Bills! Bills! Bills!

Back to the group break mailers, and a pair that showed up that added some new names to the team PC, even if some of them have yet to don Bills attire.

First up is a bunch of stuff from Chronicles Draft, which brings a bunch of designs into a collegiate product. Davis was a 4th rounder out of UCF, and while he only got one card here, he is a Rookie Premiere guy, so there should be more to come.

I'm doing the base cards, such as they are, in terms of increasing volume. Here's two from Zack Moss, a third rounder, and another rookie premiere guy who will be providing me with player-worn swatches as the year goes on.

We finally get a look at what the base cards really look like. This is definitely the most newspaper-ish for a Chronicles card so far.

Of course, a QB would lead the way in terms of base/insert/parallel/whatever cards. You'd expect nothing less from such an elite white person.

My first numbered card adds a purple parallel to my collection. And yes, all these collegiate cards go right into the Bills binders. Why wouldn't they?

The Silhouettes are always welcome additions to the ol' binder. They might work better with just a plain swatch, and no chance of any portion of a patch hiding behind the player.

And holy sweetness is that a nice patch to end the Chronicles portion of the mail. The research to discover its source wasn't too hard, as it traces to the 2018 Holiday Bowl. Alas, this has to be player worn as Moss didn't appear in the game due to injuries.

Here's some Luminance, which does have some of my favourite base card designs. And we finally see Bills unifoms, and the draft picks are now listed with their new team. That Tremaine Edmunds comes as close as one can to one of my favourite football themes, a defensive player with the ball. So, I have to vote Josh Allen's stretch, along with Jon Feliciano celebrating in the background.

Of course, there's a variety of numbered parallels as well.

The Legends make an appearance as part of the 'Vintage Performers' subset. I like how the filter gives this card a slightly older appearance than the regular base cards.

Yes. The Zack Moss portion of my PC got really good after this mailer. Iffy sig, but at least the 'Z' looks nice, which it should for any player with a capital 'Z' in their name.

There you have it!

Another box of Chronicles - Part 2

Here's the end of this box:

Pack 4:

Getting the final non-hit pack out of the weigh early. But no complaints with a new Cavan Biggio card fro the the Jays collection. I really seemed to be an Eloy Jimenez magnet with this stuff, but never landed an auto of his from it (although I already had one from Heritage Minors).

Pack 5:

3 Padres cards, including a hit, certainly make this a Padres hot pack! This also the second time in this box where the final two cards in the pack were of the same player.

Pack 6:

That's three straight Mookie Betts cards, and as you might suspect, the big head one is my favourite of the bunch. That Aaron Judge looks really nice with the green crusade background (/50), and there's the final auto as well on one of the more interesting designs in the product with Kramer. That's a gold /25 parallel as well.

And there you have it!

Another box of Chronicles - Part 1

With the football version of this product dropping this month, why not bust a box of the baseball version in anticipation of it? I'll probably end up doing at least a box of the football, since the basketball will continue to be priced insanely for this year's releases.

Pack 1:

Well, what a nice start for the ol' team collection. 2 Vlads, one being a hit, and an Alonso. That Mondesi is a pretty nice looking photo as well, barely noticing the lack of logo on it.

Pack 2:

There's one of the non-hit packs, but at least there is a shiny Spectra card in there. Austin Riley isn't a bad player to get a /99 parallel out of.

Pack 3:

Sure, there's an autograph in there (Meisinger appears not to have any Topps cards yet), but I gotta give that nice shiny Alonso /199 the nod as the best card in the box. While I have yet to land an autograph of his, I've landed some really nice numbered parallels from my breaks of this.

That's 3 packs. 3 more tomorrow!

When In Doubt: Chronicles

Sometimes, it is good to have a box worth of busted cards around when you don't just want to post a single card, but don't want to get to verbose. So, here's another box worth of my favourite 2019 product.

Pack 1:

While sometimes you might see two cards from the same design in a single pack, this might be the first time I've received three. But, they are all different parallels, with Vlad being the base design, Kieboom being a holo parallel, and Tucker being the hyper parallel /299. There's also the first of the two Spectra cards that appear in packs without hits.

Pack 2:

And, there's the first hit. Eventually. The gold parallels are /99 in that set. A big head Score card? Those are always welcome. The Chavis is another Hyper parallel, and like with Crusade is /299.

Pack 3:

The first actual auto is of Michael Perez, a catcher for Tampa. I hadn't heard of him aside from cardboard appearances. Apparently he was supposed to see more time than he got behind the plate last season, prior to Travis D'Arnaud signing and living up to his original potential.

Pack 4:

That's really what I like to see with a relic card with multiple windows. Three different designs for a relic. Two plain swatches, albeit different colours, and a pinstripe. Not a lot of variety in terms of teams, with 3 White Sox and 2 Angels cards in the pack.

Pack 5:

And there's the final hit. And another Chicago-intensive pack. But we've also got Vlad showing up again, and Ruby Wave /199 of Tatis, so not bad at all.

Pack 6:

That's a nice way to end it - a Pete Alonso hot pack with both a numbered and non-numbered card. That hot pink of Arraez is also numbered, being /75.

Not bad at all, even if I would have preferred not going back to back boxes with a redemption.

Year-End Chronicles

As the box-busting year draws to its conclusion, it is a perfect time for yet another box of my favourite product of the year, whether it is basketball or baseball.

