Somewhere along the line, I got the foolish idea that these blog posts have to be *about* something… that there has to be analysis or research or a theme or whatever going on. On the other hand, I can’t even remember the last time I just did a “Hey, look what I got!” post! Maybe if I just relax and write stuff, I can get back to writing more than once a week.
I’ll start off with a couple of Living Set cards I got from COMC… These cards are very old news for most of you, but I still haven’t bought a single card direct from Topps. I wait for the aftermarket (COMC), and then I wait for the price to go down, and then I wait until my next shipment…. and that’s how it gets to be several years.
To tip you off on how old these cards are… here’s one of Manny Machado with the Orioles! (Trust me, I wouldn’t give the time of day to a Machado card post-O’s)
…and you can tell it’s been a while because this is card #37 and they’re currently up to #510.
I got five Living Set cards, and my favorite of the batch is this former Met, Amed Rosario. I know this is SOP for modern-day Topps, but it always bugs me a little when they put a round logo into a circle like this and still leave all that white space. Fill the damn circle!
How about some actual vintage? I was extremely pleased to find this 1972 Topps Nolan Ryan card within my budget. For quite a while, I was approaching 1972 Topps as “Let’s see how far I can get while staying within my budget”. This card is further than I’d thought I would get.
Nolan’s got a big ol’ crease across his face, but I honestly don’t care. Much of my 1972 set build is well-loved. Creases and dog-eared corners are acceptable. I will also allow paper loss or pen marks, but only on the backs… but if push comes to shove, pen marks on the front would be OK as long as it’s not glasses and a mustache drawn on Steve Carlton.
I have to say, though… I’m growing to resent Nolan Ryan a bit. I got past this particular Nolan Ryan hurdle, but his first three cards are major obstacles in my quest to complete a run of Mets cards of the 1960s.
Like with 1972 Topps, I’ve been thinking I should get back to my 1970s Hostess sets. I was recently reminded of how fast Enos Cabell and the 1978 Astros were… I’ve been messing around with my Statis Pro board game, and Cabell, César Cedeño and José Cruz were all fast dudes.
Speaking of tabletop baseball games, I picked up this 2002 MLB Showdown card of Al Leiter. Even though I don’t play the game, there’s just something about these I find fun. I also like the fairly deep checklists (which obviously doesn’t apply to 2-time All-Stars like Leiter)
Advisory: The last five cards featured in this post might be wasted if you’re not of a certain age and possibly also a certain level of nerdiness.
FIVE
FOUR
THREE
TWO
ONE
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!
Back in the day, when I was a wee nerd, one of my favorite shows (along with Speed Racer and Gigantor) was Thunderbirds… Being a small child in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I think it was pretty typical to get excited about space ships and robots and gadgets. I know others my age or a little older who were big into westerns, but I couldn’t care less about those. I don’t care about the past, give me tomorrow!
As for the cards… These are all Mirror Foil inserts from the 2015 Unstoppable “Thunderbirds 50 Years” set. A couple of years ago I bought the card of Thunderbird 3 on a whim during a COMC Black Friday promotion, and it wasn’t until I got the card shipped to me that I realized how much it made me smile… So I went back out to COMC and bought the other four cards you see here. There are also cards of the five characters associated with each Thunderbird, but I didn’t buy them. Even as a kid I would’ve told you that the stars of the show weren’t the Tracy brothers, it was the hardware.