Cavalcade of non-sports cards

Recently I twice picked up free cards, mostly from the last two years, from an Orioles fan in Brooklyn. This week, I connected with a different Orioles fan in Brooklyn who also had cards to give away. I traded him a handful of O's cards for a package that was maybe 1/4 baseball, 3/4 nonsports. Here are the nonsports. All of these are available for trade for baseball cards, maybe they fit some of your collections. Most of these are from the early 1990s.

Lots of Magic: The Gathering cards. A few came in an orange sleeve and one in a red shiny hologram sleeve.

 The oldest cards were 1977 Saturday Night Fever. Doesn't appear to be a large set; there is lots of duplication. Funny to own a card of people walking down a random street somewhere in Queens.

 A little bit of "sports" - extreme sports, WWE, and one basketball card (Dominique Wilkins).

 Two cards each from classic 90s shows Simpsons and X-Files.

Lots of Marvel . . .

  . . . some DC . . .

  . . . and even Marvel vs. DC.

 Lots of TNMT, from both the movie and the cartoon.

 A few Dinocardz.

 Gargoyles - this was a TV show?

 Lots of I Love Lucy, second largest amount of cards in the package.

 The largest amount was several hundred from The Little Mermaid.

 This was a Comic Images set of great paintings.

 A few random promo cards and single cards from random sets.

 I know some of you guys collect this stuff. Center Stage - Southwest 1992. A couple of them are gold-foil parallels. The front have a photo with mild nudity (T-and-A), the back let you know in what club you can find the lady performing. I'll hang onto them for a week if someone wants to claim them; if not they're going in the trash. I'm not offended by them but I've got little kids who don't need to stumble on these.

 Finally, some unopened packs. The Power Rangers packs include movie packs and TV packs.

Vintage backgrounds:

Going into the 1967 set now. It's a beautiful set but this is when Topps started having photo licensing issues, and they pretty much stopped shooting in big league parks for a couple of years, with just about every photo from spring training.

There are still lots of great photos, though. I love this one with Claude Osteen in another team's spring training park. I wonder if that is the Al Lang Stadium fieldhouse again? Whatever it is, it makes for an interesting, atypical baseball card background.

Wallet Card at B. Shackman

There was once a "novelty district" on Fifth Avenue, with several stores selling party favors, magic tricks, decorations, etc. As the city's retail landscape changed the novelty district disappeared. All that remains is the sign for B. Shackman, which opened in 1898 and closed in the 1990s, replaced by an Anthropologie clothing store. B. Shackman sold everything from dollhouse furniture to paper masks.

1981 Topps John Denny

The front: Simple spring training headshot.

The back: Dwight Gooden broke Denny’s record by leading the league as a 21-year-old in 1985.

The player: Denny put up some good seasons for some bad teams for the late-70s Cardinals and early-80s Indians. He finally pitched for a winning team with the Phillies in 1983 and won the Cy Young Award, going 19-6 with a 2.37 ERA. Overall in thirteen seasons he went 123-108 with a 3.59 ERA.

The man: Denny was a coach for a while but now appears to be retired.

My collection: I have 29 of his cards, from 1975 to 1987. I would be interested in trading for 1977 Hostess #42.

Wallet Card at Yankee Stadium

I went to the Yankee game today and had a great time, as the Yankees held off the Padres 5-2. The Yankees used the "opener" strategy. Chad Green started the game by striking out the side, and manager Aaron Boone took him out of the game. David Hale then gave up two runs in the second inning, making Boone look dumb, but Hale and the rest of the bullpen shut out San Diego the rest of the way, so I guess Boone was smart after all. Home runs by Clint Frazier, Brett Gardner and Gary Sanchez led the Bombers to the win.

1981 Topps Larry Harlow

The front: Candid shot at Tiger Stadium.

The back: In the Connie Mack League he played for the Four Corners Amigos of Farmington, NM.

The player: Harlow played parts of six seasons as a part-time outfielder for the Orioles and Angels. In 448 games he hit .248 with 12 HR and 72 RBI.

The man: Harlow seems to have kept a low profile during and after his baseball career.

My collection: I have eight of his cards, from 1976 to 1982. I would be interested in trading for 1983 Baseball Hobby News Las Vegas Stars #NNO.