My First 1 of 1! Brandon Laird Yellow Printing Plate

I have many "1 of 1s" in my sumo card collection....older cards that I am pretty sure only one card has ever survived.  However, I have never owned an actually modern-day, serial-numbered 1 of 1 until just a few days ago.  I picked up this Yellow Printing Plate of Brandon Laird's 2011 Bowman Chrome card.  In fact, I have never owned a printing plate either so I have killed two birds with the proverbial stone.  Now the challenge will be to find the other three (3) colors.  Wish me luck!  Thanks for stopping by!

Sept Sumo Wrestling Tournament Winner - Congrats to Yokozuna Hakuho!

Yokozuna Hakuho is in beast mode and showed no signs that his 33-year old body is slowing down in this latest tournament....his 41st Tournament victory (next closest is the legendary Taiho with 32 and Chiyonofuji with 31)!  Arguably, his opponents haven't been up to par lately, but that argument is getting old now that he is also getting older and still performing like a Yokozuna should when he is healthy.  When he retires, it will be a big deal and I imagine he is going to try and get a few more tournament wins to seal his place in the history books, as if he really needs anymore to do that, though.  Love him or hate him, he is an amazing wrestler and almost unstoppable.  Here are his three (3) 2018 BBM cards that have been printed so far.  Congratulations Hakuho!

2018 Irish Cul Heroes Camogie and Gaelic Football Cards

While in Ireland a few months ago, I picked up some packs of these 2018 Irish Cul Heroes Camogie and Gaelic Football cards.  I had never heard of either sport so it was fun to learn about them and watch a few matches on YouTube.  If you click on the links above you can see some examples for yourself.  These cards are produced by Cul Heroes Ltd and come 7 cards per pack with a mix of both Camogie and Gaelic Football players.  Each pack consists of 1 foil card and 6 base cards with 603 total cards in the set.  Needless to say, I don't recognize anyone of the stars, but the cards are interesting and appear to be marketed toward kids.  The fronts have a matte/glossy mixed finish which gives it pretty neat texture.  It looks like kids could engage in some sort of game with the cards.  The can has the team logo and name.  Overall the cards are very vivid with a lot of geometric patterns.

Along the way, I also picked up the trading card folder which included 2 free packs and collectors tin with 50 cards, three of which are the short-printed foil cards.

There you have it.  Anyone else ever seen these types of cards?

The frilled-necked lizard has Japanese trading cards!

Weird title for a post, huh?  Crazy enough, it is a true statement.....what???!!!!!  In the 1970s and into the early 1980s, anything and almost everything was slapped onto Japanese mini cards and pumped out to the child consumer.  The great Yamakatsu company captured the frilled-necked lizard (えりまきとかげ）of Australia as the subject of one of its sets.  Crazy.  Oddly enough, all the packaging shows these lizards in bowties trying to give them a human-like quality.  The cards themselves are just pictures of the lizards, though, so no strangeness there, but is there?  However, why frilled-necked lizards for a subject?  Well the answer turns out to be a Japanese game show called WakuWaku Dobutsu Land（わくわく動物ランドLand）....or roughly Thrilling Animal Land aired by the Japanese TBS network.  The premise behind the game show is a clip of an animal was shown then stopped.  Celebrity contestants then guessed what was going to happen next and the clip resumed.  Correct guesses were added up and the winnings went to an animal charity of choice.  It turns out the Frilled-Neck Lizard episode was an early and popular episode so they used that as the basis for this mini card set to promote the game show.  Sounds crazy, but the game show was so popular that it was adopted in the US by ABC with Alan Thicke as the show host and was aired under the name "Animal Crack Ups".  I gathered most of my info from Wikipedia and by no means an expert, but it was definitely fun to research.

Here are three of the mini cards that were in the set along with the packaging.  As with most mini card sets, there were random winner cards included in the packs.  In this case, the lucky winner would win a box of 5-10 extra cards of the frilled-necked lizard.

