Let's open some packs

But not Gypsy Queen or Donruss or any of that sad stuff on the store shelves right now -- old packs -- packs from 1983, the best damn year on the planet!

I'll get to Mr. Magnum in a little while, but I wanted to let you know I was graced with a super fun kind of package from Angus of Dawg Day Cards not too long ago. He included a whole bunch of oddballs and also a handful of unopened packs.

This is my kind of package.

Before the grand opening let's see some of the cards that were loose and free. They're doozies.

OK, these two haven't exactly been let loose, but they will be. I've completed the full set of Kellogg's Dodgers (aside from variations which I will not chase). But I refuse to turn down extras. And Sutton will go toward my quest to complete the '76 Kellogg's set.

Curvy cards! The Ron Cey is a '77 Isaly's/Sweet William disc and will go nicely with my chocolate ice cream-stained Cey Zip'z disc. The Andy Messersmith is a Dairy Isle disc and my first Messersmith spherical card. The Fernando is a 1984 Slurpee with Sportflics action before there were Sportflics!

How could this package get better, I ask you?

Well, with this:

"Hey," you're saying. "Dopey night owl, you have all those cards already."

And I'm saying ...

"No, I don't. They're O-Pee-Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Check out those Buckner and Lopes mustaches. They're just as strong in Canadian. And they'll prepare you nicely for more mustache to come.

Angus did not skimp on the O-Pee-Chee. Here are a few more:

These are all from 1989, obviously. And two feature the tell tale "Now with ..." typewritten message on the front.

These '89s aren't the easiest to find.

Which is why I was impressed when I saw the unopened packs that Angus sent.

That's some Gomme Balloune Avec Cartes right there from 1989 and 1990.

Let's open those up.

But first ...

OK, now let's open the 1989 pack.

Not bad at all. Way awesome to pull an OPC Rock Raines card.

'89 OPC packs actually featured seven cards. Here is the seventh:

If gum is going to stick to a card, this is proper technique. Ruin the Giants card, the Giant is already ruining it.

The 1990 OPC pack featured 10 cards.

Let's open that one.

The first six. Pretty standard fare.

On to card No. 7 ...

I am aghast. My most impressive OPC pull of all-time.

This card will be packaged in a mailer tonight that will be headed to the Junior Junkie. It's about time I tracked down another Griffey for him.

And the other three cards. I was so dancing up a storm over my OPC Griffey Party that I didn't notice until now the "Now with" notation on Mark Langston's card. Always cool.

Also cool were the three nonsports packs that Angus sent.

One was the Magnum, P.I., one is a pack that I'll open on A Pack To Be Named Later because I've been delinquent on that site and I know it hasn't been opened there. The other is a pack of M*A*S*H cards.

Angus was gearing for a spot in my '70s TV/Movies binder. M*A*S*H is definitely the '70s, but the cards came out in 1982 just as the series was ending.

To me as a kid, M*A*S*H was "that adult show," and too sophisticated and serious for me. Even when I got older I never watched it. But it was so pervasive that I knew all the characters and some of the storylines.

Here are the cards from the pack:

Some very straightforward rectangle squares. No writing, just pictures and puzzle pieces on the back.

Lucky me, I have a card of Alan Alda in the shower, and the card on the middle right apparently got caught up in the machinery so it's ripped a couple different ways. But at least I pulled Klinger as Dorothy!

Let's open the Magnum P.I. pack.

The obvious goal to this opening is to pull a card of a car. You can say what you want about what Magnum P.I. was about, Selleck, great weather, babes, The Tigers, Hawaiian shirts, mustache wax, whatever. We all know it was about the vehicles.

Let's see the cars ... er, cards:

I can't see anything on that one.

Let's try again.

Three (maybe four, I can't make out that figure in the distance on the bottom card) are cards of Magnum, three cards are of Higgins, one card is of Zeus and Apollo, and there's maybe half a card of a car.

Well, that's disappointing.

For me, the best part of this pack is the design on the back of the cards that aren't puzzles:

That sums up your show. Love it.

Just one final thing before I'm done.

Mustache.