That's not something that happens often and I just discovered one while scanning.
In this card, from 1995 Finish Line, Mark Martin is wearing a 1994 Action Packed Badge of Honor of Ernie Irvan.
I suspect this photo was taken in late 1994. Mark and Ernie were good friends (and possibly still are, I don't know) and Ernie was severely injured in an accident at Michigan International Speedway in August 1994, receiving just a 10% chance to survive.
The Action Packed Badge of Honor was a series of six pins that were available separately and also in some boxes of 1994 Action Packed Series 3.
I have only one pin from the set, which happens to be Rusty Wallace.
Mine isn't in the best shape...although I got it new, I was at max 10 years old at the time and didn't take very good care of it. I'm lucky that I even found it in my storage unit after all these years. I'm 99% sure I got it in a box of Series 3, although I can't rule out buying it single packed either. Rusty was one of my top 2 favorite drivers in 1994- with Ernie.
Ernie not only survived, he began racing again in late 1995 and even won the race at Michigan in 1996, his final career win. He would suffer a second head injury at Michigan again in 1999 and retired mid-season. I'm "friends" with him on Facebook.
I received the Mark Martin card on February 20th, 2020, but just scanned it on January 22nd, 2025. You have to pay attention to every detail when scanning and that's how I noticed the pin on Mark's jacket.
Ah, the 1990s. My favorite decade in history. Not just card history, but overall, in the entire documented human history, which goes back to roughly 5000 B.C. The 1990s are my favorite decade in all of them. And it's not because it's the decade I grew up in, either. That's more of a happy accident, really, it was just pure luck that I got to grow up during this time period. (My least favorite decade is the 1580s, in case you are wondering)
The 1990s cards are the best. It was truly the best decade, with the best designs, the best set composition, the best time to be a collector with cards everywhere. It's got so many sets I love that I could show a thousand cards in this post and not run out of favorites. But...the challenge is to show ONE favorite card of the decade. I knew it would be a card from either 1994 Action Packed or 1996-97 Ultra. In the end I went with Action Packed because for me the 90s were more about NASCAR than the NBA, although by the end of the decade card wise the NBA had pushed NASCAR by the wayside.
Is there anything more 1990s than this? The dark squares are gold foil, by the way. Normally, I hate cards where it's just a photo of the person in front of a digitally generated backdrop, but this card has so much sentimental value that it overpowers that.
1994 was my second year collecting NASCAR (started the day after Christmas 1992, but I consider 1993 my first year) and the 1994 season cards are my favorite in NASCAR history. And none top Action Packed. It's bright colorful design, the ample use of gold foil, the embossing on every card...to 10 year old me this was the greatest thing ever.
To 32 year old me, the sentiment is the same.
About the only thing that could make it better would be if I had the whole set. Yes, my all-time favorite NASCAR set is still not one I've completed. My other option for this post, 1996-97 Ultra NBA, also remains incomplete. You'd think my favorite sets in my sports would be something I would have completed long ago, but no. While I would be thrilled to complete them, it will also be a little sad, because it means that I wouldn't be able to enjoy getting any new ones any more. Of course, they both have parallels...
Sometime during 1993, I saw Ricky Rudd's showcar, which was the first time I had ever seen a NASCAR race car in person. No pictures, but I remember where it was. I'll never forget it.
I'm not sure what I've done to be on the receiving end of so much kindness, but Angus has sent me twopackages that I need to cover, and I'll combine them here into one.
The first arrived December 30th, which is unfortunate as it was a Christmas gift. It was mailed long before Christmas but the international shipping must have slowed it down.
There were a lot of highlights and even a mystery in the package.
I had no idea this card existed! I need to spend more time looking over the checklist for this set, I think. Angela and Amber Cope are twins and nieces of 1990 Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope. They have been unable to secure sponsorship so have not really been able to do much racing.
I have very few cards that feature more than one signature on the same card- I'm not sure how many exactly but I can think of less than 10 off the top of my head. Very cool!
