Cups and cards

Back in January, early January to be exact, Andy, from Stadium Fantasium, ran a contest in conjunction with the Rose Bowl. And this wasn't just any contest, no, it was Andy's first blog contest... which is always cause for celebration!

The contest itself was one of those multi-tiered affairs, guess the halftime score, final score, etc., which meant that contestants could win multiple times. If memory serves I didn't fair too well, but since there wasn't a lot of entrants I apparently did enough to still win one of the prize packs. Even after a couple of months I still don't understand the lack of support that this contest received, I mean yes, it was a football contest, but the bulk of the prizes were of the baseball variety, so that should of appealed to the majority of the card bloggers? I'm in the mood to climb up on a soapbox here, but I won't, I will instead just say that hopefully a few more people will show up the next time Andy decides to have a contest.

Anyways, all the winners got a couple of commemorative cups, a game program, and their choice of two prizes (I think it was two for everyone?) from one of the more extensive prize lists that I can recall seeing.

Since I'm not one to pay too much attention to current happenings, I had no idea that commemorative cups were still being made for various events -- they seem like something most modern folks wouldn't care about anymore. But, I'm glad to find out that they are still being made, and apparently some of them, like this first cup, are being made with lenticular technology.

I tried to capture some of it's lenticularness on the backside, but that didn't work out too well. No matter though, because it amazing in person.

This second one is much more traditional, but still quite handsome. There was also Rose Bowl vase that was included, but I just couldn't get a decent picture of it, so it's here in spirit only.

It was nice to be able to add some new blood to my cup collection, and yes, I did just say that I have a collection of cups, of which probably 10-20 are still packed up, but the ones that I do have out and on display, can be seen (albeit with some bad glare) here...

... and here...

I don't know if American Gladiators would fall into the sports category or not, but if it doesn't, the cups from Andy then will be my only sport cups -- I'm pretty sure that I used to have a Fred McGriff Icee cup, but I don't know what happened to it.

Along with the cups, winners were also given some other paper ephemera, which came in the form of two different program-y type things.

This one is like a phone book, and it's got a breakdown of every single game from each of the two teams past season, which is kind of neat, but the real meat is towards the back of the book...

... History! Lots...

... and lots...

... of history! I can't imagine that too many people attending today's game would care too much about what happened 100 years ago, but I absolutely love it (much more interesting than the current games).

I mentioned at the top that winners got to pick out two prizes from a massive list of goodies, most of which was baseball related, but since baseball hasn't been doing too much for me as of late, I elected to go the football route instead. The above pack was listed as a 1993 Score cellophane pack, which, given the cellophane wrapper, I thought might be promotional pack of some sort, turns out...

... it's actually half of the 1993 Score Quarterback Club insert set. Andy had what was now obviously the second half of the set as well, but since I didn't know that that was what it was, I didn't end up selecting it. I'm still undecided as to whether or not I want to open it, on the one hand it's nice to have it contained like this, but on the other they would probably look better in a binder?

My second pick was a pack from a set that I had never heard of before, 1998 Collector's Edge 1st Place. As tempting as it's been, I still haven't opened up this one yet either, but I will, and the contents will be shown either here, or over on the APTBNL blog.

Thanks again for the contest, Andy! I really dig the cups, as well as the prizes that I was allowed to pick out. Now if you'd just add a few more things to your wantlist, maybe a certain someone (it's me) could send you a more tangible thank you of some sort :)


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.