Gifted: Odds and Ends Recently Acquired

The last few months I've fallen way behind not only from blogging but sorting and collecting.  However I have tried my best to remember what I've gotten and today I thought I'd show a few things I've gotten during these summer months.  First I'll start with a couple things I've bought or got for myself.

First we'll start with some SI For Kids cards.  I had a stack of three months worth to scan, but picked these out to show.  I still love the mix they have in each issue, though I do wish they would show more division two and three athletes.  As thin as the cards are now, I wouldn't even be against having a sheet for pro athletes and one for amateur athletes.  One plus I have moving stuff around is now I have room to display two posters from previous issues on the side of my file cabinet.  Right now I am showcasing Tina Charles and Justin Verlander.  It was a tough call on the Verlander because I replaced Max Scherzer.  But I didn't want two baseball poster and try to have at least one current one, so Max was folded and placed into the file cabinet.

The last few months I've tried to pare down my football collection as I've given a lot to my best friend.  Sometimes I'll get an itch and buy some cards, which is why I bought these.  I'll have more football to show in a post or two but for now, it was nice to open this pack of cards.  I'm not sure who I collect much among modern players, but it was nice pulling the Travis Kelce and former Chief Dontari Poe.  Getting a couple Eagles cards were nice too.  The rookies were pretty good too though I admit I don't know a lot about Sam Darnold.  Sony Michel I know a little bit about and hopes he has a nice career.  Besides Kelce, Marcus Mariota may end up as a PC I haven't decided yet.  If not I'm sure I'll hold on to a few, which that next football post will have a few more to show.

So with those out of the way, let's get into a few items that have been given to me recently.  My sister went on a trip with her family and while there got me a gift.  After she returned and we visited the next time she forgot but she had other stuff for me.

She saw these at a local flea market, and now I'm convinced everyone can find dime cards except me.  Oh well, these were really nice and she thought these looked different than the ones I normally collect.  They had others but she just got these.  I've always like the Golden Age cards but I haven't seen them around too much so they haven't been a priority.  For ten cents each though I would have grabbed some.

Likewise she found these and also didn't think I had many of these so she got them.  I'm not the biggest fan of Gypsy Queen but 20 cards for 75 cents is a heck of a deal.  I also would have bought these too for under a buck.  After she bought them she opened them and recognized a few names, so that means there had to be some players from the past in it, so I got a little excited.

I didn't scan all 20 cards, but I thought this was a heck of a deal.  None of these I specifically PC, but that doesn't mean I won't hold onto them.  This might be my first Don Sutton card and I've been looking for an Adrian Beltre card after he gained his 3000th hit.  Rod Carew is a Hall of Famer (yes I learned that from an Adam Sandler song), so that was nice, and I have enough Jose Canseco cards to start a PC if I decide to, which I might.  Besides the Sutton and Carew cards, my favorite card is the Brandon Belt.  I love the look of the sky in the  background, same for the Matt Cain, but not near as much.

The next time she visited she brought my original gift and I was pretty excited to say the least.

She told me they were going to the zoo in Omaha and asked if I wanted anything.  Since I knew the Royals AAA team plays in Omaha I joked to bring me back a Storm Chasers hat.  I didn't really expect one, and these days I don't wear too many hats anymore (just my Royals one and on very rare occasions my Reese's one) but I threw it out there.  After the first day she messaged me and said, I got your hat.  I was surprised.  We talked a bit about it before she left and I mentioned how I liked the Tornado logo one the best, but still while I was laying it out there I didn't expect one.

Among the many minor league teams, the Storm Chasers might have my favorite logo.  It's not because its the Royals team, even if they weren't they'd rank pretty high up there along with the Yard Goats and a couple other teams.  I've only worn it once, but it fits really nice and I can't wait to show it off more in the coming months when I go places.

A couple weeks ago I met up with my best friend and gave him a nice batch of Football cards and also some CD's I ripped and didn't want to keep and he gave me a few things too.

He told me he got this in the mail after he requested free stuff from Hunt Brothers Pizza.  He was hoping to get some coupons from them, but no dice.  So since he didn't want this he gave it to me.  I have a few others like this but not this one so that's cool.  He had another one too which he gave me.

I don't get to watch much NASCAR these days since NBC and Fox pawned a lot of the coverage off to their cable networks (I won't get started on that), but I don't remember seeing either Sadler or Harvick driving Hunt Brothers cards.  I follow Xfinity a lot more than the Monster series these days, but I still don't remember seeing it.  Last week Elliott Sadler announced he is retiring from full time racing next year and a couple days later Kasey Kahne announced the same.  It seems a lot of drivers have retired the last few years but that's what happens in sports.  Maybe its because only so few drivers are household names, but with a big cast retiring, it will be interesting to see some of the young stars make a name for themselves the next few years.  Its part of the reason I started watching Xfinity racing in the first place.  It was around the time Ricky Stenhouse was winning every week there.  Since then I've seen guys like Chase Elliott and William Byron move up to the Cup series.  If you like NASCAR and only watch the Monster series, take the chance to see some Xfinity series and if possible some of the K&N series (there are East and West series), in a few years, they'll be big names in the Cup series.

