February 1981

As both readers of the blog will recall, February was the month that I was going to seek out some fun stuff from 1981 and I did just that! 

In descending order, here are my 1981 pick ups from last month:

6. 1981 O-Pee-Chee Blue Jays Future Stars & Montreal Expos Team Card

It was my intention to pick up the Futures Stars & team cards for both the Blue Jays & the Expos, but that Expos Futures Stars card was little pricier than I was prepared for. I can't for the life of me figure out why?

5. 1981 Topps Coca-Cola White Sox Team Set

The LeFlore card is another airbrushing masterpiece from Topps, and unique to this set. His traded card has a completely different photo. This now leaves me with just 3 more teams to go: Cubs, Astros, & Royals. 

4. 1981 Fleer Tigers Checklist & Stan Papi variations

I already had one of the variations of each in my Fleer set binder and the other variations in my Tigers team binder. With the addition of these I can now have all 4 cards in each binder. Yeah, I don't understand myself sometimes either. 

3. 1981 Fleer Star Stickers George Brett & Mike Schmidt

When I went to my first NSCC after moving to Chicago in '08, I bought an unopened wax box of these and had a blast opening them. I knew all these years later that I was missing some (I thought it was 3, but it turned out to be 7!) so I purchased all of them on eBay. Well, 5 of them have been lost in the mail and I'm currently waiting on eBay to do their thing so I can get a refund. At least these two beauties made it here safe and sound. 

2. 1981 Fleer Team Action NFL

I've been a sucker for these sets for a long, long time. I've mentioned before that these were the only football cards available in the Navy Exchange in Rota, Spain when I was a kid and the nostalgia is off the charts for me. 

As an added bonus, the seller threw in a big pile of the stickers too! This is the last year I remember collecting them as a kid. I don't know what year Fleer stopped making them, or even started for that matter, but I would love to put together a complete run. 

1. 1981 Topps NFL Sticker Album & FORTY PACKS OF STICKERS!!!

I'm an even bigger sucker for 80's stickers and I had no idea these even existed! I've only opened a few packs so far and sadly the backs are permanently fused to the backer so there will be no sticking going on. I am tempted to just glue them as is into the album and lord knows I love to give in to temptation. Stay tuned.

(I'd love to know who the featured player is on the cover and wrappers. It looks like Bills colors, but it also looks to have been airbrushed too. #91 for the Bills in 1980 was Ken Johnson, and that is definitely not him)

Well that wraps it up for February 1981 and I'm on to March 1982!

January 1980

No, this isn’t an entry about January 1980. 

If it was, it would be reminiscing about 10-year-old me living in Spain, and with little to do about card collecting. Cards were hard to come by over there and the main influx was when a new kid moved to the base. Comics were readily available at the Navy Exchange and garnered far more of my attention back then.  

 

Instead, this is an entry about January 2026 AND 1980. 

 

During the December doldrums, I was looking for something to get me engaged in collecting for 2026, and with me being an unabashed lover of all things 80’s, I came up with a simple plan of picking a past year from the 80’s to coincide with each month of 2026 and to try and pick up some overlooked or forgotten items from that year.

 

And that’s how January 2026 became January 1980! 

 

I’ve been posting pics of most of my new additions on Bluesky as they’ve arrived, but I thought it would be fun to recap everything in one spot here on a monthly basis. I’ve been wanting to get back into writing more and this seems like a simple way to get moving in that direction again. 

 

So, without any further delay, here are the items from 1980 that I picked up in January. Ranked for her pleasure. 

6. Topps Hockey – Checklist 

I’m a sucker for a good clean vintage checklist. What can I say?

5. Fleer Basketball Sticker – Detroit Pistons

The Fleer Baseball Stickers and NFL Team Action cards were the only card related items that were ever available in the late 70’s and early 80’s at the Navy Exchange in Rota, Spain. I don’t know if the Navy had a beef with Topps or what, but there were never any Topps products for sale. I never remembered seeing basketball stickers for sale back then, so this was a neat find for me. I would love to put a set of these stickers together, but they are just a little bit too pricey for stickers for that to currently happen.

4. Topps Squirt Promo card

There are a few of these different promo cards out there that were the top card in little 3 card cello packs. Mrs. Buttersworth’s and Kmart are the other two, but Squirt was the only one I could find with the right condition and price right now. I’ll still be keeping an eye out for the other two.

3. Topps Burger King Pitch Hit & Run and Philadelphia Philles

These are surprisingly affordable singles, although the bigger hunt is finding them in nice condition with good centering. 

2. O-Pee-Chee – John Hiller, Lou Whitaker, Ron LeFlore, 

Steve Carlton, Checklists, & Future Stars

I had most of the O-Pee-Chee Tigers already. These 3 complete my set and yes, I consider Ron LeFlore a part of that set. Even though it’s officially an Expos card, that’s still a Tigers jersey he’s wearing in the photo, so in the Tigers binder it goes (Right next to Aurelio Rodriguez at the end of the set!)

Between Topps, both Burger King sets, and O-Pee-Chee, there were only 2 players who had cards in all four sets: Steve Carlton and Pete Rose. I went with the easy choice here.

 

I also wanted to add some French flair to my 1980 Topps binder, so I went with the only 2 Future Stars cards in the O-Pee-Chee set. 

1. Stop N Go

The crown jewel of my January pickups! I had no idea that there was an NFL version of Kellogg’s cards (which I love!), and these guys were right in my wheelhouse of the first players I remember following as a kid. I will be revisiting this set throughout the year to add more here and there. 

 

February is here now, and my calendar will roll over to 1981 this month (I told you this was a simple plan). I’ve already purchased some more fun items and I’m just waiting for them to show up in the mail. Stay tuned!