My First Soccer Purchase (that wasn't a 2/14 guy)

 

I threw this into my COMC inventory while watching one of Canada's World Cup qualifiers. Namely, the match against Mexico where he scored 2 goals to tie Canada's all-time scoring record for the national team. 

With his goal against the US yesterday, he moved into first place by himself. That's a perfect time to show off his card!

Might as well show off the back as well!

In other all-time scoring notes, I showed some Scottie Barnes content yesterday, and in the 3OT victory over Miami on Saturday, he scored the 13,000,000th point in NBA history.

Timing!

And there you have it!

Your 21-22 Raptors

 

Finally, the 2021-22 NBA products have dropped, and I had the opportunity to pick them up in a  group break. With one of the top rookies in this year's products (seen above), they're costlier than they have been in new releases since 2016-17, which was the rookie years for Siakam and Poeltl. (The latter was a lottery pick, remember)  But, at least this gives me the chance to add some new faces and some familiar faces into my team binders.

Here's the remainder of the team. There are a few surprising names on this. Aron Baynes was presumed to be one-and-done in Toronto even before the last season ended, yet he is here. Considering Goran was very visible about his lack of interest in joining the team after the Lowry sign-and-trade, that's another strange name for this. At the very least he could have been replaced with the also-traded Precious Achiuwa. But at least this would probably be my only chance to land a Dragic card in the Raptors collection. 

Only one parallel in the 5 boxes, but at least I have something that can either can go in the Raptors binder, or my Canadians-in-the-NBA collection. And I got another base card so I can send off the extra off to an Oregon Ducks alum collector.

But at least I added a second Barnes in insert form.

There you have it!

Mailbag! Cards on Cards!

Today, the mailbag highlights a number of PWEs from Kerry @ Cards on Cards.

Lots and lots of Raptors among those envelopes adding lots of nice cards into the team binder - but the contest over whch was the greatest photo in the group. This Morris Peterson combines a great photo with an angle you don't always see on cards. 

But there were also some alternate uniforms, including this one which made occasional appearances in whichever home game was on or before Remembrance Day.

Here's a little more familiar throwback.

Elite releases didn't only provide me with alternate uniforms, it also provided the only numbered card in the envelopes. Sure, Bargnani really didn't become what you'd expect from a first rounder, but his trade would result in Jakob Poeltl, who ended up being part of the Kawhi trade, which resulted in the championship. Meaning that Masai Ujiri is a wizard. 

And here was the only horizontal card.

A sampling of the rest of the raptors cards includes cards to vary from the matte finish from Court Kings to the shininess of Revolution.

And there was baseball as well!

There you have it!

2022 Adventures in Repacks Part 3 - Back to the Box

 When I posted a picture of this repack box upon its arrival one of the items, and part of its contents, was pretty visible - namely the 'hat trick' pack which contained a trio of hits.

That's a perfect excuse to do this one today, with a simple three card post. 

Here's the visible autographed card, even though I don't think they're guaranteed as one of the hits. And this one is a pretty solid one. He might not be a superstar, but he's definitely having himself a very solid NHL career. I can connect him to my 2/14 collection as well, as a goal by 2/14 baby Nikolaj Ehlers resulted in Stastny's 500th career assist. 

The first of the relics, and it comes from one of my favourite recent insert sets. That's entirely because of all the flashbacks to 1993 Leaf the design provides. If you owe me cards, you can't go wrong by sending me cards from this subset, even if they aren't PC additions. 

Am I stupid enough to try to finish the 100 card set? 

Probably. Looks like I have 89/100 more to go!

Since the back also has a different theme than usual, with the write-up being about the city as opposed to the player, I'll highlight that too.

Poor Nick Leddy with his basic UD Game Jersey card. 

He had no chance.

And there you have it!

A Williamson Auto!

Nope, not Zion.

Not even Corliss.

It is the latest addition to my autographs of performers from MST3Ked movies.

From episode #501, Warriors of the Lost World, it is Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson! Given that he has been in a bunch of B Movies, it is surprising that only one film of his made it on the show, although several have been Rifftraxed. 

At this point, I have 4 more autos of this type on the way, including two from people that appeared in the same film/episode.

ME-GA-WEA-PON! ME-GA-WEA-PON!

Four If By Sportlots

 Since this shipper's cost for shipping to Canada got expensive after 4 cards, this was a nice price for adding a few lesser wants to my collection.

Back-to-back posts with Kitchener guys as I lead with a Kraut Line guy this time. In fact, Woody was born back in 1916, when Kitchener was known as Berlin, prior to that name becoming problematic during the first World War. And it might be changing again since Lord Kitchener is also kinda (very) problematic as well. Concentration camps and all that.

Here's another birthplace themed entry. Deveaux was the first, and remains the only player in the born in the Bahamas to reach the NHL. I love oddness such as that.

Tom Barrasso spent a  grand total of 6 games with the Blues as his career out of 777, one of a series of brief single-digit stops as his career ended, along with 7 in Ottawa and 4 in Toronto. It isn't a mini-collection of mine, aside from his mask art, but I have at least one card for each of those stops at this point. 

And although this is a junk wax era addition, I just couldn't resist adding this as the 4th card finale. Just a crazy photo where he might be celebrating a goal, or merely trying to avoid smacking Robb Stauber in the head. 

There you have it!

Awright! A local boy!

I'll always be happy to welcome any new Mets card into my collection. But this one is especially welcome.

Because for the first time since Ryan Braun (the Royals pitcher), my hometown is on the back of a baseball card!

See! There it is!  He knew that he'd be picked by the Mets in that position, so his father had to go out and purchase a Mets cap for the draft night. And even if they end up changing it to his hometown of Heidelberg, he'll still be a Mets prospect for my team collection, or a new face for my Canadians in baseball PC. Perfection!

