Cards I know and like, and cards I don't know and ... still like

I've been sifting through some great cards sent to me lately and actually holding off on showing some of them.

It's not that I'm hesitant to thank my benefactors, certainly not! But I try to coordinate my blog posts around here, sometimes obsessively so. But sometimes you just have to let go and show off!

So I'm showing off.

Recently -- well, not so recently now -- a terrific collector, Jonathan, sent me another batch of cool cards. Like usual, some of the cards were directly off my want list, others weren't on a want list at all but in line with what I collect, and others were simply surprises that, honestly, I didn't know existed.

Jonathan is a set collector, like me, and he asked if I would advertise a handful of his set wants in hopes that someone out there would have the one card that he needed to complete some of them.

I've agreed, because -- wow, the cards he sends. I even scouted out the images of the cards he needs. Here they are:

Dale Murphy, 1993 Pacific, #432

A rare Murphy-in-a-Rockies-uniform sighting.

Jose Flores, 2002 Upper Deck Victory, #640

I have no idea who this guy is. And I could only find this image in COMC's sold-out queue.

Neil Walker, 2013 Hometown Heroes, #292

This card is from the short-printed portion of Hometown Heroes. I was somewhat thrown by this because this is Walker's only card in the set and I thought the SP portion showed only variations of players in the base set. This new knowledge will take time to process.

Anyway, those are the three cards Jonathan needs and as you can see none of them are high-dollar affairs. They are just cards he can't find anywhere.

If you have one of these cards for him, let me know. He's willing to pay for them or trade in your favor. He has lots of baseball cards from between 1967-79 and is plenty generous, I'm speaking from experience. I'll be happy to pass his information along to you.

OK, that's the end of the commercial.

And the beginning of the commercial for the cards I got! Let's see 'em!

I just recently received the 1985 Fleer Pete Rose from another collector so I've got an extra! But I sure do appreciate the Sandberg card. He's always tricky to find in '80s sets even though I always forget about him because I never really paid attention to the guy much. But happy to cross off number 65!

Some big-time notables for 1977 Topps football set. If you don't know these guys, my question for you is, you know the coronavirus bubble has only been a thing for six months, right?

More '70s greats that are kind of forgotten about these days. The Vikings were powerhouses in the '70s and they've never really gotten that back. ... Ron Yary is the rare example of facial blood on a card.

Checklists! Glorious, glorious checklists! Even though I come from the era when checklists were a numbered part of the set, I still hate spending money on these things.

Part of Jonathan's hobby fun is picking up random vintage cards for cheap whenever he can. I received a handful of some '60s vintage, which I always welcome, even if I'm not necessarily collecting that year's cards.

You never know when they'll come in handy, and that's why I'm not showing them all. I may or may not use these in future trades.

But I can't resist showing two more:

I am A COLLECTING GOD!

LISTEN TO ME!!!

I have seen the image of Don Mossi's 1966 Topps card probably hundreds of times since I became a blogger. It has been shown by some of the bloggers I most enjoy and appears in the greatest collecting book of all-time. I've often felt incomplete because I didn't own this card. Yup, it's not '89 UD Griffey for me, it's Don Mossi.

It's taken me so long to acquire it because most of Mossi's cards come from a period that doesn't spark my collecting drive like cards from the '70s or '80s. And, believe me, I suffered for not being able to view Mossi's ears from such a close distance.

Such a sharp specimen, too!

All right, so all those cards -- except for the ones on Jonathan's want list -- are cards that I know and have known for a long, long time.

But he also sent me a set that I didn't know about, or at least ignored.

This is the 1995 National Packtime set.

I have owned the Dodgers from this set -- Mike Piazza and Raul Mondesi, both on the 1995 Topps design -- for years. I assumed that those two cards were part of a larger set, but since the other cards assuredly weren't Dodgers and because the cards were from the mid-1990s, I didn't care to know the whole story.

My loss. Here's the whole story:

National Packtime is an 18-card set that was a joint effort between the six biggest card companies of the time.

Let me repeat: the six biggest card companies got together and agreed to collectively put together a set. How unusual is that?

This is why you see all kinds of designs in the set. Those are the somewhat-modified 1995 designs of Donruss, Fleer Ultra, Pacific, Pinnacle, Topps and Upper Deck.

This set could be obtained through a mail-in offer. Collectors had to gather 28 wrappers from any of the '95 sets and send them, along with 2 dollars by a June deadline. 28 wrappers!

Anyway, that is cool. And I cannot envision that kind of an agreement happening now -- obviously there are few baseball-card-making companies left -- or even in the last 20 years.

And those are some cards I knew about and some I didn't know about. And I like them all.