Nice...

I like the Topps cards, too. I'm also inclined to think that saving them is a good idea, as they tend to gain collector value early... much like any militaria of a unique or collectible nature (just look at what the "Iraqi Most Wanted" cards are going for now, if you doubt me). I think they do it for baseball too... if the boys collect those, as well.

The real value of the card you found, though, is the fact that its subject is such an open fan of the Bengals... rare indeed! Hehe.

About your other post, I'm not going to start a fight about "who beat the Soviets" again. We've been over this in the past, and I give Reagan and Maggie just as much credit as I give John Paul II... all three brought the evil inherent in such a system right into the face of the world, where no one could deny it or make excuses for it.

My point was that we didn't need to do anything "directly" to topple the Soviets. No shots fired, no Americans at risk (at least no more than there were over the 70 years prior to the fall of the USSR). The Soviet system promised to surpass the West ("We will bury you!") in every possible manner as it marched on triumphantly towards true global socialism, but there wasn't a single facet of their society that could boast better returns than even most European nations, let alone the USA.

Reagan's genius was that he stopped making concessions to the Soviets. Every President since FDR has spent vast time and money either giving the Soviets what they could not get for themselves (like Nixon and Ford's massive grain shipments at little to no cost to the USSR) or throwing away what advantages we did have with no reciprocity on their part (like SALT II). Pre-Reagan "containment" was tantamount to political and economic "support" from the West, and very nearly each and every example you care to list can be seen as a benefit to the very system we all hated so much.

What Reagan (and Thatcher) did was to say "Sink or swim... it's up to you. No more help from us, though." No treaty concessions, no bargains, no promises, no compromises. The Soviet-style communist system employed by the Russians since the late 50's (with Stalin's death) could not survive on its own. Period. Had Reagan maintained the status quo for another 8 years, would the USSR have still collapsed in 1990? Perhaps, but it might have run itself out just a little longer. The disease that killed it was brought to Moscow from Afghanistan, Warsaw, Prague and Berlin, though, far more than it was from the US or Britain. It was a demand from the vox populi for something the Soviets couldn't deliver alone... food, commercial goods and a means for the individual to prosper via their own efforts and labor.

THAT is what I mean by the USSR collapsing under its own weight... the failings inherent in the system itself had doomed the "great socialist experiment" since it was first implemented in 1917. Reagan, Thatcher and the rest of the Western leadership didn't knock it down... they just stopped propping it up.