Pieces Of My Future #8:Never Too Many Cards

Here is the next part of my mail day from  Too Many Verlanders blog. First we dived into non card items, today we dig into the cards. However, these are the non hit cards but still pretty slick.

I mean look at this Bernie. Wow. I hadn't ever seen one of these. What ever happened to great looking inserts like this?! Today we extra base cards acting as inserts.

Loved me some Donruss Preferred and not that stuff Panini tried to put out.

Sportflix movement.

Ken Griffey jr! I will have to repay Dennis back with some dupes I have as we both collect THE MAN.

More Junior love

Very cool Power Brokers card. The 90's just did it right

I am telling you, Collectors Choice was da bomb.

And this card is simply amazing. I didn't have the base card version of it and only the large one. Can you find me a better looking baseball base card?

More Gmen. Most I don't have.

These are beautiful!!!!! Hadn't seen them before but so glad I have em now.

Gold parallels. Love the photo on the Osi. Those were good times when the Giants had their pass rush.

Great looking die cut card. come on Eli, lets see one more of those trophies before you step away.

Even though the player wasn't great, I am looking at the cards themselves and how sharp the parallels look. Really wished Chrome was still in football as it was always my go-to.

Some more shiny mixed in.

And we finish it up with Eli. That Epix is Epic and the future star card I have never seen before.

And that does it for Part 2 of my mail day from Dennis with one more part to go. I will be showing off the pretty sweet hits he sent my way.

The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict: Against All Odds

How can I just let you walk away
Just let you leave without a trace?
When I stand here staring right at you, ooh ooh
You're the only product I really wanted to open that day

It was 1995 and my peek of collecting was soaring. Most of what I collected was football at the time, but I slowly took a dive into some baseball occasionally.

When I bought products they were normally from the grocery store and usually Fleer, Fleer Ultra, Score and Collectors Choice til they were gone and the next one came out. One of the products I ignored when I was buying football was the baseball version of Collectors Choice.

I loved the Collectors Choice line with it's fun photography,kid appealing designs and it's really cheap price tag. I mean, I was 12. So one day I decided I would stop ignoring the baseball version sitting there and snag a pack. Except, they were all gone. ALL GONE. How could have I ignored it for so long and not have at least busted a pack?!?

How can you just walk away from me
When all I can do is watch you leave?
'Cause now you have caused me pain
And even made me shed the tears
You're the only product I really wanted to open that day

Unexpectedly a few days later, I stumbled upon some packs at the local pharmacy and was able to bust a few before watching them disappear. But, at least I accomplished what I had set out to do.

 

Recently, I was also able to bust a pack I got from eBay in a lot of packs to bring back that nostalgia. This was actually much better pack than the ones I opened back then. Against All Odds I did well in a single pack.

Each pack of 1995 Collectors Choice baseball comes with 12 cards with one of those cards being a "silver signature" parallel.

Here is what the back of the pack looks like.

The card fronts featured player focused photography with a border and minimal writing at the bottom. The border is almost un-noticable because the photograph is so appealing. Which is why I was always a fan of Upper Deck products. They knew how to make a base card worthwhile.

Where else can you find Gregg Jefferies stare you down?

A ball in mid air with a throw by Alan Trammell

Sandy Alomar Jr in the sand dust of tagging out a player at the plate.

How about Andy Ashby winding up to let one unload.

Even John Jaha knocking the socks off a pitch

And Wally Joyner...well...

And even a stare down at first base by Zane Smith. This card was also my silver signature parallel.

My pack also had a couple of "Rookies." I put parenthesis around the word because baseball is evil when it comes to rookie cards. They will produce multiple years of one guy but only one card with the rookie logo is actually his true rookie card. So confusing and it was for me then as I filed these away as rookie cards. Later on I found out they were not.

 

So take a look at me now
Well there was a pack to break
And there's lots of cards here to remind me
The memory of my last break
Ooh, take a look at me now
Well there's just two more cards to face
And them being something good is against the odds
And that's what I've got to face

 

This pack had a surprise for me. When I busted the ones back in 1995, my best pull was a silver version of You Crash The Game that fell at 1:7 pack,but, but, this pack went Against All Odds with a gold version that fell 1:35 packs. Considered to be a big pull for back then.

