Klein’s Korner: Kicking Off 2019 For The Hobby In Style – My fellow GTS columnist Kelsey Schroyer recently penned a column about the return of “junk wax” to hobby prominence. Over the years I now call these cards from the “Overproduced Era” as no one ever wants to hear their cards are junk. Since I talk on a fairly regular basis to both collectors and dealers I find that term is more politically correct than Junk Wax era.
But to me, the best aspect of these cards is the hidden secrets hiding in plain sight. The hype over the Mark Jackson Hoops card with the Menendez brothers sitting courtside showed once again two wonderful aspects of this business. The first is: some people have way too much time on their hands to look at the card backgrounds. The other, which is not directly related to that card is there is some really cool details on those cards most people never realized.
I may be the only person in the world excited to review the 1988 Donruss set on a card by card basis to see if there are text variations on the card backs. You have not truly lived until you search the COMC database to do your best to notate the Roberto Alomar back text differences. I’m actually having fun doing that and I peruse 10 cards each day (today it was cards 191-200) to check for those different printings. We know 1991 Topps had tons of interesting issues and I’m sure some of the other sets have hidden secrets. Now that’s one way to work on moving dead inventory.
I posted the story featuring Jim Kerr on his Facebook to show how much his fans appreciate his efforts in wishing them a happy birthday on Facebook. He mentioned he has missed liked two days in 10 years and is still upset at himself for missing those days. We can all strive and make a New Year’s resolution to be as attentive to our customers as he is to his listeners. This is a photo of Jim Kerr circa 1974 even before he got to New York. Truly a nice talented man and we can strive to be more like him as well.
I’m not going to bother with my New Year’s Resolutions because there is no way I can keep all of them but one can always strive to be a better person and give constructive criticism or suggestions to card companies when merited.
Two of my DFW colleagues are banding around about doing a large three day show in the DFW area. One of my jobs as a show promoter who likes to keep his shows smaller is to help them however I can and draft off any success they have. As I posted on Net 54, if their show is really good then that can only assist me. Just getting your flyers out there is a big help for all concerned.
And so you can know a little more about me: I’m also a music and radio air check fan. To me, there was nothing as cool growing up as hearing good songs sounding a little tinny on your transistor radio. So here are my three favorite songs of all time none of which were top 10 hits back in the day:
And now back to cards.
This is my favorite card of all time: It’s not a baseball card; it’s from a team I despise and features a really insignificant player except for one glorious game during the Boston Celtics run to the 1976 NBA Championship. But I was always struck by how the colors worked on this card and to be it’s my favorite card of my collecting years.
And may we all grow on the successes of the past two years and may 2019 be our best year yet!
For more from Rich Klein, follow him on Twitter @sabrgeek.
Klein’s Korner: Kicking Off 2019 For The Hobby In Style
- Klein’s Korner: The World is Not Ending - December 8, 2021
- Klein’s Korner: The Hobby is Truly the People - July 12, 2021
- Klein’s Korner: Record hobby history - April 6, 2021