First out of the box was a factory set of 1994 Action Packed The Champ & The Challenger, which was a 42 card set that highlighted Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon. It was an interesting changing of the guard time in NASCAR. Earnhardt won his 7th and final Cup championship in 1994, and Jeff won his first two races that year- 92 more would follow, third most all time, but even more impressive when you consider that he did it in seasons where he only had at the most 36 opportunities to race, while Richard Petty (200) and David Pearson (105) won most of theirs in seasons when there were as many as 64 races a year. The first lap Jeff ever led in Cup was the first lap I ever saw.
For some reason the half of the set focused on Jeff has always been easier to find, while the half with Dale has always been tough. Now, I've got them all! Here's some highlights.
I chose to highlight this one since it shows porta-potties in the background. That's not something I've ever seen on a card before!
This photo was taken in the 1993 Daytona 500, the first race I ever saw. Jeff led the first lap after starting 3rd. He would lead more than 25,000 laps in his career.
Dale celebrating one of his 76 career wins.
The one problem with Action Packed cards is that being embossed, they don't always show up properly in scans. as the white line on his chin are not on the actual card.
Alan Kulwicki, owner/driver of the #7 car, was killed in an airplane accident after 5 races in 1993. It was a rough year as NASCAR lost two major drivers to airplane crashes in 1993, and two on track at Daytona the first week of 1994.
Dale and Jeff together. They were actually friends in real life, Jeff looked up to Dale. Many fans of Dale Earnhardt refused to accept Jeff for some reason, but Dale himself did.
As with all Action Packed cards from 1994, the cards have rounded corners.
Next up was a complete factory set of 1991 Carms F1. This is a set I had never actually ever seen before! They did a good job with the cards, with most if not all of the drivers getting a portrait card, a car card and a helmet card. There are a couple of cards at the end of the 105 card set on F1 history and one about the company itself. The cards have a nice texture, feeling quite similar to 1992-93 Hoops or 1991 Ultra football.
Here are the three cards of Ayrton Senna, who was on top of the F1 world when he was killed on track.
I also like the fact that they did not censor the cards- note the prominent Marlboro sponsorship- unlike the majority of NASCAR sets, which are mostly scrubbed of any alcohol, tobacco or even prescription medicine sponsorships.
As near as I can tell, this is the only set ever issued by the company. A real shame as they did a good job.
The last section of the package is a bit of a mystery. It is various NBA cards, but with perforated edges. Cards from 1994-95 Fleer, Hoops and Ultra, including some inserts from Hoops. He found them in a dime box. While these cards were all knew I did have a couple others from 1994-95 Fleer and cards from other sets from 1992-93 through 1995-96 that I can't quite identify, not being sure where they are from or what makes up the checklist.
Only about a week later, I got another surprise package from Angus. This one, however, was not mailed from Canada...but from his Mom's place in Arizona! It seems he had gotten some cards he didn't want to transport back home to Canada, so instead he sent them to me! I'll take them! The majority of them are baseball and football, which I admit aren't my main sports, but I am always glad to get new sports cards and widen my horizons. However...I didn't look through the majority of the cards. I'm saving them for something special. A whole year, actually. 2018 marks my 30th anniversary collecting trading cards and my goal for that year is going to be getting at least one new card every single day of the year. It will be tough because I have so many NBA and NASCAR cards already. But I don't have a lot of hockey, baseball or football. There's a 99% chance that every card in those boxes is going to be new. So, I shall save them. It was hard not to go through them and see what was in there...but I think I have the control to do it. After all, I purchased that box of 1991 Olympic cards in 2014 and saved them until the 2016 Olympics, and I have packs in my pack stash that have been waiting since 2013...so 1 year? I can do that!
My favorite items however, were not cards.
This Bobblehead of Jason Kidd is! I had no idea these even existed.
And like he guessed, my Mom did love it! She's going to get it for display now that I've photo documented it for this post.
Also favorites are some post cards of the Suns. Angus went to a Suns game while in Arizona and these two post cards must have been sold by the team. This is the kind of thing that I know exists, but I never have any access to...or this great 70s style Gorilla sticker. Why do the Phoenix Suns have a gorilla as a mascot? No one knows. But he's been their mascot for decades. I used to have a code to play as the Gorilla on NBA Jam as well.
If I weren't such a Nets diehard this would easily have been my favorite item in the box. How could you not love this?