There you have it!

Another 2021 Chronicles Box Break - Packs 4 through 6

 While I got three of the 4 hits out of the way in the first post, there's still one left to be found, alongside some numbered parallels.

Pack 4:

Some Toronto content is a perfect start to this grouping. In some collation strangeness, I landed the Holo Prizm parallel in a group break, but this was  the box that got me the regular version of this card.

And here's numbered parallel #1. Even if his hype has died down a little bit from his debut, it is still a solid player to land a card of. It really, really doesn't scan like it, but this is a purple parallel.

And the rest. At least I've landed a couple of cards to fill out future mailers to the team collectors on my trade list.

Pack 5:

Sure, that Mountcastle was a nice low-numbered card, but  this one is even nicer. Marquee player, and  numbered to a mere /25 copies. For those looking for specifics, this is the Blue Ice parallel out of Phoenix, and might be the big $$$$ card of the box, for those into such things, even considering the Martinez auto /10.

And the rest of the pack. Gold Standard is still my favourite design used this year in Chronicles, and it looks really nice when set against the Pittsburgh uniform colours.

Pack 6:

Here's your final hit. Singer has been all over 2021 releases with autographs, so I'm not really surprised to see one pop out of this final pack. 

And the remainder. That's certainly a different way to reduce the need for photoshopping the jersey logo on the Kiriloff. But other than that, nothing too interesting to me in this finale.

With the Trout and the Martinez, this was certainly a very solid box. I still have one more to get to - maybe next weekend?

 

Another 2021 Chronicles Box Break - Packs 1 through 3

 

If you thought I was lagging on posting mailbag stuff - this is 1 of 2 boxes of Chronicles I busted back in late November that I'm finally getting around to posting the content from. As for the second box, I'll probably procrastinate on that  well into February.

Pack 1:

And here's your first card out. As always with Panini, catchers look the best as there's no need to edit out any logos.

Here's the first numbered parallel of the break. A blue parallel on a design from Black. It is a little hard to tell on the scan, but this is /99. As when I pulled the base card of this, I still think this would look great with one photo as a pitching card to contrast with the hitting photo.

I guess this is the big hit of  the box. A few years back, I pulled a redemption for Martinez out of Stadium Club. Over a year later, I got sick of waiting and requested a replacement, ending up with a  DJ Peters Bowman Refractor /499 from Bowman. I don't think JD's card was ever produced. Three years later, I pull a live auto. It is a sticker, but it is low numbered for a trade-off. Either way, now I have one.

And the rest of the pack, with not a  lot of  player variety.

Pack 2:

I realize it is going to be all downhill after that first pack, but here's the one-per-box relic card, of which the relic-only cards seem to be exclusive to only the America's Pastime this year. Which, given the solid design, I'm perfectly OK with.

Looks like this is a 10 card pack. The best packing errors always err on the side of 'more cards'. Obsidians are one-per-pack in hobby format, and I'll always be happy to add a  Vladdy to the Jays  collection, joining an Alonse for the Mets collection. The Javier is a holo Prizm parallel, just in case those 2 Certified cards weren't shiny enough. 

Pack 3:

Here's the second numbered parallel in the box, with the numbering much more legible than on the Ohtani. 

I have no idea who this is outside of his appearances on cards. He did make his debut in the majors this year, with 3 appearances and an ERA over 8. So, at least he's pitched more innings in the bigs than I ever will.

Just a 9 card pack this time, with another shiny Prizm parallel, this time of Aaron Judge, being the most notable card here, along with it being an Ian Anderson hot pack.

Still one more autograph to go in the next post, along with some nice parallels in the second post.

Mailbag: Night Owl

 I guess I should get caught up on the mailers that have shown up lately. I'll go in order, and this mailer from Night Owl that showed up several weeks back.

David Wright is always a solid choice when it comes time to lead off a trade post, and it is an easy decision with these faux-propaganda posters out of 2009 Update. I really need to pair this with the Roy Halladay from the same insert set for PC perfection.

It was 2021 Select that won the battle in this envelope in terms of volume, with these 4 base cards and parallels showing up. For those playing along at home and wondering what type of parallel that Lindor is, it is a Cosmic parallel. It took looking through all the Select cards available at COMC to learn that, and there weren't too many of those there. I was almost to the point where I was willing to submit the card to COMC, let them categorize it, and then have it sent back so I could categorize it. Cosmic.

There was an insert as well. Thankfully, this one is just a simple Holo prizm.

And a whole bunch more Mets! Although mainly DeGrom. I've busted so little Ginter over the past few years, I thought that DeGrom in the middle was from this year's release, and not a 2019 release. 

And a couple Jays cards to wrap it up. 

Thanks for all these goodies, especially the shiny Mets! I'll see what I have to hit you back shortly!

Much Ado About Murray

The 20-21 portion of my Jamal Murray PC is pretty bare. I've got a couple cards from a Certified break, but that's all. Let's add some variety to the local product some company in there.

Always garish, but never unwelcome, this Court Kings entry is the only base card for him in the latest COMC mailing. And although the design is bright, it is the only card in the group that really didn't have a foil feeling to it.

The whole design on this makes it look like this could be a die-cut card, but it isn't. The design around the coloured portion of the card does make it look non-rectangular. Thankfully, that makes this far easier to store. 

At least based on the cards I added, they really liked purple in the designs for Optic this year.

I've seen this design called Marquee before in other releases, where there's a nice sparkly effect when you turn the card. Like if Sportflics wanted to hypnotize you.

One more insert to wrap this up. Even more shininess.

There you have it!