It's Just a Box Break, You Should Really Just Relax - Part 2

And now, a whole bunch of drawn cards from the insert sets. Between these two, there's about 100 cards total, so I'm just hitting my personal highlights.

First up, a Rowsdower card. A trading card featuring one of Canada's most incredible superheroes (tied with Mr. Canoehead). This was all that this needed to make it a spectacular insert set.

But a card of Mr. B Natural also helps. Mr. B would also be seen in the sketch card gallery.

And let's show these off, starting with a ROBOT ROLL CALL! This one is done by Andy Moore, who drew the 1/1 sketch cards of Crow that I got in my Series 1 and 2 boxes. With all respect to Mr. Moore, I was happy that the ones I got this time were from different artists.

And let's not forget the newest bots aboard the ship, with Growler and M. Waverly.

Although he can also be found in the Claudiu sketches, I opted for the full colour version of Mark Hamill as P.T. Mindslap. Even if does give flashbacks to another legitimate contender for the worst movie ever shown aboard the SOL - Carnival Magic.

A little late for Turkey Day, but here's a suitable sketch.

He can do stupid things!

Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter is the babytalk name I use when I want to annoy my dog, That's worthy of a scan.

I'm not sure if this version of Dr. Forrester is one of the stranger entries into an interpretation of a character, or one of the best.

All ready to take care of the place when the master is away.

Dr. Donna St. Phibes might be the most recent character to make an appearance on one of these cards, having debuted in episode 1203 of the last Netflix season.

And I'll end this portion with the simple hope that your Christmas was the Swayziest.

Tomorrow: 3 printing plates! 2 sketch cards! 2 autographs!

COMC and the 2/14 Misc. Portion

I really have to get caught up on my COMC to-be-posted collection before the next mailer from them arrives. So today and tomorrow will cover the 2/14 content that has been stewing in the box.

Easily the oldest card in this group goes back to 1979 and the James Bond: Moonraker set. Lois Maxwell made one appearance in this set, and while I'm disappointed she wasn't featured in the sticker subset, at least there was this.

Another entry into the binder from the "cheap on COMC because of epacks" methodology.

The 'inventor' portion of the collection is pretty threadbare. I've added cards featuring a Ferris Wheel, since George Ferris was a 2/14 baby. Now, I can add Christopher Sholes to the collection. You are very likely working at his invention right now - the QWERTY keyboard.

Who would have thought that Mayors insert set in 2016 Ginter would pay dividends? But LA Mayor Eric Garcetti is now in the collection. I wonder if he does TTM.

I won't pretend to know the first thing about soccer, or any of the players featured here. But these cards all mark the first appearances of these 4 players in the collection.

And there you have it! Tomorrow, the rest of the new cards with some baseball, hockey and football.

2/14 COMC Catch-up

I've hit ship on another bunch of cards from COMC a few days ago. While most of that lot are set builders for Heritage, there's some 2/14 content in there, so I'm going to use that as motivation to return to my COMC to-be-posted box, and clear out the rest of the 2/14 content.

While this card would fit nicely in either my Senators collection or the 2/14 collection, I'll opt for the latter. When in doubt, go for the more interesting swatch, and I've got fewer green swatches in my varied collections than black ones.

Here's hockey entry #2, a thick numbered entry out of 2013 Dominion.

Hockey ends with a pair of "they are cheap with e-packs, so I'll just add them" entries.

Here's a pair of cards for the miscellaneous section of the collection, and it is these two, (also part of the e-pack cheapness) that bump Danai Gurira up to the lead in that part of the collection, 8 cards to 7 over Edinson Cavani.

This is an online exclusive Sapphire Chrome that was a base parallel to the main set. The photo actually works perfectly with the parallel shading. Clippard was already a Blue Jay long before the release of Series 2 last year, but middle relievers aren't worthy of photoshopping. At least he was in Heritage High #s and Update.

And let's end it with one of the likely better photos in the basketball collection, with some anonymous player catching a face full of Tyus Edney.

And there you have it!

One Card Only: White Whale in the Mail

This was a recent addition to my "less than reasonable" want list. I didn't have this specific 2/14 card on the list, just any autograph of Danai Gurira would have sufficed. With her having appearances in The Walking Dead and Black Panther releases, I figured that an autographed card of someone from one of the biggest movies of the past year would quickly shoot out of my price range.

But, Dennis came through in the latest TMM/TMV mailer. WOO-HOO!

Thanks so much for this totally unexpected addition! I've put a few things into my COMC inventory as a thank you for this, but will likely be dropping you a  mailer beforehand. And I still have a pile of cards still to get to from this!

A Costumed 2/14 Addition

I guess this is about as close as I can get to melding 2/14 and 10/31 in a post. I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of any incarnation of Star Trek, so I'll just take the card's word for it that this is Frank Collison, and Gul Dolak was a character on the show. Frank is one of TV's "Hey! It's that guy" types, with a lot of guest star roles to his credit, along with a long run on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. (Again, see my Star Trek viewing habits)

Here's a screen grab of him from a recent Criminal Minds episode, and when I saw this, it was immediately - "Oh yeah! Him!"

And if you're in a more comedic bent, watch him in an episode of Night Court as "Aqualung".

