Family Matters

*sits down, takes a sip, turns on Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee*

 

15 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

Family.

It's what Christmas is all about.

Most of my fondest memories around Christmas are the moments I have spent with family.

When I was younger, it was spending time with my grandmother who would play all of the classic Christmas songs on the radio and would dance to them. Part of the reason I chose the Brenda Lee song to play while I type this. I can still remember her dancing and singing along, makes my heart warm.

Or the one time my parents got me something other than underwear and a notebook and surprised me with a couple Darkwing Duck figures.

Or when I was a bit older after I got married, and my wife and I would play guess what I got you under the tree.

Or a little later in our marriage, where we would go to the local Christmas Eve service at Church, then have my nephew, sister-in-law, the parent in-laws over to do stocking gifts and watch Christmas Vacation while eating cookies and drinking cocoa.

Or a few years after that, the family expanding and having to do four Christmases -similar to the movie-where we would have to host one and go to three others. One of those four was my favorite because we would all order takeout, play Balderdash and laugh all night long. It was a great time. Not that I didn't like Christmas number two with the amazing breakfast food.

To now where things have drastically changed. Family comes in sections since most have moved away. We no longer do Christmas on Christmas, no more Christmas Eve services or stocking gifts, no adult gifts, no breakfasts, and no game night. I know most of that sounds like things have gone downhill, but they really haven't. We all still have fun when we are all together.

Every little moment matters, and I try to treasure them all I can. The older I get, the more I realize all of this.

For me, around Christmas time, Family Matters and I hope it does for you as well.

In comments, I want to hear some of the things you do with family this time of year or your fondest memories.

*finishes up cup of coffee, turns off song, gets ready to close out post*

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Unfinished Cup:1991 Impel Laffs

Okay...so today's edition of Unfinished Cup was once a Finished Cup.

That's until this afternoon.

When trying to transfer my set on a sorting tray from room to room, the tray broke apart and my set of 1991 Laffs hit the floor like a rock. Except it was more like slow motion as my face watched them, like a cup of coffee spilling slowly like on the Bounty commercials, drop to the floor by their corners as I shouted nooooooooooooooooooooo.

My wife could hear me from the other room, she knew it wasn't good.

I dropped to my knees immediately trying to recover the set hoping that none or not too many got damaged on their trip down to the ground.

The good news is that most were safe, bad news was that some were not.

So, now I come on here seeking help to fill in the gaps of the damaged ones.

 

Which includes card number 1, Bob Saget. You can see from my picture the top left corner saw the floor hard on this card. Some others are worse.

And those cards are,

1,4,30,31,32,33 and 53. 

Which isn't too bad knowing all 80 from the set fell to the ground, but still, they shouldn't have.

The damaged cards are fillers in the set for now until I get them replaced. My hobby OCD cannot allow a card set to be completed with damaged cards.

If any of you have my needs, please let me know! Comment below or email me at sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com.

Thank you!

Side note, if you don't know about the 1991 Impel Laffs set, the 80-card base set is built up of three TV shows from TGIF in the 90's. It starts out with Full House, moves to Family Matters and finishes up with Perfect Strangers. All three excellent shows.

Hope you have had a better Sunday than I have had, with the Giants losing again and this card tray fiasco, it's been a tough one. Not to mention waking up to a cup of coffee full of grounds.

Here's to a better Monday!

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Wallet Card: 7 Years Later

*some like their coffee in the morning and some like myself, like it all day long. so here I am this afternoon sipping on a cup and getting ready for the latest #CardsOverCoffee post*

Back in January of 2015, Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown created a fun game for Bloggers or whoever wanted to join in, where you carry a sport card around in your wallet and take pictures with it on your journeys in a year. He called it, The Game Of Wallet Card.

I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, so I wanted to join in but would however have to find a card that I wouldn't mind seeing ruined. My hobby OCD couldn't have handled taking a PC card and destroying it even though the rules stated, "It should be a card that makes you smile every time you see it, since you'll probably be seeing a lot of it"

So, even though I chose some random card I didn't mind getting ruined, I tried to find one with some relevancy to it.

I chose this Fleer '91 base card of coach Orlando Magic coach Matt Guokas. I guess with my name being Matt G, I thought that worked pretty well. And I thought the coaches face kind of captured someone who would look trapped in a wallet.

This card traveled with me for the year of the game, and I took some pictures along the way and posted them. What I didn't realize is, the card continued to travel with me until recently.

*takes a sip before continuing on with today's post*

I don't use my wallet very much other than to carry my license, my wife is the Financial Advisor in the family, so it stays in my pants pocket all of the time. The other day I had to actually take it out and open it since I got a new license to replace the old one. I saw something blue poking out and that's when I realized, the Wallet Card was still making its round in my wallet seven years later.

