Prospecting on a Budget

Buying a hobby box of anything Bowman (except maybe Bowman's Best), is well out of my price/sanity range. Elite Extra Edition is just right. 

I actually busted this a couple of months back. I'm not too sure why I waited so long to show it off. Laziness? Let's go with that. The 5 packs of 5 cards each contain 2 hits, either a relic or auto, and 3 base cards/parallels/inserts. many of which are numbered.

Pack 1:

Not only was the Galiz /183 not numbered to a Prime Number (3*61), none of the cards from a Prime Numbers parallel set was. At least this one wasn't numbered to an even number or something ending in 5. Dylan Beavers is an Orioles prospect - and I assume the one most likely to get juvenile laughs when he's announced for an at bat. Cristian Perez is only 16 - he'll have plenty of time to develop a completely illegible signature. 

Pack 2:

The Decade parallels are stamped to /999, but all the ones available at COMC are defined by them as /203. Oddness like that definitely adds some charm to this set. I did have to look to make sure that Nazier Mule is pronounced in the far more flattering two-syllable manner (MEW-lay) that the one-syllable manner that I'll presume hecklers use. 

Pack 3:

Alright! First Jays card of the box! That Jackson Cox photo gives the vibe of a photo of that was snapped by a stalker. At least the colours go with the Rockies, and I'm trusting enough to believe that isn't a photoshop job. Kumar Rocker's on-card autograph is probably the biggest name that I landed an auto from in this. It pairs nicely with the Mets card I got of him earlier this year from last year's release. Appropriately, this patch card is a red parallel - perfect for an Angels card. 

Pack 4:

Jomphy De La Cruz is a great baseball name. So is Colby Thomas, to be honest. It might be slightly abbreviated, but Gabriel Hughes probably has the nicest signature aesthetically of anybody else in the box. 

Pack 5:

Cade Doughty is a Blue Jays prospect, so despite that LSU logo, it is totally a Blue Jays binder addition. That Lampe /999 is, technically, the only actual base card in the entire box.  I guess if I'm going to get a one-colour swatch from this product, getting one of a hyped up prospect is the way to go. And my final auto? At least it looks interesting, even if I doubt HPatt will become a thing.

But there you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 22

 

Here's the opening card! Spot the Looney!

Any group that includes a Bogues appearance is automatically an interesting group of cards.

I like the rookie cards where the player is posing with the hat of their new team, and dressed in their finest splendor for more than the generic photo shoot poses. 

The hit! A plain white swatch, but at least it was a nice soft swatch. I guess this was properly laundered before being sent to Panini. Respect!

Repack collation giving me both a Manute Bol and a Muggsy Bogues card in the same pack is the reason I love busting repacks so much.  There's a good reason Hansen was called Bobby on his other cards. Probably his request. 

Blah ending. Those lines across the bottom of the photo were not only unneeded, but make a perfectly fine design look crowded.

There you have it!

The Familiar Faces of 2/14 Remaining

 I've done baseball and hockey, but don't have enough of the other categories to make a solo post for them. So, they're all in this one.

Picking a Bills card to lead out is an easy decision for me. But when you also have some Jim Kelly cards to choose from, and the film strip gimmick is a good tie-breaker. 

These are the two Jim Kelly cards I opted for the Bledsoe over. I guess I have to wax nostalgic every time I post a card from SP Authentic about how UD used to work colour into the base design and now they go for the dullest backgrounds available. The Prizm is from the most recent release. I don't have the base card yet, but have this parallel.

Shiny die-cut! As bland as SPA is from year-to-year, Crown Royale is another very repetitive set from year-to-year. They'll switch it up by swapping between a horizontal and vertical layout, but there really isn't that much other than that. Still, +1 McNair.

Despite the Hackenberg threw as many passes in the NFL as I have, I still feel comfortable calling the football portion the exclusive domain of the QB in this post. Because some sets are odd, both these cards are considered to be a base card. With a career that didn't come close to living up to that one would expect with # of cards available, adding interesting cards of his should remain an inexpensive proposition.

