Just arrived back from a family vacation in Lisbon and had a little bit of time for the hobby in Lisbon. On the way to check out the surf at Costa da Caparica, we stopped at Alamada Forum, where a collector Fernando C. from Porto had set up a collection of all the Euro Cup sticker collections. Very cool collection. I was impressed with the pristine condition of his collection and the effort to share his collection at this large mall. The collection was so well taken care of. Building friendship and community via swapping and set completing sets is a key factor in Portuguese cromos (stickers/cards) collecting. Had a couple of tables set up for swapping which were occupied by some young collectors (overhead pic). Had the chance to visit Dulce Guarda and Ivan Braz, founders of Splink, a top startup in Europe dedicated to collectibles. I had previously written a post here before regarding Splink, check it out. Splink - there it is. (onmantel.com). Dulce kindly gifted me a myjersey collectible of Eusebio from the 1961/62 season. That is when Benfica won the European Cup (now called the Champions league). Will post part 2 of the Lisbon story later this week regarding The Curse from that great team. By the way, I wanted to watch the France vs Portugal Euro quarter-final from downtown Lisbon and a friendly bartender told me the night before that the only way to get a good seat for the 8.00 pm game was to show up at the bar (The George) at 4.30 and eat and drink until 8 to hold the table. My family complied. Game went to overtime and pens, which when you do the math, is about 6-7 hours of eating and drinking - only to have Joao Felix hit the post in the penalty shootout for France to advance to the semifinals. C'est la vie!!
