A Generous trader goes Boom!

Posted by cardboard hogs on March 27, 2017

About a week ago, i received an email out of the blue from a guy wanting to send me some Redskin cards…and i was like “HAIL YEAH MAN!” So i gave the random guy my home address and waited…not really sure what to expect. This is the first time, somebody out of the blue has been so extremely generous to just offer up some cards, Redskins cards no less. I had to quickly update my lists, which as it turned out was a great step for me to…update my want lists.

Here’s the breakdown of the cards sent by Mark Zentkovich, which i received tonight.

A couple of…umm…Swell cards of some old old old school Redskins. Mr. Battles in some shiny, silky pants…or maybe they are some original Zubaz! The other sepia snap shot is of Turk Edwards on the prowl about to tackle someone while wearing a QB’s number…Jason Campbell.

The next Swell card is of Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, who would have turned 103 a couple weeks ago. Not sure what’s going on with my scanner, but this card is in great shape…not cut and jagged like the upper right shows.

The next series of cards are various team cards from Fleer. I don’t believe Fleer ever made individual player cards during their early 80’s run, just team issues. Luckily though, unlike a couple of the early 80’s Topps sets, the logos on the helmets weren’t airbrushed off.

These beauties are from the 1988 Fleer set, which if i remember correctly was the last year Fleer made team only sets…bringing back their sets in 1990. The game against Chicago was notable for me for a couple of reasons. It was the game that Darrell Green returned the punt while hurdling a defender and pulling a muscle in his rib cage. He was visible holding his side with one arm and holding the football with the other as he brought it back all the way for a touchdown, putting the Redskins up for good. The other notable memory of this game was that it was Walter Payton’s last NFL game…although i was a huge Redskins fan. My favorite non Redskins was hands down Walter Payton. His greatness was something special that i thoroughly enjoyed watching in my younger years…man i miss the 80’s.

Next run of cards are not cards, but stickers…unfortunately, they are the then defending Super Bowl champs over my ‘Skins. Also, got some foil action below.

Badass Jeff Bostic, a former Hog and a former-er Clemson Tiger. No idea who the Bill is though…sorry.

Now some Panini stickers from the year 1989. You know, back when the Redskins weren’t a dumpster fire led by the leaderless. This was quite a grouping of studs too Gary Clark, Darrell Green, Kelvin Bryant and Mark Rypien…man, i really miss the 80’s.

Not bad for something so unexpected, thank you Mark! Really appreciate the cards. I will put something together and send it off to you in a week or so. Much appreciated!

Now, for something fun. One of my favorite groups out right now is Run the Jewels, i’ve talked about them a few times here and made it out to the concert last month at the Crystal Ballroom…with the bouncy floor and all. Here are a couple photos from that show.

A new Run The Jewels video!! So many punch lines in this one too, gotta say El-P really brought it with the innuendos here, plus that poor ass bunny went boom!

Well…damn…!!??!?!!?

Posted by cardboard hogs on March 20, 2017

We have a champion in the very first ever Cardboard Hogs contest…and it was a non-contested contest. The Winner…wait for it…GAVIN!! from my current hometown of Portland, Oregon and writer/blogger of the very entertaining Baseball Card Breakdown blog. I don’t believe i have your address, so it you wouldn’t mind passing me an email i’ll get something over to you that i hope you enjoy! Not sure i’m going to make it to the show the weekend…

In case you were wondering, here are the results…along with some other stuff.

DOOR #1 – $20

Ok, brief story on this lot. This is the old guy, the new…old guy that had the vintage football. Seemed nice, very chatty…but there was something odd about him. He was a little more pushy than the other guys and was really doing a sell job on me. Normally i don’t like that and tend to wander off when i get that kind of vibe. I should have listened to my gut! When i pulled this lot of cards, i handed him the stack and said my usual “what’s my damage…?” his response was “…make me an offer!” I offered $10 thinking that was more than enough. $2 per card. In fact, i thought it was a little too high…Bill probably has all of these cards in his 7 for $5 boxes. Anyways, he LOL’d out loud and said “…the 24K gold card is $20 by itself!”. That’s the Charles Mann card. He could quite possibly be right, but card shows aren’t about getting top dollar for your cards. It’s about selling cards to collectors at negotiable prices that work for both parties. I was taken back by his counter and shockingly stared at the cards for what seemed like 2 minutes before sheepishly taking out a $20 and handing it to him. Retelling this story and reliving the moment, i’m quite upset with myself. I tend to be a fairly generous person and don’t mind getting the lesser end of the deal if i can make someone happy…but this was just a case of me getting taken advantage of…and it pissed me off…i’m still upset that i let myself accept that offer. I should have given him the cards back and walked off. I will certainly skip his table next time…if he’s there again. I can’t imagine he did much business in finding too many suckers last time.

