Sunny Day Randomness

It was 80 degrees and sunny in New England today, and on top of that I enjoyed a rare day off.  I took advantage of the weather and the free time to get some spring cleaning done in my garage this afternoon.  Seems as good a time as any to get some spring cleaning done on my card desk as well, so today's post is a hodgepodge of cards from a variety of sources that have been waiting for their day on the blog.

First up is a trio of hockey highlights that came from a $1 grab bag at a hobby shop in Massachusetts.  Upper Deck chose an interesting photograph for this Sergei Zholtok card.  Sergei tragically passed away during a game (heart failure) while playing over in Latvia during the NHL lockout in 2005.  He was just 31 years old.

If you were collecting hockey cards when the scene exploded in 1990, then you probably recall that there weren't many names bigger than Lindros at the time.  Eric is now a HOFer, and I still get excited whenever I land a new card of his.  In fact, I recently landed what is probably my single best Lindros card, but you'll have to wait to see that one another day.

The last card I'll highlight from the recent hockey grab bag is this Pinnacle Jari Kurri.  Another HOFer, and longtime teammate of Wayne Gretzky (in both Edmonton and LA).

I think I acquired this Nolan Ryan when an eBay seller threw it in as a surprise bonus with an auction win.  Fine by me, Nolan has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid.

If you've followed the blog for a while you may have seen me mention that I'm a big Star Wars guy.  I don't go crazy with Star Wars cards, as hockey and baseball keep me busy enough, but I do love the Tek releases of the past couple years.  From the 2015 release here are two of the biggest characters from the original trilogy in Luke Skywalker...

...and his father!  These are just regular base cards, but in a product where you only get something like 8 cards per box they're still pretty significant.  Two awesome, random additions to my collection for sure.

Can't turn down a cheap card of Junior!  If memory serves this one was salvaged from the quarter box at my favorite hobby shop.

My dabbling with 2017 Topps Heritage began and ended with a single hanger pack.  The only card I decided to keep was this Robby Scott/Andrew Benintendi dual rookie card.  I did get a coupon for a free pack of flagship Topps with this though, and out of that pack came this:

Score!

Here's another new Bogaerts card, one of those 30th anniversary 1987 inserts.  50 cents with free shipping on eBay.  Two new Xander cards for 50 cents out of pocket total, I'll take that any day!

In last year's Upper Deck Portfolio hockey release, they included some of these "wire photo" cards featuring unique photographs from specific games/moments in time.  I picked up a lot of 20 or so for cheap coin on eBay, and scanned a couple for this post.

It just so happens that two of the three I grabbed...

...feature Montreal Canadiens rookies.  Let's move on as I try to wash that taste from my mouth...

Finishing things off for today is a small stack of ten cards that I grabbed from the quarter boxes at my LCS.  I think I did fairly well with this $2.50, let's see if you agree.  Off to a good start with one of the most dominating pitchers in MLB history here.

This SPx Sergei Fedorov might be my favorite card of this entire post.  The gaudy design is just a perfect fit for those Mighty Ducks jerseys.  While I'll always picture Fedorov as a Red Wing first and foremost, I enjoy acquiring cardboard from his short term stops just as much.

Picked up this Topps Opening Day Hank Aaron just because that photograph is worth a quarter any day.

I've always been enamored by two-sport stars, so this 1996 Topps Deion Sanders was a no-brainer.

These quarter boxes have provided me with a few great cards now from 2003 Upper Deck Vintage, with this card of 1945 triple crown winner, AL MVP and World Series champion Hal Newhouser being the latest.

Will Clark was a guy I collected heavily as a kid, so whenever I come across a cheap card of his that I'm relatively sure I don't own I'm sold.  Made the right call with this one too, as I was missing this '94 Fleer Team Leaders insert.

Here's another guy that was a big deal during my days of childhood fandom, Juan Gonzalez.  Plus, you have to love mid-'90s Flair.

I'm an admitted sucker when it comes to parallels, and the colored border parallels from the Topps flagship set are among my favorites.  I don't come across these 2014 yellows that often, so at 25 cents this one was going into my stack no matter who the subject was.  Zunino was taken 3rd overall in his draft class, but has struggled to hit Major League pitching with consistency so far.

From the 1997 Fleer Sports Illustrated set comes this insert featuring Kirby Puckett gracing the magazine's cover.  I love the photograph that SI chose here, as well as the pop culture reference to Twin Peaks, a show I am a huge fan of and am excited to see return this year!

Last card for today, we'll end with some vintage.  I've mentioned a few times that I adore the 1960 Topps manager cards, enough so that I was happy to pay a quarter for this Bill Rigney despite the fact that it's creased right across the middle.

So yeah, there's a representative sampling of some of the stuff sitting in stacks on my desk waiting to be processed.  Hopefully you saw at least one card that interested you.  I'll be back with something more structured tomorrow!