When I was younger, I only collected baseball cards. I did not have the extra income for anything else, and even if I did, there were no stores near me that sold Cardinals items like balls, pennants, or posters. When I was 13, my younger brother and I spent the weekend in Springfield, IL, with my older sister. You can imagine the shock when she took us to KB Toys. So many different toys that we had only seen on TV. One of the first things that caught my eye was the end cap full of Starting Lineups. My brother and I went through every one, hoping to find a Cubs player for him and a Cardinals player for me. We did not find any Cubs, but I lucked out and found a 1989 Vince Coleman. At the time, he was my favorite player. I ripped him out of the package and displayed him on my dresser for many years. I still have it somewhere, along with the card.
Up until this summer, I have never bought another Starting Lineup. In July, I found a local online auction with a small lot of 1988 Starting Lineups. The picture quality was not good, but I could tell the top one was former Cardinals closer Todd Worrell. I won the auction for $16. After picking up the box, I quickly looked through it and put it in a closet. Yesterday, I finally got around to pulling them all out.
The box contained four Cardinals: the Worrell I mentioned, Ozzie Smith, and two Vince Colemans. The cardboard could be in better condition, but the plastic bubble is in great shape.
The original price tags are on all the packages. Ozzie was the most expensive at $5.39.
I don't know if certain retail locations had specific packaging. The yellow cardboard version on the left came from Children's Place, while the one on the right came from Wal-Mart.
The lot included 5 other figures, 4 of which are Hall of Famers. Andre Dawson, Kirby Puckett, Roger Clemens, Tim Raines, and Gary Carter would make a great start to a team. I am not sure what to do with these. I would gladly trade/sell them, but shipping would be costly. I have looked at Cardinal figures on EBAY before, but I refuse to pay the $8-10 shipping.
Love me some SLUs. I had a pretty good collection, they're just about all gone now. I miss them.
ReplyDeleteThey are fun and remind me of being a kid even though I only had one.
DeleteI love collecting SLUs too. Been collecting them since the late 80's, but the bulk of my collection was purchased in the 2000's for a buck or two at the flea market. A few years ago, I ran out of space and decided to open the majority of them up. That's when I created my SLU binder... where I store the cards. I used to have SLU displays... but they took up too much space too. The bulk (outside of A's, Padres, Seahawks, Packers, and Lakers) are sitting in Ziploc bags. Wish I had more space. Maybe one day, I'll have a man cave big enough to display all of them.
ReplyDeleteThey do take up some space. Not sure what I will do with the Cardinals. Display them or store them away.
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