Niche PC 002: Playing The Name Game Football Style

Niche PC 002: Playing The Name Game Football Style

Kurt Warner

[No Niche Logo Yet]

Niche Collections | Last Niche PC Post: 001

Every once in a while I will pick up cards for the oddball section of my PC. Specifically the Niche section of the collection. I have already briefly mentioned the categories of my Niches. Should I continue with this series, as I hope I will, the Niche Collections link above gives the general briefing of my Niche categories. The "Last Niche PC Post" link will be a link to the previous "episode" post of the series.

So for this semi quick and dirty end of the year post a few days ago I decided to go with showing off a small lot of cards I got from Sportlots of one of my longtime PC football players that happens to also be a Name Niche player plus a few other cards I had of him. Even before I decided to go with the Name Niche hunting/sourcing I collected this player because he played on a fave team and also because he had an excellent career.

As the subtitle says the featured player is Kurt Warner a Quarterback who had a fantastic career in the NFL. Kurt was originally drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1994 but was released before the season began he was competing with Bret Favre, Mark Brunell, and Ty Detmer. The Next year he got his pro football career started in the Arena Football League with the Iowa Barnstormers. In Dec 1997 he signed a futures contract with the St. Louis Rams and for the 1998 season played for the NFL Europe team Amsterdam Admirals and spent the regular NFL 1998 season as the Rams 3rd String QB.

OK enough back story here are some Warner cards to show:

Now here are a few in more detail:

2012 Topps Quarterback Immortals QI-KW Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2001 Fleer Authority Football 53 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2001 Upper Deck Victory 280 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2001 Fleer Tradition 67 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2001 Topps Stadium Club 60 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2001 Topps133 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2001 Upper Deck Vintage 139 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

2000 Topps Season Opener 176 Kurt Warner St. Louis Rams

So there we have it. Oh wait The St. Louis Rams had another QB named Kirk actually Kirk this time not just the close Kurt. So here is one of the cards I have of the other Kirk Ram QB Kirk Farmer:

2003 Bowman Football 228 Kirk Farmer St. Louis Rams

Schwoooh that took some time to do with the new way to add photos to posts. Hard to do multiple photos in any sort of order or when uploading. They don't do the same thing where your uploading from the computer holds some of the photos you haven't added to the posts yet.

Introducing Maildazed From The Pazt

Maildazed From The Pazt: A NEW blog Feature

Introduction and Logo Key

Sometime in 2015 while contemplating my naval massive backlogged "to blog about sometime" queue/pile/boxes/hoard of cards I came up with an idea. Dangerous I know. I have many large lots of cards from mail-days gone by that still haven't been sorted into my collection. My collection is a bunch of small groups of sometimes related cards that should be a massive organized and well oiled trading card machine. Sometimes I have an accurate record of where, when and who they came from. Most times I have no idea. Yeah a massive lot of them have been sitting for years and years waiting to be blogged about. I know there are still some sets I'm itching to blog about and show off, but haven't gotten around to them. Some of them other bloggers have beaten me to the punch. There are also many cards that sadly will never be mentioned at all. Some of those at one time were in the "to blog about" queue but I decided to remove them from the queue. All these problems are due to this long queue line and being too damn proficient at procrastinating and letting things get out of hand. What should be a small effort is a super monumental task. Ultimately if I could just get everything completely organized THEN I could comfortably blog about stuff better. I would also feel better about trading and knowing what I had for trade. Did I mention the time it takes to scan stuff that delays things as well? Along with procrastinating on the scanning. There was also something about being organized. Whatever that is.

In the alleys and backwoods of the card forums I frequent. I have mail day threads and blogs where I post about what I got and usually from where or who and sometimes how much it cost me. The accuracy is not always detailed but generally good to OK. In 2007 shortly after joining the TCC site I started a blog there on their blog system. It started off as a place to post what I had for sale/trade, but morphed into a mail day blog. Now I am the only one who "blogs" there at all. Most people post their mail days in the specific Mail Day board there and show their scans/photos on the Show and Tell board. I seriously need to make sure all my entries from the blogging area are saved elsewhere because TCC has had some long downtime periods and since I'm the only one blogging there they might decide to close that section down sometime or the site will disappear. My saving effort is barely started with maybe two years worth of the 11 years of posts I have there.

