Jamal Murray is Impeccable

Along with my earlier Daniel Alfredsson post, I noted that I was in the lead with over 400 cards of his at TCDB. I also noted that the only collection I've completely entered there were his, my 2/14s, and my Jamal Murray. I only have 66 cards of his in comparison, but I'm also in the lead there when i comes to collecting the local product.

And here's two more!

You know a set is high end when the base cards are /99. But we do have a really nice design here using multiple photos, and it is really nice that they do not use the same jersey on both the photos. The way the photos are positioned almost makes it look like he's passing the ball to himself.

And one high-end base cards deserves another. 

There you have it!

Immaculate Raptors (My best group break card?)

The long-delayed high-end set dropped a week ago yesterday, and I grabbed the Raptors in a case break of it. Although their rookie content was non-existent in 18-19 releases, I figured I had a decent shot at landing a nice card in this release, since there was more veteran content than most releases.

Yeah, that's a pretty nice Raptors card. Siakam had pretty much been relegated to sticker dumps over the previous two seasons, before the basketball world realized that there's a pretty special player that developed into a star in Toronto. I remember thinking after all the trades that I was elated that Siakam, along with VanVleet and Powell, were staying in Toronto. And he was a major factor in bringing the trophy to Toronto. It is a little hard to see in hand, but the front of the card has a shadowbox quality.

And that Siakam wasn't the best Raptors card in the case.

This was!

BAM!

I really didn't think I'd land a Kawhi autograph from his time in Toronto. I thought the closest I would come was asking and getting one as a replacement if my previously entered Kobe redemption didn't come through. I'm not upset at all that he still isn't a Raptor - there's a championship banner now hanging in Toronto. It was all worth it. With sticker autographs with Kawhi pictured on the Raptors going for about $200, luck was really on my side to land this, and the Siakam for a fraction of the cost.

There you have it! Up next, some Prospecting (with Heroes)!

Going High End

A sale at the LCS last week inspired me to try something a little more high-end than I usually go for - a tin of Premier.

Last time, this product worked out pretty well, as I landed a Vasilevskiy RPA, and a redemption that turned into a Kane/Kessel dual (or you could just read yesterday's post). What would this bring me?

A base card.

A rookie base card.

Every tin is supposed to contain one RPA, and this was the one I got in here. I guess this is a patch, but it feels like an iron on more than a patch. The penmanship is non-existent, but at least he's still in the league.

A plain white relic.

Here's the second autograph in the box. It is a better player than the RPA, at least. And the penmanship is a little better than on that as well. at least you can recognize one of the letters and his jersey numbers.

Another plain white relic, but definitely a step up from the Giroux. The Legends portion of the relics falls 1 in every 20 tins, but Gretzky is a Tier 1 relic, falling at a mere 1:350 tins. At those odds, I can't complain about landing a swatch from the Great One. And at least the silver on the design goes nicely with the Kings uniforms.

The final card breaks the white swatch streak!

While I didn't get my money worth in this, the Gretzky and the Keller were nice enough to take the edge off.

Film Noir

With the lack of rookies this year, the Raptors were a cheap date in group breaks. So, here's a trio of cards from a very recent, very high-end release, 18-19 Noir.

The set is high-end enough that the base cards are numbered to just /85. I always enjoy welcoming new faces to the collection, and here's my first Jeremy Lin card with him as a Raptor.

I don't care that he signed with the Clippers. He still helped bring a championship to the team. They could go 0-82 next year and Masai could trade everybody for second round picks and expiring contracts, and I wouldn't complain. I will merely savour every moment of last season.

And despite the Kawhi coming from another subset, (Holo Silver, to be precise), the cards still look really nice side-by-side to complete the logo.

And at least there's still another year of Lowry left to enjoy as well in Toronto.

Not an Orange Crush, but an Orange Swoosh

2019 Score dropped yesterday, starting off the NFL collecting season. I'd cashed in $250 of COMC credit, with the intention of picking up a box, and something else to go with it. Since this product was marked down significantly for blowout's April Showers sale, I decided to buy my first ever NT box. To chase some Jamal Murray, I went for 2016-17 Collegiate basketball.

