These 28 cards were sent by "J.G." of Chicago. I think this package holds the distinction of having been sent from a location closest to an MLB park of any package I've ever received, as these were sent a mere one mile walk from Wrigley Field. Thanks for the cards "J.G."
Also included, is what has immediately become one of my favorite cards in my entire collection. I've never sent cards out to be graded, but this one might finally provide me the motivation to do so. It needs to be preserved in all it's beauty. Take a look at the glorious gum stain on this card:
That stain in magnificent. It's so saturated into the card, it's altered the cardboard and actually created a little raised bump. It's even permeated through to the back of the card. Today's kids will never know the joy of finding naturally occurring anomalies in their packs. We didn't have artificial refractors and gold borders, we had artificial sugars and colors to chew on while looking for that second baseman we needed to fill out the page for our backyard wiffleball line-up. Gum stains, off-centered miscuts and wrong/blank backs were coveted like museum relics. Then some old dudes decided they couldn't risk the chance of a single piece of cardboard depicting men playing a kids game in colorful uniforms being "damaged," given they were now paying all of about a buck for 12-15 cards, and the gum went away, and nutrition facts were replaced with lottery odds on the wrappers, and soon after that Little League snack bars stopped selling cards, and they disappeared from playgrounds, and gave way to online case breaks that sell slots for far more than any ten year old kid with some pocket change could ever fathom paying, and daily "now" cards that sell for what a box of 36 packs used to, lest we forget that batting practice display some flavor of the week rookie put on yesterday.
There's a reason we all know what the photo on the '87 Topps Kevin Mitchell looks like, but I doubt very many of us can recall how many different Mike Trout cards were produced last year. Sometimes more isn't better, no matter of few of them there are.
Updated Totals for these cards:
Great gum stain!
ReplyDeleteHa. I didn't even notice the gum stain when I put the package together. Not sure it'll grade out 10.0 as the stain is slightly off-center. By the way, don't give Topps any ideas - 2018 might feature a "gum stain" parallel.
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