Christmas Packs #13

 It's another pack of American Bandstand cards.  This first card is the dance floor which changed over the years.  Next up is Del Shannon, had a 1961 #1 hit with Runaway.  Bo Diddley was important in the transition from the blues to Rock and Roll, he was well known for his rectangular guitar and his hit Bo Diddley.  Dion had 39 Top 40 hits in the 50's and 60's, especially Runaround Sue.  Neil Sedaka was known mainly as a composer but had a hit with Walking in the Rain with The One I Love.  Andy Williams had his own television show, which introduced the Osmonds to the United States and had a big hit  with Moon River.  For many years Dick Clark would introduce a new song and then ask a couple from the audience to rate the song, which gave rise to the quote, "I'll give it a 98, it has a good beat and is easy to dance to". The Dovells have gone from a quartet to a duo and have even performed with President Bill Clinton.

Christmas Pack #12

 I bought this pack just before Christmas and put it into my box o'cards.  I like that I started the pack with a Padres cards even though he is still in his high school uniform. Xavier Edwards was an early draft pick in 2018.  Nolan Gorman was the 19th overall pick in 2018 and he is a third baseman in the Cardinals system.  Brayan Hernandez I couldn't find any information, but it is a numbered relic card, 27/399. The other cards are Matt Cronin and Ethan Hankins (Cleveland).

Christmas Pack #11

This is the second of Sterling Country Gold, Martina McBride was the first card of the pack and therefor the cover of the pack.  I have heard of 5 of the people featured on these cards and actually met one of them at K Mart.  Martina McBride has been a country music superstar, since about 1992 when these cards came out.  Rick Vincent recorded one album and now writes for others. James House has recorded several albums but doesn't seem to have achieved superstardom or even stardom.  Six Shooter is made up of Ronnie McDowells family members who were all between 14 and 18, they were supposed to be country's answer to the New Kids on the Block.  Alan Jackson is responsible for the anthem It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. Glen Campbell is known for more hits than I have space to list, he passed away in August of 2017 and had been a member of the Wrecking Crew and the Beach Boys before becoming a country music Superstar.  Chris Ledoux was an actual cowboy, who performed contry music.  He won titles in rodeo events and wrote music about his experiences on the rodeo circuit.  He passed away in 2005.  I met him at a KMart near us when he was signing autographs.  Cathy & Charlie were talk show host on CMT, I have heard of Charlie Chase, but not Cathy whose last name is never given. 

Christmas Packs #10

Okay, today the formatting is not cooperating at all.  Todays
pack is 2018 Sportkings.  I like the look of these cards.  I got 3 Hall of Famers and two guys that take part in activities that many don't really consider sports.  Jim Palmer, Steve Largent and Walter Payton are all enshrined in their respective Halls of Fame.  Kevin Vandam was named BASS Angler of the Year.  Brian Shaw is 6'8" and weighs 420 lbs.  He had 10 straight years as Strongest Man of the Year.  I am considering building this set. 

Christmas Packs #9

 I binge watched the first season of Stranger Things one day while my wife went and visited some family members.  I really enjoyed it, but I haven't seen the second season yet.  I picked up a blaster at Target, just to see what it was like.  I got a commemorative patch card from the Hawkins National Lab. 

My Collecting Goals, 2019 and reviewing 2018 Goals

Last year for the first time I set myself some goals for my collection so it is time to revisit them and set some goals for this year.

1.  My first goal was to get 99 unsigned copies of the 1988 Fleer Tim Flannery card.  Done.  I also wanted to get 11 signed copies, which I changed to nine. FAIL  I have six signed copies and have been in contact with Flan, he has agreed to sign three more for me.  

2.  I wanted to collect a non sports set from the 1950's.  I chose the 1954 Bowman Naval Victories, since I and my father are Navy veterans.  Done.  I went beyond this goal and also finished the 1956 Topps Flags of the World set.  It was interesting to see what flags had changed since 1956 and there were a few countries that no longer exist.  

3.  I wanted to get to 1,100 Padrographs.  Done.  I ended the year with 1,116 Padrographs.  The last card of the year was received from eBay on 12/26, it was a Bowman Draft Pick card of Ryan Weather.

4.  I wanted to support the Padres to an 80 win season.  FAIL.  I tried every way I knew how but it was not to be as the Friars only won 66 games.

