Monday, February 18, 2019

Collector's Log: Stardate 198204.05

"When we last left our heroes" back in 1982, they (my friends & I) were sorting and underpricing our extras to sell in the neighborhood, and making room for the new '82 cards that were coming out.


Something a little different in school on the 26th, got to watch 'em rehearse the school play.  Even though I got into filmmaking in school, I was never interested in drama (stage or otherwise).  But it was better than pep rallies.  My lack of enthusiasm probably comes from about third grade, when I had the lead role in "The Little Prince".  I knew my lines cold from the second reading and it was going fine until I leaned a little too far in and bumped into the microphone.  The only memory of that experience is the entire crowd breaking up into laughter.  Guess that was the end of my acting ambitions.


My stepsister was over for the weekend again.  Her brother lost interest after a while, so he stopped coming.  I still laugh at my comment.

Anyway, the main highlight of this entry is the trip to the Hanover card shop.  I imagine we were sorting and making lists the day before, and then made the trip.  I didn't realize I had started my Pumpsie Green "supercollection" (he has a total of ten active career cards, and fifteen more post-career issues) that soon.  Got the brand new (and now rather ubiquitous) KMart MVP set.  That little set is nice and still stands out to me from all the other - mostly later - box set issues.  Also added some more '81 Fleer stickers - another one of the "original" non-standard issues that came out in that time period.


Not sure what that mining operation was all about, except kids thinking that shiny rocks are somehow valuable gems.


I can't believe I don't have the original entry for when I was presented with the collection from a nephew of my stepfather.  It was several hundred cards, most of which were 1970 Topps - which of course, is the design of the pending Heritage release.  They were generally in decent shape, but had been handled a lot, so there weren't many with four sharp corners.  But most of the stars were there, and in multiples.  I took the first starter set, and then passed it on to a couple of my buddies, and then kept what was left.  That's probably still the source of the row of dupes in my vintage monster box.  I would go on to round out the set in similar condition along with a batch of '72s from the card shop I patronized for 20 years when they closed up.  Both sets are now complete, but the high numbers are in better shape than a lot of the rest.


April brings us back to the Putt-Putt arcade and my killing it on several games.  Of course, there were no deals running that day to reward me.

(not my ticket)

Opening Day 1982 started off with a win for the Orioles.  Eddie Murray had a Grand Slam in the third inning.  In the inning before, the new kid socked one over the fence too.  He ended up with 431 homers in his career, so it was a decent run.
The dude in the middle was pretty good.
They got more packs of '82 Topps.  I had bought that set as well as Donruss, I think, so I was only building Fleer at the time.

Ran out of space in the entry, so I abbreviate "Twice" as "2ce".  I had so much better writing style back then. 😁

Next time, the Fleer build continues, one of the guys narrows his collecting focus, and we learn of things that will bring a whole new aspect to our collecting!

6 comments:

  1. I don't know if I've said this before, but I'm amazed that you kept such records of your youth. Anything I wrote in school was shredded years ago in embarrassment.

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    1. I'm not sure some of this should have been as well! :)

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  2. I kept nothing from my jr high/high school days. it was so depressing. This is great stuff! I'd forgotten about my afternoons in the Putt Putt arcade!!

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  3. That's awesome that you documented a Pumpsie Green pickup! I hung out with my fourteen year old nephew this weekend and was telling him about keeping a diary of some kind... so that he could one day look back, reflect, and laugh. I should have showed him one of your posts.

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  4. High score on 4 machines? Wow! Really enjoying these posts.

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  5. It's too bad that you don't remember anything about your "mining operation", I got all excited there for a second... and there was no payoff.

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