Saturday, November 9, 2019

Mattingly and 1993

It's been a while since my last post. It's been nearly two months. In the last 3 months, I've only posted three times. That will change.

Things have been busy, but things are always busy. No more excuses.

Over the past several months I've bought multiple collections off of Facebook Marketplace and Offer Up. Some have been big and some have been small. I pick out what I want to keep from each collection and then flip the rest. I guess I should say, I'm trying to flip the rest. I've had some success, but it's tough. It's fun though.

I've been lucky to get some really nice stuff in these collections, but I also really enjoy finding junk wax cards that I haven't had in my collection before.

These are some of the most iconic cards from the 1980's. I've seen these cards over and over again at cards shops, shows and on ebay but I've never pulled the trigger, so it was cool to find them and add them to my collection.


These 1984 Donruss cards have eluded me for the past 30 or so years. My first Little League team was the Yankees and so I became a Yankees fan and at the time, Don Mattingly was the biggest Yankee out there. Don Mattingly became my first favorite player. In fact, the first poster I ever had up in my room as a kid, was of Don Mattingly. It wasn't a typical poster. It was framed and about half the size of a typical poster.

A quick search on ebay and I found it. I'm tempted to buy it, but the $51.29 that they want for shipping kills the deal for me.


When I was a kid Mattingly rookies were somewhat pricey which was amplified by the fact that I was only 7, so it was a long time before I owned a Mattingly rookie card and then it was the Topps version. My favorite player changed to Ken Griffey Jr. in 1990, so I ended up selling the Topps Mattingly on ebay back in the late 1990's. Over the past few years I've been picking up various Topps sets from my birth year (1981) on and so I have the Mattingly Topps rookie as a part of the 1984 set.

This is my first Donruss Mattingly rookie card. It's way off-centered and not in the greatest shape, but I love it! Now I need to get the Fleer version.

Here's another card I added to my collection from one of the collections that I purchased. It's from 1993 Finest. Back in 1993 my card budget was meager and it was split between baseball and basketball. 1993 Finest was way out of my price range.


There were about a dozen or so 1993 Finest cards in the collection that this came from. I pulled this one and sold the rest. I can't keep everything, even if I wanted to because of space. This card makes me happy.

Another set that eluded me back in 1993 because of the cost was SP. When I was leafing through the collection prior to buying it and came across a bunch of 1993 SP cards in fancy holders, I got excited. No Jeter, but these cards look great and so I kept them. They aren't rookie cards, but I the design is cool and both Manny and Chipper look young in these early career cards.


How about you? What cards eluded you in the past that you enjoy picking up now? Have you bought any collections on Facebook Marketplace or Offer Up?

8 comments:

  1. It's funny that you mention that poster. I've been trying to hunt down this old Sports Illustrated poster of Steve Largent that I had when I was younger. A few have popped up on eBay, but I just can't justify spending that kind of money on a used poster with holes in it.

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    1. Don't know what Offer Up is... and I've never bought any collections on FB, but I have a buddy who sells tons of stuff on there.

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    2. Which poster is it? Is it the one that says "End of an Era"?

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    3. No, but I'll have to look that one up. The one I'm referring to is the standard SI posters that were sold at the mall and through magazine orders. They feature a white border with the player's name in black text at the top. Largent's poster features him making a leaping catch with a Chargers player bearing down on him.

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  2. The biggest card that eluded my youth was the 1986 Donruss Rated Rookie. I've since added a few to my collection.

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    1. The 86 Canseco Rated Rookie still eludes me to this day. One of the collections I bought recently had a huge binder of 1986 Donruss with multiples of almost every card, but the Canseco was missing.

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  3. My elusive card is the same as yours: that 1984 Donruss Mattingly. As a kid in the 1980s he was my favorite player too, but like you I couldn't afford his Donruss rookie card so I bought his Topps one at a show (in about 1989) but could never get his Donruss or Fleer rookies. He remained my favorite player right to the end of his career (I'm not a Yankees fan, but I am a Mattingly fan to this day).

    As an adult collector I added his Fleer rookie to my collection in the late 90s (found the whole set cheap), but to this day I don't have his Donruss rookie card.

    I kind of like not having it more than having it. Keeping it out there as my great white whale and imagining the thrill of owning it that I would have felt as a 12 year old is way better than what my actual 43 year old self buying it off Ebay would feel owning it!

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    1. I totally know how you feel about the Donruss card today. Remembering and imagining is usually a better feeling that the real thing.

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