I've been juggling a lot of hobby-related projects lately and, honestly, I don't know why this isn't my full-time job, between packaging 5,000-card giveaway sends, hopping back into ebay selling (I see it's gotten more complex), and finishing off another Beckett Vintage magazine article that's actually a two-for, a main story and sidebar.
The full-time job still pays more though, so the one thing that doesn't pay anything at all is taking the hit -- namely this blog.
But I've got a little something for you today, focusing on one of my absolutely favorite kinds of cards.
It's what I call the Reese's of cards.
Some explaining:
Those of you old enough remember the Reese's candy commercials with the slogan "two great tastes that taste great together." You know, the commercials featuring clumsy dopes waving their candy about on the street and bumping into each other. You got chocolate in my peanut butter, blah, blah, blah, and a lawsuit ensues.
Well, for me, two great "tastes" in the collecting hobby are sports cards -- of course -- and magazines.
I have loved both ever since I was a little kid, and from the earliest days of collecting cards, magazines were also coming to the house. I'd stack my cards neatly on the night stand and my Sports Illustrated or Ranger Rick magazine neatly in a desk drawer.
They were both loved but distinctly separate.
Never did I think "if only we could combine these two things that I love into a single cardboard concoction."
Fortunately, somebody else did.
Where have you been all my life?
This is both chocolate and peanut butter here. It's a card that's a magazine cover that's a card. My gosh, why did it take so long for this to happen?
I'm sure there are examples prior to this item from the late 1990s -- 1998 Fleer to be specific -- but the point is there aren't enough of them, especially ones that pay tribute to the magazines of my childhood.
I never had a subscription to Sports Collectors Digest. It had more of a newspaper/catalog look, it certainly was no glossy magazine. I would have loved to subscribe to it but my allowance went to cards and toys and then there was nothing left.
I received this card in the Dime Box giveaway a couple of months ago and it's one of the favorite cards I acquired during that binge.
Still, it doesn't represent anything I actually saw when I was a kid in the 1970s. For that, we have to go to another late 1990s Fleer issue.
This is absolutely fantastic.
Not only is it a card and a magazine together, not only is it Reggie Jackson in an Orioles uniform, but it represents a magazine issue that came to my house when I was 11 years old during the very first time I had a subscription to Sports Illustrated!!
!!!
Good gosh I needed this card before I even knew it existed.
The late '90s Fleer Sports Illustrated Covers cards are fantastic, every single one of them, and I have most of the Dodgers from these sets, if not them all.
I have no plans to collect the complete sets, but I did some digging to see if there are any other of the covers cards that show one of the SI covers from when I first had a subscription to SI, which would be the spring of 1976 to the spring of 1977.
Here is a list of those covers, the baseball ones only because this was a baseball set:
1977
May 30: Battle Royal In The East, Pirates' Dave Parker
May 2: Can Reggie Jackson Find Love And Happiness In New York?
April 11: Baseball Preview Issue, The Free Agents, Angels' Joe Rudi
March 28: New Faces in '77, Rangers' Bump Wills
March 14: New Boss In L.A.: Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda
1976
Nov. 1: How Good Are The Reds, Johnny Bench
Oct. 11: An Explosive Playoff, Reds' George Foster
Aug. 30: Hitting A Million, Orioles' Reggie Jackson
July 12: Threat To Win 30, Padres' Randy Jones
June 28: Baseball In Chaos, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn
June 21: Hot Bat At The Hot Corner, George Brett
May 31: Head-On Collision In The East, Red Sox's Carlton Fisk and Yankees' Lou Piniella
May 3: The Big Blast-Off, Phillies' Mike Schmidt
Just 13 baseball covers out of 52 weeks of Sports Illustrated. Now you can see why my folks let the subscription run out. The boy wasn't reading it half the time!
The ones I found were the covers for Dave Parker, the two Reggie Jacksons (Orioles and Yankees), Joe Rudi and Randy Jones.
No cover card for the George Foster issue is a damn shame, that left such an impact on me. I also would've loved one of Carlton Fisk throwing a punch at home plate.
But that means grabbing all the cards from that first year of reading Sports Illustrated is pretty manageable. I already have the Parker card!
Each of the above covers are etched in mind and it'd be most fair if there was a card of each of those covers, heck I'd even love to have the cover of a confused-looking Bowie Kuhn.
The first issue to come out after the subscription stopped was the Mark Fidrych Big Bird cover. I guess we didn't time that right. There's no card of that one (although there is one of him from the 1978 SI issue).
To me, this is one of the best ideas that has come along for cards ever.
Like Reese's, it's a classic, and I can't get enough.
Comments