That Time I Got A Great "Deal"

Back before we had this crazy thing called the internet that has given us the likes of Sportslots, COMC, and Ebay, we had tons of mail order advertisements in our magazines and comic books. Sea Monkeys, X-ray glasses, joy buzzers. All kinds of junk. My favorite were the toy soldiers. I sent in my two bucks for 100 soldiers. I was going to have the biggest army on the block. The army men that we all had looked like this:

Look at that glorious 3-dimensional army man. He's probably calling in for some artillery support. Charlie Tango we're getting hammered out here. Send in the big guns. 6-8 weeks later (this is how we learned to patient back then) I received my craptastic cardboard footlocker full of soldiers. Instead of the glorious example you see above, I received something resembling soldiers. You could only look at them from the side. If you looked at them from the front or the back they were as thin as the base. I may have had the biggest army on the block, but they looked like they been run over by the tanks. After this and killing plenty of sea monkeys, I didn't order anything for a long time.

Fast forward a few years and now I am looking at the ads in Tuff Stuff. I see an ad from someone selling 25 card lots of your favorite player for only a few dollars. This was awesome! What a way to build up my Ryno collection. I sent the guy a money order for two lots and waited patiently for them to arrive. A few weeks later I received my package.

I could hardly wait. A box full of Sandbergs just waiting to be added. I tore that box open. Inside were two plastic cases. Each case had 25 cards. These two card were on the top of each case and I didn't have either one of them:

And inside each case was 24 more of exactly the same card. I was so disappointed. Now maybe I misread the ad. Maybe I was just plain dumb. I got exactly what I paid for. Two lots of 25 cards each. I couldn't really be mad. It just wasn't what I was expecting. I was able to trade a few with some people. I tried to trade them in at some card shops, but they didn't really want any Broder cards. To this day, I still have about 15 of each. If anyone wants a couple of Ryno cards for their collection, let me know. I would be happy to send a couple your way.