First Card Of The Year

I know it comes as no surprise but my first card purchase of the year is a Griffey card that I picked up on January 2nd. The card is a 1992 Stadium Club Ken Griffey Jr. #603 Member’s Choice parallel from the East Coast National.

I am a sucker for cards that are special editions or from a specific event, toss in that it is from one of my favorite brands (Stadium Club) and my favorite player and this was a complete win for me. This card is from the 1992 National Sports Collectors Convention that was held in Atlanta and contains a gold foil seal stating that. There is text above the National logo that I was unable to read but eventually figured out that it states “A Gloria Rothstein Show”

The cards were in 5-card packs that were wrapped in plastic wrap so they were not even really sealed. The card I picked up was not in a pack but I pulled up this image so you can see how they were handed out.

My Wallet Card Entry With Shrinkage... Not By George Costanza

 I have been spending the last few days trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go with the card that will spend the next year in my wallet. After spending the past 23 years collecting I had plenty to choose from too.

In case you are not familiar with Gavin's Wallet Card Game, here are the origins on Baseball Card Breakdown.

My first thought was a Ken Griffey Jr. card, being a Griffey collector it definitely would suit me well but which one would I select? The 1989 Upper Deck #1 is iconic and the first Griffey card that I purchased when I came back to collecting.

Then I considered Ryan Bader, my favorite MMA fighter and one of my personal collections. He is a local guy and I do hit his Power MMA gym from time to time so how cool would it be to get him to sign my wallet card?

I finally decided to go with a card that has some meaning to my collection, the 1992-93 Stadium Club Shaquille O’Neal #247 rookie card. When I came back to collecting in 1992 it was right in time for Shaq Attaq and I bought so many boxes of Stadium Club looking for his rookie card (along with his Beam Team and a Michael Jordan Beam Team) that I definitely put some Topps employees kids through college.

Now that the card was decided I found myself in a predicament when I realized that a regular sized card would not fit in my wallet without damaging the card. I went back to the drawing board and searched my mini collection and was not satisfied with any of the cards.

I was about to just skip the Wallet Card game when I remembered that Gavin stated there were no rules and that is when inspiration hit…

 

I shall call him mini-Shaq

 

 

A little bit of scanning here and a little bit of Photoshop there, toss in a couple of pieces of HP matte photo paper and my Xyron sticker maker and I have a card that measures 2 x 2 ½ (roughly 2/3 a regular card size).

Hopefully this is acceptable to the blogging community. I know this is not a pack issued card but it is identical card to the original card, just smaller, to fit in to my wallet.

 

Now to get snapping around town

 

 

Come To Me My Pretties

 

In 1992 when I came back to collecting I got caught up in the Shaq phenomenon, my cards of choice? 1992-93 Stadium Club basketball, I loved the full-bleed photograph.

I opened pack after pack looking for Beam Team inserts. Everyone wanted the Jordan or Shaq Beam Team cards but in all honesty I would have been happy to pull any Beam Team card. I just loved the design so much. It wasn’t until the 1993-94 Stadium Club release when I would finally pull a Beam Team insert (Calbert Cheaney), but these just weren’t as cool as the 1992-93 release.

 

Over the years I have considered picking up a Jordan, Barkley or KJ 92-93 Beam Team but always ended up putting them on the back burner. I have since decided that I can survive without adding the Jordan Beam Team to my collection but I fully intended on adding two of my favorite Phoenix Suns eventually.

This past week I finally was able to come across a nice deal that got both Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson 1992-93 Stadium Club Beam Teams cards shipped for $5.49 total. I consider this one of my more exciting pickups for the year. It isn’t that the cards are anything major but just that I connect these cards to my return to collecting so I have a sentimental connection with the cards.