Details of what I had gotten are pretty fuzzy for the early days. I didn't always have all the info sometimes didn't even bother mentioning how much I spent on the cards or left off the specific date received and there are way too many times I didn't keep up with the posting so I had to do a recap to catch up. Some stuff slipped through the cracks at that point. Card lots of 30 or more cards I only mentioned by number or just a selective group of maybe up to two dozen cards if I mentioned them at all. I've had to do recaps in recent months also. Those recaps are often from a couple of months of slacking time. There is usually enough info to scrap together an almost interesting post about a small or sometimes large lot of cards. I can also just show the dang cards which is what I usually end up doing with no story

Often when I mention my mail days elsewhere I clearly remember doing so and telling the tale of that particular card, set, or lot of cards. Then when thinking of something to post for this my regular blog I think "Well I've already talked about that card" when in fact I haven't. Not here, there yes, but here NO. Thus my "Blogged But Not Blogged" feature. Many times I haven't even cataloged the card in my Zistle collection lists, [this shows how long this particular post has been in the draft queue], or my Trading Card Database list. Sadly Zistle is now owned by Beckett and in danger of being a thing of the past. For the most part I have stopped adding to it.

Sometimes I've scanned just the front of a card. In the early days the front was all I scanned. Sometimes I still only scan the front if I think I won't talk about that card in great detail or it is part of a huge set that I can only show off a few cards of at any one time. Then when I look to add a scan somewhere I see the card and think that all is well with this blogiverse when it obviously is not. So I am often very wrong and I'm doomed. Doomed I Say! It's Hopeless! We're Doomed!

I often wonder if I should attempt yet another blog and make it exclusively mail day info? Hmm? I only have 11 years worth of TCC blogging to copy/transfer over. Seems like 100 or 1,000 though. The problem with that is eventually the mail day blog would become another blog that I would have to make at least one post per month on. I already have 3 blogs with that self appointed task. Some months I barely get something up.

OK enough background exposition talk lets get on with the showing off of cards. Heck since this is the first one of these let me just do the dang Logo Key: Some of the links below the thumbnails of the cards lead to a post on my Curly W Cards blog.

OK so this is the original colored scan logo I had intended to use.

As you can see in three of the corners there is part of an envelope or package those are for the background. I have since recycled them so I'm not sure who they would have come from. I made this logo shortly before or at the time I got the idea to identify the cards in these logos I put on my blogs. At the time some of those cards I had just gotten in the mail but the majority of the cards shown here are from a pazt maildaze from a checkoutmycards (often referred to only as COMC) order of 44 cards. Technically it was my second order from there, but my first order ever from there was wiped from their database when they redid their website a few years back (after being sued by the Big B). Some cards there still only have partial information. I plan on detailing the 44 card order in this feature sometime. It should be one of the in process posts in my draft queue. I have only ordered from COMC 4 times. Actually only "shipped" 4 times I currently have 7 cards I have bought in the last year that are in the "to be shipped" area of my dashboard there. I would order more often but you have to add rickin' frickin' money to your membership "store credit" account kitty.

ROW 1:

1976 Sugar Daddy Sports World (Series 2): FOOTBALL: 4 Sonny Jurgensen Redskins

1956 Topps Baseball: 49 Pedro Ramos RC Nationals

1959 Topps Baseball: 74 Directing The Power: Jim Lemon, Cookie Lavagetto, Roy Sievers Senators

1959 Topps Baseball: 465 Baseball Thrills: Sievers Sets Homer Mark Roy Sievers Senators

ROW 2:

1962 Topps Baseball: 88 Ralph Houk MGR Yankees (Yogi Berra in background)

1969 Topps Baseball: 650 Ted Williams MGR Senators

1967 Topps Baseball: 348 Tug McGraw Mets

1965 Topps Baseball:  574 Roy Sievers Senators

1955 Topps Baseball:  48 Bob Kennedy Orioles

1955 Topps Baseball: 13 Fred Marsh Orioles

ROW 3:

1968 Topps Baseball Game Insert: (Back) 9 Brooks Robinson Orioles

1972 Topps Baseball: Traded: 754 Frank Robinson Dodgers 

1973 Topps Baseball: 30 Tug McGraw Mets

1973 O-Pee-Chee Baseball: (Back) 30 Tug McGraw Mets

I am working on posts for my COMC orders so those will most likely be the next few "MFTP" posts. My last COMC order was 2 years ago. I have a huge watch list over there and about 7 purchased cards waiting to be shipped. I want to make a huge dent in purchasing my watch list before having any more cards shipped.

Niche PC 001: Some Tennis Lovin

Niche PC 001:

Some Tennis Lovin'

[No Niche Logo Yet]

When I was a kid I used to pronounce the word niche as "Nitch" since I had never seen the word written and had only heard a mispronunciation of the word.  I associated it with a similar word "Nook" as in a book nook. Personally I think the nitch mispronunciation sounds better for the physical divots when referring to the word's noun usage as a "shallow recess" like a nook. When referring to the adjective use of the word's "small specialized appeal" the real pronunciation of "neeesh" is preferred especially with trading card PCs. OH maybe it was being pronounced as "niissh" and I heard a T.

