The (B)Wes(t) Of The Season

*sits down with a pile of cards, gets ready for a new Cards Over Coffee post*

Christmas time is always a magical time, but when you get a mail day from the greatest mail day senders of all time (GMDSOAT-not sure how you can pronounce that as GOAT) in Wes, it's like finding the gold at the of the rainbow with Santa handing it to you.

There is nothing like it and you never know what to expect. You may even find a magical unicorn. (well not a real unicorn but a rare card you never expected to find ever but I am sure Wes could find an actual unicorn as well)

I can never-ever show off everything he sent, or the blog would be filled for the year, so I choose bits and pieces and post them. The main ones from the mail day will be posted today, but plenty of others including Rodney Hamptons will be posted separately.

Let's get to the best of the best today.

*takes a sip*

I think I had talked to Wes about this card at one point and how I needed a Charles Oakley autograph for my Knicks PC. Now with Starks, Houston, and Oakley down, the one autograph I have left I want of the Knicks is the one of great Patrick Ewing.

Hmmm...a political figure covering their mouth up and not discussing the truth....

I really like these Pieces Of The Past relics. Not sure what documents they were cut from, but owing a piece of history is kind of cool.

 

These two cards fit perfectly in my unique relics PC. At one point I had considered chasing the entire Fragments Of The Farm set because I found the relics in that set to be superb!

 

This Topps 75th set had some really cool cards in it, both in base/parallels and its lengthy autograph checklist. Always like adding non sport autos when I can.

Cool Jeans swatch of a musician, yeah, I will take relics like that any day. If I had pant swatch cards, there may be some coffee stains on them. I have had a few spills during blogging and in general. My wife refuses to buy me white shirts now.

 

Christmas Sweater swag is what I am here for.

 

A swatch of the co-founder of one of the best all-time bands, bring it on.

Tommy Chong autograph. Growing up my father sat down and watched the Cheech and Chong movies with me. Not sure why but I found them funny, but I did. 

 

Jim never turned out to be a great QB but does have a really cool name. I collect the first relics of the 90's. I will take any of the players from any of the brands.

Thanks goes out to Wes as always for these cards and the plenty of others he sent.

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

I am never sure how Wes does what he does. Every year he brings out his (B)Wes(T) of the season and outdoes the previous year. On my end, it's really hard to match what he sends but I try my best. I usually have to start at the beginning of the year to build up enough to send him.

One thing in life I have always learned, you can't beat the best. You can only try to keep up. This also goes for coffee and not just the hobby.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

The Big Four

*it's late afternoon and I am on my fourth cup of coffee today. It is needed just like today's Cards Over Coffee post*

It has been a very long week. I found out that there could have been a possible positive Covid exposure in my household, that I needed two new tires for my car which was going to cost me a stocks in coffee, and a bunch of other smaller things popping up. I couldn't wait for the week to be over.

At least I am still alive and enjoying some cards and coffee on this rainy day. 

I have been sitting on some posts in my drafts for a while and figured it was time some of these posted. Sometimes on here it is hard to keep up with posts and sometimes things get buried within my drafts and I forget about not posting them.

But, I needed a good distraction from the week so it felt like a good time to get a post up.

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

Back in the 90's I was a huge Knicks fan. I was the Spike Lee of Knicks fans in my area. Of course my area is loaded with Celtics fans, but you get the point.

In my backyard, I would pretend to be that Knicks team and take on the league's best. I would set up 20 point quarters and be the starting lineups for both teams. When a team reached that 20 points, the quarter would end and I would write down the stats for each player for the quarter. It was a lot of fun to keep track of. 

I wouldn't always let the Knicks win either despite being the one playing the game. I always played fair games, and most were close. If either team was within three points after the other team reached 80 to end the game, they would get one last shot. It had to be a three point shot regardless of how many points they were behind. Sometimes they would tie or win the game and other times I would miss and they would lose. There were some games though where the outcome was completely one-sided so no team had that opportunity. 

