How to Improve Autographed Cardboard

 

A legible auto is nice, but to have a very good doggo along for the ride is even better. I don't really care how short her run in the WWE was, when Presley seemed to be a fixture (deservedly so, but I'd say that about any dog on a card) of all of her cards while there.

There you have it!

Puck Drop

 The NHL season has a couple weeks to go before their season kicks off, but the Kitchener Rangers start their season tonight. While it does look like it is going to be a rebuilding year, I can look to the past for some of their alumni for that collection.

I was at the LCS a few weeks back, and they had a bunch of these Humpty Dumpty cards from the early 90s. These were inside bags of chips and the like at the time. I picked up a couple of Whalers cards to send to a blogger-turned-youtuber. And I picked up this Scott Stevens and this Gilbert Dionne for myself. 

For the rest of the way, it is nothing but cards from the online-only Ultra release. Of course, there's plenty of actual cards to go along with the e-cards.

Just like these silver parallels. And I didn't even add any John Gibson content from this set.

Blue parallels are also remarkably cheap at COMC - it was under 50 cents from one of these /399 cards.

To complete the Jeff Skinner trilogy, here he is in insert form with a medallion. There have been gold or platinum medallion parallels in many Ultra releases, but here, they're just inserts. 

WOO-HOO! Throwback design. And it is a pretty good representation of 1991 Fleer Ultra. The font is a little off, but it does look pretty nice with some shininess thrown in for good measure.

But with only one original image on the back - ouch. So much potential. 

I guess Ultra does mean there might be some oddness in this, and this kinda qualifies. I wouldn't mind seeing this design inspire the playing card design in a future O-Pee-Chee insert. This also has sort of a leathery feel to it, something that one definitely is not a common feature of cards.

Finally, back to the 80s, and a member of their first Memorial Cup winning team. This sandwiches perfectly with the Scott Stevens at the start of this post. Here, we're saluting 50 goal scorers. And there's even the bonus of it being a classic logo and a card of someone who had a very good career, but only makes sporadic appearances in modern sets. 

There you have it!

The Joys of Card Backs

 

This might look like a mis-cut 1988 O-Pee-Chee card with an unflattering photo of a rather puffy Charlie Kerfeld.

But, due to the back, I learned there was a town named Knob Noster.

Welcome Cadel Evans!

Courtesy of SI for Kids, I know have a second cycling card in the 2/14 collection!

He joins a card of Gianni Bugno in the miscellaneous category.

Winning the Tour de France is definitely one of the top athletic accomplishments by a 2/14 baby. Cadel is one of the three non-Europeans to win the race. He was born in Australia, but now resides in Switzerland to account for the difference between card back and front. 

In terms of trivia questions on these cards, I'm not sure there's too many that have aged worse than the Lance Armstrong one. 

There you have it!

Masked Mondays

 I haven't done one of these in ages, so why not today for a bunch of mask-highlighting cards on their way to the various binders.

I love little puns when it comes to someone's theme from their mask.  DEKanich? I guess Dexter's Lab is a better choice than placing Dexter Morgan on your mask - especially when you don't play for a Florida team.

But that doesn't mean some people don't put fictional killers on their masks. Despite the more obvious connection to hockey masks from Jason, it was Freddy that preceded him on a mask in the NHL, with Fred Brathwaite beating Jason Bacashihua by several seasons.

Sure, a musical theme for a Blues mask might not be the most creative idea, but I'm not going to back away from such a nice close-up.

The other side of this mask featured the Las Vegas sign. This Golden Knight on the other side is pretty nice, though.

And yes, baseball cards featuring masks with paint jobs also count. 

There you have it!

Chasing Jaxon

 

More Seahawks group break cards, as I try to add some cards of Jaxon Smith-Njigba into the 2/14 collection. Here's some of the results of that, along with all the non-JSN content out of Score and Luminance. 

The Veteran base from Score. At least there's a nice variety of uniforms among the photos.

The rookie portion of the base set provides my first JS-N card in the post.

The inserts provide cards #2 and #3 for the binders.

If I had to pick a highlight among the non 2/14 content, it might be Geno Smith's appearance in the Breakthrough insert set. It is generally a set featuring younger talent, but there's Geno in it, drafted in 2013. Long live checklist oddities!

I didn't get in any Legacy breaks with Seattle, but Luminance was there, to at least provide me with some nice photos in case I got skunked elsewhere.

Here's the veteran base cards. That Metcalf is a beauty of a photo, even if he didn't catch the pass on that play.

As for rookie base cards, that was a complete blank. But, that doesn't matter too much.

After all, there's this /35 teal parallel of one of those rookie base cards to help take the edge off. Great picture too, even if outrunning Rutgers wasn't the biggest accomplishment over the past couple years. And if fireworks patterns aren't enough to wow you, maybe a signature will. 

My first autograph of him for my 2/14 collection! While it probably could use a little more detail, any ink in the collection is good ink when you're looking for an autograph to give your PC a little boost. While I'll probably look for at least one more - I'd want a more proper Seahawks uniform graph, and still need even a single card of him in a Seahawks uniform, I'll probably slow down on Seahawks group break purchases for the time being. 