 

I am not sure if this would have been a winner back then or not. But, great pull and I would had been even more stoked in 1995 to had hit such a card. And if he had hit a home run, I could have redeemed this for a Gold Set of Crash The Game cards. Pretty rad to be included in a kids product.

And you pulling this card is against the odds
And that put a smile on my face

And I can honestly say this next card, I have never seen before or knew existed.

 

I am not even sure what the odds are to hit a card like this as I can't even find info on this card or how many redemption cards like this were made.

This pack was by far better than any of the packs from 1995 I opened. However, the experience trying to find the pack back then was better than this. Today, you can just hit up eBay and almost any site that sells cards to find packs you want to open from your childhood. In your childhood days, you could only open what was available to you. I think that made the experience so much better.

So that day I couldn't get a pack at the grocery store made me upset, but, Against All Odds a few days later finding more packs available at a different location brought me joy. The joy of the chase is what it's all about.

Speaking of joy, Collectors Choice always brought me lots of it. Upper Deck knew how to create a wonderful kid product and it's too bad today we don't have Collectors Choice or even Upper Deck in the baseball card collecting game. Collectors Choice only got better with age and you will see that when I post even more about it on here. Affordable, creative and fun is what it brought. It was even interactive with the sport of baseball with the Crash The Game redemption cards.

Thanks for taking a trip back to 1995 with me. It's still my overall favorite year of the hobby with the products that came out and the memories I have because of it.

I also gotta toss in that Against All Odds was released in 1984, at my ripe age of 1, by Phil Collins. It was a song I enjoyed when I started listening to music and still listen to today. More on Phil Collins on here as well.

Take a good look at me now
'Cause I'll still be collecting here
And collectors choice coming back to the hobby is against all odds
but at least I have the memories

Rodney's Corner:2018 Select Silver Prizm Autograph

We are on a commercial break on Parts Of My Past with The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict series,

Time to cue the ABC Bumper For Commercial break

for the latest Rodney's Corner episode!

I have already showed you guys the tie-dye autograph, now time to show you the base version that is numbered to 199.

I really like Rodney's autograph and fact he throws in his jersey number in his signature.

 

I was able to cross off this autograph from my needs list thanks to @90sNicheFBcards who also helped knock off many more in this series.

Now you know what's coming next in Rodney's Corner. For now, Good Night and Pleasant Dreams to you! Unless you are reading this in the morning then Good Morning San Fransisco!

Pieces Of My Future #7:Too Many Fun Oddballs

It's not too often I find a flat rate box at my door, but on occasion I do. And most of the time it's a Wesfully blessed mail day. So when I saw the mail lady come to my door with a box that assumption was made. But, to my surprise, the return address was from the great Too Many Verlanders blog. This was completely unexpected.

Dennis did make hints at a Giant mail day, but that to me meant NY Giants. Not only did they mail day contain them, but many other items as well.

There was much packed into that flat rate it will take three posts to jam it all in.

First, let's take a look at some non card items he tossed in.

90's Becketts ruled the hobby and this box. Everyone turned to Beckett for card values and now most collectors turn away from Beckett values. Everything is eBay comps which I am still not a fan of and trying to adjust to. It's amazing how Beckett may use some of the eBay comps for their pricing and still be way over valuing cards.

All of the Beckett's in here featured one key dude. Jeets.

Lots of cool issues I remember once owning, but most have left me since over the years.

Same goes for the next item. Back in 2005, I unloaded every sport figure I owned to make room in  my house. I exchanged all of them for rookie cards and some packs to open. Most figures I don't regret losing, but some I do.

The Starting Lineups are classics. I never owned a Don Mattingly one before. I mainly had Griffey ones and other ones I found cheap.

But, now I own two Mattinglys.

Tucked in behind the Becketts and behind the Starting Lineups was this really cool uncut Nabisco sheet of Don Mattingly cards. I gotta find a way to display this!

This is just the beginning of this mail day. There is tons more to show and some really great stuff mixed in as Dennis hit all of my PC's with this one mail day.

The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict: Cadbury Bunny

It was Easter in the 90's for me.

