Bills! Bills! Bills!

 "The Bills have a tendency to play Lawful Good football in even years and Chaotic Neutral football in odd years so far this decade." - Victoria Zeller, in the Defector "Why Your Team Sucks" preseason preview

That's been true this season, as I've been "Yes! They're winning everything! Josh Allen is a football GOD!" to "Can they just lose out, get everyone on the offense not named Allen or Cook fired, and get it over with?". Usually during the same game.

And that's my set-up for a small stack of Bills cards to show off, both in terms of COMC acquisitions, and following that up with the Bills content from the recent TMV mailer.

Even if it is a Reactive Yellow parallel and not just a Yellow one, there is some perfection on applying that colour to a football Hall of Fame induction card. 

Did you think I was kidding when I said I had an Uno card to show off? How else am I supposed to commemorate Daquan Jones' being with the team?

Here's the rest of the COMC Bills content. Clockwise from the top-left, an unlicensed Topps entry is another "no other choice" Bills entry. I did post an Olandis Gary card before, but that was just a card where the team logo didn't match the uniform he was wearing. This is the closest I'll get to Olandis in Bills gear. He'd play zero games for the team and was traded at the end of the pre-season. I got that Amari Cooper since I didn't expect him to show up in 2025 releases. 

As for Tim Tindale, how many times do you see a Canadian university mentioned as the alma mater on a card from the NFL?

Switching over to the TMV mailer, here's a 1989 Diamond Kings-ish design to open this part.

Here's the bulk of the Bills content in the mailer, providing a very solid mix of recent stuff with a smidge of 00's stuff in there. My favourite is probably the McGahee at the bottom, with its "He's a rookie, the photo looks like a rookie, but it isn't a rookie card" quality to it. He was a first rounder in 2003, but due to injury (DON'T LOOK FOR IT IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT) he didn't debut for the team until 2004. 

Using the End Zone paint job for a manufactured patch card just seems like a natural thing. Even if they aren't always the most exciting thing, or even in the proper orientation. For 75 cents, I couldn't resist that Baldwin. Sorry if you wanted it.

The only relic in the batch, and it is a perfect time for it, following two straight weeks of Josh Allen carrying the team to victory. Do I care if the jersey swatch and football piece haven't ever been in his vicinity? Maybe.

Joe DeLamiellure leads the autograph parade here. It's a Hall of Famer Bills autograph! Despite being (mostly) from before my time on the planet, I'll still recognize and love the team's history. Field Access provides an auto to go with the nice photo choices that were prevalent in the product. For a sticker dump, it was far better than they needed to do. Dwayne Wright is the odd man out as I have little memory of him. Lasting one season and being a running back drafted the same year as Marshawn Lynch can do that. Cornelius Bennett's entry might be a non-licensed Topps card, but it gives happy flashbacks to the glory years, and those times are always welcome.

One final autograph. No I don't know why a JP "Better than Peterman, worse than Manuel" Losman auto was encased. All I know is that the case is now holding a far better card, with Losman in the team hit binder.

That's not to say I don't want cards of any of the three QBs mentioned. I most certainly do. Part of Bills fandom is embracing misery.

There you have it!

One Away

 

 

With the addition of this card (in more than one definition), I'm officially one card away from completing the entire cardboard run of Jeff Dellenbach. I've got a few such members of the collection, but those are only minor league guys with a card or two. Dellenbach's collection totals 11 cards.

That's obviously impossible for today's players in a collecting universe filled with parallels. And buybacks.

All I need is a Wisconsin Badgers entry, which looks to have been part of a team program pull out set. Difficult, but not impossible.

Here's the card back. I'd say something about Bicycle Cards putting out a set, but I'll be showing off a Uno card when I do my next Bills post. 

And there you have it!

Capture the Flagg: Round 2

 The first playing of the game netted me a pair of inserts of the top draft pick and chase player (at least early on) in this set.

What will this one contain?

The first 1/3 were base dupes from the blaster. Boo.

But once the new stuff started appearing, this beauty showed up. Now this  is an action shot, featuring an in-game between-the-leg dunk. And given that it is an alternate jersey, it shouldn't be too hard to find the actual footage of it.

And it wasn't. Even with more than one example of Toppin performing that dunk out there. And even cards of others.

Raptors content! To say the team has missed Barrett over the past couple weeks has been an understatement. 

Grizzlies throwback!

Legends content! At least this is better than the ridiculous 'team checklists' in the set. In both my breaks of the product, I've landed a Seattle Supersonics card, which is odd for a team that hasn't existed in years. This one, with Detlef rocking a 70's throwback design, is the easy winner of the two.

Here's the rookies, and I also can celebrate a second break where I find Cooper Flagg. And when I compared it to the 80-81 throwbacks, they did change the write-up on the back between those and the regular base card, which didn't happen on the ones I pulled one of each from in the blaster. 

The inserts. Nothing new here.

But one thing I did notice is that they used a different image on the back than the front. I didn't really look at the back of the cards the first time other than for sorting them, but it is nice that this feature, for lack of a better term, moved over from baseball.

And there you have it!

I Want it NOW!

I'm back to the 2/14 collection today, and some new names in the collection.

And there's no better way to add a new name to the collection than through a Topps Now Call-Up addition. I got this from the same ebay seller that I got the Tyler Bass game-winning field goal card from last year. It's so nice to find a seller that recognizes the ease and cost-effectiveness of a PWE. Anyhow, Mitch Farris was part of the September roster expansion, and joined Nolan Schanuel, who came into  the world one year after Mitch did, on the Angels. He debuted with Bobby Witt Jr as his first out, so that looks good for his future.

That's worthy of a card back, too! The print run isn't listed, but only 563 more needed to get them all!