But there you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 26: Time To Reload

 I guess I'm going to have to order in some new repacks, as this was the final one in the box:

Football with a hit! Even with a base card, Prizm is a wonderful way to start off any post.

Thank you, Upper Deck, for beautifully capturing a Raiders lineman and the battle with swamp ass. Charming. Bills content! WOO-HOO! Bills content that doubles as OL content is even better. A kicker card is a nice follow-up. 2013 Rookies and Stars was one of my favourite designs of the 2010's - I loved all the colour. 

Marcus Robinson takes us back to a nice time when SP Authentic didn't mean a player with a random silver pattern behind the,. They really got their value off the purchase of a bunch of 1991 UD cards - almost like 1990 Bowman in hockey. Another Bills card! And an example of one of the most literal Hall of Fame cards.

And the hit - a punter hit! I might be the only person on the planet happy to get a punter's card as the hit. Long live the obscurity of special teams! 

This is the second time I've landed one of those Black Gold redemption cards in one of these repacks. I prefer this Barry Foster to the Kelvin Martin. Just because. 

And the finale. I know people that freak out over the tiniest corner ding probably hate these designs, but colourful designs > standard white/silver. 

There you have it!

My newest MST3K'ed movie auto

 

From their Comedy Central finale, Laserblast, here's Ron Masak! He'd play a sheriff in that movie, which would relate to his most famous role, Sheriff Metzger on Murder, She Wrote. MSW is kind of a comfort food show for me, so I can also consider it an auto from that as well.

Here, he's Harmonica Man from a Twilight Zone episode. 

Ron passed away last year, 9 days after Angela Lansbury. 

The Finale

 Time to finally close the TMV mailer with stuff that really didn't fit into any other category.

OK, these actually could have gone with the Mets portion of the mailer.

But there were a bunch of other Piazza cards in here that needed company. I like Oakland/San Diego/Florida cards of his almost as much as Mets cards for the oddness factor.

The baseball card portion of this wraps up with this large Vlad Sr swatch. Big enough to count as truly "Super Sweet"? Yes. Yes, it is.

Here's the hockey portion of the mailer. But what a portion! Alfie Plate! WOO-HOO!

Now I've shown off quite a few cards so far. Yet all these didn't explain why this package was bulkier than most. Here's the reason this package was so large.

Because there were Pinnacle Inside tins within! 

New Cancon! New Vladdy! WOO-HOO! I love when trades go kinda outside the box like this!

Thanks for all these goodies, Dennis! As always, I'm reloading for a future mailer heading your way!

There you have it!

Trade Stack: Diggs In

 I haven't done this for a bit. so let's make up for the gap with 3 cards!

All featuring guys named Diggs.

They join these:

If you have one of the cards on any of my wantlists, I'll trade the contents of the stack to you, in return for a single card (or sticker) from those lists. I'll throw cards onto the stack at intervals of my choosing (whenever I feel like it).

Want them all?

1. You make a comment on the most recent post of the trade stack staking your claim, and say what you're sending. (That's this one!)

2. You send me an e-mail providing your address.

3. I reply, giving you my address.

4. We each drop a PWE in the mail containing the promised card(s).

5. You're shipping to Canada, so remember that!

Back-to-Back

 What are the chances I'd go for 2 straight days with one-card posts from Onyx?

When one is a 2/14 guy, and the other is a guy who goes by Smoke Monday, pretty high.

And 4/20 doesn't fall on a Monday until 2026, and I wasn't willing to wait that long to show it off for a cheap giggle.

Welcome, Nolan Schanuel!

 

Another new member of the 2/14 club!

Given that he's already made his MLB debut, a little over a month after being drafted 11th overall by the Angels, I'll probably have a lot of chances to add cards of his in the near future. Until then, this card of questionable-licensing (if any) out of Onyx is my only card of his.

sucker.jpeg

 Or "2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 25"

I told myself I wouldn't get one of these - unless I came across a Josh Allen one. 

As the title says - sucker.jpg. At least I can say I bought this Pre MNF when optimism flowed through me. At least he (probably) didn't call for the draw on 2nd and 15 in OT.

Here's a look at the entire tin design. It looks like one of those rare Color Blast designs from Prizm. So there's that.

And the as-advertised packs. That Josh Allen on the 2022 packaging was as close as I got to and Bills content inside the tin. Also...Matt Corral? I know last year's QB class was questionable going in, but really?

Let's see if I got more value from the cards within than the tin. Well, at least I got more a shiny card in here (a green ice parallel), and a couple cards to fatten up a future trade package to Ann Arbor. 

Texans hot pack! And more shininess! McCourty is probably as close as I'll ever come to having a player in the NFL with my last name. 

That's a Gold Lazer parallel for the Parsons. Because of course they need a completely unnecessary 'Z' in there. 

And of course the Allen pack contains nothing but base cards, but at least it probably had the biggest star power among the 4 packs.

But yes, sucker.jpeg really applies.