Pack 1:

We get the relic out of the way on the first pack. Kris Bryant brings the shininess into this, and with the Acuña I landed last time, it is nice way to start the box by reminding me of one of my better pulls of the year (although the best has to go to 1 of my 2 Gordie Howe-graphs).

Pack 2:

I like those 'big head' Score cards more than any sane human being should. Enough that I wonder what they'd look like if Topps issued a licensed version of these. The Eloy is a /99 Blue Neon parallel.

Pack 3:

Here's another Eloy numbered card, with the Titan being a Ruby Wave parallel. There's the first of the autos in the box, Victor Reyes was a Rule 5 rookie in 2018, but all his rookie cards were in 2019 sets, so this is still a rookie autograph despite it being his second season.

Pack 4:

The blandest of the packs. Moving on...

Pack 5:

But that's better. An autograph, and a the second appearance of Polar Bear Pete!

Pack 6:

It looks like I'm ending on a redemption. But since I haven't managed to get myself a Cavan Biggio autograph yet for my Jays collection, I'm more than willing to wait to add one to my collection. Also, this was a hot box for numbered parallels of guys named Lowe who play for Tampa. This Hyper parallel comes in at /299.

And there you have it! One last baseball box to break for 2019, and that's up tomorrow for Christmas Eve.

The 2/14 Remainder

Now, the cards from sports that have their own section in the collection, and not like soccer players forced to share space with politicians.

Can the AAF even count as one-and-done? Regardless, Topps issued cards for it, and I had the chance to add an on-card autograph of Jeff Luc into my collection. And since the AAF gave me the chance to add a new face to the collection, as well as possibly some more Christian Hackenberg.

The other gridiron card in this group was a lot more mainstream, but this is the 'minted in Canton' parallel.

Only one hockey card in this group, but it is still a 1/1. Bogdan looks to be back in the KHL at this point, but at least he spent enough time over here to get a Compendium card, and this cyan plate to go along with it.

A reprint allows Perry Lipe, and the Richmond Colts, to make debuts in the collection. A non-reprint of this is one of 3 cards from the era on my not-so-realistic wantlist.

Whether it goes in my 2/14 collection, or my Cancon collection, it is easy to find a home for Philippe Valiquette cards.

Abiatal Avelino reached the bigs in 2018 and 2019, but still has yet to get himself a Topps card. But Panini is still there in their unlicensed glory.

Despite all the Chronicles I've busted this year, I didn't come across this card on my journeys. So, I relied on COMC to add my first auto of him as a Giant, since he did have Bowman cards where he was a Yankee. He went west as part of the McCutchen trade.

And there you have it! 

Chronicles Box Break - Part 2 - Acuña Matata!

I'll wrap up the wax portion of the Expo recap with these three packs. I'll be away for the weekend for Grey Cup, so I'll have some football posts set for a few days, and I'll resume Expo posts on Monday.

Pack 4:

Your base cards in this pack were very Chicago-intensive.

And things were also Chicago-intensive when I started with the parallels.

Numbered parallel #2. While green parallels in Panini-land are frequently numbered /5, this one adds a zero by being /50.

A busy pack with the second autograph in the box coming from this pack. Unlike the first auto, I'd heard of Cionel Perez, but only through his appearances on cards this season.

Pack 5:

MVP! MVP! Bellinger gets a couple cards, and the Chicago content continues.

You know it is an incredible pull if after pulling it, you immediately hit the floor of the Expo looking for an appropriately sized holder for it so it stays in good shape for the journey home. Yup, that's a 1 of 1 on-card autograph of one of the top young stars in baseball today. Earlier this year, an autograph of Acuña Sr came my way via trade for my Mets collection, and now I've got a great candidate to go alongside it.

Now, if someone offers up something similar for my Mets PC, that would be enough to get it out of my possession. But it would take something pretty nice to do so.

Pack 6:

Kinda irrelevant after the last pack, no? Although the Jays content is nice, it does get buried after the 1/1 auto.

Chronicles Box Break - Part 1

While the singles really weren't there as much so as some years, there was seemingly more baseball wax on the floor. With my personal favourite, Chronicles, being one of the boxes available, I had to take a chance with that. Here's what it contained:

Pack 1:

I enjoy this product for the same reason I enjoyed busting Rookie Anthology. Variety! Only the Reynolds card is a base card. All the rest are insert sets featuring various designs. The Rated Rookie is an update of sorts for Donruss.

And here's the first of the hits, getting the relic in the first pack. I'm somewhat disappointed that a gold parallel, numbered /25 only contains a single colour swatch. 

Pack 2:

A killer pack for rookies. Eloy! Tatis! Vlad!

And let's throw in an appearance of the Polar Bear as well. To make this rookie intensive pack even better, this Red Mosaic Spectra Pete is numbered to an ebay 1/1 friendly 01/25! What a keeper! And this isn't even close to the best card in the box.

Pack 3:

This box has been a hot box for Kyle Tucker so far, as he makes his third appearance so far. Other than that, there's a big head of Mike Trout from Score.  

Here's another numbered parallel, done in a red that works nicely with the Padres colours. Unlike the Spectra, this ruby wave is /199. 

Auto #1. I had no clue who Justin Williams was. He got 1 AB with Tampa in 2018, then went to the Cardinals as part of the Tommy Pham trade. He was all over 2013/4 Bowman releases after being a second rounder of the Diamondbacks. 

There's three packs worth of Chronicles. The next 3 show up tomorrow, with another contender for my best pull this year.