Fight as I might, girlie cards have a way of stumbling into my collection. Last time I was searching for Shane Spencer cards and came away with a Spencer Scott auto. This time I was browsing cards on Listia and saw a Jaime Bergman auto in the featured auctions on the sidebar. I decided to go after it, and eventually ended up bringing it home. (Won it from Listia, but the seller amicably backed out and gave my credits back.. I ended up grabbing one on eBay instead.)
I gotta admit Son of the Beach was one of my favorite shows of the 90s-- (er, I mean 2000-2002, which I rounded down to the 90s.) Crude but clever, always hilarious. I might dare to lump it together with the Airplane! and Naked Gun movies, but spoofing Baywatch. And I always loved Jaime Bergman on there.. Not only super cute, but great in the role, too. And now I have her autograph!
The whole thing with the Listia auction falling through turned out to be a blessing in disguise, I suppose, since the eBay auction I eventually won several days later cost roughly the same, plus it was a lot with a few non-auto Jamie Bergman cards thrown in:
Papa likely.
Backsides.
I should find a Son of the Beach clip to link here, for the uninitiated.
That'll do.
Ok. I know I promised you two sexy autos.
Are you ready for the second sexy auto I have to share with you today??
Here it is!
LOL, that's right! It's Kent Tekulve again! Got you! You probably saw that one coming after last time.
This is another new stumbled-upon acquisition (I was searching for a cheap Big Papi auto). I picked up this beauty in a 4-card auction that also netted me a David Ortiz auto plus a Russ Springer and Greg Myers. All for $28 shipped. I've been wanting an Ortiz auto for a while, and was very happy to add a second Teke to my burgeoning We Are Fam-i-ly pseudocollection. The Springer and Myers are trade bait.
This month's box of cards from my Black Friday stockpile happens to be the first "cards of beautiful women" product I've opened. I've got a little "Girlie Card" minicollection of attractive ladies on cardboard but those were all from trades or purchases, nothing I pulled myself aside from maybe a random card from A&G or something.
I figured I'd line up this box break with Valentine's Day, since amore is in the air.. and there's nothing quite as romantic as ogling scantily-clad young women who aren't your wife, right?
Er, maybe I didn't fully think this through. LOL
(Per my usual disclaimer with these types of posts: I'm incredibly lucky to have an amazing wife whom I love the hell out of. I have nothing but the utmost respect for women. I'm big on women's rights, and have no doubt that the world would be a better place with less men in charge. I also happen to have a healthy appreciation for attractive ladies, which would be dishonest for me to deny, and that interest has spilled over into my card collection.)
Anyways, this box seemed like a good deal for just the price of a blaster.
This seems to be something of a "repack" type thing from Benchwarmer, clearing out some older inventory. In the box, you get a random hobby box from a previously-released Benchwarmer product, plus a special silver foil pack of 7 good cards.
I ripped open the silver pack first.
Ha, kiss cards are kinda funny. Sherry Goggin and Shay Lyn seem to do a lot of athletic-type modeling. I wasn't familiar with Kerri Kasem, but figured she might be related to radio legend Casey Kasem, and yep, turns out that's her dad.
Speaking of famous last names, Nikki Ziering is somebody I actually already knew of. She was married to Ian Ziering from Beverly Hills, 90210 and the Sharknado film series. Nikki has been in Playboy and a few reality shows, and I seem to remember her being a frequent guest on the Howard Stern show back in the day.
The dual auto is kinda cool. That's not the easiest font to read, but I think this pair is AJ and Laura.
Yowza! My silver pack finished strong with a couple knock-outs. Kara Monaco isn't a name I was familiar with, but she looks super cute. Turns out she was 2006 Playmate of the Year and has since done a little acting and was on Big Brother in 2012.
Cover girl Sara Underwood is looking fine with that ABA basketball. Too bad this card is just a dumb promo.. not an auto or anything interesting.. so it's weak as far as considering it a "hit". But yeah, these 2 cards are definitely both locks for my Girlie Card collection. (The rest of the above autos are available for trade, so just let me know if something caught your eye.)
Now onto the mystery hobby box...
World Cup Soccer. From 2006, I believe. Cool, whatever.
Some of my favorites. Too bad the base cards don't have names on the front.
But the names are on the back, typically along with a "backside" photo, as is usual for Benchwarmer cards. A little bio and/or vitals would have been nice, but oh well.
The Racer Girls inserts are 2 per box. Nice looking cards.
I'm not gonna try building the set, nor do I plan to hang onto cards other than the small stack of my favorites, so I've got a lot of cards headed to my tradeables box, including a dozen or so dupes. Anybody interested in letting me thin out a few of these on you? Let me know!
The hobby box promises one auto. Let's see how I did to wrap things up...
