Card of the Day: Rakeem Christmas 2015-16 Prizm Ruby Wave #313

Card of the Day: 2016 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Apple Pie Christmas – Alf On The Shelf Sticker #4a

1995 Fleer Christmas Trading Cards – Don’t Eat The Yellow Snowflakes

Wow!  Junk wax from the 80’s and 90’s really produced some crazy stuff.  That includes entire products dedicated to holidays like Easter and Christmas.

Fleer’s Christmas Trading Cards hit store shelves in 1995.  This isn’t a sports product with Christmas characters randomly thrown in like we see done today.  Oh no.  In fact, there are zero sports figures included in this set.  Its nothing but Christmas characters.

The entire set contains (42) cards.  Over those (42) cards, (6) themes are covered – Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, The Velveteen Rabbit, and Christmas Songs.  Its a very artistic set.  Contributing artists include Greg Hildebrandt, David Delamare, Joe Boddy, and Turl MacComble.

Have you been dying to know if there are any chase cards?  Yes there are.  One card from each theme has a Golden Memories parallel.  Looking almost exactly like the base, these parallels have the Golden Memories logo in the upper left corner on the back.  Gold snowflakes also adorn the back instead of the standard yellow ones.  I don’t think anyone enjoys yellow snowflakes.

Needless to say, this product never made it past the Premiere Edition.  Boxes, packs, and singles are readily available on the secondary market.  Unless its a small, niche set sold as an online-exclusive, Christmas products such as this traditionally don’t survive.  (36) packs of Christmas cards is just way too much.

If you’re going to make a Christmas product.  Go all-in and make it super high-end.  I want a cut signature of the actual St. Nick that lived from the year 270 A.D. to 343 A.D.  Charles Dickens cut signatures.  Redemption card for a 1st edition of A Christmas Carol.  Cut signature of Clement Clarke Moore, author of Twas the Night Before Christmas.  We could call it A Transcendent Christmas.

Card of the Day: 2019 Topps/Bowman Holiday Christmas Elf

Card of the Day: Shaquille O’Neil 1993 Arena Sports Special Christmas Card

2018 Leaf In The Game Used Sports Christmas Box Break

I absolutely love this product.  2018 Leaf In The Game Used Sports debuted during the National Sports Collectors Convention last summer.  Collectors quickly realized how loaded these boxes are, and the supply dried up significantly.  Individual box prices went from a starting point of $160 to $270 as of right now.  Sometimes a sealed box will popup on eBay with an asking price of over $300.  Very few dealers have any of this product left.  In fact, the only dealer that I can find who has any boxes left is Steel City Collectibles.  Back in August, I busted two of these boxes at the National, and they certainly didn’t disappoint.

Santa Claus found me a box.  As expected, it totally delivered.  I have yet to find a bad box of this stuff.  Highly recommended, and worth the price.

Here is what I pulled:

Relics

• Rod Carew/Tony Gwynn Reflections Relic #’ed/20
• Michael Jordan Enshrined Silver Relic #’ed/2
• John Smoltz Jumbo Patch Magenta #’ed/4
• Andruw Jones Fantastic Fabrics Patches Gold #’ed 1/1
• John Elway/Peyton Manning/Steve McNair/Dan Marino/Kurt Warner/Tom Brady/Steve Young/Joe Montana MVP 8’s Patches #’ed/20

Merry Christmas! Don’t Forget To Check Your…

Card of the Day: Maurice Christmas 1993 Fleer ProCards Danville Braves #3612

’52 Mantle Makes Cameo Appearance In Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles

Rarely do I stray away from a core group of Christmas movies during the holiday season.  Movies such as Elf, The Santa Clause, and my personal favorite, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, are classics that I tend to stop on while browsing through the channels.  When I heard that Kurt Russell was going to play Santa in the Netflix exclusive film The Christmas Chronicles, I decided to give it a shot over the weekend.

Without giving away any spoilers, I have to say Kurt Russell makes one cool, straight talking Santa.  Fans even get some classic Kurt Russell car chasing/action movie scenes.  Lets not forget a fun Star Wars reference too.  Fans seem to enjoy it, as the movie received 20 million views within the first week.

My favorite scene in the entire movie is when the reindeer get lost.  Santa walks into a nearby restaurant, and attempts to barter with people in exchange for their car.  Given that its Santa, he knows the names of everyone, and what they’ve always wanted for Christmas.  One of the customers he tries to make a trade with is named Larry.  In exchange for Larry’s Porsche, Santa offers him a “Mint condition 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card”.  Larry’s wife quickly tears the card up while saying “You’re not trading our Porsche for a baseball card.”

You can clearly tell that the card they used for this scene is a reprinted prop.  Its far from the real thing.  That’s not Mickey Mantle’s rookie card either.  Its his first Topps card, but his 1951 Bowman #253 is his actual rookie.  I have two theories as to why this choice was made.  One, I believe the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 card is much more recognizable to the general public.  You hear people refer to it as his rookie card all the time despite that not being true.  Or two, they just didn’t know any better.

I know that I sound like an internet troll pointing out these imperfections.  But I had to do it.  I find it incredibly fun to see sports cards randomly popup in films.  Its Kurt Russell as Santa.  Go watch The Christmas Chronicles.

FYI – Kurt Russell played minor league baseball until an injury ended his career in the 70’s.  He’s had some cards made for celebrity-themed products like Americana, Threads, and Celebrity Cuts.  An autographed card of him in one of his minor league uniforms would be perfect for Heritage Minor League Baseball and/or Archives.

Card of the Day: 2018 Topps Holiday Bowman Prospect Christmas Elf