Cards I Love Part 28 - 1983 Fleer Jim Smith

We have reached the end of the month.  How did I ever make a blog post per day a few years back?  No idea at this point, but we are down to the last card for February.  The last card for the month is my first card. 

This 1983 Fleer Jim Smith was the first card in my first pack.  The six year old me loved this card.  Look at those creases and rounded corners.  If I ever sell my baseball cards, I am selling them all except this one.  It's still one of my favorites to this day. 

Back to normal blogging stuff tomorrow. 

National Baseball Card Day

I am not sure when National Baseball Card Day got started, but I had to look back a little while ago to see if I had ever posted or mentioned this day before.  I had not.  I did flip through my cards and found that I had a bunch of cards from National Trading Card Day back in 2004.  I am going to have to make a post out of those cards someday soon.

In the meantime, I decided that it would be cool to share out my first card and most recent card to celebrate National Baseball Card Day.  I have now been collecting for 33 years and have two to three hundred thousand cards.  Hard to narrow it down.

My first card....

I think I have posted pictures of this card before on this blog.  I am not quite sure of all the details on the card other than I pulled the card out of a pack of 1983 Fleer cards sometime during the fall of 1983 after my father bought me a pack of baseball cards from a convenience store in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  I didn't live there long, but I managed to pick up some packs of 1983 Fleer and Topps cards while I was there along with some old singles from the early 1980s and late 1970s from a Flea Market my brother used to get cards from on Sundays.  

I have a few boxes of cool rookie cards in my baseball card room.  It's filled with all of my iconic rookie cards.  This Jim Smith card sits right in front of my Ozzie Smith rookie card.  Jim Smith is easily the worst player in the box, but I love this card.  I even love the fact that it is crinkled and has all sorts of creases.  

My latest card...

After receiving a copy of Aledmys Diaz's Throwback Thursday rookie card in less than mint condition, I have made the decision to avoid buying directly from them for awhile.  Not going to rehash the entire incident, but lets just say that Topps Customer Service agents don't seem to really care about whether they piss off customers or not.

The incident recently forced me to find a different spot to buy a copy of a Topps Now card of the Cardinals rookie shortstop.  Sometimes different is better.  Branching out away from buying directly from Topps helped me find a seller with Topps Now cards on Ebay who is selling for less than the cards go for on their website.  At least, if you are buying single cards like I am.

This Topps Now card celebrates a walk off single Aledmys had against the Padres a few weeks back...

Definitely the route to go from now on with the Topps Now cards, or anything else that Topps sells on their website.  

1983 Fleer Jim Smith

1983 Fleer Jim Smith 

This is quite possibly the worst baseball card in my entire collection.  The condition of the card is horrendous and is compounded by the fact that it is a Jim (or Jimmy) Smith card.  I really don't know much about Jim Smith, but I do know that this was the first card that I ever pulled from a pack of cards during the summer of 1983.  

I lived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at the time and was in first grade.  My brother, three and a half years older, already had a card collection started.  My father had collected baseball cards as a kid (they got thrown away) and passed his love of baseball and baseball cards on to my brother and I.  Every week we would get a pack or two from the convenience store or grocery store.

 I didn't know too much about the game or about the players at the time.  Every week while we were driving home I would open up my packs of cards and read of the players names.  My father and brother would tell me the good cards and I would put my own two cents in over time.  I kept my eyes open for Cardinals cards and would get excited about pulling one from the pack.  Especially an Ozzie Smith or Tito Landrum.  

Over time, my collection grew and it is probably a little too big at current.  However, I would really like to thank my father for introducing me to the world of baseball cards that summer and starting my collection.  Even if it started with Jim Smith.  

I am hoping that one day my son will love baseball cards as much as I do and can enjoy building up his very own collection.  For the moment, I am putting off his collection in hopes that his early cards look a little nicer than mine.  Maybe not.  Happy Father's Day to all the dads.