And there you have it - a rare auto for the misc. portion of my 2/14 collection.

Redeemed!

In which this:

Becomes this:

The scan doesn't really show the size of this redemption. It is 4*6, and about as thick as hanger box. This is definitely one of my more unique pulls from any product.

And here's the back. Used in Canada? OK.

But at least it came through!

The Not-To-Distant Future is NOW!

Flashing back to the Expo, I pulled the 1/1 Pierre-Luc Dubois at the show. When I sold it on ebay, it more than covered all my outgoing funds for that day, with some left over. Of course, that means 'MORE CARDS'!

No sports this time! MST3K BABY!

The box has cards that can be cut out. 27 of them in fact, with these from the box bottom being a sampling. I left them as is as the box is a perfect way to hold the cards after collation.

One last great thing before I get to the actual cards. The individual packs have a classic wax pack feel to them, opening broadly like anything from the 80s and beforehand. Even better, when you open them, there's a checklist available on the inside of them.

Before opening the packs themselves, there's a metal box topper. It isn't really a box topper in the usual sense as it is the standard 2*3 size.

The majority of the cards consisted of the Invention Exchange set. There are two for each episode, one for the Mads and one for Joel.

Episode 305 gets multiple ones, as there was a back-and-forth exchange with various sound effects.

Second most common were the experiment cards, with one per episode. The front has a screenshot from one of the host segments, with the back having the recap of the episode.

Yes, Dahg Wan! Riff It gives us the movie sign, with this one covering four season 1 experiments. At 36 cards in this set, evenly divided with 9 for the featured episodes (Mad Monster, Women of the Prehistoric Planet, The Corpse Vanishes, Robot Holocaust). Perfect for pages!

If you've bought any of the Shout Factory DVDs, you're familiar with the mini-posters that were with them. Many of the ones from Seasons 1 through 3 are represented in this insert set. The other side of the card is a screen from the DVD menu.

The exception is for Moon Zero Two's, which had a checklist since I'll assume the DVD hadn't quite dropped at printing time. As well as the likely answer to the "Why no Gamera posters?" question.

3D Cards end this portion of the recap. You didn't know you wanted a 3D Torgo card until you saw this, right? This seems to be the only portion of this set that has much content beyond the first 3 seasons. There's also a 3D Trumpy, some more posters and host segments. Glasses are included. A nice thing is that all of these cards fit perfectly in one of those empty Walmart Hockey Power Cubes. I'm tempted to move them over into binders, but that box is so perfect, as it can comfortably hold the cube, as well as the numbered inserts/hits in top loaders.

Sketch cards can also be found throughout the box. I landed 3 of the 9. The others were Pearl, Frank, Dr. Forrester, Gypsy, Bobo and Servo.

The back of the sketch cards. All 3 of mine were numbered 429 out of 500. My lucky number!

And now, the hits.

Neither were hits in the traditional relic/auto sense of the word in sports cards (relics are possible, though), but they were both really nice. Up first, a film cell that is Authentically Artificially Genuine! The best kind!

And how do you make the sketch cards from earlier even better?

1/1 Sketch card! AWESOME! Even better that I'm more a Crow than a Servo to land this one.

What do you think, sirs?

Pimpin' is easy! Real easy! If you think these cards aren't poopie, go get some! Boxes are still available!

Newest 2/14 Faces

As always, my latest COMC shipment included additions to my 2/14 binder. Some faces were familiar, but I did add a pair of newcomers to the collection, both of whom are destined for the miscellaneous portion of the binder.

I'll start with the (likely) one who is still alive, figure skater Yuka Sato. She is a former world champion, and comes to the binder through her 2010 World of Sports card. She also appears in the 2009-10 Upper Deck Champions insert series, which makes it two people from that subset that would qualify for the 2/14 binder. The other was also a figure skater, Jojo Starbuck.

And proving I will try to raid any subset for additions to my collection, here's one from last year's Heritage News Flashbacks. Plus, that's the reason I called Sato as just likely the only one who is still alive. He could still be around at 104, just in hiding the past 42 years. It is feasible.

But I'd still be suspicious if this had an on-card autograph to go with it.

Fall Expo Post #16 - The 2010's - The Final Decade of Cards

Only one post to go after this as I show off the handful of hits I picked up that I could have shown with the appropriate decade like I did with the 90's autos, but elected not to.

I bought this just because I love when lengthy names have to squeeze their way onto cards. However, looking at what someone on COMC wants for this, maybe I should have submitted it at the Expo, and put it up for %80 off that price. Either way, I would have easily made my money back on this card and then some. As Tom Vu used to say "Profit! Profit! Profit!"

Not quite as lengthy, but still longer than your typical name.

I was planning to post this a few days after the Expo when Banting was the google doodle of the day. Instead, here's another SP from this year's Champ's.

Back-to-back days with random gold parallels!

The. Silly. Bunny. Has. Two. Ears...

Can it really be called a throwback jersey when they were still in regular usage in 2003?

And a pair of rather unique autograph signings. These look like they come from the fan appreciation night where the fans literally get the jerseys off the back of the player.

And to end, fish card from Champ's. Because why not.

Just the hits and some numbered cards left for the final Expo post.