I've now tripled my Jaden Schackelford content! And now I've got one that is from a licensed release too! He still hasn't played a minute in the NBA (He's in the Thunder system) but he still has a lot of cards out there. 

With so many cards available out of a pair of extremely properties, it isn't surprising that Danai Gurira rules the catch-all miscellaneous portion of the collection. Michonne is so popular, that even her katana from The Walking Dead gets a card dedicated to it. Her card out of the Wakanda Forever release shows that it isn't just hockey players that get cards that fall into the "cheap because of e-pack" category. 

Anton Lesser's appearance in Game of Thrones provides more potential for cards from another populat show. Also, this card is SO metal! The scratch is on my ancient scanner. This might also be the first metal card in the collection. 

There you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 21: Another Two

 Another two packs hanging around the Walmart.

Archives and Select - just like the last time.

I got a numbered card last time - no such luck this time. But I did get that Bazooka insert. Only 1:5, but it still makes this a little more interesting than an all-base pack. I hope somebody in 2091 holds Topps to account and they use that design for the set. Mets card too, WOO-HOO!

And Mets content in the Select pack too, with bonus shininess! Harper provides a photo perfect for logo elimination as well. Fairly standard pack in terms of make-up too.

There you have it!

The Familiar Faces of 2/14 Baseball

 Much like with the recent hockey post, here's some new 2/14 content for that collection, this time with baseball content of people that have been here before.

The only hit in this post is my opener. I'll have plenty more opportunities to add more Ethan Small autographs in the collection as the season goes forward. He has autos in Finest. He's on the base checklist for Chrome. And will probably also be in a bunch more. But it has to start somewhere, and it is with this one from the uncreative Baseball Stars insert.

With only one appearance for 3 innings and a 15 ERA this year, adding more shouldn't be an expensive thing.

It would have been so nice to add Gabriel Moreno cards over a long career with the Blue Jays. Alas, the trade winds blew out to Arizona, and I now have to hunt down Diamondbacks cards of his. This also might not be too costly, as Corbin Carroll is grabbing the rookie attention out there, allowing his stuff to be a little more unnoticed. 

Leaving the one-and-done players behind, here's someone with a trio of cards. That is the gold parallel /2022 for Pivetta, as opposed to the umpteen other gold parallels that permeate other releases. With the City Connect jersey, the great use of a horizontal layout and the Monster scoreboard, that base card immediately becomes one of my favourite photos in the baseball section of the collection. Still, the Heritage base was pack-pulled, and that's a factor hard to defeat.

A prospect not reaching the majors makes for inexpensive parallel acquisitions as well. These bump the Ian Clarkin content to 20 cards and a tie for the lead in Clarkin card ownership at COMC. The green is /150, with the blue being /399.

At least Yermin reached the big leagues and had a nice run to start before his return to earth. That means many more chances for cards from non-prospect releases. Including Cosmic Haze Prizm parallels. Because those are a thing. These 7 make Mercedes the numbers man in this post, and moving him to 26 total cards. 

There you have it!

January 11, 2015

 What is the significance of the date in the title? It is the date I added this card to my Watch List over at COMC.

I finally added this card, from the 2004 World Series covers insert set, into my collection this past week, after an 8+ year wait. When you wait that long it is worthy of a one-card post. 

And I might as show off the back of the card as well. I completely forgot that the Jays got none of their 15 runs in game 4 courtesy of the long ball. But they got their power back at the best time possible for them in the series.

That also means that this item is now the longest wait on the list. But that's only been there since August 2015. And after that, 2022 will become the far more reasonable wait.

There you have it!

The Familiar Faces of 2/14 Hockey

 I'll be spending time today with the 2/14 binder, and all the hockey content in the to-be-posted box.

I remain the tcdb user with the most cards of Matt Campanale. It really isn't close - with these 2 I now have more than double the number of second place, with 15 cards to their 7. On the left is a black rainbow parallel /100, one of the rarer pulls at the time in OPC. A minor-league card of the now-defunct Elmira Jackals joins it, meaning that both my collection and Mischief's collection now have a card of a team named the Jackals in it. 

