Good God Upper Deck....

I was a kid in the mid 1980's when introduced to baseball cards for the first time. As a matter of fact, I remember clearly that my first package of baseball cards were these:



I remember buying these, not because I liked baseball, but I needed an elementary school classmate's comic book collection. So I figured I'd buy some cards and try to trade them for a few books.

It worked - kind of. Till I quickly learned about the value of cards; more specifically, I remember he pulled out from his backpack, a shiny magazine:



"Wow!" I remember thinking to myself. Up and down on the pages of this magazines, were columns of numbers - all $$$ signs and next to those signs? Upward pointing or downward pointing arrows.

I fell in love with cards at that. So much, that inside of a year, I wrote my very first letter to Beckett at the ripe old age of 12.

Guess what? They printed it.

I have that magazine saved at home in Texas. I can't remember who is on the cover - I'm thinking Daryl Strawberry, Mark Grace, or Bo Jackson.

Anyway, there it was - right there on page 4. I remember asking about how to acquire my most favorite player's rookie card; Mark McGwire, 1985 Olympic Team card. A year or so later, I would obtain that card through a mail order. And thus, my card collecting began.




I collected hard. I was picking up stuff like '87 Donruss (I always thought Greg Maddux's Rated Rookie cards were pimp). Sammy Sosa was coming aboard. Ruben Sierra was killing it. Frank Thomas was just drafted. And I completed, after countless $.50 cent packs, completed a 1988 Topps set (which ironically is worth less today than what it was back in 1988).

Right after this, I started slowing down with cards and by the early 1990's, I had all but quit. I was finishing up high school and shortly thereafter, moving forward to college. I would, on very rare occasion, pick up random packs of cards from Walmart or Target, but would not step inside a hobby store till about 10 years later when I re-entered the hobby.

So, like most, I'm left with a lot of late 1980's junk (not ALL of it's junk, but I would safely say 90% of it is). But there's something fun with all this - treasure!

You see, I left my collection behind - stuff that I had accumulated between 1986 to 1994. And had forgotten about.

Apparently, there are some gems there. I just don't know it yet. I haven't actually been through my boxes of cards that I have in storage in over 12 years. I have no idea what's in there. The only thing that stands out, is an un-opened 1992 Bowman Cello pack - with a Mark McGwire Gold Foil parallel on the front and a Barry Bonds Gold Foil parallel on the back. I have no idea what was in between - it was a hard plastic cello pack I believe.

And of course, the stuff I purchased in between randomly through the years, all went into storage. It's exciting knowing one day, when I decided to go pull that stuff out, the rush of memories that'll pore out. In fact, when that happens, expect to see about a billion scans of some of my favorite cards and be prepared to have a ton of trade bait.

And in regards to trade bait, if you look to your right, you'll see a link of the Goodwin and Ginter cards I need. I'll also start another webpage which I'll link that will show pics of what I have available for trade, so that'll be fun.

I'll post scans tonight of any mail day stuff that comes in today.

Alright, I'm out - cyas!