Some cards I did go through right away was this factory set of the first half of 1993 Action Packed Hall of Fame. First off, I had no idea there was a factory set available...and secondly, I had no idea that such a short set (84 cards) was issued in two halves! This is card #1-42, naturally. This rights a mistake I made. Back in 2010, before I committed to collecting the NBA full time again, a shop had a stack of this set quite large...probably most of the set if not all of it. And stupidly, I didn't get any, even though it was a set I was constantly chasing. Of course, by time I decided to start collecting the NBA again...the shop had gone out of business. So I was particularly frustrated with myself then. (although not as much as letting a large lot of Star company cards get away, but that's a story for another time)
Not all of these cards are new, but there are more new than not. My list of people missing from my collection is not showing anyone new in these cards, but there are some early, 50s era players who are pretty rare in my collection and I think are below 5 cards. Bob Davies, in the front on the bottom row, is one of them. According to my records this is only my second card of him, for example.
Unfortunately the overall card landscape for players before the 1980s who did not make the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list is pretty slim. Most of the players who played before the 1969-70 Topps set do not have a single card at all, and while it did get better when Topps started producing cards, since they issued small sets of usually 132 cards post NBA-ABA merger there are a lot of lesser known players without cards from the 1970s also. This set is one of the few that covers some 50s players, and quite a few of the cards are in color. It's truly a great set and I'm glad to have completed the first half of it.
I did look at at least one Football card.
What a name. I've now got a card of him, Marion Butts and Isaiah Pead, or I. Pead. If I had known there was so much sophmoric humor in football names, maybe I would have collected them more...and based on the look on his face, he knows this joke is being made even though this card was printed in 1989.
It's been a while since I had pulled off enough trades to make a Trade Recap post. In fact, I have not pulled off any trades except for the two I covered here. It's just been slow. Then, in August, I made three trades, and oddly enough they all arrived on the same day- August 6th. Go figure!
First off was a trade with Mark Z/mzentko on the Trading Card Database. I actually forgot that he didn't send me anything from the three-way trade mentioned in the linked post, but he didn't forget.
He sent me a mixture of basketball, including more from the 2012-13 Hoops Taco Bell set, and others.
10 new cards from the most recent food promo in the NBA. these are the highlights for me, as we don't eat at Taco Bell so I didn't get any when they were new.
An insert from 1996-97 is always welcome! Even if it is mirror foil, lol.
A base RC from 1999-00 Topps Chrome. I did do a box from this set but I am nowhere near complete on the set.
This is a college card, normally not a fan, but the photo is from USA Basketball (Miles didn't waste time in college) so it's good.
Several 1998-99 Finest. Oddly enough, Reggie Miller was used in the promo set, which I got when the set was new, or close to it, but I never had the base. I never liked Reggie Miller, but when you are a set collector you end up with a few hundred of him.
The highlight of this trade though was this NASCAR relic, SN07/25, of Matt Kenseth
There were other cards- quite a few others, actually- but these were the highlights (and the ones I got scanned in a timely manner AND remembered where I got them from...my memory is like a goldfish at times). Some of them need to be scanned with the other scanner or scan best with other cards from the same set, that I don't have enough of to make a full 9-card scan of yet. (either not yet in collection or not yet found if already in my collection. IE, 1994-95 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallel. He sent two or three, I have 5 now waiting to be scanned, but will hold out until I can get a full page scanned. I may break out some of the international cards from the same set, need to do them all together with others from the same set or else the light tan box on the back of the card washes out to white, but I digress)
The second trade was with Tony Burbs of Wrigley Roster Jenga, and wasn't so much a trade as mutual gifting, I sent him some cards and he sent me a thank you package. Close enough to a trade to get recapped here for me!
It was pretty much all NASCAR promos, including some of the California Highway Patrol sets from 2004, which I've long known about, but also a Tide promo that appears to be a single card set that I never knew existed!
Where in the world did this come from? Ricky scored the last win in NASCAR history for Pontiac in this car.
Although the video quality in this upload is terrible, this is one of the greatest endings in NASCAR history. At the time it was the closest finish in NASCAR history, but it's not any longer...and it was only 3 100ths of a second!
