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Showing posts from November, 2017

Donaldson's Fire, Minneapolis, MN, Thanksgiving 1982

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Sorry Curt's Cannonball , you've been bumped... Post #50 appropriately fell around Thanksgiving, and I'd long been planning this post for Thanksgiving. Or a few days later because that's how things go... On November 25, 1982, a massive fire broke out in the old Donaldson's Department Store in downtown Minneapolis. Above is local Minneapolis TV station (ABC affiliate, channel 5) KSTP's 5pm news coverage from the next day. Here's how (CBS affiliate, channel 4) WCCO covered the fire at 5pm on November 26th. I was only 7 years old when this happened. During Thanksgiving weekend of 1982, I was with my dad in the Fargo-Moorhead part of Minnesota, visiting family. We saw the news report of the fire late Thanksgiving night, on Fargo local news. I was familiar with that area and was immediately fascinated by the story. On Christmas Eve, 1982, my mother, sister and I, went downtown to see the damage.... (The next three photos were all taken on

2017 Bowman Chrome Mini-Box Break

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I have no wacky title for this... Last week I covered the singles purchased from Pal’s Sports Cards in Andover, MN, while visiting family on vacation. As I mentioned then, that was my first visit to an actual brick and mortar card store in close to a year. and was looking for some hobby packs to throw some variety amongst the nearly exclusive retail card options I normally have. 2017 Bowman Chrome won that day’s contest for my hobby dollar.  Of course, everything has to be different now, and Bowman Chrome is no longer the set driven set that it once was, twenty or even ten years ago. Back when discretionary income was somewhat plentiful, I used to love ripping apart a 24 pack hobby box or two of Bowman Chrome every year. I never built the sets, but had decent luck in pulling some of the hot autographs each offseason… In 2017, Bowman Chrome has fallen victim to the marketing of strategy of (Topps) Finest. Another product I rarely buy anymore. The format of a 24 pack hobb