When it comes to collecting cards there are many collectors who have niche sub-collections in their PC, or they may concentrate only on their niche. There are as many niche categories as there are collectors. Just as there are team collectors and player collectors there are odd ball collectors, perhaps that is the biggest type of "niche" collection? There are collectors who niche collect their local college, or their college Alma mater, players from their hometown or state, players from a specific country, players with the same first name, last name, birthday, birth month, birth year. Cards that show their sport's championship trophy, players chewing bubble gum (or chewing tobacco), players not wearing a cap or uniform, players in a different sport uniform, Baseball players with a gigantic glove, Baseball players with two or more bats, players holding a ball, Well you get the idea.

For many years I didn't have what I would call any niche PCs. Sure I PC'd my homie DC and Baltimore teams and many many too many players I liked. For the most part I still collect those same players and a bunch more. I have always been into some of the "odd ball" cards of various kinds. It wasn't until recent years after seeing several bloggers talk about their niche PCs that got me into the more obscure or finer detailed niche collections. I forget who the first blogger was that coined the "niche" category but at first I thought some of the categories were very silly even some of the categories I now collect myself. At one time I tried to niche PC players from the general DC area (including Maryland and Virginia Suburbs) but that is too large a scope for a niche PC, I now limit the local "homie" players (from my home area) mostly to those who attended The University of Maryland or are originally from Silver Spring Specifically.

Other than My Homie Teams (DC and Baltimore teams) and Players I PC my niche collections include: My birthday 04 April, Players from the University of Maryland (preferably in a Terps Uniform), mascots, players with similar names to myself both first and last name. Sometimes it opens the scope of the niche up a bit too much. It also opens up my collection to other sports and more odd ball things.

So this post is labeled as the first episode of a series of "Niche PC" cards.

The FIRST card for this post I got from Sportlots from an auction in their "other cards" section since it is of a sport that is not in the Big Four of Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball. As it is a Tennis card, yes Tennis I'm not into that sport (even though I love the women's short short short skirts) but this is a niche card so specific sport be damned.

This tennis star has my first name incorporated into her last name. Jessica Kirkland.. So it falls into the Kirk Name Niche Collection.

2013 Leaf Ace Authentic Grand Slam Tennis: Autograph: BA-JK1 Jessica Kirkland

I got the card for the opening bid of 25¢ + $3.39 shipping. It was one of three packages or PWEs that arrived on my Birthday (04 April). This particular PWE or rather PYE (Yellow/Mustard/Gold instead of plain white) came from Ontario, Canada with a cute little stamp.

On a side note I do find Miss Kirkland attractive. Now now maybe its just the little white short skirt. Since starting the draft for this post I have added another Jessica Kirkland card to my Name Niche PC

2007 Ace Authentic On The Line: Autograph: OT-8 Jessica Kirkland RC

This one came from Ebay for $5.99 Free Shipping on the First of May. Not from Canada but from the Other Washington, Washington State. From Shoreline to be more specific (Approx 9 miles North of Downtown Seattle according to Wikipedia). Believe it or not the sticker is silver/chrome not lime green as it appears due to the reflective scanning. I'm not sure if my scanner has the ability to adjust light refraction, it might, I haven't really bothered changing many of the settings for fear of putting my ancient Epson Flatbed Scanner permanently out of alignment.

Man those Tennis card makers sure do love those silver/chrome stickers for the autographs. Of course I prefer real ON-CARD Autographs, but for the card makers the sticker-autos are more efficient. Topps and the other big boys mostly use clear stickers now, the silver ones are more often for higher end products. The On-Sticker Autographs or Stickergraphs as one blogger calls them. I forget who coined that one, or was it Labelgraphs?

As I said this is the first of a new post series that may or may not have any additional posts. I like the idea of a series of niche PC cards. My first draft of this post I had titled it "Name Niche PC 001: Some Tennis Lovin'" but that would mean I would have to start some other Niche PC series: Birthday Niche, U o MD Niche and maybe a few others. 

A Collection Acquisition

Recently I acquired a collection of cards from some friends. The cards were the collection of their son, who is about 20 years younger than I am (somewhere between 18-22 years younger. He is late 20s). I understand that it might be just some of the collection, but it seems like they found most or all of the collection. If there were, there wouldn't be much more. I feel a little bad about it because the son doesn't know his old card collection is now gone from their basement unless they have since told him about it. He moved out from their home a few years back didn't take it then and is now married. I think the wife wouldn't allow the collection in their home if she even knew about it. She is a strange one.

As expected the collection is mostly early 1990s mixed card companies/sets. The height of the "Junk Wax" years. It is pretty much from 1992 to 1995 maybe a 1996 card or two. The bulk of the collection is in a card sorting/storage box that has two rows of five sections for cards (like this one, or rather exactly this one), the bottom of the box has finger holes at each section so you can push the cards from underneath to take the stack out of the box.

