Tuff Stuff - Uncut Promo Sheets

Growing up collecting cards in the early 90's and in an area without a card shop, I didn't have access to the Beckett Baseball Card Monthly magazine very often. What I did have access to was Tuff Stuff. I was just thinking the other day while driving around town how much I miss that magazine. Even back then I found myself buying more than just baseball cards so I enjoyed the opportunity to read about more than just baseball cards. The multi-sport price guide was also a nice treat. However the real treat a lot of the times were the freebies that came inside the polybagged issues. Sometimes you were treated to single cards, while other times you could find uncut sheets of promo cards. Yes, those were the good ole' days.

In the mid to late 90's when the Charlotte Hornets were fun to watch on the court, I found myself interested in basketball cards. Before you had all of these premium card sets you had NBA Hoops. Starting with the 95-96 set Skybox upped their game w/ the Hoops brand. Now I realize today these cards may seem tame or even goofy, but back then I was mesmerized.

When I see that card of Larry Johnson and the large foil time clock "counting down", all I can think of is his stupid "Dallas" play where Larry would take the ball to center court and just dribble it while time ticked away. Then with just a few seconds left he would drive to the basket. I'm sure this play led to many exciting wins at the buzzer, but for some reason I don't remember the outcome being positive. Well at least it makes for a interesting card design.

Series 2 also came with a page of perforated cards and yet another Charlotte Hornet! Man I miss watching Alonzo play in the purple and teal. Some of these card designs weren't bad, but man what were the people at Skybox thinking when they came up w/ the Gold Mine subset? Those are some seriously gaudy looking cards.

Around the same time you could find those NBA Hoops promo pages inside Tuff Stuff magazines, Fleer also teased collectors with 1995 Fleer Extra football. Never cared for the base design or any of the subsets. By today's standards these are very forgettable.

Hockey cards anyone? Nah, I didn't think so!

Seriously though, if anyone wants any of these sheets of cards I still have them intact as shown and I'd be glad to trade them away for just about any single card or a few cards from my want list.

Who else misses the days of Tuff Stuff or card magazines in general that came loaded with freebies such as promo cards?

New A&G Trade Bait

I'm ready to deal some 2015 Allen & Ginter cards...who's with me? All of the cards in this post are available for trade. Looking for base cards to complete the set, including SPs. Also working on all of the insert sets, both full size and the minis. Check out my 2015 A&G want list or just browse all my want lists if I have something you want!

Relics

10th Anniversary Buy Backs

full size inserts

Regular minis

SP minis

A&G Back minis

SP A&G Back minis

Black Bordered minis

No # mini

Hand Numbered mini

Box Break - 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter

Hobby boxes of the annual Allen & Ginter brand by Topps have not been kind to me, at least in the guaranteed hit department. Will my luck change this year?

I grabbed a hobby box of Ginter late in the game, however it was less than $90 shipped so I don't feel too bad for waiting. No Gint-A-Cuffs this year as I missed the deadline, but it was still fun opening the box. My box actually arrived while I was away on vacation at the beach, but I was able to satisfy my Ginter fix by grabbing a few rack packs from the Walmart near the campsite. In years past I had really good luck pulling retail hits from this very same Walmart. That tradition continued as I pulled two more retail (full size) relics. But more on those later...lets get to the contents of my hobby box.

Three hits are guaranteed in each hobby box and finally I got something better than just your run of the mill relics. Busty Posey buyback auto redemption! The other two I could care less for, but actually all 3 are up for grabs. Looking for Braves autos and relics.

I'm still not sure what to think about these Buyback cards. I ended up with 3, one each from 2010, 2011 and 2012. I am a sucker for the framed minis, but again all 3 of these are up for grabs.

Regular minis

Mini SP

A&G Back minis

A&G back SP

Hand numbered mini

Black Bordered minis

Mini inserts

Full size inserts

All in all I was satisfied with the contents of the box, although I was expecting to pull more mini inserts than I did. I'm again working on building the base set w/ SPs and all of the inserts. I'm not keeping any of the non-insert minis. I've already compiled my 2015 A&G Want List so if you see something in the post and want to work out a trade, please look over all of my Want Lists.

All of those other inserts, relics and duplicates that I've amassed from retail packs/blasters have also been added to my Trade List along with a lot of the cards from this post as well.

Trade Completed

You'd think it's been awhile since I was active in the trading department within the blog-o-sphere based on my lack of, but like a lot of you I'm just behind on sharing my trades.

Trying to dig out from underneath work (and get my box break post of '15 A&G and my related want lists/trade lists up) I came across a single white envelope from Jimmy Yang. It's post marked July 18th, 2015. Not quite a month since this deal was completed, but better late than never, right?

I sent Jimmy a few cards off my trade list that he wanted and in exchange he sent me 4 inserts from last year's A&G set that I still needed. I haven't actively pursued completing any of my sets I'm working on lately so it's nice to be able to mark off a few cards, even if it's only 4.

I've only been collecting the A&G brand for a few years now, but it seems as if the mini inserts had the best themes. However I really enjoyed the full size inserts last year with the Fields of Yore leading the pack. 

This year's A&G offering has some great full size inserts as well, but we'll talk about those later. For now I just wanted to publicly thank Jimmy for the trade.