Above are one card from both of the Super Shots CHP promo sets. I don't have #CS5 from the orange set. Does it exist? The CHP promo sets were usually 5 cards, which leads me to believe the CS6 in the set might be a CS5 but misprinted. They did promo sets for several years, both of these are from 2004.
I have NO idea where these came from. I don't think they are licensed. It looks like they may have been cut from a magazine. The border is gold foil.
Note how the borders are very oddly cut. The Rusty Wallace card actually pictures Michael Waltrip's car, too!
Another one from Tony was this card of Mike Joy from 2013 Allen & Ginter. It's pretty bad that NASCAR guys get cards in BASEBALL sets but NOT NASCAR sets. I had no idea this card even existed until I opened the package!
Another card he sent is kind of surprising that I needed it. It's a card that came with a 1/64 Action diecast. As you may recall for most of the 1990s and 2000s 1/64 NASCAR was actually my #1 hobby, ahead of cards. At the time this was issued, I was getting the RCCA cars, which they put more effort into, but they didn't come with cards, so from 2002-05 I don't have most of the cards. This was one of them! This one specifically went to the Retro Rainbow car.
The final trade was was Joel Freedman, who is the subject of the linked post in the first paragraph. I mentioned in that post that we were working on trade #3, and it arrived sooner than I expected. As usual, it was chock-full of NASCAR, but this time it included some more as well- once again including my oldest card from a sport, in this case football.
This one is by far my favorite. A serially numbered Ernie Irvan parallel is a big winner in my book! A special firesuit (celebrating the 10th anniversary of Texaco/Havoline sponsoring Robert Yates Racing, worn only at Talladega-2 in 1997) makes it even better.
Another VIP Explosive parallel from 1998.
and another SN parallel, this time of Jimmy Spencer.
This one is pretty high up my list of favorites from this trade too...a promo I had no idea existed. And as far as promos go, it's highly unique as most of Action Packed's promos were just exactly like base cards with a promo stamp on the back. This one is totally unique!
He sent along some basketball inserts from 1995-96 as well, which is Always welcome as one of my career goals is to get every card issued in 1995-96 for the NBA, which was my first season. Theoretically it could be done as there are no autographs or relics to chase, which is helpful, but the Electric Gold parallels of 1995-96 Upper Deck fell at one per box or less, which is tough as it's a 360 card card set. These came from Skybox, there were some from Hoops I didn't scan yet.
Some 1994 Action Packed, one of my all time favorite sets, one card from the flagship and some from the surprisingly hard to find Champ & Challenger set, a stand alone set which focused solely on Dale Earnhardt (Champ) and Jeff Gordon (Challenger). For some reason I always had trouble hunting these down, even when they were new, and believe me, I tried. (Action Packed was my favorite back then) Also, for some reason I (again) have never been able to figure out, the Earnhardt cards are about twice as hard to find as the Jeff Gordon cards.
This is actually gold foil and black checkered flag pattern. Looks spectacular in hand, but not in the scan.
As you can see, Action Packeds don't always scan well, due to the embossed nature of the cards. I don't care.
He actually sent along one of my most wanted cards without even knowing it, because I've never told anyone it was one of my most wanted! How cool is that? Among the 5 cards sent from the 1992 Andretti Family racing set, this is the one I most wanted, because it's the only card to show this car...and it's a triple digit car, which I have always been fascinated with.
Unfortunately they went with a black and white photo. There are color photos of this car extant. It was medium metallic blue with a red stripe on the side of the roof. Note that the roof number is only 14. Back then they allowed three digit numbers (Banned in 1971, sadly) and if more than one car showed up with the same number, one of them- traditionally the lower qualifier- would usually add a 1 in front to make it a triple digit number.
Here are some Football he sent me. Of the 5 major sports football is my least favorite (too slow paced for me) but I still have more than 1000 cards of the sport. Like I've said many times I will accept any card, any sport, any time. And if they are vintage cards? Then I'm happy! (happier, anyway, as any new card makes me happy) Considering the newest one from this package is from 8 years before I was born, then they are well into the vintage range in my book.
4 from 1976 Wonder Bread. this was a promo set made by Topps and issued with Wonder Bread breads (naturally). I now have 22 of the 24 cards in the set, which is my closest set to completion not in the areas I normally collect. Cool!
