Although I haven’t bought a pack of the stuff and don’t plan to, I’m have a bit of a love-hate infatuation with 2009 Upper Deck Prominent Cuts.
My mind boggles at the thought of not one, not two but three cards in a 60-card base set being occupied by three of the Kardashian sisters but there’s also some amazing autographs to be found. Granted, the cut signature autographs have no pictures and have a large checklist with plenty of signers who are very much alive. But then what’s the chances of a lot of these rejected stars coming out in a set that features them?
Such is the case with Molly Ringwald. Along with Punky Brewster and that unnamed girl that Rodney Dangerfield sees in the shower at the start of Back to School, she was amongst my first Hollywood crushes. Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, TV’s Diff’rent Strokes – she was the cute, snooty dream girl in some of my favorite things growing up.
But before I grew up, she did and moved on.
For the past couple of decades, Ringwald went and became a wife and mom, and largely disappeared from the Hollywood scene. I spotted her in a horrendous Aussie slasher film a few years back and caught her paying tribute to John Hughes at the Academy Awards. She’s also in some TV show now that I’ve never seen. Whatever the true Hollywood story is, Molly Ringwald simply isn’t the it girl she once was. And she’s done a great job of distancing herself from it.
With my serious doubts of a set based on The Secret Life of the American Teenager coming out, I went and pulled the trigger on this from 2009 Upper Deck Prominent Cuts:
For most, this card is probably 20 years too late. But for me, it’s a trip back to elementary school crushes. As for the fact that it’s a cut signature of a living person. You’re right, the card isn’t the prettiest. But like Duckie on the rebound, something’s better than nothing. I also find something concerting about the legitimacy of the ugly check where the signature (which is very clean, I might add) originates from. Plus it was pretty cheap too at significantly less than the pack it came from.
