Football cards from Red Cardboard and first Christmas pack

Although I can't seem to find the actual post right now, before Christmas I answered the call from Red Cardboard to help him purge some of his cards. I volunteered to take what was described as some football inserts. I was pretty sure that even if there was no cards for my collection, I would be able to find some stuff for friends.

After coming home from Christmas in Arizona, I drove down to my P.O. Box and found those football cards sitting there waiting for me.

As it turned out, there were two cards that I needed for my Browns collection.

(L-R): 2003 Upper Deck Sweet Spot #144 (#/675); 2005 Upper Deck Rookie Debut #116

Obviously filling any holes in my collection is greatly appreciated, but it seems that so many of those missing cards are rookie cards, whether or not the player was successful or not, so it was nice to get these two cards.

There was an interesting oddball set in the package.

2007 Upper Deck Prilosec Brett Favre six card set

Well, I put those down on the scanner backwards so cards 1-3 are R-L in the top row, with 4-6 being R-L in the back row.

It is a pretty neat oddball set that I scanned the other day to put into the Trading Card Database only to find that another member added them while I was scanning them. Nice timing.

Here is a selection of some other cards that caught my eye

I don't know if I had seen these Write Stuff inserts before. It is interesting to see the handwriting analysis of the player's signature. I can only imagine how an analysis of some of the current signatures would go... "That squiggle of a signature shows his inherent laziness or lack of literacy."

There were a couple of other SA-GE HIT cards that I really enjoyed, more because I enjoyed watching the player in college as opposed to liking the cards.

The foil on Playmakers is silver on the left and blue on the right. Foil scans so well.

I don't think that I had seen any of these shiny cards before. I like them, and they scanned well.

Of course these are from the 1996 season, a season where I did not watch a full game of NFL football. As much as I want to make a crack about that, my friends know that I'm still full of bitterness towards the Browns move after the 1995 season. If you ever bring it up in my presence, expect a rant.

Here are a couple of inserts that I remember chasing back in the day. I probably have these cards in one of my old boxes somewhere. They brought back fun memories of hitting card shows with one of my old roommates, even if they are Broncos cards.

And here is some other early 90s goodness.

I remember buying a lot of 1991 Pacific, but really don't have any memories of pulling any Pacific Picks the Pros inserts. I'm sure I must have, but with no Browns in the insert set I really don't remember.

I always liked Fleer's All-Pro cards, and at least I could understand the various Topps Gold parallels - so much better than some of the many parallels we see now.

A rookie card of a Hall of Famer, and a nice Ultra Gold Medallion parallel.

And finally a card of an ex-Browns player that I like, and a nice card from a team I hate.

I was happy to see Keenan McCardell have a good career after his start with the Browns.

As much as Browns fans have seen some horrifying ways to lose, the Raiders have suffered two of the most controversial playoff losses - the Tuck Rule game, and the Immaculate Reception/Immaculate Deception depending on which fan base you ask.  This is a pretty sweet card of Franco Harris who scored the controversial touchdown versus the Raiders.

A big thank you to Red Cardboard for the football cards that you sent me. I'll eventually get something in the mail to you but I have some boxes to find to try and find some stuff from your wantlists so it may take a little while.

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Before opening the first "vintage" baseball card pack that I received for Christmas, I just want to remind people to take a look at yesterday's post for a contest I'm running.

I'm going to open the oldest of the packs I received for Christmas, a 1986 pack of Sportsflics.

Here's what was inside.

The three cards are:

45 Lee Smith - Cubs
164 Al Oliver - Blue Jays
64 Tri-Stars Comeback Players: Bert Blyleven, Jerry Koosman, John Denny

There was a paper insert for a Dr. K Disc Offer along with the two trivia cards shown. The answers are on the back for anyone interested...

Other than the two Browns cards at the beginning of the post, everything else is available for anyone that want it for their collections. Just let me know.