It was a good year for 2/14 pitchers making their debut in the bigs, with two more of them. Here were the other two, who debuted early enough to qualify for cards in Update. It was a little easier to hunt down inexpensive entries that way in terms of shipping. When it comes down to the more interesting of the two, I have to vote for VanWey, for the nice uniform photo and those incredible socks. Fashion choices will likely influence things when it comes to my annual "from the last release year" countdown in a couple months.

Since it was Sportlots, I could add a couple more cards cheaply without an increase in shipping cost. So, it was a pair of Jeff Grahams that I chose. While still base cards, Flair and Zenith are a small step up the base card scale. 

And look at that great throwback uniform on the back!

Would You Like to Take a Survey?

It has nothing to do with beans or George Wendt films. If you get that reference, you're amazing. And probably old.

For the actual tie-in with the title, several months back, I took some "Which fictional character are you most like" quiz. And I matched up with...

I figured "Why not" for his auto? It wasn't too costly, and I guess in terms of modern penmanship, he's in the upper percentile, so I can also defend it as worthy of there. 

FWIW: Kelso from the 70's Show was at the bottom of the list for guys, with Jenny from Forrest Gump at the absolute bottom. Ghostbusters' Egon Spengler was also in my Top 10. That's about all I remember from the overall list.

But there you have it!

Belated Football

 I guess I should have done this after/alongside my US Thanksgiving post, but now seems like a good a time as any to show off the football additions to the 2/14 collection. And considering I'm doing both footballs here, it is still timely after yesterday's World Cup draw.

I think I'd rather spend that Friday night in jail rather than in that part of the city.

With that out of the way, here's the football content in my most recent COMC shipment:

Getting to actual cards, shiny is always a nice way to start off the cardboard portion of any post, such as this Red Refractor.

Fleer Tradition could often be counted on for a nice retro-like design. I do wish the player cartoon in the lower corner changed according to the position of the player. 

This could have been used alongside the Tracy McGrady card I showed in a recent recap, because this card is designed to be open. Fortunately, this one was a lot easier to open, in the sense that you did not need to rip anything to show off the full images. 

And now, you get more Pat Patriot than you expected!

Of course, there's going to be a Jim Kelly appearance.

And a card where Jim is in the background still counts as well.

Over to the pitch, and a couple of Frenchmen!

Myziane Maolida makes his collection debut with a pair of cards. That's your standard refractor on the right, but the brighter of the two is  a GoldRayWave version. Which is all one word, and I'm just too tired to even consider adding that word to my dictionary. It's enough of a bother to add  'ou' spellings.

Top Shelf Terrors is a set name that could work just as nicely in hockey as in soccer. While this isn't Jeremy's first card in the collection, it is the first one where Topps started getting his birthday correct on the cards. While there was no birthdate on this insert...

it is present here.

And that can act as a perfect intro to an autograph! Hits are pretty sparse in the soccer portion of the collection. This is only my third autograph, joining Diego Fagundez and Dillon Powers in a clean sweep for MLS autos. At least the 'D' stranglehold ends.

But there you have it!

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 35 - Back to the Hangers

 

I still have several of these around. Time to finally get caught up and do one of them. Nice enough horizontal opener.

Boddicker and Hayes have some real Panini friendly photos, leading in to an actual Panini entry. That's about all I found noteworthy about the opening group.

Ditch the baseball attire and replace it with a hockey jersey, and Brian Drahman could easily pass for a third-line winger. That's a downright Jagr-esque mullet. Can a haircut save a repack? Yes, it most certainly can.

Here's the hit! Sure, Dawson may have only made 9 more plate appearances in the majors than I have, but this is my first auto that includes a sliding glove.

Cooperstown finale! Hell yeah!

When one of the more notable cards in the repack is a 1991 Bowman, I'm really struggling to find good things to say about it. Sliding gloves and all that. 

But there you have it!

Raptors in the Mail

 Back to the TMV mailer, and today it will be the Raptors content contained within.

I'd added a parallel of this previously into my collection to commemorate the famous bouncing shot by Kawhi. It is a 9 card rainbow for it, and if I could pick one Raptors card to get the complete rainbow of, this might be the one. 

This whole design makes it seem that Tracy is going to appearing singing Michigan J. Frog standards.

Alas, no. Sure, I have to damage the card to actually see the image inside, but if I have no plans to re-sell it, there's nothing wrong with doing so. 

Back-to-back posts with Vince Carter appearances! Appreciate the subtlety of the card on the left, because things are about to get really bright.

 Because there were a lot of shiny parallels in the mailer! Thankfully, the two appearances of Blue Hoops parallels of VanVleet and Walter help preserve my eyes. My favourites are probably the Boucher content, since he left the team this past off-season, the final member of the Championship team to depart. Honourable mention to Gasol in the dino throwbacks.

Bruno may have been more "two years away from being two years away" than "the Brazilian Kevin Durant", fine in

Next up, the guy who had all the little paisans in Toronto wanting their nonna to cook up Primo Pasta for Sunday dinner. While he was perfectly fine in Toronto, he really didn't live up to the hype one would associate with a first overall pick. But, this wasn't the strongest draft class. I'll just be thankful they didn't pick Adam Morrison instead.

Plus, an iconic Raptor did show up in that draft, just 23 picks later via Memphis. And Houston. And several seasons later. But Kyle Lowry was probably the definitive Raptor over much of his time with the team, even if with others taking the spotlight. If he doesn't end up with his #7 in the rafters next to Vince Carter's #15, I'd be amazed. Whatever his legacy with the team dictates, here he is on a plate out of Flawless.

So, I'm now halfway through the mailer. Mets, Bills and miscellaneous stuff still to go. Will I get through it before 2026? Probably not. I know my procrastinating tendencies.

But for now, there you have it!