Rodney's Cardboard:2025 Panini Silhouette Autograph Relic

And... Rodney is back!

Well...for now.

I only have roughly four new Rodney's to show off for now as I haven't been adding any. With the rising costs of everything including cards, people are charging an arm, leg and kidney for Rodney cards now, so I am just sitting back and watching them marinate.

There are many I want, but I refuse to pay the prices...and I can't afford them anyways.

So, until then, I will post the four I have and hope others fall into my lap at some point.

Today's Rodney is from a new Panini product as they were just releasing stuff left and right before their NFL license ended.

The card itself is kind of bland. I was hoping when it said Silhouette that it was going to look like the Crown Royale autographed silhouette cards that they made.

I should have known better.

 

The backside is the usual boring blank Panini thing with the guarantee of a random fan jersey swatch from no specific game, time, date, place or maybe not even a Giants one but at least the autograph is real. 

I don't know a lot about this product as I don't spend a lot of time researching the newer ones, but I assume autograph cards fall a couple per box so not too hard of a find. There are though tons of parallels of this card as expected.

I will need to update my Rodney Hampton checklist at some point with these newer cards.

I hope all of you have a Super Sunday.

The AmeriCARD Dream

How ones hobby can turn into a dream job

Can you imagine what it must be like to have your favorite hobby also be your job?

It sounds like the American dream to me and that’s why I am chasing it. My love and passion of sport cards since I was a kid has carried over to my adulthood. Now I want it to carry over to my future career.

Sport Card Marketing is my dream.

A job that lets you talk about, think about, post about and even handle sports cards all day. As a sport card enthusiast, could you ask for more?

So, I wanted to get to know more about this exciting dream job and was looking for someone to interview.

One person that came to mind immediately is the legendary Susan Lulgjuraj, who’s been well known in the hobby circles as Sooz for many years. She is someone I have followed for a long time on Twitter and watched her career blossom into the career I am currently chasing and going to college for.

 

Susan started out as a journalist about 15 years, spending some of that time writing about sport cards as well with her time at Beckett magazine, a long-time sport card publication. She then spent some time doing PR, social media, and choosing card images for a product called Stadium Club while at Topps cards, one of the industry leaders in producing sport cards. From there, she spent some time at Goldin Auctions before landing her current position as Senior Marketing Manager at CGC Cards, a grading card company.

   

Her decade long hobby work paid off as she got the opportunity to pivot into marketing, which she says is a similar transition, “Storytelling. Working under deadlines. Understanding how people operate. Content creation. There were a lot of areas where it was a good fit.”

All of that experience before she landed her current job was a big help as she states that having “a variety of industry experience and gained more at each step in my career. I learned how to coach employees, work with partners and create solid marketing plans.”

  

When I asked her about what her typical day was like, though it didn’t come across as exciting when she said, “A lot of meetings”, there is still a lot of interesting aspects to the job as well including, working with different teams that do content, social media, graphics, events, finance, sales, and so on.

Having the right skills is also an important piece to a job like this, it’s not always about the fun of playing with sport cards all day. Susan mentioned some skills when I asked her which ones were important, she immediately pointed out that “Empathy is incredibly important. You have to know how to work with people and understand them.” Along with that, another useful skill “is knowing how to work under deadlines. Also, don’t being afraid to say you don’t know. You can always learn and research, but don’t fake an answer.”

Other than having the opportunity to have your hobby as your job, there are other perks of the job that make it fun. I asked her what her favorite part of the job was and she told me, “My favorite part is seeing a campaign or social post hit with the audience. It’s really satisfying to see hard work come together.”

As someone who does a lot online with cards myself, I can see how the reward of that probably feels. Being creative and having it be a hit among other hobbyists is a high point of a job like that. I know when I come up with some ideas on my social media pages for sport cards and seeing others enjoy it, it hits you in the feels.

To sum this job up, you have a job that lets you work with your favorite hobby, you get to use your creativity to show the hobby to others, and then you get paid to do it?! Sign me up.

So, when I asked her If you could do things all over again, would you choose the same path for yourself? I wasn’t surprised with her reply, “I would choose this path every time. I love cards and I get to work on them every day.”

I hope to say the same thing someday. Thanks for the interview Sooz.

 

(this is a college course paper I am writing and sharing with you all as well! I decided to re-publish this since I liked it and wanted to share my college work)

Owed Thanks

It's been a crazy-busy year so far and when you combine that with the fact that I got another year older already, this means I can become very forgetful.

What helps me get through is writing post-it notes or in this case having a blog draft ready.

When I started moving posts from my other two blogs back onto this one, I discovered a hidden draft I had started and never finished. It was a very generous mail day from my northern neighbor Angus who blogs on Dawg Day Cards.  I believe I had published the other half of this mail day on Cards Over Coffee but had been meaning to finish posting it on another blog and never did.

