Blast From The Past:1998 Bowman Chrome Baseball Pack Break

In 1999, a flick with Brendan Fraser and Alicia Silverstone called Blast From The Past came out. It was about a scientist named Calvin Webber who was played by Christopher Walken, that took his pregnant wife in a deep underground fallout shelter in 1962 when he thought a nuclear war was imminent. During that time, their son Adam played by Fraser (who seemed to had been in every late 90's movie) was born and was exposed to only the culture of 1962 in the shelter such as the music and TV shows of the time. Life was accustomed to not being at the surface. 

Fast forward 35 years later, their supplies and food was running low so someone would have to come above ground and take a risk to get new products. That was supposed to be Calvin, up until he was ill from stress from his one visit to the surface. So his son Adam would have to venture out in a world he had never met.....

This segment takes a look at products that may have been hidden in a underground fallout shelter for over 20 years and now just coming back out to be rediscovered....by me. Guess you can call me Adam even though my name is Matt. These are products I opened when I was first collecting and is a Part Of My Past, but may not have a memory or a Origins story to attach to them. Most products I post on here will, but some won't and those will be covered in this new segment.These products will be between the years of 1995-1999 only.

Let's just hope my experience with these breaks is better than Adams first visit to the surface.

So let's take a Blast From The Past with a one pack break of 1998 Bowman Chrome baseball!

In 1997 there was a new chrome breed that Bowman born into the world. That product immediately caught my eye being a fan of Topps Chrome already. It was the year of trying to hunt down rookie cards like Magglio Ordonez, Jimmy Rollins and a guy I was trying to land in El Duque, Orlando Hernandez.

Each pack of Bowman Chrome matched Topps Chrome with only four cards. I think packs were $2.99 at the time but I was able to snag this one for $1.99 on eBay. Figured it was worth the gamble and the memories.

 

Here is a look at the pack back and odds.

Let's rip 'er open.

THIS IS NOT A DAVID ORTIZ ROOKIE CARD eBay sellers!! Ortiz rookies were in 1997, this is a second year card. So many false listings. Still a decent card to find though.

Arnold Gooch didn't appear to get too far in his career. So not much of a prospect find here.

Gil was a first round pick who made his debut with the Mariners in 1999.  Was one game above .500 in his career with a 4.49 ERA. He did make an All Star appearance in 2007 but had to retire early at age 32 because of injuries.

 

Niiiiiiiiiicce. Was super excited to land a 1:12 refractor in a one pack break and I know of Preston. He made his MLB debut in 1998 with the Mets, his only season there, and played for 10 seasons with 6 different teams. Clubbed 189 home runs and a .264 batting average.

$1.99 well spent and I think you will agree.

Hope this Blast From The Past brought you back as well. There are many more to uncover in this series.

Pieces Of My Future #9:Never Too Many Hits

Here is the final part of my mail day from Too Many Verlanders blog. First we dived into non card items, then we showcased some cool inserts and today we show off the hits!

There was no shortage in this mail day from all PC areas.

Paul Perkins auto relic. Kind of a unique signature that he has. Especially the letter P.

Wayne Gallman jersey card. I expect him to back up Barkley again this year.

Woooooooooooo! What a nice card! Two nice patch relics along with a football swatch with what I believe is Wilson written on it

Another nice patch from of Jernigan.

Rueben Randle still is my biggest Giants PC in terms of total hit volume I believe. I don't think Andre Williams has surpassed him...yet.

Going to miss Herz in 2019. Guy had quite a story and made some plays when he could. I wish him the best on his future.

SPA and a Giants running back auto, sign me up!

And to finish this off, Grass Roots patch of Brandon Jacobs. I assume the patch is from the side sleeves or the numbers. It is prime that's for sure!

Well, that does it for another exciting mail day from Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders. I hope you enjoyed your last few mailings as well and I am sure there will be more to come in 2019!

