Cards from Contest Winner Timothy

Reader turned contest winner Timothy from OH contacted me late last year about working out some sort of trade. He kept in touch via the Facebook and sent me a package recently containing a bunch of Cardinals and Blazers goodies. Since he also just won the NCAA bracket contest, he will get his prize package - unopened packs and cards from his two favorite teams (Cleveland and Washington) sometime next week.

I'm always excited to post Sportflics (or Sportflix, Sportsflics... those cards with the plastic ridges that have multiple images) on this blog because I am curious about how the scans will turn out. Don't take this as a knock on Brian Jordan, but I would have scanned this even if J.D. Drew was the subject.

Upper Deck's Victory cards from this particular year (2003, I believe) look and feel a lot like playing cards. I suppose there's some sort of game on the back. It seems like companies have been trying for decades to get people to buy into baseball cards as something more than just a card for decades now, but I don't think any of these gimmicks actually last.

Matt Duff is the only player on the 2002 Cardinals Wikipedia page that does not have his own separate Wiki entry. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

Stickers! This just might be the best Ozzie Smith item I've received in the mail since I started this blog.

I don't think I've ever pulled one of these Trading Places inserts from a pack that actually contained a Cardinal, outgoing or incoming. I kind of miss this insert set.

What have I told you about Brian Jordan hitting a football? Oh, yes, that's right¹. Oddly enough, I now have Brian Jordan hitting a football in Chrome form and this Brian Jordan hitting a football with a Minted in Cooperstown² stamp on it, but I don't yet have the regular card.

Sweet. Perforated. Edmonds. Card!

Timothy also sent over a healthy chunk of Portland Trail Blazers cards as previously mentioned. I've been a Blazers fan at least as long as I have had cognitive memories and thusly there are very few players who I don't recall at all. This guy is one of them. I had to look him up on Wikipedia the night I opened this package just to figure out who he was. I even remember Nikita Morgunov and he never played a regular season minute for Portland.

Another thing I love? Collect-A-Books! This is something that should seriously be resurrected.

I'm pretty sure I already have this Drexler Collect-A-Book, possibly a few times over, but it's awesome. I didn't scan any of the inner pages, but they're equally as great if not greater. I would love it if a modern set of these were made, be it with basketball or baseball. I'd probably even considering buying some if they were made for other sports. In fact, while the rest of you are all off making your own custom cards, I should invest some quality time in making more own homebrew card/book hybrid.

Finally, Timothy was kind enough to toss in this strip of stamp-like stickers. All I can gather from these is that they have 1997 copyrights and are made by some outfit called Crown Pro. There's a good chance I'll end up trading this off at some point, but I'd love to know more about it.

Thanks again to Timothy, who had so much faith in Duke University in the face of so many others, well, hating them.

¹I don't fully understand sites like this that just repost what people post on their own blogs. At best, I suppose it serves its purpose to eventually infect people with spyware or something more sinister. At worst, well, if you click on the "Cardinals Blogs" link it quickly turns into some creepy Cards on Cards fansite.

²Baseball cards are not "minted" anywhere. That's what coins do. Cards are just, you know, printed or pressed or something.