Inching towards 3,900, via PWE

 A trio of PWEs showed up recently from Kerry @ Cards on Cards. Most of the content, volume wise, was Raptors content, which I'll get to at a later date. 

But there were some 2/14 cards in there as well. And it was with these, my totals reached the almost magical total of 3900, as they put me at 3899.

Protential remains a horrible pun, but it still makes for my 20th card of Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Which is nice even if only one features him in his current Seattle uniform.

Ethan Small reaches 11 total cards with this entry from Heritage High Numbers. He was DFAd by the Brewers after the Corbin Burnes trade, but got picked up by the Giants. 

My first 2023 Stadium Club card! I haven't seen any local retail available, so this becomes a wonderful way to start! I was originally planning on building this set, until it got continually pushed back. Maybe after I see what the price point is for 2024 Heritage, I'll double back and go for this instead.

It was only 2 cards, but Nick Pivetta won the volume war among 2/14ers, starting with this subdued blue parallel. There's blue on their cap, so I guess I can kinda call this a colour-match.

And a base card?

Oh - it is one of those Advanced Stats parallels. Only 299 left to collect 'em all!

So, thanks for these, Kerry! I'll get around to showing off all of those Raptors cards shortly!

Soccer 2/14 Additions

Time for another 2/14 showoff, and this time, it is from the one of five sports that rank a specific section in the binders devoted solely to it, that I know very little if any about. All I know is these guys passed the google test of being searchable without getting horrible criminal actions associated with them.

I do know that this 1970 sticker is the oldest item in that portion of the collection. I also believe that Ladislao Mazurkiewicz is the only person in it that has since passed away. He might also be the only goalkeeper as well. 

But not for long, as Richard Strebinger is also a goalkeeper.

But really, if you're looking for backstories on any of the players seen here, you're out of luck. 

Because I looked for very little beyond "Have they done something vile?" in searching on these players.

And I search that for very good reasons.

While common sense would dictate I should just toss that guy's card into the trash - I instead keep it as a reminder that if I haven't heard of the person, I should google them first.

There you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 7 - Cubism

 These have returned to the Wally World Shelves!

I've never been one to refuse a returning repack type! 

But we already have an issue! That's only 6 packs! No problem!

I'll just call an audible and add in a pack I busted a while ago but never showed off. I busted it so long ago the upper corner of the package has vanished!

There wasn't too much variety in the 50 assorted cards. More than half of them came from the complete base set of MVPs. The added snow on the card is definitely a choice, like if 2016 Topps' design elected to have the smoky borders originate at the player's crotch.

Another dozen of the cards were from 21-22 Extended. At least there was one insert for variety, if not for photo quality. 

And the final dozen were from a Rookie themed box set. Some nice names in this group as well, even if they aren't considered rookie cards by some. And this provided me with my first Sens card of the cube, with sports-betting fan Shane Pinto appearing.

As for the packs, something must be wrong with me - I scanned everything.

Not exactly a bunch of future NHLers in this specific CHL pack. Only Bitten and Leschyshyn have seen NHL action. Aside from that...errr...the Kootenay Ice have a nice logo. And the Peterborough Petes jerseys shouldn't have any other dark colour outside of the purple. Why mess with greatness? 

21-22 UD! Just as dull in Series 2 form as in Extended form.

Parkhurst might have been pretty dull, but at least not every photo was a generic, rink-side, full-body photograph. The silver Oshie is kinda nice, mainly because those retail parallels weren't available on epack.

Why am I scanning all of the MVP packs? At least there's no snow crotch on these! And there's my second and final Sens card of the break. The Ice Battles card does seem to be part of some sort of card game, but I don't really care enough to figure it out.

I have no idea who Jack Lafontaine is, beyond being a two-game rookie that got a card out of the deal. But then, while checking to see if he played any NHL games since then (nope), I saw he did spend some time at the University of Michigan, meaning that two of the cards in this pack will be bound for Ann Arbor at some point. Jack would leave one U of M for another, likely inspired by Peter Graves to the University of Minnesota.

"I'm Peter Graves!"

In an interesting bit of pack collation, both silver parallels I pulled from these packs featured TJ Oshie.

Finally, the SP retail pack. At least with the wiped backgrounds, you almost don't care that the photos themselves are incredibly dull.

But there you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 6 - Nothin' but the Hits

 Another basketball repack.

This is a bit of a lie, as these generally contain 2 relic cards with the third being an auto.

A Raptors card is a perfect start! Even better when it is a new one to the collection, and someone who was still with the Raptors when I landed the card. He was traded to the Knicks as part of the Anunoby trade, and a month later was sent on the Detroit.

But he was still in the league, unlike the others in the pack.

Ferguson lasted a few years before his move overseas. Wikipedia says he's now playing in Cape Town, 

South Africa.

And here's the autograph - another player who is out of the league at this point, with wiki revealing he's now with the Beijing Ducks. While I won't go as far to proclaim his signature as worthy of belonging in my penmanship binder, I'll just say I'm happy some of the letters are legible, along with some sort of way to meld the T and the J together. 

Despite both being non-current NBAers, at least they're from higher end releases.

There you have it!

How to get an endorsement deal.

 

1. Have the last name Heinze.

2. Sport #57.

3. Make sure some one notices.

4. $$$$$$$$$

In retrospect, he probably should have started wearing that number while in Boston.  

A Rangers Round Up

 Sure, the team has returned to expectations of the preseason with a crash the past month or so, but that doesn't mean I can't show off my recent additions to the Kitchener Rangers binders. All of which were reasonably priced over on COMC because of e-packs.

Sure, he didn't last too long with the team, and these Top Imports are his only cards here, but when you put up a 65 save performance in a game, that will make you worthy of an appearance in an insert set that includes the name "Top". Even if this card was probably planned/released before that night.

