For a stick of 26-year-old gum, this piece looks to be in pretty good shape. A thin film of gum dust covers the surface, enough so that for the half hour following the pack's opening, my fingers glistened with a white powdery substance, making it look as if I were A) Working as a crust tosser in a pizzeria; or B) Slinging rock on the side (Well...at least more rock that I usually sling.)
I've never opened a pack of cards older than I am. This still holds true, but I'm cutting it closer than ever before. These cards turned out to be in beautiful shape. The backs of the cards are crystal clear and provide a lot of great minor league stats. The whole prominent batting average and ERA thing is a bit annoying and unnecessary, but is still a valiant attempt in a debut set. Now that their only competition wasn't PAL, Charms, and Swell anymore, Fleer really did a nice job.
Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom:
445 Al Holland
64 Alan Ashby
294 Bruce Sutter (Posing with a bat. Lovely.)
165 Charlie Lea
450 Johnnie LeMaster
66 Denny Walling
299 Dick Tidrow
363 Willie Stargell
255 Doyle Alexander
638 Carl Yastrzemski -- "400 Home Run Club"
259 Charlie Spikes
125 Rick Sutcliffe
324 Mike Jorgensen
4 Bob Boone
482 Dan Schatzeder
Grade: A
Without giving too much away, this pack was full of real characters, enough for a mini-tournament on my personal blog, which will probably start to run later this week. Three Hall of Famers and a lot of great poses made for a pretty cool pack that didn't disappoint me in the least.
I'd also like to give a shout out to Chris Harris, whose comments on the Pac-Man posting on Thorzul Will Rule prompted me to re-watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas tonight. The shennanagins of Hunter S. Thompson and his associate Dr. Gonzo and their philosophy of willfully-ingest-anything-and-everything inspired me to ignore all of the earlier advice, not to mention my better judgment, and attempt to chew this piece of gum.
Verdict: This can no longer be considered gum. The speed with which it crumbled in my mouth was simply staggering. If you don't happen to have a pack of 1981 Topps available, you too can still manage to duplicate this incredible feat.
Step 1: Acquire a piece of chalk.
Step 2: Insert into mouth.
Step 3: Chew.
Step 4: Run to bathroom sink and clear entire contents of mouth into said sink.
"Is this not a reasonable place to blog?" --Hunter S. Thorzul
I keep telling you guys, DON'T CHEW THE GUM. But noooooo, no one listens to me. Dayf's just the crazy guy buying cheezy Target boxes and 120 year old cards so why listen to him? What does he know? You suckers will be spitting out fossilized gum granules for weeks and dayf will simply laugh and laugh.
ReplyDeleteScrew you gum chewing fools, I'm going to watch The Big Lebowski while I wait for Fear and Loathing to show up from my netflix list.
The dayf abides.
Chewing 26 year old gum... Wow. That'd dedication. Only discovered your site yesterday and marveled at the 18 year old gum, but you just topped that considerably.
ReplyDeleteThose are some seriously uneven borders.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, there's a huge mosaic of a 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle, using the 1953 set, right here:
http://mattinglymosaic.com/Mantle_1953_Topps.html
I once tried a stick of gum from 1981 Fleer or Topps... back in around 1990 and it was nasty as **** so I can't imagine what it would be like right now
ReplyDeleteThe only way to eat gum that old is the same way I used to eat when it was new - break it up and stick the bits into an apple. Each bite of apple will be something not completely unlike a candy apple...
ReplyDelete