5.  I needed to decide what 50's  non sport set to collect in 2019.  Done.  I have decided and that will show up as goal #2 for 2019.

GOALS FOR 2019.

1.  I would like to collect 99 copies of the Bip Roberts sombrero card from 1996 Score.  I would also like to get 9 different autographed cards of Bip with the Padres.

2.  I have decided to work first on the 1952 Topps Presidents of the United States set.  It is a 36 card set, even though at that point there were only 32 Presidents.  Then I will begin work on the 1950 Topps Freedom's War set.  It is 203 cards, but I will not be trying to get the 6 die cut tank cards. The cards are a weird size 2 1/16* 2 5/8, so I will have to find some odd size sheets.  

3.  I would like to get to 1,150 Padrographs.  I have been making customs for players who never had a Padres card and sending them out.  I have gotten a few back, hopefully I will get more back this season and all the guys from 2018 who didn't sign will sign something so I can include them.   

4.  I would like the Padres to win at least 90 games on their way to winning the World Series in 2020.

5.  I would like to update the website so that I have all the cards I have signed on the website.  That may take longer than a year.

6.  I would like to make a set of the Tri City Dust Devils this year and get it signed by the majority of the players.  

7.  I would to proofread every post before it goes up.  I have reread too many of my post that don't make sense because I have left out words.  

Christmas Packs #8

Included in the Christmas stuff was a pack of Night Owls favorite set, ProSet Music SuperStars.  I remember this set from when I worked at Baseball Cards and More from 1990-1995.  Opening the pack with 10 cards, mostly people I have heard of  but a couple I hadn't:

• Led Zeppelin-if you haven't heard of them, you have been living under a rock or are excessively young.
• The late Great B.B. King-played great blues guitar and played with U2, Eric Clapton and The Louisiana Gator Boys
• The London Quireboys-now known as just the Quireboys, charted with Hey You (still don't recognize them)
• Doro-is the former lead singer of the German Heavy Metal Band Warlock.  
• Excel-is a spreadsheet.  It is a also a crossover thrash band from Venice, California.
• Janet -Miss Jackson if you're nasty.  Younger sister of Michael Jackson, she has a good career.  I got two different cards of her.  
• Bruce Hornsby-was around for awhile and had a big hit with The Way it Is.  Bruce is a great performer who plays all kinds of style and has played with a wide variety of people in a lot of genres.
• Madonna-has reinvented herself many times and seems to be on the way to doing it again with her 14th album, scheduled to be released in 2019, which will be infused with Portugese fado music.  
• Steve Miller-The Joker, The Midnight Toker, The Space Cowboy he talks of the Pompateus of Love.  Steve Miller started out playing the blues, moved to pop and has moved back to the blues.  

I have owned music by five of the acts in the pack and still listen to several of them.  

Christmas Packs, Day 7

In 1993 Sterling Country Gold Cards issued a second series of cards.  Every pack of the cards will look different as the front of the pack is clear so you can see what the top card is.  In this pack it is one of the New Faces of Country, John Michael Montgomery, he had a big hit with the Grundy County Auction.  From upper right we start with Bocephaus, Hank Williams, Jr.  son of a country music legend and father of Hank Williams, III.  He had a big hit with All My Rowdy Friends are Coming Over Tonight and he had the theme song for Monday Night Football.  Mark Chesnutt had eight number one hits between 1990 and 2002. Don Edwards, is in the Western Music Hall of Fame.  The Bellamy Brothers are actual brothers who have had a number one hit with Let Your Love Flow in 1976.  Robert Ellis Orral is a  singer, writer and producer who is also indie rocker with the band, Monkey Bowl.  Sons of the San Joaquin are two brothers and a son.  Greg Holland and Radney Foster never became stars although they are still recording.

