When I first started blogging, there were a few very vocal card bloggers who grew up with cards from the late '90s. Since I didn't bother collecting during that period, everything I saw on those blogs was new and different ... and often times weird.
The '90s card bloggers would alternate between '90s items that they absolutely loved and ones that they derided. I'd look at all of it and wonder what the difference was. What was considered innovation seemed like a lot of desperation to me and I couldn't tell them apart.
As the years passed and I gained more knowledge about a variety of cards, I have a better appreciation for late '90s card items. Although I'll never be as enthusiastic over them as people who grew up with them, I can enjoy crazy stuff like Circa and Pinnacle Certified and a few others.
That doesn't mean I'm running out to get them, which is why this is the first time one of these has entered my home:
That's a can from the much-ridiculed Pinnacle Inside, which was dubbed as "Cards in a Can". I received this can with Hideo Nomo on the side from Nick -- yet another collector from Texas -- who bestowed me with a bunch of Dodgers.
Since I've heard so much about these -- and how you needed a can opener to get to the cards inside (by the way, how prehistoric are can openers? Shouldn't these have died out by now?) -- I've always been intrigued by them. So now I have one and now am burdened with figuring out how to store it.
Sadly, the can is empty:
Not that I need any more Pinnacle Inside cards.
So with that bit of mystery-fascination realized, let's move on to the things from Nick that I actually collect ... the cards.
As you may have guessed, the cards I needed most had a late '90s/turn of the century theme.
Lots of Gary Sheffield.
Lots and lots of Gary Sheffield.
And we can't forget Kevin Brown, no matter how hard we try.
And Shawn Green, too. That's a nicer memory.
We travel to earlier in the decade, and this is just a sampling of the 1995 Fleer Nick sent my way. This Brett Butler card is very welcome because who knows how long it would have taken me to figure out I needed Met-Dodger Butler.
Let's hang out in the mid-1990s a little longer. One of the best mid-'90s products is 1994 Fleer. These three are from the Update set. Yes, I'm showing Delino DeShields on my blog again. His son is giving me terrible flashbacks. Someone hide Julio Urias before the Dodgers try to trade him for DeShields Jr.
Here's a fancy gold parallel of Billy Ashley from 1996. I don't dare put these Collector's Choice gold parallels on my want list. It seems pointless.
Colla Collection bookmarks!
It's a sign of how neurotic of a collector I am that I will refuse to use these as bookmarks, protect them in some way considered freakish to the outside world, and place an ordinary 2-by-3-sized card in my book to mark my place.
Last card is the best card.
My latest obsession is Dodgers minor league cards from the late '70s. I've got an online cart full of them. How could Nick have known?
I absolutely love everything about this card and any other ones issued during this time period.
But I still feel a little bad for that empty Pinnacle Inside can.
There we go. There are now Cards in a Can.
It's somehow more fitting than sticking pens and pencils in there.
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