Airport Trading Card Update - 90% complete!

This set is a beast and I am not sure that anyone in the United States or Canada has actually complete the master set of all 83 of these cards.  I just surpassed the 90% complete mark with 75 of the 83 cards with the tough-to-find AVL-001 Asheville Regional Airport card along with the two recently issued LAX cards.

There is no known complete master checklist of the 83 cards expect for the ones I am tracking below.  In fact, the Airport Trading Card website only lists about 80%-90% of the participating airports so the website is only of limited help.  Good news, though.  The 3rd Series of the cards will be released at the 2018 Annual conference in a few weeks so maybe we'll see some website updates!  Hopefully these will be accessible at the airport or via eBay soon!

21D-001	Lake Elmo Airport (Minnesota)
AGC-001	Allegheny County Airport (Pennsylvania)
ANE-001	Anoka County-Blaine Airport (Minnesota)
ATL-001	Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport 2014 (Georgia)
ATL-002	Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport 2015 (Georgia)
AUS-001	Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (Texas)
AVL-001	Asheville Regional Airport (North Carolina)
BNA-001	Nashville International Airport (Tennessee)
BOS-001	Boston Logan International Airport (Massachusetts)
BTR-001	Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (Louisiana)
CLE-001	Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (Ohio)
CLT-001	Charlotte Douglas International Airport (North Carolina)
CMH-001	Port Columbus International Airport (Ohio)
CVG-001	Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (Ohio)
DAL-001	Dallas Love Field Airport (Texas)
DTW-001	Detroit Metropolitan Airport (Detroit)
ELM-001	Elmira-Corning Regional Airport (New York)
ELP-001	El Paso International Airport (Texas)
ELP-002	El Paso International Airport 2014 (Texas)
FAI-001	Fairbanks International Airport (Alaska)
FCM-001	Flying Cloud Airport (Minnesota)
FLL-001	Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport (Florida)
GSO-001	Piedmont Triad International Airport 2014 (North Carolina)
GSO-002	Piedmont Triad International Airport 2016 (North Carolina)
GSP-001	Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (South Carolina)
HOU-001	William P. Hobby Airport (Texas)
IAH-001	George Bush Intercontinental Airport (Texas)
IND-001	Indianapolis International Airport (Indiana)
JAX-001	Jacksonville International Airport 2014 (Florida)
JAX-002	Jacksonville International Airport 2015 (Florida)
LAX-001	Los Angeles International Airport (California)
LAX-002	Los Angeles International Airport (California)
LCK-001	Rickenbacker International Airport (Ohio)
LEX-001	Blue Grass Airport (Kentucky)
LGB-001	Long Beach Airport (California)
LVN-001	Airlake Airport (Minnesota)
MCO-001	Orlando International Airport (Florida)
MDW-001	Chicago Midway International Airport 2015 (Illinois)
MDW-002	Chicago Midway International Airport 2017 (Illinois)
MEM-001	Memphis International Airport (Tennessee)
MHT-001	Manchester–Boston Regional Airport (New Hampshire)
MIC-001	Crystal Airport (Minnesota)
MKE-001	General Mitchell International Airport (Wisconsin)
MSN-001	Dane County Regional Airport (Wisconsin)
MSP-001	Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport 2014 (Minnesota)
MSP-002	Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport 2015 (Minnesota)
MSP-003	Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport 2017 (Minnesota)
ORD-001	Chicago O’Hare International Airport 2015 (Illinois)
ORD-002	Chicago O’Hare International Airport 2017 (Illinois)
PHX-001	Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (Arizona)
PIT-001	Pittsburgh International Airport (Pennsylvania)
RDU-001	Raleigh-Durham International Airport (North Carolina)
RSW-001	Southwest Florida International Airport (Florida)
SAN-001	San Diego International Airport 2014 (California)
SAN-001	San Diego International Airport 2015 (California)
SAT-001	San Antonio International Airport (Texas)
SAV-001	Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport 2014 (Georgia)
SAV-002	Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport 2015 (Georgia)
SJC-001	Mineta San José International Airport (California)
SLC-001	Salt Lake City International Airport (Utah)
SNA-001	John Wayne Airport (California)
SPI-001	Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (Illinois)
SRQ-001	Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (Florida)
SSF-001	Stinson Municipal Airport (Texas)
STL-001	Lambert-St. Louis International Airport 2014 (Missouri)
STL-002	Lambert-St. Louis International Airport 2015 (Missouri)
STP-001	St. Paul Downtown Airport (Minnesota)
TPA-001	Tampa International Airport (Florida)
TZR-001	Bolton Field Airport (Ohio)
VQQ-001	Cecil Airport (Florida)
YEG-001	Edmonton International Airport (Alberta)
YLW-001	Kelowna International Airport (British Columbia)
YMM-001	Fort McMurray International Airport (Alberta)
YOW-001	Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport 2014 (Ontario)
YOW-002	Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport 2015 (Ontario)
YOW-003	Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (Ontario)
YQR-001	Regina International Airport (Saskatchewan)
YTZ-001	Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (Toronto)
YWG-001	Winnipeg Richardson International Airport (Manitoba)
YXS-001	Prince George International Airport (British Columbia)
YYC-001	Calgary International Airport (Calgary)
YYT-001	St. John's International Airport (Newfoundland)
YYZ-001	Toronto Pearson International Airport (Ontario)

