happen, but this collector can dream.  Those cards alone make this era a personal favorite.

But I also love collecting 70's cards of athletes I grew up hearing about on television and reading about in magazines.  My two binders dedicated to 70's baseball are arguably the ones that I flip through the most on a regular basis.  I just love staring at classic designs like 1972 and 1975 Topps and flipping through pages filled with The Swingin' A's.  Yup.  The 70's rocked.

I rarely add any 70's Kellogg's cards to my collection these days.  Like 90's stuff... they're too expensive for my budget.  It's even less common for me to share a card I purchased at a flea market before I feature it in a Flea Market Find post.  However I picked up this lovely lenticular at the De Anza Flea Market yesterday:

1976 Kellogg's #19

I have a few Flea Market Find posts that I need to hammer out.  But the next one I publish will feature this weekend's haul since you've gotten a sneak peek.

Thank you Matt for starting another round of Blog Bat-Arounds!  I hope others will join in on the fun.  The more, the merrier.  Reading your responses will make this heat wave I'm suffering through more bearable.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!