Okay, sorry for the tangent, but anyways, back to the reason we met up.  For a few months he had an item he bought for me which I told him I'd pay him back for if he every found one.  I've been wanting this item for a while and was excited once we met up.

BAH GOD IT'S JOHNNY GARGANO!  BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP!  This action figure was a Target exclusive and when it was released it was hard to find for a while.  It still might be.  I looked on Ebay and most were selling for double the price and while if I needed to I would have paid that, I still was hoping I didn't need to.

For a while I was tempted to pay a little bit more and get the Tommaso Ciampa figure too on Ebay as many sellers packaged them together.  In NXT they were a tag team before Ciampa turned on Gargano and since they've been feuding.  On Saturday as the NXT Takeover show the night before Summerslam they faced off again.  I won't spoil it for you, but I hope Gargano is called up to the main roster soon.  While on the back it says his NXT debut was June of 2015, I've been a fan for much longer, hence the reason I've wanted this action figure since I've heard about it.  I remember on Christmas Gargano posted a video on his twitter account of gifting a couple to his parents.  It was the first time he had an action figure of himself and he was able to get a couple before they were released.  I think I recently reposted that tweet.

I don't really try to get many action figures these days, unless I find them cheap, but this one I wanted since day one.  It's almost like I have watched him from his beginnings and it almost was like I wanted proof I am a fan.  He debuted in 2005, and while I can't say I watched him then, it was around 2008 or so when I first heard of him.  He was one of the top stars of a federation called Prime Wrestling Ohio, later named PRIME Wrestling, based in Cleveland, OH.  I found it one day on DirecTV on Sports Time Ohio.  PWO wasn't the greatest wrestling show, but I liked a lot of the wrestlers, guys I heard of like Jimmy Jacobs, Matt Cross, and guys who later would become more famous like Gregory Iron, Jake Crist, and more.  The ones I liked most though were ones I never heard of before, guys like Johnny Gargano, Krimson, Kirst, Benjamin Boone, and others.  It felt like an old territory days type federation as they had a nice mix of guys that you might have heard of, ones you didn't, and then some former names passing though for a few months like Rhyno, Kevin Nash, and others.  Eventually I lost the channel when I cut DirecTV, but I still followed the promotion some and followed Gargano as well.  Another wrestler who was there I loved was Portia Perez.  I loved here and followed her for many years.  Anyways, eventually PRIME went out of business and around that time Gargano was starting to make a name for himself in PWG and Evolve.  While I didn't get to see a lot of his matches, I still kept up.  I was waiting for the day I'd get to see him wrestle again on TV.  Then it was announced he signed with NXT and I knew one day I'd get to see him again.  I admit I haven't seen a lot of his NXT stuff, but I know when I get the WWE Network next time I'll make a list of stuff to watch he's been involved in.  Basically a Best of his NXT stuff.  I just hope he'll get called up to the WWE roster soon and preferably the Smackdown roster since next year it will be on Fox and I may not have the USA Network.

So when they announced an action figure of him, I knew I had to have it.  I was severely disappointed when they announced it was a Target exclusive since my closest store is 45 minutes away.  I don't like their website much either but every time I looked it up it was sold out.  So when my friend told me he got it I was happy.  I mentioned Ciampa earlier and I didn't care about getting his action figure, but if things were slightly different I probably would have jumped on that too.  As it turns out, before Ciampa made it to WWE and even before he was on Ring of Honor, I had a few chances to see him wrestle live, but I never did.  For a while he was training and wrestling for Harley Race's World League Wrestling and they made a few stops around my neck of the woods.  Well at that time almost every show was, as it was when they were based in Eldon, MO before moving to Troy, MO outside of St. Louis.  I don't regret going to the shows, but if I did go, I'd probably got his figure as well.  I've only been to one WLW show, but it was a good one where I saw Trevor Murdoch just before he was in WWE and on that night I met Mr. Race, Mick Foley and Terry Funk.  Not a bad night.  A couple weeks ago I found out WLW got a TV clearance in Mid-Missouri and in a month or so I can start watching their shows each week.  It's one of the few channels I can pick up with an antenna so I'm pretty happy.

So with that I guess I'll wrap it up.  I'm pretty happy with the gifts I've gotten lately and while I still have a lot of sorting to do on my big project, I took time to scan a bunch of stuff and have about 3 more posts to show soon, so I could be posting another one later this week including one from a fellow blogger who sent me a nice package of cards recently.  I can't wait to talk about those, but for now I'll let you be waiting in suspense.  Thanks for reading and have a great week.