Sure, these e-pack exclusive silver parallels scan horribly, but it is all about the numbers at this point as the possibility of new cards of Brandon Sutter is practically zero.

Colby Barlow debuted in the collection recently as the youngest member of the collection. His presence had me paying attention to the first round of the NHL draft, where he was a projected pick. And it was 18th overall where he showed up, on his way to Winnipeg. I'll probably still be waiting a bit for official NHL cards though.

A Jets draftee is a perfect lead-in to the numbers winner for this post - Nikolaj Ehlers' 8 new cards. All but one of these are cards I got cheaply at COMC due to e-packs, except for the Sub-Zero card in the middle of the top row. That's a short-print retro parallel from 2017-18 Ice. Retro in this case meant a lengthy flashback to 2015-16. 2015-16 Upper Deck Ice didn't have a Sub-Zero insert set. 

The back of the card says it was from the 17-18 release, so it isn't one of the cases of UD not having the card available so that they're inserted in a future release. So, WHY?

Either way, Ehlers' cards finally reach triple digits with 102 total cards in the binder. 

There you have it!

Sportlots Miscellany

I've been slowly putting together a 1992 Archives Basketball set through Sportlots. As of now - only 1 card to go - the Jordan that I'm guessing flea market sellers pay a premium for to flip as his "rookie" card to gullible buyers. To get to the next shipment threshold, I'd add various cards that interested me. Here are some of them.

Blue Cubbies uniforms! Bat rack! "Now With" on O-Pee-Chee! 3 strikes and you're added into the miscellaneous binder!

Now there's some headgear you don't see very much of on cards. Tocchet sported this after a Mario Lemieux shot broke his jaw. He missed one game. 

I barely remember Jacob Brumfield's time with Toronto. Thankfully, I have garish cards to remind me of that. 

Kicker card!

Even better - they were able to fit almost two decades worth of stats, a brief paragraph and a different photo on the back of the card. 

Here's a couple 2/14 guys to end this. The Jim Kelly is a sticker insert from 1995 Collector's Choice. It is a 90 card set, with 30 solo cards and 60 4-in-1 cards, but 3 of those 30 stickers feature 2/14 babies - McNair and Bledsoe join Jim Kelly there. And Jeff Graham is one of the players on the multiple player/logo stickers.

Yes. I want all of them.

Muresan appearing in a block-themed subset might be the least surprising subset that he's been in. 

There you have it!

Hail Alma Mater

Stateside collectors have it a lot easier when it comes to collecting from their alma mater. So many choices in so many sports. Up here, we have the CFL and little else. But that doesn't mean that I won't chase down Waterloo Warriors alum.

Tre Ford came to QB a program that was horrific in the early 2010s. They had a complete season wiped out after a steroid distribution scandal. When it resumed, they'd regularly lose by 50+ points. But Ford would lead the team into the playoffs in 2018 for the first time in 15 years. In 2021, he'd win the Hec Creighton award (like the Heisman), and would be a first-round pick of the Edmonton Elks.

That's a green & white Elks jersey on the card. It is certainly Tre's name - and the card is on the checklist as Tre.

But that's a Toronto Argonauts logo, and the photo is not Ford's, but that of the decidedly paler and blue-clad Nick Arbuckle.  Nick was a teammate of Ford in 2022, so this photo actually pre-dates Arbuckle's time in Edmonton. 

To make things worse, Ford didn't get a base card in the set. All he has are relic hits and parallels, like this patch card. 

I still love this card - and it counts as part of my Warriors alum collection.

New Faces

 Coming off one birthday post, here's another, with some of the new members of the collection.

Here's somebody that is likely going to jump from zero well into the double digits as the season progresses. The top wide receiver draft pick this season will probably be making multiple appearances in every release. I've already got a bunch on their way out of a group break of Chronicles Draft where I got the Seattle spot. But that climb has to start somewhere, and this card starts the Jaxon Smith-Njigba portion.

Soccer provides something else new in the collection beyond the name - my first card featuring someone representing a Portland team. Even if Ebobisse's birth date is an error on the card back - it is the 13th there. It has been corrected.

Other North American cities without an appearance yet include Orlando, Las Vegas and Edmonton. 

