Unknown in the 80s

Collecting prior to this whole internet experience was more localized. I know you could send away for cards, but you relied on getting packs in grocery stores, convenient stores, and drug stores. Not to mention actual card stores. We had a good few that we frequented where I great up in Northern Virginia, and we also traded with card collecting friends. I am fairly certain we went to a card show or two, then, too. But I cannot remember if I got anything from them.

I had the oddball Darryl Strawberry here and there. Again, don't know how I got them. And I'm not even really sure which ones I did have, and which ones I've gotten since. Recordkeeping in that respect isn't something to which I make any effort. I think all I care about now is what I have and what I don't have.

Those basic boring Broder-like cards are easy to know about because of places online like TCDb. I'm not sure if the full universe of them is known or not, but I recently went on a small mission to acquire some of the ones that were missing from my collection. I've spent much of this year, I think, not getting Darryl Strawberry cards and in the second half of it, I am hoping to continuing to add to this collection. 

But what I can say for the collection on TCDb is that it's incomplete. I wrote previous about the 7 cards that they don't acknowledge as cards. Fair, at least one of them is a pin. But I still don't understand or agree with their reasoning. And they recently booted off an 8th card. It's not in my collection any longer on that site, though the set (1986 Scott Cunningham) is apparently still listed though it says removed. Um, if it's removed why is it still showing? It's weird. It makes so sense, and the Admin is mostly useless and horrific at explaining themselves.

Anyway, here are a few of those basic cards that I recently got that I had no clue existed in the 1980s. These from the Great Year of 1988...

I actually really like these card overall. They harks back to a time when the cards were so overly produced (and by this I mean graphics). The card was the card and the picture the picture. Most cards at the time had borders, but seeing the whole image is just, well nice. I scoff now when I see Topps' "True Photo Variation" cards going for a pretty penny. And judging from the look on Strawberry's face in the third and last card here, I dare say he agrees. 

Thanks for stopping by!