I still don't know what they were going for with this Pitter Patter insert. But a card from an insert set that doesn't make any sense to me still counts as a binder addition.

I guess a good thing about a player showing up in pretty much every set means plenty of opportunities to add his cards to the binder. That's a sunrise parallel out of Allure. There were Sunset parallels the previous season, which does seem like a backwards way of releasing parallels with that name.

Plain white swatch!

While I do have an actual autograph of HOFer Bill Barber in the collection, now I have a facsimile to go alongside it.

A couple of autographs out of mid/high range releases. I'm guessing somebody hoping for something a little higher end wasn't the happiest getting these out of their e-packs. I'll take advantage and grab them at a nice price. Damiani is still doing the minor league thing in the Dallas organization, while Sherwood does appear to be out of hockey at this point. At least the former did get a goal in his handful of games in Dallas.

Long live the deep checklist of 20-21 Signature Legends! Even if your average breaker wouldn't be too elated to get this as one of their box hits, I still love going through the cards over at COMC, and being surprised at people who made appearances in a set in the 2020s. It was very much like looking at cards in 2013 Hometown Heroes. 

And there you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 5: Hanger and a Hit

 

And I'm back digging into repacks-to-be-posted box again with one of these. And that's a really solid starter card with someone that's really been becoming one of the top players in the league the past few season, even if he's doing so in one of the more anonymous markets.

At this point, the Skybox effects on the ball had started to become a little cheesy as opposed to something nifty. That corner on the Dale Ellis makes it look like a sticker from the time where we required specific instructions on how to peel the sticker off the back to place it into the album.

(Speaking of albums, if anybody could hook me up with a 2019-20 Panini NBA sticker album, whether it is brand new, or even with a couple pre-stuck stickers, it's on my wantlist since I've completed the set and am now looking for a home for all of them)

With the hit removed from the conversation, I don't really expect anything other than base cards in these, so getting a pair of Pulsar parallels out of 2019 Hoops Premium Stock is definitely a pleasant surprise. Also, with his second appearance, this becomes an Olden Polynice hot pack.

The hit is of the late Adreian Payne. Relic cards of people who have passed on seem creepy to me, but only if the item was produced after their death. It just gives the feeling of someone poking through dead people's stuff that has been dumped at a thrift store looking for bargains. Naturally, this doesn't apply to this since it was obviously made during his playing days.

Some nice star power here with David Robinson (and a Horace Grant cameo to put his appearances at 2  in this repack as well). Also, all 4 of those Fleer cards have been from the Update set. 

And the finale. 

Not the best repack ever, but all I ask from these is that I get an enjoyable experience busting the pack. And that's what I got. 

There you have it!

Annual 2/14 post

My birthday has come around again, and as every year for the past how many, I'm saluting my collection of 2/14 babies with my Top 10 cards of the past year. The qualifications are that the card must have made its debut in a first-run product in the past year, it must be in hand, and the featured 2/14er can only appear once on the list.

Simple!

And here we go!

10.

I probably should have put the Drew Beam Stars & Stripes auto here instead. But Josh Pillar really set the bar for lazy autographs in the collection. And my hockey collection as well. This is a 21-22 product, but was released in March 2023. Because UD's release schedule for a lot of their products has been unpredictable to say the least since the pandemic.

9.

I was going to put one of the 1988 inserts in here, but I've already got one of those on my list later on. So, Ethan Small's shiny autograph out of Finest gets the nod based on a background that wouldn't look out of place on a 1989 Diamond Kings card. 

8.

I busted a couple boxes of Metal Universe to work on the base set. There were only a couple of these inserts in these boxes, but since this particular one wasn't too expensive at COMC, despite this set not dropping on e-pack yet, I opted to add this one over some flagship entries. That's despite the cheesy 'Flash the Glove' name accompanying the camera flashes in the background.

7.

Ehlers always provides many options for this. And I can't go wrong with his Canvas entry out of last year's Series 2. While the celebratory photo in 23-24 Series 1 is a more interesting option, it doesn't count since being in my e-pack inventory doesn't count as in-hand. This is a solid second choice.

6.

A card that could also make its way into my CanCon collection, becomes my second Milwaukee card in the countdown. The signature isn't too bad, either. Even with only using the initial for the first name, he does use much of the sticker. My only complaint here - a card from a set named Prime Numbers should consist of cards numbered exclusively to Prime Numbers. A number ending in zero obviously won't cut it.

5.

I might as well have some content from the distaff side in my top 10.

4.

If Gabriel Moreno was still with the Jays, this might be higher. Unfortunately, that trade means his shiny flashback to 1988 only gets #4 instead of #2 on the list.

3.

My first Topps Now card in the collection! This entry celebrating Nolan's quick rise to the majors only 40 days after his being drafted by the Angels. There's only 9785 of these out there, and I've got one of them! I had no other choice other than Now for adding his cards, as he did not appear in Bowman Draft. 

2.

My second first round draft pick of the post. I figured that I'd be picking up Seattle up in quite a few group breaks this season, but I managed to land this in my third buy-in. A break of Chronicles really brought the volume, but it was Luminance that landed me this card, which featured an autograph to go alongside an interesting, shiny photo. 

1.

Was there ever any doubt? The second this popped out in a group break, I knew it would be in the top spot this year. And then tried to imagine the card it would take to dethrone it. Perhaps an autograph added to a 2023 Jim Kelly 1/1? Have I gushed enough about this card? About how it is shiny without being obnoxious enough that I could signal the International Space Station? About how they used the far classier "one of one" as opposed to the basic 1/1? I have? 

Good.

There you have it!