I carefully took the card out just in case it crumbled apart, but it was still together.

But, definitely not as mint as it used to be. Though I bet some grading companies would still call it that :) I also hope none of you are disappointed there are no coffee stains.

You're probably wondering what did I do next, toss it? Nope, I stuck it back in my wallet. I figured at this point; it will be interesting to see what another seven years does to it.

*takes a sip before finishing up today's post*

I think it would be fun to re-start the Wallet Card game back up again. Would love to see photos across the country of where your wallet card goes.

Maybe after reading this post, it will inspire Gavin to do another one.

Thoughts on Wallet Card Game and if you participated the first time and if you still have your wallet card in your wallet or out of it.

Have a great Friday and weekend.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Appreciating The Little Things

*it's time for a cup of coffee and some cards. Which means it's time for a new post of Cards Over Coffee*

One thing I have learned during the pandemic, other than that there is a lot of greed in the hobby and in the world, is that was finally time to appreciate the little things in life and in the hobby.

Things that I used to take for granted such as family and family get togethers, were things you became accustomed to, but didn't realize how deeply important they were until the pandemic.  There are some close parts of my family I haven't seen since Christmas of 2019 and it starts to get to you after awhile. You start to think, "why did I pretend to fall asleep during game night?" or "why didn't I go out to eat with them when they invited me?" Or "why didn't I push myself to stay up later those few extra hours to spend even more time with them instead of going to bed?" The answer is, I always thought it would be there next time.

During the pandemic, it was starting to get worrisome that there may not be a next time. I should have done those things at "those times" and taken advantage of every moment. As vaccines have started rolling out, I have my appointment set up for May 1st to get my first shot of Moderna, I feel like I may have those times again and this time you better believe I will soak in every second of it. Time to be that weird uncle who gives out the long hugs.

I not only find myself questioning little things in life such as above, but little things in the hobby as well. Something such as simple as following @CardsFromTheAttic.

*takes a sip, continues on*

When I first started following @CardsFromTheAttic years ago, some of his tweets felt like an attack on the blogging community and I couldn't have that. We are a close family in the blogosphere and I couldn't simply deal with someone who felt the way they did about us. So I unfollowed him and he followed suit later on as well and I went on with my Twitter life.

Fast forward to last summer, I started seeing some tweets from him being re-tweeted from others I followed. I then began to ask myself if I misread him years ago and gave him another follow. Come to find out, he is actually a good guy and his tweets I felt were attacks were actually apart of his personality and humor. You have to be a funny person, such as I consider myself to be, to fully get his humor.

Since I have re-followed him, I have joined in on some of his banter and enjoyed his content such as the March Madness Tournament in #CardboardChaos. Even though every brand I voted on, the late 90's ones, never made it too far.

 

Another thing you find out fast about him is his love of yellow in 1991 Fleer. He bleeds yellow. He screams yellow. He tweets yellow. Probably even has yellow socks and sandals on while he tweets. (The last part of that you would have to follow him to understand that sort of inside joke)

I questioned myself again about 1991 Fleer and maybe I missed something. Maybe I should give it another look and another chance just like I did in following @CardsFromTheAttic again. Come to find out, I did miss something in 1991 Fleer and it wasn't anything that Coldplay sang about.

*takes another sip, finds a snack to tie over before breakfast*

My favorite part of 1991 Fleer was staring at me the whole time and it was something with a black border, not yellow. Something that really stood out that I would have turned a blind eye to before. It was the Pro-Visions insert.

The 12-card insert set featured paintings by artist Terry Smith and featured "framed" black borders on each card front. The cards were randomly inserted in wax and rack packs to find. All I know is when I did open up some '91 Fleer "back in the day" is that I never once landed one of those inserts. I think they must be a little tough to find.

I am not sure how I didn't pay any attention to these before, but God Bless America that I am now.

And thanks to @CardsFromTheAttic, I have the entire set.

The artwork along with the black border really makes these stand out. I do wished that Griffey had been included, but it still doesn't disappoint.

Along with this full set, he also sent along some extras,

some of which I hadn't seen before including this Pete Rose.

Thanks goes out to @CardsFromTheAttic for the mail day and for the reminder that not everything about 1991 Fleer was bad.

*takes another sip before closing up today's post*

Whether it's family or something as simple as 1991 Fleer, I am no longer taking anything for granted. That includes waking up each day or even that cup of coffee in the morning (and of course the ones at noon and night as well). You just never know that day where it may not happen so take advantage of every second you are breathing.

*hope everyone enjoys a fresh cup of coffee today with this post and I hope you all have a great day as well. Coffee card blogger out*

Magic In A Bag

*takes a sip from a Mcdonald's coffee...hold the floor...what? Why wasn't it the home brew? We will find out in a few*

Well today didn't go quite as planned.