Christmas Packs, Day 6

 Another day, another Non Sports Pack.  This one is from 1993 and features acts that performed (or lip synced) on American Bandstand.  Hosted by the eternal teenager Dick Clark.  He passed away at the age of eighty three in 2012, but you can watch Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve tonight on your local ABC station.  The pack featured seven performers and a Dick Clark through the years card.  Of the seven performers I had heard of six of them and listened to music by them.  Johnny Maestro, was the lead singer for Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge, best known for their performance of Jimmy Webb's The Worst that Could Happen.  Nicolette Larson is best known for her cover of Neil Young's Lotta Love.  She became a country star and had several hits in that genre. 
Teddy Pendergrass, rose to fame as the lead singer of Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes before embarking on a solo career.  He was paralyzed in a near fatal car crash, but continued to record for several years. James Brown, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business and The Godfather of Soul had a storied career as a solo artist.  He recorded so many great songs, including I'm Black and I'm Proud.  Paul Revere, dropped his last name (Dick) when he became an entertainer.  He ran several restaurants in Idaho, when he went to pick up hamburger buns at the local bakery he met Mark Lindsay, who went on to become the lead singer of the Raiders.  B.J. Thomas, is probably best known for Raindrops Keep Fallin on My Head. from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  He had a long Contemporary Christian Music Career.  Marie Osmond, the only Osmond sister, half of Donny and Marie.  Now best known as a weight loss spokesperson.  I had a crush on her for many years, (I may still).  Out of all the performers in this pack only two are still alive.  The seventy six year old B.J. Thomas and the fifty nine year old Marie Osmond. 

Christmas Pack, Day 5

I had picked up a box of 1988 Fleer baseball so I could see how many copies of the Tim Flannery surfboard.  I have opened the first pack.  I got three Hall of Famers, Ozzie Smith, Ryne Sandberg, and Kirby Puckett.  I really like the Kent Tekulve card. 

Christmas Cards, Day 4

 I took all the packs out of the boxes and put it in to this box.  The packs are all spread out throughout the box.  I bought a blaster of Gallery at Target before Christmas.  The first pack from the box is the four exclusive Artist Proof Parallels.  I wonder whom I will get in my pack.  Andrew McCutchen, Shohei Ohtani, Freddy Freeman and Aaron Nola.  I have at least heard of all of the players in the pack.  I will be using all the cards that I open a for a contest after they are all open.  Watch for details coming eventually.

Today's pack, ROCKCARDS

I picked up some cheap boxes from the 1990's before Christmas to give  myself.  One of them was ROCKCARDS from 1992.  It seems to be mostly hair bands from that time, although in this pack I noticed one older rockstar.  It is a 288 card set, with a art card and a contest entry card in each pack.  No chance of winning anything since the contest got over in 1992.  Onto the cards

The wrappers are holographic foil, so right away you know these are ROCKCARDS.
















Each pack has a contest entry card, the card also includes an offer for a poster and something else, one is a dollar and the other is three fifty.  This art card looks like something that was album art for a band with some kind of devil angle in it.

 These were the bands I had heard of and a few that I listened to at the time (and one I still do).  Bon Jovi, Poison, Winger, Megadeth, Winger.  This pack also has an elder statesman of rock in it, it features Rick Wright of Pink Floyd fame.















These were the bands I had not heard of, but after reading on Wikipedia here is what I know.

• Exodus, have been around since 1985 and last released an album in 2014.  They have been have multiple lineups and only have one member who has been on every album.
• The Sisters of Mercy took their name from an cut on Leonard Cohen's first album.  They have been around since 1980 and last produced an album in 1990.
• Testament has been around since 1983 and has shared a lead singer with Exodus.  They are a thrash metal band from Berkeley, California who are still making albums, with one released in 2016.
• Junkyard formed in Los Angeles in 1987 and is still making music having released an album in 2017 and will be performing tomorrow, December 29, here in Portland. 

 This is the back of one of the individual cards.  Chris Gates is one of the members of Junkyard.

One thing I like about this set is it is giving me the chance to expand my musical horizons.  I will be exploring some new music in the coming months.

No duplicates so far, hopefully I will be able to make a complete set.

 For some reason I gave myself a pack of football cards.  It started off with a card of my favorite quarterback Russell Wilson.  There are several names that I recognize from my youth. 

 I got a goodly number of packs for Christmas so I have decided to open one per day.  Today's pack is 1981 Fleer, the first year back for a brand from the sixties.  It was a pleasure to see that the first card was a Padre, Dennis Kinney.  Lots of very familiar names to a sixty one year old baseball fan.  This is a pack from before parallels, inserts and such.  It was from time when I was not actively in the hobby, this may be the first pack of 1981 Fleer I have ordered. 

Merry Cardmass

 I got a few boxes and packs for Christmas today.  I still have a few more coming in the mail.  I have a question for you all.  Should I rip them all at once or parcel them out over the year.   I will leave it up to you.  That box on the front right corner of the table is a box of 2018 Gallery.  There are packs I have never heard of and packs that I am looking forward to opening.