One of the things that was always popular around that time of the year was The Cadbury Bunny. Let's skip right over the Easter Bunny, he couldn't do what this bunny could do. This bunny was the only one who could offer up delicious Cadbury Eggs as he was part chicken as well.

In the late 80's and 90's, Cadbury pushed this bunny around Easter time as their spokesperson because "Nobunny knows Easter better than Cadbury."

Most of the commercials featured other bunnies or animals trying out to be the Cadbury bunny but no one could obviously match up.

Here is one of those infamous commercials I have seen about a million times.

My parents weren't ones to really celebrate Easter. We didn't get together to eat a big lunch. We didn't go and do Easter egg hunting at our house or anywhere else. And most of the time we didn't even get a Easter basket. But, occasionally we would get a gift and those gifts stuck in my mind and one I actually held onto.

 

If you hadn't guessed it by now, it is the Cadbury Bunny. Yup that cute little bunny brought me some Cadbury Eggs as well as he was attached to a cardboard piece that contained six of the mini eggs. The cardboard piece had a note as well from my mother that was simply put, to Matt Love Mom. I still have that cardboard piece somewhere but the bunny had fallen off from it finally and he was what I found for this post first.

The commercials and the bunny itself however weren't the most memorable parts of the Cadbury Bunny in my childhood, it was my uncle acting like him.

It was one of those things you would put on YouTube today. My crazy uncle taking you to a grocery store and out of the middle of nowhere, he would start clucking quietly like a chicken like the bunny from the commercial. It would build up ba ba ba ba Ba Ba Ba BAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHKKK!!!!!!

🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔

It was so loud that more than likely the cashiers could hear him from the back of the store.

Sometimes we would go with other family members shopping and he would start that in only to the displeasure of the other family members around. Me on the other hand, thought it was more than hilarious and probably was the one that provoked him. Watching the other shoppers expressions were priceless. They might have thought he had a screw or two loose. Which he may have.

So this time of year when they occasionally put on one of those Cadbury commercials, I don't think back to how I spent my Easter with no dinners and not much celebrating, I think about my uncle and how he made me laugh. I wonder if he still does it. We aren't too close today and I haven't seen him in many years so who knows.

Before I close another edition of The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict, I wanted to wish you guys a Happy Easter! He Has Risen! I hope all of you have a memorable day and get to spend some quality time with the ones you love and make memories you will never forget. And please bring some Cadbury Eggs over, those things are awesome and will make people want to come (and no this isn't a paid advertisement unless they want to send my some cream eggs for this). Unless you don't want them to come and then I can find my uncles phone number and you can invite him over and guarantee nobody comes :)

Players Of My Past #2: Marcus Camby

I first want to admit that I messed up today's post by shorting it by a card. I am not sure where the fifth card is, but, it's gone. So let's take the four favorite 90's cards I have of today's player instead of the five and enjoy those. I will make sure this doesn't happen again.

There was one TALL DUDE coming out in the NBA draft in 1996 and his name was Marcus Camby. He was drafted second overall in the first round by the Toronto Raptors who were already cool for having a dinosaur dribbling a basketball on their jerseys.

I believe the combination of finding his rookie cards often in packs that year, playing for the Raptors who I liked only because of their uniforms and him standing so tall at 6ft 11inches,I began to be a fan. I remember feeling that tall in graded school even though I was nowhere near his height and still am not. But, I still towered above other classmates and that was a form of connection I felt with him.

On recess I used my long Marcus Camby like arms, well I thought they were, to block shots and be the man in the middle who would drive to the basket even though I was a much better three point shooter. However, sometimes when you use your imagination , you never know who you can become and what you are capable of. I probably should have used mine  a bit more as I was good at blocking shots but my layups needed some work.

I may nit have been him, but I was a collector of his back then. I definitely don't have the cards I used to of him as I downsized my NBA collection after I stopped watching it (something I honestly regret), but at least I have some still.

Here are my favorite ones I still have from the 90's,

Fleer Metal always looked cool, but toss in this graffiti look, it's super-dee-duper!

Jammin! Marcus above the rest!

I don't know what it was about these Hoops base cards, but darn it, I liked em!

 

And once again he is beating defenders to the rim!