Nice! Not sure who Katarina Van Derham is, but she's very cute, so I'm happy with this auto.
So there you go. Not bad for just under $20.. 7 on-card autos and a bunch of additions to my minicollection of pretty girls. Fun to mix it up a little, but I don't plan to rip much more Benchwarmers product (though I do have another small box also from my Black Friday stockpile scheduled to rip this summer).
I've been doing a lot of ripping here in early June. In addition to my two boxes of 2017 Archives (check out that post if you missed it.. fun break), I also had a couple boxes waiting for me from my Black Friday stockpile.
I had scheduled these for June to celebrate the start of summer. (I know technically summer doesn't start till around the end of June according to the calendar nazis, but we all know summer really begins with Memorial Day.. or June 1st at the latest.)
Both these boxes combined ran me just a little over the price of a retail blaster thanks to the sale, so that works out to a lot of packs to rip at a low per-pack price. While generally there aren't gonna be much in the way of mojo hits, there's definitely a possibility to land something real nice.
First let's do the Beach Boys box. I've loved them a long time. One of the first albums I ever got as a little kid was a greatest hits cassette of the band. I think it was specifically the use of "I Get Around" in the movie Flight of a Navigator (a favorite of mine) that really sparked my interest in them. So I've grown up on their fun surfin' hits. A few years after that (high school age or so), my mom picked up Pet Sounds on CD, and that got a lot of play around our house. Eventually I dug a little deeper and discovered some great lesser known stuff like the Holland album and bootlegs from the ill-fated SMiLE recordings. Oh, and The Beach Boys' Christmas Album has been a staple in my household every Christmastime since I can remember. It's cool that they're still kinda going. That recent That's Why God Made the Radio album was actually pretty solid!
Anyways, the box promises a couple hits, but they're most likely relics. Autos are a tough pull, and are really the only thing with solid resale value, as is my understanding.
Here's a typical base card. This one is actually a parallel (gold foil surfer at the bottom), which are pretty common to pull.
These die-cut, metallic-looking inserts are pretty cool.
I also really like these inserts celebrating hit singles. You'll notice some of the inserts also have the gold foil surfer parallel.
My first hit of the box is a Bruce Johnston relic. Cool. The Etchings cards seem to be one per box, and have sort of a dufex type thing going on. I was happy with pulling this Brian Wilson.
A look at a few more inserts. (Hey gcrl, do you need that Dodger Stadium card? It's the gold surfer parallel.) And while not really an insert, I was amused to pull a stray piece of cardboard trimmings (lower right).
My other hit from the box was a good one, apparently a piece of a Hawaiian shirt worn by Mike Love.
So that was a fun box. I'll double back to the Beach Boys in a minute, but first an intermission for some pretty ladies.
Here are some of my favorites from the Benchwarmer box. I suppose I've got "PCs" going for Spencer Scott and Jaime Bergman at this point, as both have made at least a couple prior appearances on my blog.
A cool thing (gimmick) about this hobby box is that each pack came with a piece of bubble gum.. Just like the old days! kinda. I tried a piece, and I'll just say that it tasted like they had some extra silicone lying around.
A few more that caught my eye enough to go into the "keepers" pile.
Always get a kick out of the backside of the cards.
Oh hey, Michelle here is also a minicollection hit for me, sharing my birthday. Plus she's also from San Diego County.. Man, we're a good match. If my wife and I ever split up... oh wait, she says she loves traveling. I'm more of a homebody you might be able to drag onto a plane (domestic only!) maybe once a year. I guess our romance was just not meant to be.
My two promised autos were solid. I hadn't heard of Caitlin O'Connor before, but she a cutie. According to her wikipedia, she's an actress who's had small parts in a lot of stuff. Here's an error card for you: Bench Warmer misspelled her name "Caitlan" on the card.. ouch! She would have been totally justified to refuse signing those cards. But I guess she was a team player and swallowed her pride.
As for Buffy Tyler, she was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for November 2000. Nice.
So again, no low-numbered mega hits, but another fun box to rip through.
Now back to the Beach Boys. Padrographs Rod gave me an opened box of those cards in the big bag he handed me at the April card show. I held off going through them until I had ripped my box, just to keep my break fresh. Rod's box seemed to be a nearly-all-still-there hobby box break, with likely just a small handful of inserts picked out.
I was happy to find a near-complete, already-in-order base set in there, and it only took me a couple minutes to find the missing numbers to complete it. I think there are some gold foil surfer parallels mixed in, but I'm not OCD enough to be bothered by that at all.
Between the rest of the cards in Rod's box and my box, I could probably build another base set or two without much trouble. You can bet that some of these dupes will end up in the 1000+ card prize package.
Here are some more inserts from Rod's box.
But the real highlight..
Brian Wilson relic! Sweet! Barring an autograph, that's what I was hoping to pull from my box, so I was very happy to see Rod let me have this one.