There was an overall 20-game season, then three rounds of best of 7 playoff games. I would only play the playoff games up until the Knicks either won it all or got eliminated then a new season would begin. I must have played like this for ten years.

*takes another sip*

There were four players for my NY Knicks starting lineup I used for every game.

Allan Houston, my favorite Knicks player all-time, who had his superstar presence.

The three point dominance of John Starks

 

The ultimate rebounding abilities of Charles Oakley

NO AUTOGRAPH (wishing on star for one)

And then Patrick Ewing who did it all. I usually did a lot of spin shots with him after he got a rebound.

These core four carried this team to multiple championships for me....I just wished they could have actually churned out one in real life. I at least got a few "Gatorade" baths.

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

In case you were curious and so I don't leave you hanging, my fifth starter was a plug-in guy whether that be Charlie Ward, Larry Johnson, Latrell Sprewell, or Chris Childs. 

As for the cards in today's post, I have multiple Houston autos, that one and only Starks, just traded for that Oakley and now need to fill in that Ewing autograph gap someday. I would really like to complete my Knicks lineup of autographs.

I hope you guys had a great week and hopefully mine goes better next week.

Have a great Saturday night.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

First Day Of Fall

*sits down at the table, looks out the window to see the rain falling. First day of fall wouldn't be the same if it wasn't raining. The scent of fall blows in the window....the rain blows in with it soaking my couch...I guess I should shut that....well...that was an enjoyable lead up to today's newest post. Guess I better just get my coffee ready for the latest Cards Over Coffee*

Today marks the official first day of fall, though my fall always starts when September does. As you saw in my last post, it was already Pumpkin Spice and football season, now its the countdown to Halloween and Thanksgiving. Possibly my thoughts have already turned to my favorite holiday Christmas, but, I can feel your glares when you read that part so I won't mention that part yet.

The color of the leaves here have begun to change here and have been for about a week.

They still have a ways to go before they reach their full color, but I am in no hurry to see that still.

When the trees do reach their full color, my wife and I usually drive around and try to take some amazing pictures.

*takes a sip, wonders if the rain has slowed down some to re-open the windows. Walks over, opens window, wind blows rain in on me, nope not quite time yet*

When the trees are full in color, it's looks like a piece of art. Something you just want to paint. Which is what my wife and I recently attempted.

Of course, she is more like Michelangelo and I am more like a preschooler looking for a participation ribbon.

Originally I was going to do a fall picture, but to me nothing says cooler weather in the fall like coffee. Are you at all surprised?

 

So the beginning of the coffee cup painting.

And then the 4 year old me messing up the cup

So I had to fix it the only way I knew how.

And the final piece once I got it together.

Not great, but not my worse. Maybe I will get a white ribbon this time.

Then came my wife's fall painting,

 

Like I said earlier, she earns a blue ribbon every time.

Side by side, there is no comparison.

*takes a sip before moving onto some cards for this post*

It took me a lot of years before I started to appreciate cards with artistic twists. I was always pro photography, but in the past year I have reached the point where some art cards have reached equal status.

A lot of those have come from the 90's, my favorite collecting era.

First it started out with adding some Fleer Metal Universe and then it expanded to other inserts. One of those inserts were these pretty cool 1996-1997 Stadium Club Mega Heroes cards I grabbed a couple of on eBay.

This is the one that caught my attention the most first, THE BEAST Joe Smith with a beast behind him. Card look even more amazing in person.

The other I added was of Charles Oakley who is known as Oak and appears to be guarding a oak tree.

Both cards are made with foil etching and I can't find the odds on these. The baseball version of this insert fell 1:48 odds.

*takes a sip before finishing up today's 2 hour long post*

Fall has begun, there is no turning back to summer at this point. But, I have come to realize that I like September thru December more than I used to. I guess as I age I begin to appreciate things I never did before such as the art cards. If only I could art myself then it would be the best of all worlds. It still makes me happy to try though just like that preschooler who does their first finger painting picture to bring home to their parents.

