Ten Totally Random New Cards

The blog post title says it all.  Work has been exhausting, so I just don't have the mental energy to come up with anything that creative for the blog tonight.  Instead, I've got ten totally random recent additions to my collection that didn't really fit into any of my other posts to share with you...

Cards from the '80s and early to mid-'90s are my absolute favorite when it comes to the sport of hockey.  While I long ago completed the entire run of Topps sets from 1980-81 through 1989-90, I enjoy picking up mint graded specimens of HOFers and stars nonetheless.  Recently I was able to land two perhaps lesser-known HOFers from the '88-89 set in the form of Mark Howe...

...and Billy Smith.  These aren't exactly the first cards I'd target in graded form from the decade, but I won them for the insanely low price of $1.43 each.  Mark my words, I will buy any and every PSA 9 HOFer from the '80s that I don't already have at that price point.

Here's a cool one.  I first learned about these beautiful, acetate All-Rookie inserts from '94-95 Fleer Ultra from my friend Marc B a couple of years ago (Marc, haven't heard from you in a while, hope you're still out there and doing well!).  He sent me the Chris Pronger for my Whalers collection, and I immediately wondered why I had no recollection of these fantastic inserts.  Well, it turns out they are pretty rare by '90s standards, and thus fairly expensive.

It took me all this time just to find a second one with Alexei Yashin here.  Of the 8 remaining cards that I still don't have, Martin Brodeur will be the toughest add.  Maybe someday...

How about a couple that came from the quarter box at my local shop a long time ago?  I can't resist any Nolan Ryan card that I don't already own for just a quarter, and I'm a big sucker for Classic since they were most popular during the prime of my childhood collecting phase.

Always loved these caricature-style All-Star cards that Score did for a couple of years there in the early '90s, so I was happy to hand over a quarter for Cecil Fielder here.

Here's one that actually survived from my childhood collection!  My brothers and I had a lot of these Fleer PowerPlay tallboy cards, but they were always a challenge to store.  Gretzky here stayed mint though since I had him in an Ultra Pro sheet in a binder, and I just recently acclimated him into my modern collection.  I have more hockey cards of Wayne Gretzky than of any other player, and that's just fine with me.

A seller that I purchased a single card from on eBay last year included a bonus pack of the Upper Deck Tim Horton's promotional set.  I tossed the cards I pulled into a big box I was putting together for Billy at Cardboard History, but decided to hang onto this Auston Matthews since I enjoy cards that are anchored to a specific date/game, and this one pays homage to his epic NHL debut.

This is another one from the quarter box.  While I concede that they're incredibly gaudy, I just love the 1995 UC3 set.  Ripken was a top-5 favorite player for me growing up, so I still gravitate towards his cards to this day.

Same with Nolan Ryan.  This Gold Foil parallel from Stadium Club actually came from the same eBay seller that I picked up a big lot of dollar cards from at the very beginning of 2018.

Also from that same seller, this Robby Fabbri on-card autograph from Upper Deck.  I was pretty hot on Robby a couple of years back, and while he's been severely derailed by injury I couldn't resist adding this one to my collection for just a dollar anyway.

So there you have it, ten cards that I've added to my collection in recent weeks.  Thanks for stopping by, and hopefully I'll have the mental energy for something a little more exciting tomorrow!