Cardboard appreciation: 2003 Fleer E-X Kazuhisa Ishii

(Some synonyms for "appreciation" include "gratitude" and "tribute." Hmmm, "Cardboard Tribute," I can see. But "Cardboard Gratitude" sounds a bit desperate. I'll stick with Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 55th in a series):

I received this super fancy Kaz Ishii card from reader Robert, who has sent me cards before. He needs to let me know what I can send him, so I can repay his kindness.

The reason I'm featuring this card on Cardboard Appreciation is because it reminded me of how little I play with my cards these days.

Oh, I sort them, and file them, and scan them, and read the backs. I call that "play," but it's only "play" in the very adult form of the word. A kid would never consider that play.

When I was a kid, we flipped our cards. We made card houses out of our cards. We lined them up from one end of the room to the other. We rolled dice over them. We scribbled on a few of them.  We PLAYED with them.

I don't think I can get myself to draw on a card again. Or flip them against a wall. But this Ishii card got me to play with it a little bit.

Some of you may know that this card doesn't really have a white background. The white in this scan is the back of my scanner cover. The card is actually transparent.

And being the color freak that I am, that prompted me to make my own scanner color parallels of this card.

Here is the blue Ishii parallel.

Here is the green Ishii parallel.

Here is the red Ishii parallel.

If I had more time, I could find a whole bunch of different backgrounds. But that'll do for now. A little play time goes a long way at my age. It has to, because "work" is an attention whore.

Anyway, that wasn't the only card that Robert sent.

He also sent this Topps Laser card of Hideo Nomo that I needed.

I just saw these featured on The Easy Life. Steve is right, these cards are not great. The flaming baseball ones, like this one, are by far the best of the bunch. The rest look like a stenciling exercise gone very wrong.

Robert also sent a Topps Total Nomo card that I needed.

In fact, he sent a whole bunch of Topps Total I needed.

I SAID, HE SENT A WHOLE BUNCH OF TOPPS TOTAL I NEEDED!

The best part of Topps Total is someone can send you a giant stack of the cards and you still need about 4,000 more for the set. That's because Topps Total didn't miss a single player who bent a solitary blade of grass on a major league diamond. Please, Topps, bring it back.

I'll sign off with another Fleer E-X card. This is from the pink year of 2002.

All right now, get out there and start playing with your cards.