Unsolved Mysteries Episode 2

This blog post series is about unraveling unsolved mysteries from a card lot my mother-in-law bought me from an estate sale. What you are about to see isn't a breaking news broadcast or some new releases. There is a lot to go through here so whenever possible, I will try to condense down some of the graphics and whenever possible, real cards from the actual lot (well all of them are from the actual lot but let's have some fun with it) will be used for pictures.

Someone, somewhere can help me uncover the mysteries within this lot. Let's take a look and maybe one of you, will help me solve some mysteries.

*insert creepy music and theme song*

The location is still completely unknown where my Mother In Law went to grab this lot of sports cards other than it was a Estate Sale. Belief is, it was somewhere isolated as nobody grabbed them before she did. It may be the only explanation on why someone wouldn't have grabbed this lot before she showed up three hours after it started. Or maybe it was because the cards were more than they were expecting? Or was it a government conspiracy? I guess we will have to tune in to today's round and maybe you can help solve this mystery.

These Fleer All-Stars inserts are from 1993. They have a fairly decent design that would have fit better as a base card design than a 90's insert. Darren must know that or knows something possibly relating to this lot. Nobody makes a bluffing face better than he does.

Three Diamond Kings but only one Gallery of Stars. Mystery written all over it....

Two mid-tier players when it comes to the hobby and a more powerful one in Greg Maddux. Why would Greg had been left behind with two mediocre hobby power players?

Never knew that Jose Rijo was a League Leader....

Did the owner of these cards collect Nomar or the Red Sox? Or did the candy entice him because it came with an Upper Deck card? Or maybe he just liked the red licorice and the card was a bonus. It's a Twizzler of questions that need to be answered.

Some early 2000's Upper Deck hockey Young Guns. I don't know any of these players but Young Guns are Young Guns. They have to have some value or do they...

This was the one and only Donruss Classics card in the lot and is numbered of the great Stan Musial. But, why was he alone that day? And why Stan?

Shiny cards never get left behind...then why were they?

At one point Mark was a Hobby Master than he fell into some trouble later on his career. It's still a mystery on why he did what he did...

This Mike Piazza insert contains 4 out of 6 known steroid users in what was supposed to be called a Superstar Summit. It seems to me it needs to be renamed because real Superstars don't cheat, but what would you call it?

 

Back To Back Mike Piazza inserts to finish today's look at the lot. Did this collector have luck pulling Mike or did they collect him?

This does it for Episode Two of Unsolved Mysteries. There is a lot of unexplained findings here with even more mysteries to unravel. Tune in next time and Perhaps YOU, can help solve a mystery.

Let's Talk About Sets Volume 2

Let's talk about sets baby
Let's talk about it with me
Let's talk about all the good things
And the bad things that may be
Let's talk about sets (1995)
Let's talk about sets (Summit)
Let's talk about sets (Uh huh)
Let's talk about sets....

1991 song by Salt-N-Pepa was about a much different topic than I am turning it into. You see, I am staying on topic with cards. Not,well, what they were talking about. This newest segment about the 90's will focus on my set chases (the ones I have already used for a Origins Post or don't plan on using) and new additions to them along with updates on how far I have gotten.

It's time for us to sit down and have that discussion between your parents and you that you tried to avoid. You know, that conversation you have with them about the Flairs and the Pinnacles. Kids, it's time to Talk About Sets.

So grab a cup of your favorite Kool-Aid and take a seat on Chairry and check these out.

Yes, I apologize for another whole round of Summit Ground Zero. I promise before we are done with having the Sets talk, we will be moving all over the place as I added some new additions in quite a few.

Let's take a peek under the plastic sheets at the new additions. The first four on here are thanks to my buddy @90sNicheFBCard and the rest I snagged myself.

Woo Hoo! Bryan helped knock down a big name need.

I found Michael for .89!

Everyone was buying Jeff in 1990 as he was the hot thing, well....

Seems like every pack I opened Stoney Case was in there. Ugh!

Same with Frank but he at least had a career.

Neil Smith could dominate a game. One of the defensive greats!