DOOR #2 – $15

This is just some good ole’ Tom hooking me up. His table was my third stop and more than made up for the previous door…Now, Tom has a habit of overpricing his cards and then giving you a great deal on them. I think he does that so he an engage in conversation with the guys at the show. When he handed me that Jamison Crowder card with a $40 sticker, i was like nah SON! But, he smiled and said, “you know i’ll make a good deal for you.”

DOOR #3 – $25

These are a few gems from Kim. All relics or autos, most with serial numbers…and $5 more than door #1. This is why i enjoy hitting up Kim’s table. He has stuff set aside for me and i get great deals on them.

DOOR #4 – $10

So, the last door was from the military vet. This is another guy that over prices his cards with the label, but is more than happy to negotiate a deal quickly and easily. He’s the autograph guy that is more interested in moving things than keeping them. I had offered him $15 for the lot and was scrambling around for a $5 to go with my $10 and he said “…$10 is fine…” That’s how you treat a customer at a mall show i say!!

So there you have it kids. Don’t let people take advantage of you and do not hesitate to negotiate…don’t be a sucker like me!

Today is the first day of spring and my mid year birthday…tomorrow is my son’s…kinda cool that we basically share birthdays. So, in honor of none of that…here’s a video from a TEDx conference in Wisconsin by Michael Ford…very cool connection of Hip Hop and Architecture. Check it out.

Let’s Make a Deal! or not?

Posted by cardboard hogs on March 13, 2017

When i was in elementary school, my grandma would pick me up after class. Sometimes we’d head straight to the house and other times we would make a pit stop for a snack or late lunch. Her favorite spot was the Sonic in Schertz. It was one of those older drive ins, and like they still do today, they would bring the food out to your car…sometimes in roller skates! These were great times, simpler times…easier times.

My grandma was a TV freak and had to watch all of her shows. This was before she had a VCR, so we’d have to get through those burgers, fries and shakes quickly so we could get home to watch Monty Hall and Let’s make a Deal on the tele. Grandma was from England. I loved the show, not so much because of the premise of choosing some random “prize” behind doors 1, 2 or 3, but because of the wacky ass outfits the people wore. Granny enjoyed the show because she liked to go on ‘winning streaks’ of picking the right door…again, simpler times back then. If you are unaware of the show, you should definitely check it out. It’s like a three card molly scam where nobody really walks away a winner…why are they dressed like that!

So, that brings me to some cards…the last show i went to, unplanned, i stopped by a new guys table and chatted him up a bit. He seemed like a nice older guy and kinda reminded me of my grandpops. Had a similar look from what i could cobble together from my cloudy memory…it’s been 25 years since he passed. There was something about the guy that made me want to hang out. I began to sift through his cards and was pleased to see that he had some odd ball cards and a ton of vintage football stuff…mostly 49ers though. Since most of his collection was 49ers, i didn’t get too many cards but was able to pick out a few i needed for my master collection.

DOOR #1

Next stop was Tom’s table. Tom was my original go-to guy at the show…it’s been close to 8 years since i first met him. He works at Check out my Cards during the week and does the shows on the weekends. He’s really helped me through the years with filling out some Heritage set needs, plus he’s a great guy to talk to. Here’s what i picked up from his table at the last show.

DOOR #2

Next table for some Redskins cards. My new go-to guy, Kim. Kim is great. He’s always incredibly nice and friendly as well. Plus he always has way too many cards for me to sort through with incredible deals. He tends to deal more with the big hits and pricier cards but always comes through with a great deal. Here’s what i got from Kim.

DOOR #3

Last stop. Last door. The veteran Marine autograph guy. Not too sure about this dude. Seems friendly…maybe not. Has a ton of autographs from people of all walks of life. Chasing famous people for autographs isn’t really my thing, but it’s always cool to see what he has. Sometimes he has a nice new lot of cards that i can sort through…most of the time i end up passing his table without picking anything up, but today i got a few autograph cards. (i know, i know…it’s supposed to be three doors, but just roll with me on this.)

DOOR #4

Okay kids. It’s time to play LET’S MAKE A DEAL!!!

Here’s the deal, i’m going to do a bit of a game…or a contest as the kids say. The first person to correctly guess the cost of each lot will win a nice little gift pack of their favorite team from my collection. Closest to the correct answers win, along with some kind of tie breaker i guess.

Here’s a list of possible prices for each lot: $5 | $10 | $15 | $20 | $25 | $30 | $35

I’ll post the winner next Monday, March 20th…the first day of Spring…and my mid year birthday!!

