I suppose you can consider this a leftover post since for some reason i have a couple odd-ball items sitting on my desk. One is a baseball item and the other is apparently a basketball item. Let's start there.
In the same box as the Look N' See cards, I came across this small, tissue-like wrapper that almost got chucked into the garbage pile. Garbage pile, you ask? Box after box after box of these cards seem to have various pieces of flotsam and jetsam. For those not familiar with either the maritime jargon (or the metal band for that matter), flotsam and jetsam is simply a term I am using to refer to all the little pieces of junk that have broken away from larger items, like plastic from rigid top loaders, or price tags that have fallen off, wrappers sans cards, or dust bunnies (lots of dust bunnies). At first glance, I figured this was just the wrapper from something.
At second glance, I almost thought it was a condom. Almost. That was until I picked it up and realized it was not from this world, I mean country. Whatever this was, it was from Vitoria, Spain, I think. To the cloud...I mean Wiki...
"Naipes Heraclio Fournier S.A. is a playing card manufacturer that was founded in 1868 and is based in Vitoria, Spain. Though it has been owned by The United States Playing Card Company since 1986, not only does it continue to maintain separate manufacturing operations, but it also manufactures certain USPC products sold by its parent company in the States (i.e., Congress bridge playing cards).It was founded by Heraclio Fournier in 1868. He died in 1916. His grandson Félix Alfaro Fournier took on the administration of the company and started a card collection. In 1970 he acquired the card collection from Thomas De la Rue. His collections formed the Fournier Museum of Playing Cards, now property of the Province Government of Alava."
Alright then. So this must be from some kind of set they produced in the 80s that featured NBA players, since that is what is printed on the wrapper. See there, "Gran promocion <<NBA>>. Upon further review, it would appear that this is from 1988 and is from the Fournier NBA Estrellas set which featured a companion set of stickers. Since this is 23 years old, the glue has kind of worn off the sides so the contents are accessible. If you couldn't see through the initial scan image, here is what was inside.
Now I see the irony in thinking it was a condom wrapper.
The next strange item that fell from a box of randomness comes in the form of a baseball card. Of course, this wouldn't be any normal card. What fun would that be? Instead, it's a card of none other than Charlie Hustle himself, Pete Rose. The card looks like it may have been printed sometime in the 1980s, but by whom is a mystery. There is no company logo on the front. There is no date either. The design doesn't give it away like many of the 1980s card sets. The only identifying marks are in the caption at the bottom."Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb's All Time Base Hit record!" Pretty unassuming since I'm sure there were hundreds of other items produced when this feat occurred. So let's go to the back. There has to be something there. Blank. Blank? Blank! Ok. This has got to be cut from something. Like a box bottom. Or a cereal box. Or a package of some sort. I don't know but I will get to the bottom of this one. So far, I have come up with nothing. If anyone out there knows what this is or where it came from, please share.