Fuji's Mountain of Japanese Goodness!

I think Fuji has pushed me to the Brandon Laird supercollector status with a recent care package from San Jose.  Totally unexpected, but much appreciated, was a care package packed with Brandon Laird cards, autos, serial-numbered goodness, and unique Japanese "odd-ball" inserts.  Thanks for the care package.  Readers, send a shout out to Fuji to let him know he is definitely one of the most generous bloggers out there.

For those that aren't following Brandon, he is currently playing with the Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan after a few short stints with the Yankees.  Here is a huge 8" x 10" auto photograph of Brandon signed in 2009 when he was playing in the New York Yankees minor league system that Fuji sent.

Next up are some base and serial-numbered cards of Brandon from his 2009 and 2011 playing days with the Yankees.  Apparently Bowman believed that his 2011 Bowman Chrome card was also his "1st Bowman Chrome Card" in addition to his 2009 Chrome card.  Raz won the contest I had a few weeks ago to see if anyone could find the 2011 error.  This lot of great cards I need and are some really beauties!

Fuji didn't stop there.   He included three Laird autos as well as some cool insets from 2017 Upper Deck Map relics, and 2003 Topps Currency collection.  The 2017 UD card has an piece of map as well as the great Fuji...of the mountain type that is.  The 2003 Topps has an actual 1 yen coin imbedded in the card.  

Thanks again Fuji!!!!! 

German Flea Market Finds #4: 1990s Telephone Cards from around the World

Germany has been good to me with random flea market finds and this one in particular had me very intrigued.  Back in the early 1990s, telephone card collecting was all the rage across the world.  If you read old U.S. Tuff Stuff magazines from this time, they had more and more telephone cards in advertisements and in the news.  In Japan, the telephone card was insane with some cards going for thousands of $US.  Europe was not immune to the craze and numerous countries issued cards in hopes of enticing collectors.  Sadly, my son has no idea of the struggles to make a phone call from a pay phone when he is out with his friends....anyway, I ran across this German album at one of the local flea markets that was designed just for telephone card collecting.  The front has "Telefonkarten - Merkator Hamburg and inside are 5 plastic pages that hold 40 telephone cards from around the world during this insane collecting time.  There are German, Singapore, Irish, Gibraltar, Japanese, British, French, and other ones I can't figure out.  I grabbed a few select ones here to show, but I am really digging these and am hoping I can find more when I am out and about.  I mean, who doesn't love some early 1990s Hulk Hogan and Bill Clinton cards??!!

Did anyone else ever collect phone cards growing up?