Another great thing about Camby, was the fact he played for the Knicks when I loved the NBA, not much longer after playing for the Raptors. In the lockout shortened 1998-1999 season, he was traded to the Knicks for Charles Oakley, a deal I will never get, but oh well. I was sad to see Oaks go but was happy to see Marcus arrive. 

Marcus didn't get much playing time for the Knicks, but did contribute off the bench. The Knicks snuck into the playoffs and with Latrell Sprewell and Camby heating up, the Knicks took down top seeded Miami Heat (which was thrilling by the way), swept the Atlanta Hawks and then faced the mighty Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. That is also when Camby got more playing time because Knicks legend Patrick Ewing went down with a season ending injury. Camby helped lead the Knicks take down the Pacers in six games and advanced them to the NBA Finals. First time an 8th seed had gotten that far. It was just too bad they had to face a much better opponent.

The Knicks went onto play the Spurs in which they got their butts handed to them in five games. It was also the final season I watched of the NBA despite some of the key players I loved remaining on the Knicks.

Overall, Marcus played 17 seasons in the NBA for 6 different teams. I was amazed to see how many times he was moved around but that's just apart of today's game. One that I don't like for a variety of reasons this being one of them. He averaged 9 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks a game in his career.

I would love to own a Camby autograph someday for my 90's Knicks collection. He was a name I left off in my last post with Allan Houston.

More Players Of My Past to come and from different sports.

The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Part 5

It was time for the Fox Kids TV block and that meant only one thing for me in the 90's, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!

Season two of the amazing show was already underway, the season was going to be like no other and my interest for the show was about to go insane, and I was ready for a snack and a most common affordable snack in my parents house was French's Potato Sticks.

These Potato Stick snacks had been around since 1935 and was in my snack bags back in graded school almost every day. They are made with 100% potatoes and pretty much is a potato chip sliced up into sticks. But, to me, it didn't quite taste like a potato chip. Chips were a tad better.

Season two of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers introduced me to the greatest villain in the history of the Power Rangers franchise, Lord Zedd.

Lord Zedd looked and acted like no other monster they had ever brought on. He even had this super gnarly Z staff to make monsters out of real objects, unlike Rita who used Finster to make her monsters out of clay and bake them in a special unit to create them. His Z-Staff was also used to make the monsters grow to fight the Rangers and their zords. He was a pretty powerful guy.

Lord Zedd appeared in Season two of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and was quite furious with Rita Repulsa's constant failures for being defeated by the Rangers. So as a punishment, he shrunk her and sealed her away in a space dumpster. What Zedd didn't know, was that he would have the same success against the Rangers but he started to turn his attention to Tommy the Green Ranger, once again my favorite Ranger. He considered Tommy to be Rita's worst mistake since she created him so defeating him was his main priority.

Finally, Lord Zedd succeeded in eliminating the Green Ranger powers with the help of a Green Crystal that serves to drain Tommy's powers as well as serving to power up his own brand of evil rangers. In the end, Lord Zedd got what he wanted. He destroyed the Green Ranger powers and there was sadness across my face to see Tommy go.

It was quite the run of episodes that kept me on the edge of my seat!

When I was younger, as soon as I saw Zedd on the show, I knew I needed a figure of him IMMEDIATELY. My love of horror at the time and his appeal as a monster drew me in. Fortunately for me, I was able to land not only one, but two different versions of the figure I got through some money winnings from Bingo. I will speak more about Bingo on here another time.

I had both the regular version and the light up version. But, both were lost when my parents sold off my toys and off goes that search for a version of both.

Thanks to @Jake1725 I was able to acquire one of my needs. I was hoping to land the non-light up version first, but, I got the light up one.

I mean look at Lord Zedd. He was pretty spiffy as a villain.

Z-staff

Zedd and his Z-Staff looking to attack earth!

Rita later makes a comeback on the show as she tries to put a love potion on Zedd to make him fall under her control. Well, it works to a certain extent as he does fall in love with her but remains the lead on decisions to take down the Rangers. Later on, Rita actually falls in love with him. Kind of a weird story line but what really mattered was the fact the Rangers had to face both of them and needed all of the help they could get.

Where could extra help come from being a Green Ranger down? Well, we will find out in my next installment which will be the biggest and most impressive one of this series.