So, before I begin this post, I would like to first apologize to Angus for this delayed owed thanks for such a great mail day.

Now, time to show off the rest of that mail day,

I kick it off with a golden YA Tittle.

Next, a shiny Kerry Collins. Regardless if I have this or not, I never EVER turn down any 90's inserts or parallels especially of my favorite players.

Phil Simms 1984 Topps

As someone who grew up watching the Flinstones and the live action movies, these were great additions for two PC's. I could count these as non-sport ones as well. I have seen a couple of these on eBay before and always wanted them, now I have them.

I always hoard these Pro set cards.

One of my favorite Giants of all-time is featured on this card. Hakeem Nicks was very underrated as a Giants pass catcher but had one heck of a run in the 2011 NFL Playoffs leading the Giants to the Super Bowl and upset win.

I miss Sterling, I really wished he had retired as a Giant.

 

And finally, a Rodney Hampton. I do have this one, it's hard to find many that I don't have, but Rodney's are always welcomed just in case I don't.

Thanks again Angus for the mail day. I really appreciated all of it and you are a great, generous guy.

I guess before I continue on with more new posts on here, I better check my post-it notes and drafts to make sure I don't have any other owed thanks Let's just hope I don't misplace those as well, that wouldn't be good. I can't have a post-it note of where I placed my post-it notes.

The Hunt Was On

As kids, everyone had their own celebrity crush growing up and anyone who says that they didn't, well, they are lying.

For me, I had two.... well three if you count the really late 90's with Mandy Moore.

The biggest and first one I had was for Amy Jo Johnson, otherwise known as the Pink Power Ranger. I know I am not the only one who had a crush on her growing up. There were plenty of other 90's boys that will admit to this as well.

However, my second crush I am not sure if many had on their A-lists as a lot of boys in the 90's were focused on Topanga and Kelly Kapowski. This one was a bit older than those two.

This actress played in both movies and on a television series.

The actress, Helen Hunt.

I fell for Helen when she played on Mad About You and continued to follow her career for a few years after that watching her in films like Twister and As Good As It Gets in which she won an Oscar for.

Speaking of that Oscar win....

 

It was inscribed on this autograph card that I just welcomed home to my non-sport nostalgic PC. I thought that it was time I finally added her autograph to my collection and through the magic of Shohei Ohtani card prices, I was able to trade some second year "base" cards off to land this.

I think I made the right choice here.

With Helen knocked off from my list of needs, this leaves the door open for a much-needed Amy Jo Johnson autograph. To my surprise, she doesn't exist in any card products yet. So, any autograph from her would have to come from in-person signings or from a con of some sort.

Maybe someday.

Going back to Helen, it's hard to believe she is now in her 60's as I am still only twenty-nine for the last fourteen years of my life. But she still pretty much looks the same after all of this time, and I believe is still doing some acting. I think they brought back Mad About You for one more season back in 2019 but don't think it was a hit. I never watched that revival or any of her recent films mostly because I didn't want to ruin the original series and the movies weren't anything interesting to me. I still do watch Twister time to time because that was a big epic film in the 90's that everyone seemed to have talked about and watched.

In comments today, let me know which celebrity you had a crush on and if you have acquired their autograph or not?

You've Got Mail

You've Got Mail

Well, thirteen of you will.

I finally sat down and packed up some cards to go out. I have been wanting to do this for weeks but with school and life getting in the way, I just didn't have the time.

I like to try and get serious mailings like this out a few times a year for my readers and for fellow bloggers as well. 

So, some of you will need to keep an eye on your mailboxes over the next week as these went out yesterday. 

In the meantime, here's a couple of my recent mail days that is quite the mixed bag,

2026 Topps Chrome Football Leather Russell Wilson.

2026 Topps Neon Disney Winter Darkwing Duck

2026 Topps Neon Disney Diamante Darkwing Duck

1999 Topps Finest Prominent Figures /1848

Everyone of these cards belongs in a different PC.

I am looking forward to everyone getting their mail days and hopefully posting about them, because, you've got mail.

Starting Over

Just like a new GM in the NFL, I have gone through and cleaned house of the roster but instead of doing so for a sports team; I have done so on this blog.

I have already rid the blog of all former posts (hoping to download them and save them elsewhere but for now they are remaining in my drafts) and cleaned up the look of the blog. 

There will be continuing changes and updates to this blog as I continue to improve it and try to bring life back to this blog for the first time in many years.

Many of you may ask after all of this time away, why am I remodeling and bringing it back to life? I don't have a full answer for you. I just have noticed some things over the past few weeks that has just been an eye opener for me when it comes to blogging and it was time for a change.

 

Here's hoping that this goes as well as I hope it does.

As we take both take this journey today, let's pretend share this Celebration Matterhorn Macaroon. Cheers to those of you that are still here reading. Cheers to those that hopefully come back and read again and cheers to those that find this blog for the very first time.

It's time to start over and have fun again.

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