Yesterday was another Super Bowl that didn’t include my Washington Football Team.  At times I feel like it will never happen and I should just give up, but then I think to myself…when it does happen (and it will…at some point…it’s inevitable) it will be the greatest thing ever.  That’s assuming they win, of course, and not just make it to the Super Bowl. 

I know a lot of people really HATE Tom Brady, and I can generally understand it.  I just don’t really get why people hate on greatness so much.  The guy has been to 10…TEN…Super Bowls in his 21 year career and won 7…SEVEN of them.  Just insane.  Hate all you want, but that’s Greatest of All-Time material.

Anyways.

When I rebooted the blog, my goal was to make it something more than a “look what I got today” blog.  I wanted to be able to find a twist or some other way to make this medium more entertaining or readable…but alas.  Work and life.  Life is work these days and will be for the next few weeks.  So, I’d like to apologize in advance for the dull posts.  But, hey.  Dull posts are better than no posts right?

One of my favorite guys at our monthly Portland shows wasn’t at the January show.  Normally that’s a sign that the guy had decided to give up the hobby or just fuckin died.  Well, neither of those were the case with Paul. 

Thankfully. 

I like Paul.  He’s a fascinating guy.  Every time I see him, he’s got some new kind of gadgety thing that you get from some mail order catalog.  It’s like an Inspector Gadget of card collection.  Lots of times he’s there with his kid who seems to be in on the family business.  What Paul deals in isn’t your ordinary kinda cards.  He’s a parallel man.  You know the kind; variations, colors, dots, lasers, patriotic colors, refractors, glossies, not so glossies and super slick glossies.  He’s a veritable one stop shop to get your parallel fix.  Parallel Paul.

That day, I was planning to spend cash at three tables.  Bill, Terry and Paul.  Here’s the Paul portion of the morning.

As I mentioned, Paul goes for the gusto on the parallels and all modern stuff.  I like going through his stuff because I can pick up Washington guys on the cheap.  The majority of his cards are $1.  He’s basically charging you for his cost of retail unless there is something really dynamite about the disco parallel you’re picking up.  But he’s got ‘em all.  Here’s a nice blend of Randy Moss’ kid, Thaddeus Moss.

Ya’ll remember when we used to make fun of blasters and show of a stack of cards for $20?  We’d go “…for the cost of a blaster, I got…”  Well this stack of cards (minus the baseball and relics) cost a tick under that price point.  The sad truth though, if you can find a blaster in the wild it would cost you $20…but you ain’t finding no blasters in the wild.  They’re gonna cost you at least $75 for a box of Prizm. 

I’ve watched a lot of folks rip those Prizm boxes and to be honest, if I paid more than $20 for them I’d be really really really upset.  The hits are rare and the ones you get aren’t that amazing.  I like to stand on the sidelines and wait for disgruntled box break investor flipper guy run through a bunch of Washington guys, toss ‘em to the side so I can grab them for a buck.

Like this group of disco sparkles

Prizm does a nice job of the parallels and including a wide variety of great guys from the past. I was able to pick up the Theismann from Paul today, which i hadn’t added to my collection yet. This one is green…i think…

Also picked up some laser show zippity zappity zoom prizms…stupid dad jokes man…

I was able to chat with Paul a bit.  Again, super friendly guy and incredibly helpful.  I overheard him saying most of what he rips is retail…or something like that.  Maybe there was some percentage I missed in the conversation.  The point is, he’s got the small sales from small investments dialed in quite well.  I doubt he makes a killing each show, but can imagine he’s doing far better than recouping his table and boxes cost.  Nice little income for him.

Along with the parallels paul sells, paul puts pride in presenting player worn garments…i really tried to keep that alliteration going.

There were also a few baseball cards ready to be sorted through. I took a quick pass and found a few gems, these were not included in the “…cost of a blaster…” portion of the story, they were a little more than that, but part of the PC. So, felt compelled to grab them.

Honestly, at this point i’m picking up each and every single Rickey Henderson card I can find these days. I’m never certain if he’s incredibly popular or unpopular, but the cards of his that i don’t already have are hard to find.

As always, thank you for reading and extra special thanks to those that comment to let me know your reading. I really do appreciate it. The last few weeks of work have been rough and i don’t see them getting any easier. I’m very happy that i am fully employed, but sometimes…it’s just more difficult to get motivated to something that doesn’t quite interest you.

Thank you,

Cardboard Hogs

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This video is a few years old, but really cool. Made with 100% Solar Power…take a look.