2/14 on the Diamond

 Back to the 2/14 collection today, and I'm showing off all the new baseball additions to the collection.

Here's the most recent additions to the collection. This was a solo PWE order from sportlots. This is the first contender for next year's "2/14 calendar year" best of  post. It may only be 1/4 Mitch Farris, but that's still enough to count it form the collection. Although I do hope he'll have a less obnoxious candidate.

From the newest to the oldest, and all the way back to 1960 for this Leaf entry. With this 5th card of his, I'm now the top collector of Tom Borland at tcdb. Short of acquiring a buyback, this is probably where my acquiring of his cards is going to end.

TCDB is strange with how it counts variations, so this being listed separately there means that this naturally counts as a separate card from the other, more basic entry in this set. I'm keeping the slip of paper with the card in the binders, since how else will I remember which is which?

Sanchez's cards are among the stranger ones in the collection, since all his cards list his birthday at 2/26, but practically all online sources list it as 2/14. It's a reverse of former Atlanta Falcon Jessie Tuggle, whose cards list him as 2/14, but there are various results from online sources. Both of their cards count for the collection, though. Also, the Tacoma Tigers were not affiliated with Detroit at the time of his minor league entry, but as the colours would indicate, they were an Oakland affiliate. The actual Detroit card is a Tiffany entry.

Nick Pivetta's 2025 move to the Padres earned both a photoshop special in Series 2 of flagship, and a probably-not version in Update. This is the former, which should have rendered an Update base appearance unnecessary. But it does give me a lot more cards to potentially acquire.

Topps Now are always fun additions to the collection. A lot of people were intrigued by Yermin's 5 hit debut, to the tune of 6,571 cards. His early success and later faltering made me pick up this for about 60 cents. The Optic is a "Red Dragon" parallel, and is /110. 

Brooks Lee's content increases by three. That blue parallel works so perfectly with the City Connect jersey. While I do appreciate that they did use different photos on the Fortune 15 card, I wish they'd used an image with a less "D'UH" facial expression with the smaller one.

More parallels here with Nolan Schanuel. The middle is a Magenta parallel, and is the third and final of the serial numbered cards in this post. The third one is an Easter Tin Green Leaf Foil parallel. That's some verbosity!

Dave Dravecky is the king this time around with 5 new cards. Those Topps and Fleer ones were cards I was certain I had in the collection, but tcdb told me otherwise. The postage stamp was listed as an item at tcdb, so it does count. Size-wise, it is about the size of two Topps Micro cards. So, not the smallest, but probably the thinnest.  Maybe the Larry Seiple Sunoco stamp would rival it?

There you have it!

Does Bear Strip in the Woods?

 

Maybe.

But I do hope Bear Woods did remove this jersey to hand over to UD in a more traditional setting.

$3.44 Well Spent

 

There are times I look through my "COMC To Be Posted" box and wonder what I was thinking. 

This isn't one of those times.

And I do appreciate the certification, even if only a weirdo like me would even consider a lack of certification an issue for a Ron Robinson auto.

There you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 12 - Another Hat Trick

 Another pick up of one each of the three available Dollarama repacks. One of each from the front of the hanger pegs.

As before, I'm starting with the least expensive one.

The star of this one turns out to be the opening card. With a celebratory photo from the Stanley Cup Finals on the front, this made my usual method of grabbing whatever card was on top a good decision.

The value bundle's contents.

The 90s pack provided two appearances of the same player, albeit on different cards. They both mention John Druce's playoff scoring run the previous season, and his name is still thought of (at least by me) as the namesake for someone having unexpected playoff scoring success.

That's Vincent Damphousse on the checklist sketch cards. That's about all I can think of to say about the cards in this fivesome. That, and the bottom 2 cards were the only cards in this from outside of the early 90s.

A couple interesting photos on top, and a pair of Kitchener Rangers alumni on the bottom. McLlwain is one of four players in NHL history to suit up for 4 different teams in the same season. His card is new to the alum collection - Robinson was a dupe.

The O6 pack provided Red Wings. Nothing really of note here except one providing another reminder not to drink and drive.

