And Stay Outta Woolworths

Remember the scene in O Brother, Where Are Thou where George Clooney gets kicked out of Woolworths? Well, that's what popped in my head when I was researching these cards that were simply called "1986 Baseball Champion Superstars". It turns out these cards were available at Woolworth stores (which is why the random scene from O Brother popped in my head).

Here's the catch though, there are two different Woolworth stores. There's F.W. Woolworth's, which is the original chain of "five and dime" shops in the U.S. (which just so happens to be the store George Clooney gets kicked out of) and there's Woolworths Group which was a goods and general merchandise chain the U.K.

If you look at the bottom of the back of the box, it should hopefully give you a hint as to where the cards were distributed. Look closely and you'll see these were distributed by "Topps Ireland" and printed in Northern Ireland. So, it's entirely possible that these cards were only available in the Ireland branches of Woolworths. Like the Hills cards I've shown over the past few weeks, this is a 33-card set and features some of the top players in baseball.

I can't say I was expecting bright yellow cards to greet me when I opened the box but they did. The photos have the 1962 Topps deal going on with the lower right corner peeling up to reveal the words "super star".

For the most part, I'm seeing lots of posed photos but that's fine with me. Al Oliver looks like it's a picture from either Spring Training or batting practice. Plus, it's a short-term stop and a sunset card all in one as Al Oliver spent his final season in 1985 with the Jays.

I'm liking the variety of players that are featured so far. Yes, there are stars like Gary Carter, George Brett, and Mike Schmidt but there are also players like Al Oliver and George Foster who were on the backside of their careers.

Oh, look, two Reds ... neither of them look too happy to be included. Wille McGee also looks rather sleepy.

Last batch and it features probably my favorite card of the whole set with "Stormin" Gorman Thomas preparing to swing his shillelagh while donning a Mariners uniform. I honestly didn't know Thomas was a member of the M's but according to Baseball Reference, he clobbered 43 homers over parts of three seasons with the M's.

Also, here's what the back looks like. I like the fact it actually has stats and it's just the basics like average, HR, and RBI. That's pretty much all you need for a set like this. Much like the Hills sets, I put these in order and then put them in my oddball sets binder.

You've Got Mail #60: San Jose Fuji

It's February and yep, it's still winter. One more cold and snowy month to go until March hits and spring arrives shortly thereafter. Luckily, back around Christmas, Fuji warmed up my mailbox with a package that arrived on Christmas Eve. Yes, that's how behind on trade packages I am. Something that arrived on Christmas Eve, I'm just now getting around to posting about.

I always love it when oddballs are thrown into a trade package, especially random food issues from the early 90s. My family never really bought Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage but on the rare occasion they did, there were baseball cards to be included. Like most oddballs, the uniforms had to be airbrushed. When I got these as a kid, I always wondered how they got the team logo and name off the uniform as I always thought said player wore a generic looking uniform for a day. 

No, you're not seeing double on these 2013 Bowman Platinum cards, they're just different parallels. One is the blue sapphire version and the other is the gold version. I'm not sure which one is the actual base version as stuff like this confuses me. These are really nice cards though and I'll find room in two of my three Reds binders for these.

Retail oddballs are always a guilty pleasure of mine, especially those from defunct chains such as Woolworth. These are from the 1991 Woolworth Baseball Highlights set, a 33-card set meant to highlight the best of the prior season. Nine of the last 11 cards in this set are Reds cards that highlight their unexpected World Series win. My personal favorite is the "celebration" card in the bottom right. Some day though I'll have to go through my cards and do a defunct retail post.

Unfortunately these cards scanned like crap but they are neat inserts called "Golden Idols" from the 1995 Topps Embossed set. I never had these in my original collection but I can definitely say they are unique.

Late 90s die-cut cards! I need to find more of these, especially from this time frame as my collection is sorely lacking in cards from this period.

Despite this being a very baseball heavy package, Fuji also threw in these two Bengals relic cards. As I've mentioned before, my Bengals collecting has slowed to a crawl recently and is going to focus on mainly vintage and current and past stars this year, which means I'm going to be super selective now when buying singles. However, relic cards like this I'm definitely happy to add!

A big thanks goes out to Fuji for all these cards plus the ones I didn't show off. Since I referenced it in the post title, here's a classic song to warm up your winter blues ...