Well since the last time I wrote Ernest, he stopped signing TTM. Such is the life of the game. I had been fortunate to get him many times both in person and TTM, so I was fine with spending a little extra cash to get these last cards knocked out of him.
Action Packed All-Madden Team 1990, #34
Proset 1992, #510Fleer 1990, #127
For some reason my tickets weren’t popping up properly on the app. The gatekeepers were treating me like I was trying to cheat the system, but yes indeed I had 8 cards I wanted to be signed by Ernest. Since we couldn’t get it to work in time, they had to manually key it in for me. It almost completely ruined the experience for me, but I was able to go behind the curtains and meet the players that way and they gladly signed for me.
Ernest protested because Curtis and Haywood were excited I was wearing an original 1990s #80 Houston Oilers jersey, as at one point during Jeffires and Duncan’s careers they both wore that number, while Givins stuck with 81.
Playoff 1993, #242Playoff 1992, #8
I had enough time behind the magic curtain to ask him how it was going with tutoring his nephew and trying to get him into a league. He said he’s still at it. Curtis immediately chimed in and started talking about how Ernest was trying to teach his nephew how to drop his shoulder and juke off the LOS- something Givins excelled at doing in the slot. Givins then went on to mention that he was trying to get his nephew to pick up gymnastics, because that really helped Ernest as a receiver take his game to a new level.
I had been circling back around to Greg since I got his Action Packed 1991 Rookies card via an acquisition. I really liked his Star Pics card, but I was struck by his Stadium Club entry as well- which has some really nice color in it. Playoff really came out at the tail end of when I was collecting back in the early 90s, and I’d always wanted to give the set a bit more love since the ink is absorbed so well by the metal finish.
As I was writing this, I was thinking about ‘the tail end of when I was collecting back in the early 90s’, and how now I’ve now basically entered into a second collecting recession. I don’t have any interest in buying boxes of first run cards right now. There are too many speculative buyers out there driving up an overpriced market. The design has gone into a disappointing direction, and there’s little room for value such as autographs included in the boxes. I wouldn’t be surprised if a contraction is coming to the trading card market soon.
Celebrating the game, the players, the cards, and the autographs for over 25 years.