Super Rookie Rypien

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 24, 2015

Mark Rypien.

The last Super Bowl winning Redskin QB.

The last.

1992.

Holy Nuts! it’s been a long time since my team was the best in the NFL. I was a junior in high school when the Redskins won their last Super Bowl. Now, i am not a junior in anything at all…nothing. I’m actually closer to Senior in a few things.

That’s all irrelevant to the fact that this lovely piece of junk wax was graded a Mint 9 by PSA. This one only set me back a couple dollars, not enough to buy a lunch with as Rypien isn’t a highly coveted player unless of course you are a Redskins sycophant.

Rypiens’ career wasn’t wonderful, but he had a couple good seasons with the Redskins and, oh yeah, he won the Super Bowl in a season where the offense was nearly unstoppable. Rypien has become quite the golfer and is somewhat of a local celebrity around the Pacific NW. It would be great to run in to him one day and thank him for making my junior year somewhat memorable.

Cedar Hills Show – The low budget version ep.IV

Posted by cardboard hogs on July 2, 2013

I’m finding that scanning cards is an arduous task. I imagine this is why so many bloggers choose to not scan that many cards or just eventually allow their blogs to fade to black. So I’m going to ride out the next couple of posts with some more cards that are sitting in my queue. As you would imagine they are all Redskin cards, so I understand if you stop reading from this point on…but you really shouldn’t bail…this is going to be a great visit. I’m feeling wordy tonight and have a ton of stuff to show.

Buckle your seat belts.

Digging through dusty old boxes gives you time to think about things. Things you could have done. Things you should be doing and most importantly, things you completely struck out on. That’s what this trifecta of young, future stars represents for me. Justin Tryon and Malcolm Kelly were products of a Cerrato draft. Those last two words are almost always followed by the following two words ‘…which sucked’. Look at those crazy eyes!

Vinny did all he could to single handedly destroy the franchise for many many years. Constantly selecting guys that should have never been drafted or shouldn’t have been drafted so high. That’s all assuming, of course that the Redskins had picks to make. Cerrato hyped Kelly up so much that he mad me believing we had the next Art Monk on the roster. Unfortunately for Kelly, he had Greg Oden knees and never really played that much…but made some nice money. Tryon was supposed to be a nice kick/punt returner and future cornerback. Neither really happened and he was eventually jettisoned to Indy. Thompson was a free agent pick up for the Redskins in 1999, never really making an impact with the team. BUT he was the homecoming King for Cedar Hill High School, so that’s a thing. He did two things I will never accomplish. Play in the NFL and be called a King by anyone, ever…

Speaking of big disappointments, Michael Westbrook. This guy and Health Shuler should have been the next great QB/WR duo, but both never really panned out. When these cards initially came out, they were probably going for $8-$10 each…now, you can pick the trifecta up for fifteen cents. Don’t let your kids ‘invest’ in cards.

This is a great trio right here. B-Mitch, Stephen Davis and Champ. Mitchell should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame already! Dude is only behind Jerry Rice in all purpose yards for a career. JERRY RICE! That’s it. Anytime you are on a list and the only guy ahead of you is Jerry Rice, you are a winner. Davis is really special…He’s from Spartanburg, SC. I have lots of family there. I should write something about him soon, very soon. Champ. This is the guy that brought Portis to DC. There was a time that I really disliked (read hated) Champ. Anytime a player begs to not play for my favorite team, they might as well be dead to me. But, being the forgiving man that I am, I have seen the light and appreciate his phenomenal career. I just wish he could have had his success with the Redskins.

The three greatest Redskin quarterbacks. Sammy, Sonny and Joe. Three photos. Three face mask bars. These guys are old school like suede pumas. Sammy Baugh was a Texan and was one of the main catalyst for the forward pass in the NFL. If money was no object, he is a guy that I would love to get some vintage stuff of…instead i’m relegated to reprints and new releases. The Sonny card is pretty fantastic. Love the colors and the determination in his eyes is priceless. Plus I love the spear helmet. The Theismann sticker is actually a duplicate, but i figured for a nickel, you couldn’t go wrong.

Mark Rypien was one of the three quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl under Joe Gibbs. He’s sort of a local guy…went to Washington State and still lives in Spokane I believe. He’s also made a few appearances in Vancouver just across the big river.

Who loves parallels. I always have to double check these things…’I know i’ve seen this card before…do I have this one or that one?’ #cardcollectorproblems

I’m losing gas here, so i’m just going to show you the goods. Coles was annoying, so glad he’s didn’t last long. LaVar was the first jersey I ever bought and Gardner goes along side Westbrook for good, but not as good as he could have been.