When the most interesting thing is getting two different cards of the same guy in a repacked pack, that's a dull repack.

Will the most expensive pack save it?

Here's the opener. It is the first time I've found a true base rookie card in any of these. He's still in the Avs system, but has spent more time in the AHL than not the past seasons, but still saw a few games this past season. 

A pretty generic Canvas insert, but at least you get a good look at the genetic one-and-done "Utah Hockey Club" jersey from that era.

Overtime is a promotional set that you'd get from hobby shops if you purchased a box. These reds are parallels in that set. I'd be surprised by a regular card from those sets, let alone a parallel of a decent rookie from it. Not looking at the checklist for the set, I'll bet Gauthier is one of the better rookies in there, even if that wasn't so in Philly.

More red, which is an odd contrast for a Blues card. All the way back to 2016 for this, and this does seem to be practically a vintage card for one of these, even though I had a 16-17 Canvas card before Older ones will be appearing in future posts, though.

Not the most exciting finale, but still a parallel of a big name. 

So, the mist interesting card was the first one in the least expensive of the repacks. Will that influence future purchase choices?

Highly unlikely 

And there you have it!

Over and Out

 Considering I would have been happy to see them just reach the play-in game(s) this year, I'm happy with the Raptors season in spite of its end.

And like with the Sens after their elimination, I'm showing off the Raptors content in my to-be-posted box.

1 card. That's it. 1 single card.

I did miss the random abrasive designs of Court Kings, though.

There you have it!

Svoboda Stacks

 

Not too much today, just a bunch of Petr Svoboda additions to the 2/14 collection. All cards, aside from this sticker.

I do find it the slightest bit interesting that all 4 teams represented on Svoboda's team on these cards are still in the 2026 playoffs. But I've now got 63 cards of his in the binder. The opening Pro Set is the French version, which I've somehow never come across in repack land. I've had the autographed version of the Pinnacle Flyers card in the lower corner for awhile, and finally used this Sportlots seller to finally add the base version.

There you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 11 - What I Left Behind

A few weeks back, I showed off a $6 football repack that contained a Joe Montana autograph. I remarked that I passed on a repack that advertised 3 Absolute packs.

There weren't any of the original style available this time. So let's see if there was anything in these to make me regret, prior to its opening, opting for the $6 one over this. It had exactly what was advertised - 3 Absolute packs, I guess from blasters.

Pack 1:

One pack in, and even if I didn't land the huge auto in the original choice, I already would have regretted this choice. While the design, at least for the veteran base, is fine, the rookies foil-ness makes them scan terribly. That's Trey Amos and Jalen Milroe on the bottom. Milroe did get into 3 games in short-yardage rushing situations, so at least he'll probably get a ring out of the deal.

Pack 2:

Speaking of Seahawks Super Bowl winners, there's the winning QB. We're at the state of the hobby where a /850 parallel is a ho-hum pull. It is a red squares parallel, for those trying to guess. Riley Leonard and Colston Loveland are the rookies. Of course, I got the Loveland after packing up a mailer bound for Ann Arbor.

Pack 3:

Bills content! I also love the concept of a Draft Diamonds insert set, saluting late round draft picks that succeeded. Also: Alfred Collins and Jordan Burch for the illegible rookies, the latter of which is an Oregon alum whose card has been set aside for a mailer to Portland that should go out next week.

So, not even close to the repacked cards in comparison. I'd argue that there were several cards among the randoms in the first one better than any card in this one.

Still, there you have it!

TCDB trade w/ Ballparks96 finishes the CFL set

 TCDB user Ballparks96 contacted me on the site a while back, looking for a High Gloss /10 of Kent Perkins I'd pulled a while back. I was willing to go 1-for-1 for a Tiger-Cats HG. A trade was worked out, and I was able to get the final two base cards to wrap up the 100 card base set.

These were the two last ones. I respect the oddness of one of the final cards being a punter. Perfect for a weirdo like me.

But there were a couple bonus cards thrown into the mailer. Two gold parallels of Tim White 2024. While these, thanks to E-packs, aren't too costly at COMC, I do like not having to shell out anything for this newness.