Hope everyone has a great first day of fall and tell me some of your favorite things to do in the fall or your favorite art cards or even tell me if you paint in your spare time.

Retro Cup:Fireworks

Blogger intro: I have spoiled you readers this week with a fourth consecutive post day. Enjoy it while you can, I can't post every day on here as it is very time consuming to write/create this posts. Some of these even take two days to prepare and up to a few hours.
 
*not much sleep last night, time to refresh with a cup of hot coffee to keep me awake*

Over the years, my fourth of July's have evolved to pretty much a usual day like today will be. I have nothing special planned, just going to put this post up and get to my usual daily duties.

However, when I was younger, those were the July 4th's I will never forget.

*takes a sip of coffee, now flashing back*

Ah, the good old days of the 90's, July 4th was always exciting. My parents when I was really young would take me to the local fairgrounds where we would fireworks in the car together. We didn't get to watch them every year as things popped up, but the years we did it, it was memorable.

As I got older, we stopped going all together and stayed home to watch what one could call a one man show or as we would call it, Cousin Terry.

He would show up, beer, lawn chair and fireworks in hand and would be the entertainment of the night. He would sit out in his lawn chair, drink a few beers, then use the empty bottles as holders for the fireworks to send them off in. The thing is, when you have had a few, not everything goes as planned....

*takes a sip, smiles, then continues on*

And that's when the real fun would begin.

From a distance,  we would watch Terry burning his fingers lighting the fireworks up (cursing some funny words as well), sometimes setting them off close to himself (he just had to make sure they were lit) and sometimes the bottle would tip over and be aimed at him (think Looney Tunes). Surprisingly, no major injuries ever occurred. Just many laughs.

*another sip, remembers Cousin Terry tripping over his own feet once and landed face first onto the ground. watched him get back up and walk casually to his chair like nothing happened*
 
*another sip, now onto some cards*

There were some fireworks recently in the mail for myself. And no, they weren't from Cousin Terry. They were from The Diamond King in the big box he sent. The box was full of basketball goodies including some that appear like fireworks and I figured fit the theme of today.

These 1994-1995 Ultra Power was a 10 card set that fell 1:3 packs.

The card design featured a full player cut out and laid over a sparkly, glittery, starburst background that appears there are fireworks behind the player. I chose Charles Oakley to feature because he was a Knick in an era I watched basketball and provided some fireworks during his playing and non playing years on the court both in good and bad ways.

The card back features another shot of the player, a write up and more of those powerful starburst fireworks. They don't feature the sparklyness the front does however.

In all, I now have half of the set thanks to The Diamond King and I can't imagine the rest would be too hard to chase down to complete the set. Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and Shaq will be the toughest to grab.

Here is the rest of them that were in the box,

Derrick Coleman

Shawn Kemp, this bright red really stands out.

Dikembe Mutombo

And check out this snazzy Larry Johnson. I am not a fan of purple, but wow, this card looks outstanding.

While I am at it, the other two cards in this set I will need are Dennis Rodman and Chris Webber.

If these aren't fireworks, I don't know what is!

*takes a few final sips of cup numero uno, then pours second cup to finish up today's post*

I haven't seen my Cousin Terry in well over 20 years, but it sounded from my other cousin that maybe he smartened up some since those days. Of course he was in his mid 20's back then and now he would be roughly 40ish with a teenager from what I have heard. I would hate to imagine him doing crazy stuff like this now. And there are other Cousin Terry stories to tell another time.

*takes first sip of second cup*

Well, I have decided that maybe I will sort some cards when I find some free time today. I am buried in card projects so it won't be too hard to find one to work on. First I have to close up this post and get some chores done.

So I hope all of you have a Happy 4th of July and stay safe. Remember, DDWTD. Don't Do What Terry Did.