Wes Takes Me Back

Back on Christmas Eve, I put up a post on how I was bombarded by Wes of Willinghammer Rising blog with this packed box of goods.

 

I explained in that post how the cards would be split up into many sections. Some trade, some keep, and many to give back to the hobby community. 

Today I wanted to focus on some of the ones I kept.

These I decided to keep didn't hold much value in terms of money, but they held a different kind of value to me personally which means a lot more.

Up first, this rookie year insert of Peyton Manning. There isn't a whole of explaining here to do. I love collecting late 90's inserts and Peyton was one great player.  Seemed like a win-win keeper. Not to mention, who can ever forget the great debate of the 1998 NFL draft on who should the Colts draft.
Should it be a guy named Peyton or a guy named Ryan. Well, the Colts obviously made the right choice.

I remember my father and I chasing down both guys but leaning more towards Peyton as well and glad we did.

Press Pass always brings back a lot of great memories and always put out a solid product with on-card autographs. This player doesn't really have any meaning to me, but it's a Press Pass card and from 1997 a year I liked to collect from.

This one is another late 90's gem from 1998. This card is more about it being from the great Collectors Edge than it does about the player who I have never heard of. Collectors Edge put out a million great football products, it wasn't until the last couple of years I found out they made some basketball cards as well.

Glod ole Greg Ostertag. He was drafted in the first round in 1995 and played on many great Jazz teams in the late 90's who made Finals runs against the Bulls. I remember watching those series with my father and falling in love with the Jazz as a second favorite team to my Knicks. The only problem, they couldn't ever beat the Bulls which is really what I wanted. MJ always had an answer for them or at least a buzzer beater. As a Knicks fan then, I understood how that felt as well.

Powerful defender and one that left the hated Heat of the late 90's to my Knicks. Thomas helped the Knicks go to two Eastern Conference Finals and one NBA Finals that they lost to the Spurs who went on to become the Bulls of the 2000's. I remember not being able to stay up for the late night playoff games and waking up the next morning to a note left behind my father before he went to work telling me how the game went.

And finally the one card that isn't from the 90's in this post, this Sweet Spot Classic Ken Griffey Sr . This has a connection to the 90's however as that's when I started collecting Ken Griffey Jr and I also collected his father when I came across any of his cards. I would store his in the way back of the binder marked off by a tab from Juniors. 

This card is my first relic of senior. Now I just need an autograph and I think that part of my PC would be complete.

 

It's amazing what little pieces of cardboard can do for you. Each one of these held some kind of memory from my past as many cards do. Other than music, I can't think of anything else that makes me more nostalgic than looking back at some of my cards.

Some memories are good and some are not so good. I just look at them as pieces of who made us who we are today.