Some old-school Garret Anderson finds

At a card show in the middle of this past year, I saw a mid 1990s 'GA' insert - I didn’t pick the card up because it might have had a ding, but it was a card I’d never seen before.

All I was sure of was the card was likely from a mid 1990s Pinnacle brand - thinking about that insert [after the fact, maybe a 1996 Score Diamond Aces #27], it surprises me between all this time, I'm just not familiar with many of the UV coated, shiny, Dufexed, foil stamped inserts or parallels that were found in a flood of late 1990s baseball products.

'GA' probably wasn't a fan favorite compared to his peers like Tim Salmon, Jim Edmonds or Darin Erstad - expectations were sky high after his hot rookie season, but GA seemed content doing his own quiet thing for a bit.

Maybe he was still a bit too 'sleepy' for Angels fans or made too many outs because he didn't walk a lot - but GA figured out some 'launch angle' skills with his naturally sweet swing and had a solid 4-5 year run in the early 2000s.

I liked GA as a player but probably doesn’t get as much love in my regional collection - why not pick up some nice, forgotten cards of an Angels Hall of Famer who has long since settled into anonymity.

1995 Select Certified Edition Garret Anderson Potential Unlimited #9

1995 Select Can’t Miss Garret Anderson #CM9

1995 Score Rookie Dream Team Garret Anderson #RDT8

2019 Topps Archives Topps Magazine inserts

As far as I know 2019 Topps Archives might as well not exist, but these inserts were too sweet not to pick up, especially being familiar with Topps Magazines of my youth - with loud and bright colors, the design of these cards are throwbacks to the early 1990s.

I almost wish there was such a Topps branded trading card magazine today - though maybe the magazine was printed when baseball cards still had mainstream appeal among youth vs. devolving into a niche hobby over the past 30 years.

The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 27

"A favorite oddball card from the 1990 or later."

1996 Denny's Holograms Cal Ripken Jr. #2 - I don't remember if the verbiage was actually used in promotional materials, but I remember something about these cards having '3.5 seconds of game action.'

What I liked about these cards was the fact you can shine them up to a light source and sort of see the player featured doing something - I think most of the previous hologram cards featuring actual players only showed a static image, where you had a 3D effect going, but you couldn't play around with the card like you could with these cards.

I was aware of the Sportflics 3D cards from the 1980s and also when Pinnacle Brands revived the technology for some products in the mid 1990s - these cards are sort of similar to those, but more of a variation of the Sportflics cards 'on steroids.'