A Big Box of Bulldog Cubs and a Contest Question

As a guy whose primary collection is football, I really love to see football cards pop up on blogs. I especially love it when bloggers have football on their wantlists because I have far more football available to send out than baseball. So one of my favorite blogs out there is Nothing If Not Random, run by Roy, AKA Bulldog. I put together a little package of Bills and Falcons and sent them out to Roy to initiate our first trading interaction. What he sent back was absolutely incredible.

I sent a bubble mailer. He returned fire with an 800-count box packed with Packers and Cubs. Mostly Cubs. Here are all the Cubs of the package divided by five year periods. In all, there were 726 Cubs cards in the box. I can't show them all here, but I have a few highlights.

We'll start out with some 2015 rookie cards of guys who are building pretty successful careers, even if Soler is doing it over in the AL. He's having the best season of the three, as Baez and Bryant are having a pretty rough go of it as we near the halfway point in 2020.

We have a couple of goodies from North of the Border, circa 1988. Both of these guys had pretty successful careers, too. This isn't my first 1988 Leaf, but I do believe this is the only 1988 OPC in my collection.

And let's stick with the themes of "pretty successful careers" and "late 80s I didn't have." Somehow, I don't think I ever knew about this All-Stars set from Donruss. I'm embarrassed to admit this to fellow collectors, but I'm happy to have added the Cubs from the set, and two Hall of Famers, to boot!

Speaking of Hall of Fame, Lee Smith is now in the Hall of Fame. These other guys all belong in the Facial Hair Hall of Fame, though. That 1981 Cubs squad was stacked mustache firepower.

Roy even managed to give me some set help. This Schwarber will go into my 2019 Big League build, which is crazy that I'm even still working on it.

There were a few inserts and parallels in the box. The die-cut Ryno looks really nice in-hand, but my favorite has to be the Zobrist Award Winner. How can I not love a card celebrating a Cub winning World Series MVP? It seems like so long ago now. This year's version of the Cubs has a pretty good record, but unless some bats start heating up, they won't be able to win it all again this year. The pitching has been pretty incredible, though, especially Yu Darvish.

I would be remiss not to highlight the legendary photography of Stadium Club. . .  and 1992 Fleer? Seriously, that Lancaster is awesome. Pitcher at the plate? Check. How about having him bunt? Okay. What about having the ball in the air, in the frame, with his eyes glued to it? You got it. Great card there.

Besides 92 Fleer, there is another set I would like to take a closer look at in this post. Of all the early-year Upper Deck sets, 1992 is the one I've really seen the least. But flipping through this package, I found that there is a lot to love about this set. I mean, you can see not one, but two bunts above and a player brushing his teeth in the dugout. But I found the backs of these cards is where the quirkiness of this set really comes to life.

Just look at how interesting these photos are. Jorge Bell tipping his cap during All-Star Game introductions. A helmetless Cy Young winner sliding into base. Shawon Dunston trying to make a diving tag on Paul O'Neill or Joe Girardi trying to pull the ball down in time to make the out at the plate. Then there is Andre Dawson spread-eagle (or spread-hawk in this case?) to rob a home run. Although, I can't tell if he made the catch or not. These are all great.

I started this post by praising Roy for his many football-related posts, so I can't leave out the Packers from the box. I'll take a Press Proof of Aaron Jones's rookie card any day. This is my first look at last year's Panini Illusions, and they're pretty impressive. They have a Fleer Flair or Topps Gold Label look going on. There's nothing wrong with either of those two brands.

These Packers will all go into a set build. I needed all of these for my 1997 Upper Deck Legends set. I still have a few needs for this posted on my wantlist, but I'm getting closer.

In the box, there were 43 Packers. 25 of them were new to me for a success rate of 58% being cards I added to my collection. Now we're going to play a little game. There were 726 Cubs cards in the box. I want you to guess what percentage of those 726 cards were new to my collection. Just leave a comment on this post with your guess by 11:59 pm on Thursday, September 3. The person whose guess is closest will get a little prize package from me.

Thanks, Roy for the generous mail-day. I certainly hope we end up trading again in the future.

Contest Question--

Of the 726 Cubs Roy sent me, what percentage was new to my collection?