Finally, the big card of the trade. Davis might be sporting the double blue of the Toronto Argonauts here, but the bottom of the card puts him properly on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for the 2023 season, his final one in the league. 

There you have it!

Sens Season Finales

 As the Senators' season whimpered to an end Saturday, I thought this is as good a time as any to show their content in my to-be-posted box.

4 of the 5 cards that will appear here were picked up because of the "it was cheap thanks to e-pack" factor. This one is the dentist that doesn't recommend Trident gum. While there are several Schastlivy cards in my collection, this is the only Erich Goldmann appearance, and, aside from this card's parallels, my only option when it comes to acquiring one card of every Senator that got one as a member of the team.

While Michael Amadio did make his debut in the team collection out of the recent O-Pee-Chee release, I had this on its way in a COMC shipment before that set's release. I'll give the nod to shininess and call this my first card of his, even if I did have cards of his on either the Kings or the Golden Knights before.

Ullmark had an up and down season in many ways. But as long as he's now in a good mental state, I'm happy with how he's doing.

Bonus back of the card photo. I didn't need the side logo, just the roof to recognize this as a photo from MSG.

I guess I'm ending with a goalie kick. Leevi was the back-up for much of the season. These green parallels are exclusive to e-pack, and available after you collect 'X' base cards. I think it was 10 for the regular base, but only 5 for the SPd veterans/rookies. I'm not really going to make an effort to check.

One more goalie card, and the sole hit of this post. Mads only made a couple appearances with the big club this season, spending it, and all his previous pro seasons, shuttling between the AHL and the NHL. 

But, since his name is 'Mads', can I consider it a card for my MST3K collection? Like Sampo?

I'm thinking about this way too much.

There you have it!

Forgotten Wax

 Just a quartet of wax packs from various sources that I'd set aside and forgotten about. 

Two hockey and two football. I know I didn't pay $1.25 at any point for those two Pacific Plus II packs.

The AHL pack is the only one where I can fit the entire contents of the pack into a single scan. But with everything else at 10 per pack, it sets the tone for some 5 card scans. Despite Milano being a short print, the mascot card wins this one. Interestingly, if you search for 'Hammy' over at COMC, you get a bunch of Andrew Hammond cards too. But not if you search on Hamburglar.

Off to Pinnacle, which was an odd release. There were no stats on the cards - the back consisted of a write-up describing the photo on the front, and how the game the photo represents went. Although it doesn't necessarily translate to success, as among these 5, only Crombeen's team picked up the win in the game featured.

Things are a little better here, as only the Jay Bouwmeester can be traced directly to a loss. While Montreal did lose the Heritage Classic game, the one the press conference shown on the Gorges card was for, or but Josh never took the ice in it.

The Plus II release was very rookie themed. To the point that of the 20 cards over the two packs, only one of the cards was of a player not in their rookie season. That's a rather depressing pair of rookie QBs on the bottom row. 

Mark Higgs was the only player over these two packs that wasn't in his rookie year, although since he never had any NFL-level cards prior to this, it is still considered one of his rookie cards. You can also see how perfectly the colour schemes for teams can work out, as every one of these can go with the team colours, even if not an exact match. Contrast that with Marinovich's entry. 

Bills content! WOO-HOO! And it is a defensive player with the ball for an extra bonus. Also, infield dirt on card. It might be the one thing I miss about the death of the cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadium. 

And if a Bills appearance is wonderful, how about the appearance of a 2/14 baby? Even better, this Jeff Graham is a new entry into the binders. It is my 42nd card of his, and there's always something about pack-pulling a new entry to that collection. Fellow 2/14er Harry Colon is also a pack-pull possibility here, but that wouldn't be new. For other cards, there's more infield dirt, and a second card in Vaughn (Jarrod Bunch was #1) that will add content to a mailer currently on its way to Ann Arbor.

Considering I hadn't shown off these for however long after acquiring them, not bad at all. And I still have a small unopened stack of even more Pacific to show off. 

There you have it!