The Collector: Free Stuff Friday

Last weekend I was at my mom's house in Connecticut, for the first time since February. Since then Mom has informed us that she's moving out of the house that she moved into when I was 18 months old - which would be the spring of 1982. Mom can't climb up and down stairs any more because her back and knees are beyond repair. She'll be 78 in September - which is when she plans to move into her new first floor apartment on the other side of town.

I was asked to help her clean out the attic crawl space, but I had so much fun up there that I just did it all myself. By the time I was done more than four hours had passed, and I swear it only felt like two. The attic was my sports card and memorabilia room, before I moved out and my nephews moved in. While the room itself was a mixed bag of my stuff (which is still there) and my nephews', the stuff in the crawl space was all mine. Or so I thought.

The big thing that had to come out was my brother's old weight bench. I remember pushing that thing around the room as a kid; we must have stuffed it in the "hole" at some point. Once that was unbolted and discarded I pushed everything within reach to the mouth of the crawl space. I sat on the floor and sorted through the pile of sports cards that had been sitting in there for over 25 years. The newest cards were from 1993-94. I wasn't expecting to find anything older than 1986 - the year I started collecting - forgetting that even in the pre-internet days I was able to acquire older cards than the current year. Duh.

The attic room is always hot, especially in summer. I had a bottle of water nearby and an open window ten feet from where I was working. I was sweating and dirty and I couldn't have been happier. Some of the things in that crawl space were a tad embarrassing, but most of them brought back great memories.

I uncovered things that had been buried in there for so long I'd never seen them before. My sister's toy horse collection was strewn about the crawl space. Larger horses were in one box, and glass/porcelain miniatures wrapped in newspaper were buried in the fiberglass. My mom was not going to look past the wooden bars, but I didn't want to leave anything behind. There were some cards and books sticking out of the fiberglass fields, too.

Along the inside wall I found more of my mom's books, at least six boxes worth. I'd barricaded myself inside at one point and called for someone to help move them out of my way. No one heard me, so I pushed them out myself. One of them was an old World Book volume that I wanted to take home (I loved encyclopedias as a kid and I miss them) but I was too concerned with the sports stuff and forgot to bring it. Oh, and I found this:

As soon as I saw it I laughed out loud. Mom, were these my diapers? I'm not sure what a box would cost today but these were $6.99. My sister (who has grandkids now) saw this and joked that Mom should have stocked up on Pampers at that price.

Anyway.. you're not here to see 40 year-old diaper boxes, am I right? You're here for cards. We'll get there.

Among the reading material I found were some record store ads. One was from 1992, when I first started purchasing CDs, watching MTV every day, and checking the Billboard chart whenever I was in a music store.

The funny thing about this particular top 40 chart is that my boss gave me the nickname "Chris cross" when I started working there - and then asked me if I knew who Kris Kross was.

Yep, I knew. He even played "Jump" at full blast one Friday afternoon. We all had a good laugh. He still calls me "Chris cross" sometimes.

This is not mine. Queen released Hot Space in May of 1982, so this flyer has been sitting in the attic for about as long as that diaper box.

Here's a magazine from 1981 with a boy playing baseball on the cover (remember when kids played baseball?) I skimmed through it and found a Quebec tourism ad, which I found funny considering the cover headline of "America, America!"

This was also published in 1981. Apparently I acquired it at a library bookmobile some years later. Take a look at these rankings, it's kind of a time capsule within a time capsule:

Please excuse my scribbles. I scribbled on pretty much everything back then.

I could go on and on about the things I found in the crawl space, and perhaps I will discuss them further in a separate post. But I've made you read enough for now unless you scrolled through just to see the free cards - if so, shame on you! :P

About half of the time spent "cleaning the crawl space" was actually spent sorting through the hundreds of cards scattered on the floor. 90% of them were damaged; I only kept about 30 cards for my own collection. Most of these were overproduction-era singles that weren't worth saving considering their condition. I brought home the rest, in case any of my readers could use some of them.

None of these "time capsule cards" are in near mint-mint condition, but they are free for the claiming. All I ask is that your comment includes more than just your claim (and limit 9 cards per customer, please.) Since I'm giving away cards that would have ended up in the garbage I'll do my best to throw in some more modern cards, in better condition.

Let's start with some oddball items. Here's the Iron Man and Stan The Man:

Along with these Starting Lineup cards I found three figures and the backer board of another figure.

I remember buying the Rite Aid boxed set but had no recollection of the Fleer sets until I found the empty Award winners box in the crawl space.

Griffey is one of five Collect-a-books I found. The others were Robin Yount (keeper), Jeff George (damaged, one page had scotch tape across it), Joe Dumars, and Charles Oakley.