Even the box looks high end. There is a cardboard overlay for a hinged box, with a smaller box contained within. Although this advertises 8 cards, there were 10 inside, 8 of which were hits.

Here's the base design.

And here's a silver parallel. With the white getting constricted around the middle of the card, it works better here with the dark vs the light jerseys.

Here's the first hit, and I'm already happy. Of course, this counts as a Raptors card. This is my second FVV auto, both of which are technically Shockers autos.

2 for 2 with Raptors binder additions! 2 college teammates that got drafted by the same NBA team, albeit a year apart.

I've already got a Onuaku card from Spectra where the photo features him taking a free-throw shot granny style. Although this has a patch and an on-card auto, I still have to give the nod to the Spectra. These are considered to be base cards in this set.

I didn't get a Jamal Murray in this box. But I did get this Michigan Wolverines patch and auto that will surely wing its way in the direction of Ann Arbor. If you don't get a PC hit, you might as well hit one that a regular trading partner will appreciate.

How can this patch be numbered as high as /99? It must come from a cap or warm up jersey, because this feels more like a hockey patch. This card actually came from a 2015 Multisport release. Looking for other examples on COMC provide no clue.

But by looking at the card back, I can at least place the relic as part of the Rebel's mustache and nose.

One more on-card autograph with a patch to end this portion of the box.  This swatch doesn't seem significantly larger than the others with on-card autos, so I'm not sure colossal is the term I'd use here.

The only sticker autograph of the box. It is a second year player, so I guess this counts as the veteran content in the box, along with the MCW.

The final card in the box is literature, in the form of a book card.

Swoosh!

For my first time busting one of the higher end options out there, I really can't complain. Hits for the PC, hits for trade partners, and some nice swatches. I go lower end tomorrow as I start recapping the Score box.

Black November Box Breaking - 2013 Timeless Treasures and 2016 Gala

More box busting goodness via COMC credit. At only 5 cards per box for both of these boxes, I might as well combine both of them in one post.

Starting off with the older product.

One base card per box, and I lucked out with it being a Raptors card. Unfortunately, the my lucky streak wouldn't continue with this box.

There were cards for this set for 5 members of each of their timeless teams. I'd probably rather have got the Dr. J or Moses Malone for the 76ers, but this is still a nice looking card and Jones does have his number retired by the team.

Peyton only played a handful of games in 13-14, and has been overseas the past two seasons.

Not exactly a household name, but at least he was able to carve out a 10 year career in the game.

And this would have been a great pull when this product came out. He just got sent down to the Long Island Nets of D-League, and that back-and-forth pretty much describes his career. But at least I can add this to my Canadians in the NBA collection.

And now, a higher end box. 5 cards as well, but here you have 4 of them hits, with two autos and 2 relics. The autos also appeared to be entirely on-card throughout the set as well.

These are the base cards. Given how the base cards in higher end sets look to usually be a photo of the player on a white background with some foil stamping, I really like how different these look.

First up in the relics is this Myles Turner. He kinda frustrated the Raptors in their opening round series last year.

I guess for the time he was a Clipper, Ron Harper was the main attraction in town if you didn't cheer for the Lakers. And I can't say I have too many cards /34 in my collection. I guess they ran out of swatches before they hit the more standard 35 or 49 for this subset.

I'm guessing this was supposed to be my box hit, with Booker being one of the top rookies last season. But, this will be one of the cards that will end up at COMC, with a goal of recovering some of the credit for next year's Black November.

And why would I keep that card when I have this beautiful card of Rolando Blackman on its way to my penmanship collection? And even better, this bumps an earlier Blackman auto (albeit one with a similarly nice auto) out of my collection, and into a mailer for a Dallas Mavericks collector.

And there you have two boxes of cards. One pretty good - the other notsomuch.