Even cooler...vintage!
1963 Topps
1960 Topps
1968 Topps
1961 Topps
1959 Topps
Sorry they aren't in order. I hadn't labeled the scans yet when I uploaded them. The 1963 set is unusual in that it has non-white borders, which was pretty rare pre-1990. The 1969 Smith is an error card, in that Topps put the wrong team logo on there. (which I found out from the Database, as I am not familiar with vintage NFL logos). the corners are cut- the green is my scan backdrop- but who cares, it's my oldest football card! Before this package the oldest was from 1972, so my oldest card got bumped back by 13 years for this sport! The baseball package in the linked post only took me back 5 years, as I previously had a 1963 Topps I had rescued from a local dealer's "junk bin".
None of the cards had their "rub a coin to make a picture" rubbed, so maybe someday if I am ever given a non-cut cornered Smith I will see what the picture showed. Maybe...I don't spend money on cards I already have if I can help it, even if they are not in the greatest of shape. It darn near killed me to have to rebuy some of the cards I lost to flood last year. Maybe a little overdramatic, but I was not happy about it. I digress. Again.
========================================================================
I actually have another package to recap in this post! I recently sent a care package of 1992-93 Ultra to Ketchupman36 and he sent me a thank you package. I was happy to find somebody who wanted my stack of 1992-93 Ultra duplicates, but since he's fairly new to the hobby he's got a lot of "catching up" to do. (get it?)
He sent me along some loose cards and two packs, one of this year's Complete and one of this year's Revolution. First, the loose cards: (Well, not really loose, they were protected, but not in a pack)
Two more 1994 Action Packed led the way! I love this set, and as I've said before, possibly even earlier in this post, any day I get a new card from this set is a good day.
Yes, Todd had hair in the 1990s
Not as cool: The Loy Allen card was censored, the large Hooters wording on his uniform was removed.
Next up was 1 card each from 1996-97 Upper Deck (another favorite set of mine, but I didn't scan it yet) and 1994-95 Topps, and 3 cards from 1995-96 Topps, which of all the 1995-96 sets is the one that is the least well represented in my collection. I don't know why but they never show up in repacks, which is where I get/have gotten the majority of my collection.
1994-95 Topps #43
Bonus on being a New Jersey Net card I needed!
Great through the glass photo on this card of Clifford Robinson, #151.
The Complete pack was surprisingly good. I did two blasters and a full box of the set and I still have lots of cards to chase, but with Panini, most of the time you just keep getting the same cards in the same order out of pack after pack, but 3 of the 5 in the pack were actually new to me. The first card out was Kelly Olynyk, who I know he has mentioned being a fan of in the past....I'm not after the move he pulled on Kevin Love in the 2015 playoffs but the card was new.
The very outspoken Enes Kanter (who may soon have a new last name because his family has disowned him) was next.
The silver parallel was also one I needed, and it was Devin Harris, who somehow manages to get cards while players who play a LOT more don't.
Complete was my 2nd favorite set of the year after Hoops so getting new ones is always a pleasure.
The Revolution pack was actually my first from the set! I don't know if the set ever went to retail or not, but if it did, our local Target didn't stock it. My local card shop does box sales only so if it doesn't go to Target I don't get to open any of it, as doing boxes is a little too pricey for me these days.
I did have one Revolution card in my collection, that I purchased on COMC when I was going after at least one card from each set. Unfortunately, 4 of the 5 cards had a corner damaged, clearly the pack took a hit at some point. You can never tell with a pack sometimes. I've got more than a few that came out of the pack damaged. It's not that big a deal to me. If I ever get another copy I'll upgrade, but it's not a priority. I'm thrilled to have them anyway. They look MUCH better in person than they do in scans. The Mullin insert is die cut, which actually prevented it from getting a dinged corner.
#4
#94
#98
#139
Icons #31
And that's it for the month of August. I managed to bring in a total of 434 new cards during the month, despite the fact that my purchases are in total 5 packs (4 of 2016 Olympic set and the Allen & Ginter I profiled) and 5 singles, the rest all came from trades and my stash of unopened cards. That's a good month!
.jpg)
