Friday, January 29, 2010

Old School NFL packs

I picked up some cool cards the other day. I blog yesterday about the cool painted cards I got. Today I was going to show of the other cards that I bought. Most of them are "traditional" cards that just include photos, but some are sketchy drawn cards.


I'll start with the 1992 cards that I actually do know a little bit about.
Apparently their is a 30 card team subset detailing NFL broadcasters.

I checked around for checklists, but couldn't find any.

This is a pretty cool set of cards of broadcasters.


Some are obviously career broadcasters.


And others are former players turned broadcasters.




This card reminds me of when I actually liked this guy.

I think he's completely hard to follow and/or watch these days.

I still like Tom though.

Here's a shot of him in his playing days.



Sometimes I get the feeling that he's thinking to himself, "why am I teamed up with this idiot?"
"How is it that I can't break out and do some other show with somebody who can speak coherently?"



You can see him just nodding his head along hoping that "Boom" finishes up soon so that they call actually break down the game. I know Berman is just trying to set the scene up for us, but it's just unnecessary.



Speaking of unwatchable..


... He's not that bad though. Maybe it's because I haven't seen/heard him in a while so I've forgotten how he is as a broadcaster.


Some of the cards have pretty cool action shots.

I've always liked these types of shots because of the ball coming towards the camera. The look on Bradshaw's face is pretty cool too.
I like this guy as a broadcaster too. He's been around ever since I was a little kid.


Another "pack" of cards had Keith Jackson on the front.

He played tight end at OU. I only remember him for one play: it was an end around against Nebraska. That's right, we didn't know what to do with wideouts and tight ends except use them for blocking and running the ball. It would never occur to us to actually throw down field more than 4 to 5 times a game. I guess when you have 3 backs, a qb that can run and tight ends running the ball, you don't need to throw much.

He was a first round selection and 13 overall despite only having 62 career catches for 1,407 yards. It's still good for an average of 23.7 yards per catch. Still really good yardage.


Some other cool cards are this AFC Wild Card game card.



At first it took me a minute to figure out how they took this photo. I assumed they didn't have all the cameras on wires at that time. They're playing in the old Astrodome though. With ceilings to hang cameras from. Maybe they did have the cameras on the wire thing in 1991, I'm not sure. Pretty cool perspective.


A cool Packers team card.


I know it's an obvious joke, but they don't look like they're huddling up. They look like they've lost something on the ground.

That's it for now. I've got more on the way.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Best painted cards i've seen!

I came across these cool NFL cards when I went to the flea market this last Saturday. I try to make it a point to check out the flea market whenever I can.



Anyway, I picked up four "packs" of different sets of cards. They were cheap enough so I was just happy to at least get the card that was pictured on the front.
In this pack of cards the dude included cards 1-24.

They're detailing the first 24 years of Super Bowls. I'm guessing this is a subset from a bigger NFL set of cards, but I'm not sure.

If so, I'm wondering if they are all painted like this or they just had this subset as a painted set?



If it is a whole NFL painted set I'm going to try and collect that. Or at least see if the guy comes back next week and buy up as much as I can find.


I really like these painted cards, much better than anything I've seen recently.


It's going to be hard for me not to show off every card front to back in this post.

This card reminds me of in the old days when a quarterback would drop back to pass they really dropped back about 10-15 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Even in college now the QBs usually do a one step, three step drop and get rid of the ball. Sometimes they scramble or get flushed out of the pocket, but nothing like before when it was a design of the play for a quarterback to run backwards before letting go of the ball. I'm no great historian of NFL or football in general, but I'm guessing that Bill Walsh and 49's were one of the first teams to have significant changes in their passing game as well as different theories in pass blocking. If anybody has conflicting ideas on this let me know.



I think he's the first Native American QB or player in the NFL. He played college ball at Stanford. Hopefully my guy Bradford will do well in the NFL next year. What am I saying? Jim Thorpe played pro ball and is Native American Indian. I think maybe he's the first American Indian Heisman winner.





Is it just me, or does it seem like teams made more consecutive trips to super bowls back then? Maybe it's parity or salary cap stuff, I don't know. It just seems like random teams have a better chance to be a part of the big game.



In my opinion this is the worst looking card of the bunch. Mostly because of the way Randy White is placed on the bottom of the card. Not so much his position but they way the background looks. I wish they could've blended the backgrounds together better instead of that blocky looking background. This is the only dual MVP card in the bunch.


I love the detail in his hands and facial features.


Their are actual game photos on the back of the cards.


Immaculate Reception?




Pretty cool detail in the helmet. I didn't realize the Dolphins logo had those little lines outside the ring. I think they should have the dolphin tail obscured by the ring so it looks like he's jumping out at us.






All these Cowboys cards are making me hungry! Especially the Chuck Howley card. Pizza Hut used to have these posters of Dallas Cowboy players that they were giving away as part of a set. They were painted in the same style as these cards on a canvas like paper stock.

I found some in the attic this summer and my dad gave them away. I'm not much of a Cowboys fan, so it didn't matter much to me. Hopefully on my next trip to my parents I can see if I have any more laying around.




I guess by now you can tell that I'm going to upload every card in the subset.



Sort of works, doesn't it?




I didn't realize they would be this nice. I only picked them up because of this Bart Starr card on the front.

Another benefit of the painted cards is that when chipping does occur it just looks like the background is unfinished. I still can't tell if this card is chipped on the left edge or if that is just from the painting.

Doesn't matter anyway, I love these cards. They're going right into the binder. All this for only 25 cents is a pretty good deal.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

I had to buy a few packs - Topps Baseball 2010

I couldn't help myself when I saw the cards being posted online. I just knew that I had to check out some of the new cards. I wanted to buy something new and I'm not so excited about the extra Updates and Highlight cards included in packs of Heritage so this is what I picked up instead.

