Monday Night Marino

When I was a young lad I liked dolphins. I still do, dolphins are awesome. And around the time I found out there was a football team called the Dolphins I learned that they had a pretty good quarterback. 

I was instantly drawn to the Dolphins logo, colors, and wordmark. If I were the kind of collector that hoards a hundred copies of the same card, this would be one I'd hoard. Before I became a Packer backer I had a handful of favorite players - Randall Cunningham, Art Monk, Steve Largent, Eric Dickerson, and Reggie White - but Dan was the man. Marino memorabilia in particular - from the oversized jersey my brother bought me as a Christmas gift to the 1988 Starting Lineup figure I lost in my sister's backyard - made some lifelong memories. 

And so I thought I'd wrap up NFL Week here at The Collector with a look at my Marino collection. 

As I've mentioned my football card collection is heavily weighted toward Packers players. Just look at my top ten players:

Marino is barely hanging on to that 9th spot, and Edgar Bennett is actually ahead of him because three of my cards are duplicates:

I really haven't focused on my Dan Marino PC in quite a while. Sometimes I pick up a card here and there on TCDB or COMC - or dime boxes back in the pre-Covid days. My latest COMC order included just one new Marino card:

I don't have an autographed Marino item in my collection, but I do have a low-numbered relic and a high-grade rookie card:

Dan's 1984 total of 5,084 passing yards seemed like an unbreakable record for a while - but due to today's pass-happy NFL it barely breaks the single-season top ten.

These are my only high-value Marino cards. In fact I only have one other serial numbered insert or parallel:

This eBay 1 of 1 (#d 199/199) was a lucky find on COMC in July 2018. I was able to add it to my cart for just $1.45.

Here are some more of my favorite Marino inserts. I picked up this 2015 Topps Fire Transcendent Touchdowns card in a TCDB trade:

The date on the front is Nov. 26, 1995 - a game that Marino and Miami lost to Indianapolis. On the back, it describes Dan's fake spike TD strike against the Jets on November 27, 1994:

1996 Playoff Prime X's and O's are one of my all-time favorite insert sets. I bought tons of this stuff looking for these helmet due-cuts but never pulled a Marino card. (This was another COMC purchase.)

Last summer I wrote a post about the 1993 SP Baseball set and I was tempted to do the same thing for SP Football, mostly based on Marino's card. 

Perhaps I will review this set on The 1993 one day.

Here's another '90s favorite, and a set filler from my 2016 Donruss football set.

And there you have it - 13 cards of #13. I do plan to target Dan in future TCDB trades. Perhaps I'll make it a 2021 goal to acquire my 100th unique Marino card. There are plenty more that I'd like to add, including 1987 Topps, 1993 Score Franchise, and maybe even a 1996 Topps 40th Anniversary insert.

Who's your favorite player that never played for your favorite team?

I hope you enjoyed these NFL Week posts. I'll be back in a few days with the rest of my COMC order. 

 

Thanks for reading and celebrating football with me!

~