Shiny stickers count too! 

I've already crossed the Atlantic, so let's go across the Pacific as well! While both of these players did make appearances in the 2021 release, I opted to go for 2022 for the Mogi for the simple reason that the helmet logo of the Eagles is so great, how could I not choose a card that showcased it so nicely? 

With Dylan O'Rae and Ethan Small both making appearances in 2023 releases, I guess I might be a Brewers team collector this year. I'll look past the sketchy Photoshop job for the uniform. And the best thing is that if I come across dupes, they can go into my CanCon collection. He was the first Canadian drafted in 2022, going in the third round.

Throw in an autograph too! He may only use his initial the first name, but I can still parse what is there. And that's enough to make it a good autograph for me. Would it be pedantic of me to point that 160 isn't an appropriate number for a card to be numbered to in a set named "prime numbers"? 

Not even close! BOOOOO!

But there you have it!

Birthday Girl

 

Last year at this time, I posted a picture of Mischief for her second birthday, along with a couple of folks that shared the day with her. I then expressed no interest in a birthday binder for her.

It is more of a birthday slider box now. Hopefully, I'll have the fortitude to keep it that way. 

But here's the contents of that box. Since Mischief is a little girl, I'll start with the distaff content!

Quite the diverse group. While I do also have a hockey gold medalist in mine (Milan Hejduk), and a Bond Secretary (Lois Maxwell) in mine, I don't have any Nobel Peace Prize winners. I'm not going to read everything, but I don't think I have any cards that include the word 'Plucky' such as on Cheryl Ladd's. The only one missing from this is another Olympic medalist - Hilary Knight, who I'll probably find in a dime box at some point to make a scanner bed friendly 9.

Last year, when I posted this, I implored that you not send me any cards that fall into this category - I don't want to make a PC of this. That doesn't apply to folks that would already land in one of my PCs, but those would more likely end up in those. This is my first Jerry Ostroski card either in this, or my Bills collection. Also: O PEE CHEE baseball!

The offspring of a Jays legend don't really count. "2014 Will Be First Season as Pitcher" is certainly a more unique phrase on a card than even 'Plucky'.

Shininess! 

Vintage!  I Love that '69 Topps football design.

Faux vintage!

Unique photos might be the other exception to the 'Don't send me" rule. I love weather cards, and seeing snow on a card is even more interesting when they feature a southern team like Tampa. 

Naturally, some hits and low-numbered cards are in the collection. It is Samuel Morin on that dual relic card that is the 7/12 baby. This is the second autograph of Gordon Pinsent, who passed away earlier this year, that I've shown off here. He was a legend in Canadian TV - he deserves more than one appearance. Nathan Lukes is now with the Jays, and this specific card from 2017 is a Future Threads Silhouettes Autographs Red version of the card. That specific card of Dan Boyle has also appeared here before, but I've since added a second one to keep that collection intact. 

I really didn't have anywhere else to show off a Brock Lesnar card, so it stands alone here.

Unlike with the Lesnar, where else would a card of Sy Berger go but among the baseball portion. The New Jersey Jackals, who more specifically play out of Paterson, are probably the most obscure team in this collection with that Peter L'Italien. 

As with my 2/14 collection, basketball is the smallest portion of the collection, but they still manage to lead soccer's zero. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is easily the biggest current name from the sporting world in this collection. He's also part of my Canadians in the NBA mini collection, so he's the third exception to the "Don't flood me with their cards" rule.

Football gives me another chance to show that it wasn't just baseball that was hit with garish designs in 1995 by Fleer. 

Like with my collection, ease of acquiring content probably makes hockey the most prevalent in the collection. Even if there really isn't too much NHL stardom among the ranks. 

Who's the biggest name in the collection? Meloche? Semenko? Maybe it will turn out to be Tristan Bertucci, a 2nd round draft pick of the Dallas Stars, and the youngest member of this binder. At least it makes it cheap to acquire their cards. 

Which I absolutely do not want to do.

Here's another picture of Mischief, post-haircut, to wrap things up. 

Don't send me cards for this. DON'T!