Lost & Found: Beckett Samples

A few years back I found a box in my storage unit with some old Becketts in it. I consider magazines one of the main things I collect but I am terrible at keeping track of them. After I read them, I put them in a box and put them in my storage unit...generally never to be seen again, although I hope to change that in the not too distant future. Well, back in late 2017, when we upgraded to a much nicer storage unit, I found a box that was mostly old Becketts, and I took it home with the intent to re-read them again. And then, I just kind of used the top of the box for storage, not actually opening it up and looking through them or reading any of them. 

A few days ago, I reached a bit of a burnout impasse in my scanning project, (Since I got scanner #5 I have been working on scanning foils, finests and etched cards only, not editing the scans. Not a lot of fun and I hit burnout.) So, I got into the box and decided to start scanning the covers. Not only for my own collection, but also to post on the Trading Card Database, which has a magazine section. Also, those issues are a goldmine for card ads, which I also scanned. 

The box was mostly early Beckett basketball...issues #1-18, minus #4, and then another run of issues from 1995-96 era, and then some from 2002, which is probably the last time I was in the box before it went to storage. (I'm not sure if I never got issue #4 or it just never got into the box- back in the day when Beckett actually had articles worth reading I was working on collecting all of them)

There was also a small selection of Beckett Racing. Now, one thing Beckett Racing had that Beckett Basketball did not, was promo cards. Starting in 2002, and going to circa 2005, Press Pass supplied most issues of Beckett Racing with a sample card. These cards are actually quite rare and whenever I meet someone who collects, there's about an 80% chance that their first question is going to be if I have any of the Beckett Samples available. 

I thought that I had pulled them all out of the magazines when they were new...I was wrong! 

Jeff Gordon is 2002 Premium. Dale Jarrett is 2002 Eclipse 

 The fronts look just like normal base cards, but the back...that's what makes them special.

Two of the Becketts still contained the cards, and I thought to myself, they must be duplicates, which is why I didn't take them out. But I checked, and they were not! I needed both cards! Unfortunately, by being glued into the magazine with tacky rubber "glue", both cards have some slight damage. The back of the Gordon card shows some of the "cracking" that is common on these, and the Jarrett card has that AND the glue took some of the UV coating off the card. I don't care. I'm thrilled to have them, now officially part of my collection, 17 years after I originally acquired them! 

That was an awesome find, and it really makes me wonder what else is waiting to be found in my storage unit, unseen by human eyes in a decade or more...

In the end, I scanned 108 magazine covers for my collection files, and totally coincidentally, 108 card ads, which I will be working on uploading to the Cardboard History Gallery over the next few days. I am debating adding my magazine cover scans to it as well- especially the card related magazines, which are not solely Beckett.  

If anyone would like to read a Lost & Found post about the magazines themselves I could whip one up in a very short time...I'm not sure anybody would want to read it though. I may write one anyway if the spirit moves me.