I love the Redskins. This is MY team. I love going through all of the old cardboard and seeing guys that had great careers. Some players have the ability to meet or exceed their talent while others fail to live up to whatever standards have been set for them. As a fan, it’s difficult to understand that these guys deal with a lot each day and sacrifice their physical health and well being to entertain us. So that said, I would personally like to apologize to Champ Bailey, Lav….Coles (sorry dude, your name is weird), Michael Westbrook, Sean Gilbert and Rod Gardner. I have said many bad things about you guys in the past and it wasn’t fair to you. You have accomplished things that I wish I could have done…and made a lot of fans happy (or pissed! Vinny!) That’s what I was really thinking about when sorting through these pieces of cardboard, not getting upset with these men in Burgundy and Gold. They are doing their best.

This was probably one of the most rambling posts about nothing I have ever done. It will get better…

One Dollar and Five Cents Pt. III: QB Carousel

Posted by cardboard hogs on May 7, 2013

I stopped by Marv’s table over the weekend to go through his nickel box of football cards and ended up buying 100 cards for a whopping $4. Thanks for the deal Marv!

As I was going through the cards, i kept pulling QB’s and thinking to myself…’what in the hell is going on here!’ I’ve seen the charts and understand the numbers of QB’s that the Redskins have had since their last Super Bowl winning QB, Mark Rypien…but DAMN! To see it through a card collector’s eyes was a little overwhelming and as a fan, quite disappointing. It’s no wonder why the Redskins have had so little success in the past 20+ seasons. I realize it doesn’t begin and end with the QB, but that’s one major part of the ‘Why’.

Here’s one group starting with Rypien. Shuler…ugghhh…and Frerotte. Gus actually had a pretty good NFL career and saw some success with the Minnesota Vikings as well as the Redskins. Just not enough to be a franchise QB

The next group included Brad Johnson. He had varying degrees of success before and after his Redskins career and nearly got the Redskins to the NFC Championship game in 1999…but not close enough. Jeff George was a freaking disaster and appeared visibly unaffected by his inability to complete a pass to one of his teammates. Todd Husak…i don’t even remember him…

Now for the really dark days. Sage Rosenfels never got a start for the Redskins and i’m not sure if he had any games played in the NFL and I don’t really care to look it up. Patrick Ramsey. The poor kid. I was really excited when the Redskins drafted him and thought he could be a franchise QB…unfortunately, the team around him, especially the O Line was terrible and he got knocked around like a punching bag which hindered his career as it would anyone. Tim Hasselbeck. The thing i know about him is that he’s one of the generalist talking heads at ESPN and his wife is quite obnoxious, although cute, but still obnoxious.

Brighter days are ahead with this next group. Brunell led the Redskins to the playoffs in 2005, well not really because he was terrible and could barely complete a pass. That team made the playoff because of the defense and the running of Clinton Portis. Insert Jason Campbell. I really, really thought he would be the guy and was extremely excited about him starting at QB. But, similar to Ramsey, he was in a very unstable environment which ended up stunting his growth. You can’t expect a guy to learn a new offense every season of his career and have any ounce of success. He has bounced around the past few years and never really gotten a fair shot a starting job. I’m hoping he can be the guy in Cleveland this year. The Browns have done a great job of rebuilding their franchise and I think he can perform better than Weeden at this point. Palmer…that’s it.

Here is a list of the men that have taken a snap from center since Mark Rypien was injured and eventually released from the Redskins in 1994.

Rich Gannon – 4 games

Cary Conklin – 2 games

Heath Shuler – 13 games

John Friesz – 4 games

Gus Frerotte – 49 games

Jeff Hostetler – 3 games

Trent Green – 14 games

Brad Johnson – 27 games

Jeff George – 7 games

Tony Banks – 14 games

Shane Matthews – 7 games

Patrick Ramsey – 24 games

Danny Wuerffel – 4 games

Tim Hasselbeck – 5 games

Mark Brunell – 33 games

Jason Campbell – 52 games

Todd Collins – 3 games

Donovan McNabb – 13 games

Rex Grossman – 16 games

John Beck – 3 games

RG3 – 15 games

Kirk Cousins – 1 game

That’s 20 QB’s that have bridged the gap between Rypien and Griffin. This hopefully makes it clear why us Redskins fans are so overly infatuated with Robert Griffin III. He’s brought some stability to a very unstable position…now, if he can stay healthy…but, if he can’t? I will take my chances with Kirk Cousins…or at least welcome a first rounder or two for Captain Kirk next season.