I woke up around 5:30 with some bad stomach cramps that led to some back pain which led me to finding out for the 8th time in my lifetime I have kidney stones. Today's round I believe is the most painful ones I have ever experienced.

This was my reaction this morning

To avoid putting too much into my system just in case I needed surgery, I skipped over my morning coffee and took the hour trip to the ER. We have an ER within 20 minutes of where I live, but, the one that is an hour away is where my Urologist is from and it's a better hospital so I suffered through longer pain to reach the better of the two choices.

Four hours of no coffee, pain and pain meds later, I am home but not without a stop to McDonalds for some coffee before doing so. I couln't make it a full day without any you know, who can?!

*takes another sip of hot coffee. Really needed this today*

So I figured while I am on the low today, I would put up a new post and one that has been backlogged since summer.

My mother-in-law back in August was at an antique shop and saw a baggie of baseball cards she knew I would appreciate and grabbed them for me. Yeah, she is cool like that and I expect you to be jealous. Later that day she dropped off said cards for me to do my usual digging in.

*another sip of coffee, feeling like I need a nap after this long morning but I will wait*

I had no idea what to expect from the cards, but I had a gut feeling it was going to be loaded with Donruss 90 and Fleer 91.

Low and behold....Yup, 91 Fleer. No big names either. Not a good start when you find bright yellow to kick things off. (there wasn't any 90 Donruss or a single card from '89 Donruss either)

Next card was this Kirby Puckett. I never truly appreciated cards like these until this year. All of those early Bo Jackson "Bo" cards, players posing with their nicknames and family and all of those early 90's subset cards that were funky back then but so much cooler now.

Not too bad here for player finds with Paul Molitor and John Smoltz

Then the baggie started to heat up with a few surprises. Unlike my coffee that started to cool down. There are only two ways to have McDonalds coffee, scalding or ice cold. There is no happy medium with the cups they use.

*takes a sip of ice cold coffee. Hey it works after the day I had*

Kicking off the rest of the baggie were some parallel and insert finds,

Topps Gold with Omar Vizquel being the best of the group

Kelloggs Sport Flix. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These are the taste that adults have grown to love. See what I did there?

 

The only good thing to come out of 1991 Fleer, Pro Visions. I was quite content with finding this one and the fact it's Don Mattingly for my Yankees PC

Topps Black Gold in it's glory.

And then came a 25 count plastic box,

Right on top is some Topps Gold

And here they were, all Red Sox of course for this Yankees fan. But, that's the way it goes in my area with all of the Red Sox fans here. But, I do like Wade Boggs so I didn't complain too much.

And to end it some 1994 Topps base. All of which were Red Sox.

I am not sure what she paid for the small ziplock full of cards but hopefully not too much. There were some fun finds especially the Pro Vision and especially the Kelloggs cards which I can see why so many on the blogsphere collect them. They have really grown on me this year as well.

Some of these cards I will be passing along to trader buddies while the rest I will keep for my collection.

Speaking of passing along, I hope those stones pass by weekend's end. Those are not something I want to keep for my collection. I would take all of the 1991 Fleer instead. So if any of you want some kidney stones for 91 Fleer, give me that deal all day long.

Influenced

*sits down with first cup of coffee in front of the keyboard after sleeping in til 7:15 for the first time in almost 20 years, feels great and ready to go. Let's start the day in style*

Good morning coffee lovers! Collectors, you too!

*toasting my mug to you, holds it for a second waiting to hear an invisible clang because you return toasted*

I gotta admit something to you today, I am easily influenced. Not in a bad way. If I saw you shove your hand up a bees nest because Winnie The Pooh could, I won't do that. Or if you were to lick a toilet seat to prove to the government a virus is a hoax, I won't do that either. Or if you added laxatives to your water bottle to help with your diet and exercise and get yourself to runs, sorry run, more, I won't do that either. Now I am starting to sound like Meatloaf (the singer not the scrumptious piece of meat covered in my special topping).

On the other hand, if my spouse tells me to try an un-coffee drink from Dunkin' because its what she has been drinking, I will try it because it's your spouse and there should be some trust there. Though you may question it because everything you have really ever had from Dunkin' has been in coffee form. So this could lead to trust issues later on.

Fortunately for her, she was right. This pineapple drink (I don't know the technical name for it) was delicious and made a great mid morning drink. Could I picture myself waking up to this? Nah. It was good, but I need that aroma of coffee in my house in the morning when I wake up. Then that nice first hot sip, especially in the winters here.

*takes one of those warm sips, then moves on to discuss cardboard*

One of the easier things I am influenced by is cardboard. And I mean easily influenced.

All across the card world, I spy either a card I forgot I wanted to once, a new card release I want a card or cards from or as in today's case, a card I never knew existed but knew I had to have.

