Let the Digging Begin - Pt. 3

This is the final part of the shoeboxes I've been digging through. This will be all football as there was literally a ton of football cards between the two boxes. I picked out a few favorites to show here but most of the cards have already been earmarked for my ongoing "spring cleaning" donation.

There was a giant stack of 1991 Stadium Club cards, most of which were commons and sadly no Brett Favre rookie card. However, I did find a few notable names in the batch like these.

From the cool photography department, these are my favorites. Plus, how can you not love a card of a dude with one of the best football names ever in Tunch Ilkin

Here's something I didn't expect to find, an autographed card. The subject of this card is Lloyd Hill who was drafted in the sixth round of the 1994 Draft by the Chicago Bears. He never made it to the NFL proper but played a handful of seasons in the Arena Football League with the Houston Thunderbears (aka Texas Terror) and the New England Sea Wolves.

Random cards of random players. Three Hall of Famers in Biletnikoff, Bettis, and Andersen and a card of notorious draft bust Ryan Leaf. 

These were the most recent cards in the boxes. The Kurt Warner card is from the 2000 Topps football set while Kordell Stewart is from 2002 Topps. These cards remind of the giant shoebox full of football cards I bought at the community yard sales a few years back.

Whoever's cards these were must've been a fan of Vinny Testaverde as there were a bunch of his cards to be had. I remember him playing when I watch watching football games as a kid. I'm not actively collecting his cards but if I come across cards in bargain bins or finds like this, I'm apt to keep them.

The only two Bengals cards the boxes coughed up. I don't remember either one of these guys.

Here's a pair of 1991 Fleer Ultra cards. Not much to say about these really. Same design as the baseball set.

Finally, here are these cards from the 2000 Impact set. This was the only set that Impact issued and much like the Fleer Ultra cards from above, the design was the same for both the baseball and football sets. I always did kind of like these cards as I felt like the design was simple but yet fun, especially with the team colors for the borders. The photography on them was also pretty good.

That wraps up the first batch of stuff from the two shoeboxes. I've definitely found a few keepers and so far this hasn't been a complete bust like I feared. Now that those are out of the way, I can move on to this giant beat up behemoth of a banker's box:

Stay tuned, things are just getting good.

The Remainder of the Football Shoebox

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. I myself will be watching but I really don't have a dog in the fight so I'll be watching out of mere interest more than anything else. Anyway, I wanted to have a post today to mark the occasion and seeing as I had some things in the draft folder from this past summer, I though this would be as good a time as any to go through them. So, if you're really into the game and feel like watching the 187 and a half hours of pre-game hootenanny, then feel free to do so. However, if you're like me and could care less about all the pre-game talking heads, then feel free to read about these forgotten cards.

You may remember back in the spring, I purchased a giant shoebox full of football cards, mostly from the late 90s and early 00s, at the community yard sales. Chasing down people selling cards has kind of become a yearly tradition for me there and I fully intend on doing it again this year but I digress. I had been going through the box in six-team increments showing some the cards I kept for each team (click here, here, and here to read the previous installments). I fell behind on that and these have been haunting me ever since then. I'd gotten all the way through to the Oilers and finished there with the last part I posted in September, so here's the rest of everything else from the Packers all the way down to the Vikings. There will be lots of words for some teams, not a lot for others. As a matter of fact, this rather lengthy preamble is probably the most wordy portion of the whole piece.

If I had to pick an NFC team to pull for, it'd probably be the Packers. I've always liked their combination of green and yellow and their one of the most historic franchises in the NFL. The dude who collected these prior must've been a Packers fan himself as they had the most cards out of any other team. There's a good batch of everything here from mid-90s to early 00s to an Eddie Lacy card from just a few years back. The McMichael card I kept just because he's been involved with pro wrestling.

You may notice a pattern here, I've only kept cards of players I know, that's definitely the case here with these five Panthers cards, Kerry Collins and Kevin Greene being the most notable.

Ah yes, the Patriots back before Tom Brady. I kept the team card mainly because it's got the old school red Patriots uniform and logo but that's pretty much it. 

Another Kevin Greene card, forgive the horrible scan. Apparently my scanner hates these Wild Card cards. 

Not really a big fan of the Ravens but there are some pretty cool photos here.

Again, another team I don't follow closely, that being the Redskins. I kept the 1995 Fleer card mainly to use for a comparison piece I'm working on.

Ok, finally some cards I can talk about. It's really a shame that kicker cards have all but kicked the bucket recently but any card of Morten Andersen is just aces. While I'm not really an active collector of his cards, if I find one in a 10-cent bin or nickel box, I might just pick it up. Jeff Blake, however, is one player that I do actively collect, Bengals cards or not.

Probably my favorite card of this batch is the Rick Donnelly card from 1990 Topps. It was also the oldest card in the box.

A few Steelers cards and another card of former WCW star Kevin Greene. Did you know he once wrestled current WWE star The Big Show on pay-per-view in 1998?

Finally, the last of the batch in two Vikings cards. I was actually pulling for the Vikings to make it to the Super Bowl this year just so say could say they were the first team to host the Super Bowl.

So there you have it, the remainder of the cards I kept from the five dollar football shoebox. Most of what I didn't keep has already found it's way into the trade box or has been donated to Goodwill. Hope everyone enjoys the game. I know I'll probably be enjoying my homemade super deluxe chili nachos more than the game itself.