 

And Terry Kirby finishes up our session today.

Come back for more Sets Talk next time. Remember when doing sets to use protection.

The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict: Inscriptions

It was 1997 and my father had the day off to run errands with me. My mother decided not to tag along and stay home to get caught up on housework which only meant one thing to my father and I, it was time to hit up the card shop.

When I say card shop, I don't actually mean a card shop. Even though at the time we did have one of those still kicking around but it was a almost thirty minute drive when we could just drive for ten minutes to get the same kind of cards. Don't get me wrong, a card shop is a beautiful place compared where we were going. I just wished I had realized how much the hobby was going to die off in my area over the years or I would have been going more to the real card shop.

We were heading to the gas station!

Yup. The gas station was a happening place at the time. They sold Beanie Babies, they had sports cards, gas, snacks, regular food, and even a Dunkin' inside that made the building inside smell like coffee.

But, it was the sports cards we were always there for.

They had a spinning rack just loaded with unopened boxes and even a book shelf that sat in the corner with packs if you preferred that route. We had bought so many boxes and packs from their that the owner of the gas station had become a friend of ours and was always inviting us into his office to show the latest products that would be hitting the rack and giving us the opportunity to grab them before anyone else does.

He was kind of like that card shop owner that loyal customers would become besties with.

On this given day, he had just received a box full of a new beautiful product called 1997 Pinnacle Inscriptions. It was a high end product like no other that contained what was told to be some beautiful autographs. You were rolling the dice however when you bought them as these mini boxes contained one pack that only had three cards in it. Each mini box featured a player on it and there were six players overall to collect.

The hobby box came with 24 packs with the following odds for parallels and the autographs I spoke about,

Challenge Collection 1:7 packs
Artist Proof 1:35 packs
V2 1:11 Packs
Inscriptions Autographs 1:23 packs

You had autographs of all the big stars to chase such as Brett Favre, John Elway and Barry Sanders to chase along with key rookie cards of Jake Plummer, Corey Dillion and Tony Gonzalez as well.

I don't quite remember what the price per pack was then, but it seemed to had been upwards to $10. So if my father and I was going to buy a few packs, the odds of us hitting that autograph was going to be rough.

After a few minutes of back and forth between us and the owner, we decided we would buy the whole hobby box but would have to pick it up a few packs at a time since we didn't have that kind of cash flow. The owner even gave us 10% off as well.

So that day we only grabbed a couple of packs, didn't hit it too big or find the autograph, so we would have to go back again.

Speaking of going back again, 22 years later I was able to do that. That's right! I was able to snag three unopened packs of 1997 Pinnacle Inscriptions football thanks to my buddy @90sNicheFBCard.

My three boxes had,

Dan Marino

Brett Favre

 

Troy Aikman

I was trying to decide if I wanted to open all three or just one and keep two sealed. For now, that's the route I have taken. Let's see how my one pack break went.

I chose the Troy Aikman pack to bust

You take the plastic off, open up the box and inside you find this. Not particularly the best way to pack cards, but didn't seem to leave any damage on them.

Brett Favre kicks off our pack. The base cards are all printed with dufex technology. The Next Level cards are the subsets in the 50 card base card set.

Some more star power right here. Emmitt Smith is card two in this pack.

Scott Mitchell was my last card. Not a fairy tale ending.

Also in the pack was this checklist.

That was a really fun walk back in time and now I want to build the base set. So, add that one to my list in my 1997 section. It's only 50 cards so hopefully wouldn't take too long to build. If you have any send em my way!

As for the rest of my box break of inscriptions with my father, well, we did land the autograph eventually and even went back for a second hobby box and pulled another. Who did we land, well, that may wait for another day if I decide to open another pack. Or it will just be another story for another day.

I wished that gas station still carried cards but they no longer do. The card section left about 15 years ago. The gas station still exists and still has everything else including a new batch of Beenie Babies. I just go in now to smell the scent of coffee and remember the good times I had there.