I can't remember who posted it on Twitter, but someone tweeted out a  1991-1992 NBA Hoops Will Smith "rookie card" and being the 90's nostalgic loving freak I am, I sought it out.

For $1.50 each and .50 shipping total, I landed both copies in the set. This is the first card of the two and you can tell by the design, it's totally 90's and I am totally in awe. This is Bodacious!

Back of the first card

If I was to pick the true rookie between the two cards, it would be the first. The second one is more like the team photo subset.

Speaking of that second card,

This one features Will Smith joined by a group of students who had perfect attendance as apart of Stay In School promotion.

Back of the card gives more details on that.

I have been a Will Smith fan starting with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, adding these unknown made cards were solid additions to my non sport PC and I believe are my first Smith cards to my collection.

Also taking a look at these made me remember how much cards were used for promotions/ads like this and things like Don't Do Drugs, etc. It may not hurt a card company today to do something similar today with so much going on. Of course, I would put it in a kid-type product. I don't think too many would be happy to find a cards like these in National Treasures.

*takes another sip, hopes they don't ever create one that says "don't drink coffee". Then takes a bigger sip just in case*

This isn't the first time I have been easily influenced by cardboard, every day I find myself wanting something, then something else and something even more. The thing is and it's a hard realization, you simply just can't have it all. There is too much out there. Just pick and choose which ones mean more to you which once again is a battle in itself.

I have also learned that lesson the tough way with non cardboard and when I think about which coffee creamers I want to try. Just because I am influenced by something new and the word Snickers on the bottle, doesn't mean it's going to be good. Believe me, it's not. Choose wisely folks.

*another sip of non Snickers flavored coffee, now breakfast time*

Not Vintage

*pours a cup from the freshly brewed pot*

Vintage is a word that gets thrown around out there loosely when it comes to older items and sometimes not used in the right context in my opinion when it comes to sport cards.

Here's a few examples of the definition of Vintage.

• The definition for vintage for clothing is something that is at least 20 years old.
• The definition for wine is 50 years or older.
• If the item is no older than an antique which is 100 years or older, but not less than 20 years, it falls under the term vintage.

So where do we draw the line with sport cards?

To me, "vintage" in the sport card world is any card older than 1970. Which falls under the wine and final definition examples I gave above.

However, some believe, that cards from 1990's are vintage.

V....I....N....T...A...G...E.

That's very misleading to me. Cards from the 1990's are NOT vintage they are RETRO folks. Anything over 10 years old to 30 years old is considered retro. DO NOT USE THE WORD VINTAGE for cards back in the 1990's. Not even cards in the 1980s'.

*ranting makes me drink coffee faster, time for cup number two!*

Is this coffee mug that I am using this morning vintage because my wife has owned it close to 20 years? No. No it's not should be your answer (I like to use this mug as it's the bigger ones we have not that I don't have a sister)

Or how about this coffee, if I was to let this sit here for an hour per say, does that make this vintage coffee that I poured a long time ago? (by the way no plans to do try that)

But I bet some would consider both of those scenarios as vintage.

*quick sip*

For Christmas this past year, my sister-in-law grabbed me a box of "vintage" cards online. She knows I love to collect so she was trying to find a unique item for myself. Which she did, as I hadn't seen one of these before. So I expected the unexpected but seeing the word vintage I was drawn in and was excited to rip into it.

Until I found out that the wrong term was used for the product.

I didn't find vintage, I found retro packs. Not just any retro packs, but "junk wax" retro packs.

Those kind of packs I don't really ever open. They are more valuable to me being sealed than to be opened and trying to find a place to store them since most cards would be duplicate cards and I don't keep dupes in my collection.

Here is the pack variety I found in this box. There are 20 packs in every one of these boxes with some packs, the most common ones, having multiples of the same pack.

not the ugly yellow baseball, but still....

I have three base sets of these and close to 100 Hampton rookies

6 packs of these!

Could be a Favre rookie in here I guess

The final pack I was most excited about....

There you have the box breakdown of these "vintage"packs.

Did you see any from 1970?....I didn't.....

*Halfway through cup numero uno, time to weigh my breakfast options. I did make chocolate no bake cookies yesterday....*

I was curious what my sister-in-law dished out for one of these boxes and it appears they go for $35-$40 each. 😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒

That's saying each pack would go for $2 each. I am sure you could buy multiples of some of these packs for $2. It's tough for me to see and definitely not something I would have grabbed for that cost.

I never told my sister-in-law anything negative about the cards because she bought them for me. I just opened the box in front of her, smiled and thanked her. She gave them to me as a gift she thought I would enjoy. So I will and will find a way to do so.

So my rant is over for the term vintage. I think I made my point. Now I better go eat my breakfast and pour cup number three before both of those and maybe even myself become vintage sitting in front of this computer.