there used to be a chain of stores in the twin cities called shinders. it started a long time ago as a newspaper stand, but by the time i arrived in minny, they were also a card/comic/video/collectibles store. there was one outlet in downtown st. paul, and i stopped in one day after a job interview. this was in 1999, and fleer had released the first greats of the game set in conjunction with sports illustrated. i knew a bit about the set but not too much (this was a few months before i discovered ebay) and decided to treat myself to a pack.
of course, i was hoping for a big name autograph with my pack-guaranteed signed card, but found this inside instead:
gentleman jim lonborg. it was no hank aaron, but i was not disappointed, and i'll tell you why. you see, my first pack-pulled autograph was of a player who was also the subject of my very first player collection.
a close friend of the family grew up with lonborg, and pointed this out while visiting our home twenty years earlier and seeing my pile of 1979 topps cards. this was the first time i think i realized that these men on cardboard rectangles were just people who grew up and went to school and had friends, but also had a skill such that they could play a game for a living. i immediately felt a connection to lonborg, and so i pulled a double of both his 1978 and 1979 cards from my collection and set them aside. i later collected his entire topps run, and his 1972 o-pee-chee card was the first i owned from that set.
there have been quite a few athletes from my neck of the woods make it to the pro ranks - some i knew of, a couple i knew and played with or against, and some i discovered well after the fact. i don't have a pc of lonborg anymore, but i do keep this card in my "meaningful and just because cards" mini collection. you never forget your first.
as for shinders, it folded due to mismanagement by the third generation owner. a couple of stores reopened independently for a couple of years, but they are now gone, too. it's a shame, as this lonborg is just one of many great cards i acquired at their various shops.
That's cool that you remember your first pack pulled autograph... and even cooler that it was someone you collected.
ReplyDeletei also remember my first pack pulled relic - a juan gonzalez bat chip from 2001 private stock. i think i paid almost $20 for the pack that year.
DeleteLove these kind of posts! Hopefully Mark Hoyle will see this one too.
ReplyDeletethanks jon. when i started this blog, my intent was for more of these types of posts focusing on just one card that i came across in my collection, but i can't escape the large part of my collection that has wound up dominating my other posts.
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