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They Aren't Dolls!
It's hard to believe that it has been fifteen years since the final series of Starting Lineupfigures were released back in 2001. Fifteen years.
I collected these sports figures off and on since they were first produced in 1988 and it seems like only yesterday... I would periodically make trips down to Toys 'R Us and Kaybee Toys to see which figures were hanging on their pegs.
Finding a superstar with mint condition packaging felt like you hit the jackpot, because you didn't have to pay the card shop and collectible store prices. Some of those figures are now residing in my buddy's garage collecting dust in hopes of one day becoming a valued collectible again.
The others? Well... in an effort to save space... I began opening them up, taking them out of their packages, and lining them up on my office shelves. The ones that didn't fit were taken to my classroom and are on display there.
My interest in the actual figures has diminished over time. They're more of a novelty item these days, but I have become obsessed with collecting the trading cards that accompanied those figures.
I'm in the process of building the 1988 Kenner SLUbaseball card set. There were a total of 124 figures released in the inaugural set... and so far I've managed to grab 120 of them. The Kent Hrbek is my latest addition. That leaves me with only needing Buddy Bell, John Franco, Nolan Ryan and Kevin Seitzer. None of these are considered rare, however for some reason people who own these think they're worth much more than I'm willing to pay.
In addition to the set I'm building, I also have two large binders filled with all of my other Starting Lineupcards. One of them is dedicated to baseball, while the other contains all of the other sports like basketball, football, and hockey.
Last weekKevAlan over at CCW added five new cards to my "other sports" binder. Four of them featured one of my favorite basketball players of the 90's, Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway:
In addition to the cards, he also threw in their respective figures:
Kenner produced a series of figures called Timeless Legends from 1995 to 1998 that included athletes from a variety of sports. Muhammad Ali was one of three boxers that made the checklist during those years. Joe Lewis and Sugar RayLeonard were the other two. They also produced two individual 12"Alifigures as well as one that featured him with Joe Frazier.
I've always wanted to own the 1998 Timeless Legends Ali... and thanks to KevAlan... I now do:
Collectors who were looking for sports figurines, but wanted something a little different could also collect Corinthian Headliners in the 90's.
Oversized heads were the trademark of these collectibles. Most of the ones I've seen are small in size (about 2" tall). However the McGwire that KevAlan sent is huge. It's about the same height as your standard bobblehead and it weighs a lot. He even included the original COA that came with the figure:
Last... but certainly not least... is anotherPanini Japanese All-Starsignature card:
#11 Masai Rokuno
I tried to dig up some information on Mr. Rokuno, but didn't find much. If any of my fellow Japanese baseball card collectors out there know anything about this guy... please feel free to comment below.
Thanks KevAlan for the nice package of figures and cards. It's always nice when I'm able to add some new faces to my Kenner SLU binders. And those figures will be on full display in my new classroom this August.
Happy Saturday and sayonara!
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