Well, there you go; A bunch of boys and girls on cardboard.
Bonus Entry Opportunity: What's your favorite Beach Boys song? Maybe you have a few favorites? Let me know in the comments and you might luck into a bonus entry in my big 1000 Posts contest. Thanks!
Wes is the best. Here are cards he sent me the other day, some from his "going out in a blaze of glory" mega break and some not.
I dig this shiny Carlos Beltran auto enough to give it top billing. He's got a case for the Hall, as a formidable hitter and one of the best center fielders of the era. This card from 2005 actually features him from his brief stint in Houston in 2004, though I like it because it brings to mind his sunset season in 2017 when he returned to the Astros and capped off his career with a World Series championship.
Another Astros hit I can use.
Nice autos and/or patches for my Pride PC. Hope we see more openly gay active football and baseball players before long. These guys never had much impact on the field and are retired now, so not exactly a Jackie Robinson-like situation with either of them, but still important baby steps.
Sweet Maddog Maddux relic, and a one from Gavin Escobar too. Looks like Escobar joined the San Diego Fleet of the newly-formed Alliance of American Football. I'm hoping he has more success there than he did in the NFL. Topps is putting out AAF cards, so perhaps I'll have more cards of his to chase down (in addition to his millions of rookie year cards.)
Some nice Padres cards here, with numbered Trevors and a couple vintage stars.
I believe the jersey drawing card folds out to reveal Tony Gwynn (he's on the back), but it's sealed by a sticker.
Ooh, a 1/1 cut auto of an old school Hall of Famer. Between the featured Panini card and the unapologetically pruned Hall of Fame postcard, it's not the best looking "card" by any stretch, but I'm still very happy to have ended up with this Billy Herman from Wes' big box break extravaganza.
William Jennings Bryan Herman (July 7, 1909 – September 5, 1992) was an American second baseman and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the 1930s and 1940s. Known for his stellar defense and consistent batting, Herman still holds many National League (NL) defensive records for second basemen and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1975. [wiki]
And I didn't realize it till just now, but relevant to my hometown interests, he suited up as a coach for the Padres, 1978–79, which means I should probably PC him since I've got a stated collecting focus of HOFers who suited up for San Diego ("Pads in the Hall" minicollection), and that also includes managers/coaches as well as PCL Padres.
Here are some Cubs hits available for trade. The plate is Ryan Dempster.
Here are some Astros (and sorta an A's) hits that don't really fit my collection either.
I'm not much for horror and have never watched any American Horror Story, so perhaps someone could trade me a little something for this relic?
Note: We're about to the halfway point in this epic haul, and from here on out it's 100% ladies, so if that doesn't interest you (or you have co-workers or family members around you who might not appreciate dozens of scantily clad ladies on your screen), see ya next time!
I've always liked Selma Blair alright, so this wardrobe card was a fun surprise.
Another nice relic.
I love Jaime Bergman, best known to me as "BJ Cummings" in Son of the Beach, one of my all-time favorite silly TV shows. I actually already had this auto, so that one's up for grabs. (Actually, this signature looks a bit different than my other one, so I might hang onto it as an unofficial variation) The bikini swatch is a sweet add, though that might be the tiniest relic piece in my collection now.
Pretty girls.
That top right card wasn't accidentally shown twice, but rather it's a dupe.
Some more favorites here.
I think Wes must've tripled (or more) my collection of Benchwarmer autos with this lot.
Looking good.
Why, hello.
And it goes on.
I'm pretty much out of things to say.
Looks like one of these should have gone to the Angels slot, lol.
Jessica sort of has a Kristen Bell look.
Happy Holidays!
Seems like I'm a Scarlett Keegan supercollector thanks to all the cards of hers Wes gave me. Looking her up, she's of Irish descent and was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for September 2004.
Yet more of Scarlett Keegan!
A few of these specific cards were actually pulled by me a couple years back (the Sherry Goggin 17/25 was especially familiar), then traded to Wes back when such cards were on his wantlist. As we all know, he has since drastically narrowed down his collecting focus, and must've decided to jettison the gist of his girlie cards, and I was a lucky recipient.
Many of the cards shown in the latter half of this post are available for trading, so please don't be shy to broach me about a deal if something(s) catches your eye. (I don't need every girlie card ever made.. I try to only hang onto specific ladies that strike my fancy.)
Here's one last keeper to go out on. Michelle Baena is a woman I specifically collect somewhat thanks to her and I sharing a 12/24 birthday. Seems fitting to get her auto on a Christmas-themed card!
Wes, again, thanks so much for everything. Sad to see you stepping back from the hobby/cardsphere, but gotta follow your heart. I'll continue to keep an eye out for stuff for you, and will be forever on-call for any custom card needs you may have.