It's always nice to get to pick up something new.

I posted the first of the two packs I picked up over at A Pack to Be Named Later.

I thought I wouldn't like the swoosh thing on the side and the overall layout when I saw the previews. Actually the cards look pretty cool. As it turns out I was more turned off of the cards mainly because of the photography. I'm only judging the photos from like 18 cards so it's probably not that accurate of a representation of the photos, but so far I'm not that impressed.

Here's what I'm talking about. Three examples of action shots, but it's more like after the action shots and you can't really see the player's faces.






And when the do show the players face he's either out of focus...



... or they are just standing there. Kind of lame.



Here is a posed shot.

A little awkward.



The insert cards are kind of cool. Here is a skinny Pedro.


This is from the Cards Your Mom Threw Out set. They show Pedro with the Expos in a 1997 card design.

Here is the back of the Robin Yount card I pulled in the first pack. I'm too lazy to scan both backs.




I don't know what card this is.



I looked at the back to find out the odds.


Of course it doesn't say anything except to check out the website. Crap!


This is what I see when I look to the website.


So I guess it's not like real cards, but sort of like a vintage toppstown card maybe? I guess I'll find out in 3 weeks.
Any of these cards on this post or the one I posted up to A Pack to Be Named Later. that anybody wants they can have. I'll trade for any of these, except the Josh Thole card and the Million Card Giveaway card.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

collecting lag

I've been in sort of a weird mood lately. I have the urge to buy cards, but nothing really grabs me these days. Also, the Walmart and Target don't seem to have much in the way of interesting cards to buy.

Getting cards sent to your mailbox is also a good way of alleviating the urge to buy new stuff. What could be better than getting cards that you need for set building?

So on that note I'd like to show off some cards I got in a trade with Pack Addict.

Last time he sent me some cool cards that I wasn't expecting and he didn't disappoint this time either.

My new plan of action for 2009 Topps series one and two and especially the series one cards is to wait for 2010 and get a bunch of discount blasters. In the meantime I might buy a random hobby pack or two.

So it's really nice when I get some of those cards in the mail in trades.

First up is the Milton Bradley card.

I always laugh at his name. This is a good example of a horizontal card. Dark uniform set against a multi-colored out of focus fan base. Nice.


Next up is the Coco Crisp card.

Again, another name that makes me smile. Again, another cool horizontal card and just like the Bradley card both batters are looking at the ball during their follow through.


This is a nice vertical card and reaffirms that Indians cards usually have the best action shots. I've been a fan of the retro logo hats that the Indians sometimes wear for a long time now.

Keeping with the funny names theme, this guy happens to share my first name. Kind of interesting. I wonder if purposely did this.

Next up are the football cards I asked for in trade.


Mark Clayton.

I don't get to see a lot of Ravens' games, but every time I do it seems Mark is making a catch. He was one of my favorite players to watch in '01 and '02 at OU. My favorite catch and run of his was in the 2002 game against Alabama. He juked and jumped his way past a couple of defenders and made them look like their legs were made of jelly.


Here's a Juaquin rookie card. Like most people, I'm not sure what really constitutes a "rookie" card. I mean, I realize it says "rookie", but I don't know if this will be one of the cards that will be worth anything in a few years.


Actually I don't care much about the monetary worth of these base cards. I just like to get cards of former OU players.

This Brandon Jackson card will go nicely in the Packers binder.

I have a few of these Score cards and this will fill in those holes nicely.

A.D.

If anybody is wondering, A.D. stands for "All Day" which is Adrian's nickname since his childhood days playing little league football. This will go nicely on the Adrian page. I just don't know which page yet. I'm still navigating how I want my player pages to look.


He sent over not one,


but 4 different Mickey Tettleton cards. He's a local guy that's from OKC and I'm assuming he currently lives in Norman. It's cool to have some of his cards. I had only one up to this point. This will help fill out a binder page.


Two National Pride cards that I needed.

I really need to buy that second box of Allen and Ginter. I love those cards and I really feel like I need to put away that set.


... a really cool Bobby Murcer card. He passed away this past year in OKC. He was a pretty solid player for the Yankees in a time when they weren't doing so well.

The card itself is pretty nice. Their is a raised textured outlining the wrinkles in his uniform and also in his hair. A really neat card. It's a lot thicker than most cards. It has rounded corners and the dark border with the gold lines makes it look older than the year it was produced:1992


The next card is also from an Oklahoma native.

This is one of the most interesting cards that I've seen. The Mick is hanging out with a cool camera and a telephoto lens. You can see at least one other player fiddling with his camera in the background.

This is the second Stadium Club card that I've received in trades. I'm already convinced that all these cards are pretty dope. (Referring to something as "dope" has never occurred to me in my non-blogging life.)

I might have to search out some of these cards. I've bought some of the '08 Stadium Club football, but they're not even on the same planet as these cards.

And lastly the actual card that started this trade.


The 1970's World Champions Mets card. It looks a little like it's got an off set printing problem. The reds and blues don't quite match up. Or is is cyans and magentas? It gives the card a 3-D effect. That would be a cool idea for a card. Unless it's already been done already, somebody should do an insert set like that. Maybe a retro themed product could have a 3-D boxtopper or a replacement for the manu-patches in blasters of Topps baseball.

This is probably the oldest baseball card that I own. There's nothing like a 40 year old card to make me not want to buy any new product. I need to see if the card dude is at the flea market tomorrow or even if their is a flea market tomorrow. I'm kind of in the mood for old stuff now.


Thanks again for the cards. I love them.