Sunday, September 21, 2014

Real Estate

[If you haven't noticed, the final week of my what's next? tournament is running now.  If you'd like to vote, please click here] 

There's hope yet.  I've actually cleaned a couple of piles of cards off of my desk.  Now the cynic in me would just say "well that's just more space to put newly acquired cards".   True as that is, my goal right now is to get this desk cleaned off. 

Tasks like that only get tougher when I receive a box of cards in the mail from the newest Blue Jay blogger in the land, Kevin from the Card Papoy.   This box was full with around 200 Jays cards for me to go through.

It would probably take me the better part of a day to scan everything to show to you, so I decided to show about a dozen cards instead that I found interesting. 

Let's start off with a card that allowed me to mark another early 80's set as COMPLETE on the Jays want list.


I don't know if anyone would consider this an error card, as I knew Mr. Petralli during his time with the Jays as "Geno" and not "Gene".  But I guess since his first name is Eugene, we'll let it slide this time.  As I crossed off the last '83 Fleer from the list, I noticed that there are a lot of 80's sets that only need one or two cards.   Hopefully when I get through the pile on my desk that is starting to grow again, I will be able to knock off some more of those sets...


Why am I showing off 5 cards from '90 Leaf?  For me, this set was one of my favorites from the early 90's.  I still remember all the hype when it came out, and the $3 a pack price tag (at least where I lived that was the price) created a lot of buzz for this product.  That hype soon died down quickly and prices dropped, but there were some rookie cards in that set that stood the test of time (Thomas, Sosa and Walker).


A couple more early 90's Upper Deck get added to my collection.  I always like the Silver Slugger inserts from the '91 UD set, and the Kelly Gruber card highlights his career season from 1990.
There should be some kind of law that outlaws baby face photos on cards.  Take for example the Shawn Green card on the right side.   Is the guy old enough to shave?  The stats line on the back only says "played high school baseball".   Ugh.  Kids.   At least UD got this right, as Green turned out to be a pretty solid player during his 15 year career.


This was an insert of Roberto Alomar that I hadn't seen in the past.   Why am I showing this off here?  Take a look at the medallion in the lower right. 

"Roberto Alomar  A.L. Top Glove"  For a set that featured a lot of gold over the years, why didn't they just say A.L. Gold Glove?   I wonder if they were restricted from putting that on the card.


I don't mind companies paying homage to past releases....Topps Heritage comes to mind right away.  But when Fleer rewound back to their late 80's sets, they probably should have used another moniker rather than Fleer Platinum.  To me, platinum means pricey or expensive looking, which is not how I would associate their late 80's releases.   Fleer Rewind maybe?

Finally, before I say goodbye, Orlando Merced wants to say goodbye.


I've shown many cards in the past depicting outfielders making leaping catches at the wall, robbing hitters of what they thought were sure homers.

This may be the only card that I know of that shows an outfielders vain attempt to retrieve a home run ball.  The only card that might be better than this?  One that shows the ball that hit Jose Canseco in the head and went over the fence.   Now I would pay to have that card!!

Now that card I would pay for....

Kevin, thank you for the great box of cards!!  They are really appreciated...

thanks for reading, Robert

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