Where I've Been + A 2014 Quarry Unlimited Preview

The inclusion of this video will make sense shortly.

For the last couple of months the state of the blog has been nearly non-existent.  That doesn't necessarily mean I have abandoned the blog.  I have been keeping my want lists up to date and reading and commenting on many other card blogs not to mention trading.  Regardless, I have not been putting any new material on this blog.  I do have an explanation though.  I have a limited amount of time per day to allocate to blog purposes and for the past two months I have devoted that time to preparing the 2014 Quarry Unlimited set.  Yes it is coming back for a third consecutive year and I have a really good jump on things this year.  In order to get that jump, I had to take the time away from writing.  I am not going to give away all of the secrets of the 2014 Quarry Unlimited yet, but I guess I can give a few teasers as a mea culpa for my unexplained absence.



We will start with my 2014 Quarry Unlimited header which will accompany every post.

The 2012 header was fairly generic, because I was just figuring things out back then.  I liked the color scheme and knew that I wanted to fit the 2013 version with the time frame of the set.

Since the 2013 header was based on the 1977 Topps set, I used a font based on my favorite movie from 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  It was fairly easy to choose something from 1977, because I don't remember 1977.  I was born in October 1976, so I while I was around in '77 needless to say the culture from that year did not leave an indelible mark on me.


1988, however, was right in my adolescent wheelhouse.  I had a problem in that there was too much stuff from 1988 that defined the year to me.  For me, Guns n Roses (seen above), the Disney Afternoon cartoon lineup, Beetlejuice, Alf, and the Kentucky basketball scandal dominated that year.  However, the one thing that dominated my life more than anything that year, including baseball cards, was my Nintendo Entertainment System.  I played Nintendo constantly whether I was with friends or alone.  I loved it!  Therefore I wanted to use some type of font related to Nintendo as my 2014 Q.U. header.  But I wanted more this year.

Not this font though.

One other thing that made its debut in 1988 that impacted my life for the next several years was my favorite television show of all time, Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Not this font either.

Now I didn't actually see it until it started on Comedy Central a couple of years later, but it debuted in 1988.  Either way, I was hooked from the first time I saw Crow, Joel, and Tom Servo making fun of Ed Wood, Steve Reeves, and Gamera among many others.  I wanted to incorporate both my memories of NES and MST3K in this header and I think I accomplished my goal.  Check it out and see how I did.

The theater seats shadow was a no brainer, but I tried several different fonts.  I finally settled on the font that gave me PLENTY of headaches in 1988.  This font came up whenever a game froze up and hundreds of letters filled the screen.  It was cause of many thrown controllers and general aggravation, but sometimes the aggravating events in life are the ones we remember the most.


But now onto the cards themselves.


Unlike the first two years of the Quarry Unlimited set, this year's set will not be based on a classic Topps design.  This year's set will be based on one of my favorite non-Topps sets of all time, 1988 Score.  Yes the classic "Skittles set" will be all over this blog throughout the fall and winter of this year.  My biggest problem was that the card back was a very important part of the 1988 Score set.  The back was the only inclusion of the logo, team name, and a HUGE write up on each player.  It was also the first set to ever feature a full color photo on the back.  Since I only do card fronts, I had to improvise and improve a bit when designing my set.  I think I have not only improved the set, but I have also kept the original spirit of the set intact.  I have made a six pack of teaser cards, one of each color.  Since I am doing my first non-Topps set, I figured the "poster boy" of the set should be the biggest name not currently signed by Topps, Matt Wieters.  Check out the Wieters rainbow.

As you can see, my only major change is replacing the three stars from the original set with a team logo.  Additionally, I replaced the name Score with the name Quarry.  I had avoided putting my name on the first two sets, but nothing else I tried seemed to work in that space.  As a note, this is not the "official" Matt Wieters 2014 Q.U. card, just the prototype


What do you think?  Is the header just the greatest thing you have ever seen?  Does the 1988 design still work?  Did I do it justice?  Why does a silly cartoon bird head make the Orioles look so cool?  Do any of my obscure references need further explanation?  Let me know the "score."

Thanx for reading.