There were also three binders/albums. One was baseball cards sorted by team mostly (if not all) just 1993 Topps, the order seems random maybe it is by favorite team at the time, or standings order. Another binder is football then baseball cards sorted by player, apparently in some sort of favorites order. The last binder is Mostly football sorted by team, again maybe in favorite team order, and then a page or two of multi-sport.

In the box it is mostly cards I don't collect much of - Basketball. Then there is some football and baseball plus about a dozen Sports Illustrated For Kids multi-sport cards, which of curse come from the magazine (some were separated well, others, not so well). There are some non-sport cards which include: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marvel Comics/X-Men, Pacific Desert Shield (looks like he had gotten a couple of packs and those packs were exact duplicates), and some cards I NEVER EVER NEVER in a Zillion years wanted to ever own New Kids On The Block (only about 5 so maybe he just got a pack to see what they were like). Gee maybe I should chase that set? /sarcasm.

Water damaged cards and TMNT stickers/puzzles (sticker removed)

Some of the Ninja Turtle cards were the puzzle backs from the stickers with the stickers removed. Unfortunately there were also a few water damaged cards in the bunch. The dad admitted he one time spilled water on the box or the box was exposed to a washing machine flood or some such accident involving liquid. More likely he spilled some beer. Some of them will be OK for filler cards. There were some I tried to save that were stuck together but of course when separated they ripped and tore, so I might just recycle those few. OH why couldn't it have been the NKOTB cards?

I've only done some minor sorting by sport and a basic overview and orienting them the same way. Some of them I will add to my PC, others I might try to sell or trade, maybe give away. The Non-sport cards are still mixed up, not separated. I am in the process of sorting the Basketball eventually into team lots. Right now I have them somewhat sorted by card maker then year. I will put what I have up for trade on my Trade Stuff page.

I am surprised by the basketball ones I plan on keeping, because other than the Bullets, I will be keeping some Team Logo cards from 1994/95 Hoops. That year they made team cards for all the teams with the Team Logo on the front in front of a colorful background with a team related trivia question on back, they also made an NBA Logo card that had the answers to the trivia questions on its back.

These are the Team Logo Cards I need from 1994/95 Hoops Basketball:

395 Cleveland Cavaliers
403 LA Lakers
404 Miami Heat
405 Milwaukee Bucks
407 New Jersey Nets
414 San Antonio Spurs
417 Washington Bullets

Man it is fun going through this stuff. I don't mind going through medium sized collections like this and would like to get more of this type of thing from time to time, preferably ones that are older and mostly baseball with little or no basketball. Maybe some older non-sport collections that have NO NKOTB, or Magic The Gathering/Pokemon type games.

Some Favorite Hi-End Cut Sigs

One of the relatively recent trends in the trading card world has been "cut signatures". I'm not sure which company started this madness or how long it has really been going on but basically what the card companies do is take an autograph of a sports (or entertainment) personality, cut it from it's original source be it a check, letter, autograph book or in some stupid cases an older trading card; and they encase it into, or paste it on a card. Many of these cards are also of very limited numbers. Some are 1/1 while others are serial numbered to something else sometimes the uniform number if a sports player.

When I first saw these types of things I hated them, and I still hate the idea of taking an older card cutting it and putting the signature on another card seems sort of stupid and redundant. Plus those signatures on a previous photo look really bad. I don't have any examples of cut sigs from a card in my collection to show so I'll have to borrow some examples from the internet.

Wow here is actually an example of a good cut sig from a card. If all of them were were like this Red Grange (probably from some sort of retro Hall of Fame card, or possibly a promo photo) I would have no problems.

 Photo from http://www.canadacardworldblog.com/2010/09/product-preview-2010-leaf-limited-football/

But alas most of the cut sigs from cards are terrible like this example from a Tucker Frederickson card from a 1969 Topps card #15.

 

Photo from http://sportscardinfo.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/cut-signatures-and-cardboard-irony/

I will do my best to avoid getting any of these terrible poorly cut ones like the Frederickson. I have been fortunate that so far I haven't gotten any bad ones but I have gotten some really good cut signature cards and all of them were from group box breaks. 

The following cards are part of my PC (Private Collection) and will most likely never be sold during my lifetime. The first two are 2007 Leaf Limited - Limited Cuts, The third one is a 2009 Limited - Limited Cuts. The Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch signature is from some sort of index card or autograph book, it might be from a black and white card or picture eek I don't know for sure. The Clark Shaughnessy autograph appears to be from a check as is obviously the Sammy Baugh auto. These are my three fave cut autos I've got. I think they are the only ones I've got right now, wait I might have a baseball signature lost in my collection that I haven't yet scanned.

 2007 Leaf Limited - Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch

2007 Leaf Limited - Clark Shaughnessy

2009 Limited - Sammy Baugh