COMC Black Friday Goodies Finally Arrive - Part 2

Let's move to the halfway mark of the cards that I picked up.

This is one of those cards that I've always wanted. I'm finally happy to have the Pinch Run. card added into my collection of oddities. This card is definitely one of those. Turn it over, and all you have are the base running stats. This is certainly a unique moment in baseball card production.

One of my goals over the year was to put together a 1975 Mets team set, a nice mix of my favourite team and my birth year. I'd been slowly adding a common here, and a common there, putting me to the point where the only card I needed was the costliest - Tom Seaver.  I finally picked it up on Black Friday to complete the team set. I didn't really care much about what condition it would be in, I just needed it. Finally, for just a smidge over a dollar, this one finished the team set and the goal.

I will never tire of cards that commemorate that home run. Never.

This one seemed like a bizarre pick for me. I'm a Bills fan, and really don't want to chase a Vikings card. But, Smith might be my favourite NFLer who never made a stop in a Bills uniform. The reason is shown on the back of this card:

Yup. I'm a MSTie. Time to add a card that mentions one of my favourite shows, and a relic for a guest star. There aren't any Leonard Maltin ones out there, are there?

Why I didn't pull this one from a 25 cent bin at the Expo is beyond me. Black Friday was a chance to fix that moment of foolishness.

Finally, a good picture of one of my favourite masks in recent memory - Steve Shields and his salute to Gerry Cheevers. I love when the history of the game gets a nod on the masks. Cory Schneider is another recent one that I just love for the exact same reason. Check out Cory's Upper Deck base card from last year for an example of that.

COMC Black Friday Goodies Finally Arrive - Part 1

Just over a month. For something involving a border crossing, even that is a terrible. Either way, the cards finally made their way here. Too many for one post, so I'm going to break it up to 3 or 4 posts.

I'm going to open up with the continued additions to the birthday binder.

This is officially the oldest card in the binder. A Len Gabrielson from 1965. There were a couple of older cards of his, but I was all over this one because of the Cubs logo on the sleeve and pennant.

Although Len's is the oldest card, this was the oldest player that I could find cards of. Earl was born in 1897. Thank you, Conlon! There were cards of Tim Jordan, but I had no desire to shell out $40.00 for an old tobacco card that didn't even have 2-14 on the back of it.

The first card in my set of a guy who made a stop north of the border.

My collection runs to mainly hockey & baseball. Therefore this was the first basketball card to make it into the binder. Richard Hamilton is by far the highest scorer among the 2-14 club, although some might argue that Gheorghe Muresan is more famous. Either way, adding more cards to that portion of the collection shouldn't be too costly.

I've got a really good QB class among the 2/14 players. Jim Kelly is easily the best of the lot, but for some reason I passed on cards of his, and instead elected to go a little cheaper and add 2 different players to the binder. I selected these two because, in addition to the standard "you have a piece of jersey" on the back, it also includes their birthdays. I could also have picked up a card of the late Steve McNair for this.

Kelly, Bledsoe, McNair and Garrard. That's a pretty impressive foursome.

7 slots are full in the binder's first page, with the latter 2 on the way.  It's starting to take shape nicely.

December Show Recap - The Hits

I just went in with a small wantlist, hoping to find something for my various binders. Therefore, I elected to only bring $20 with me, as I figured that would be enough. Turns out I spent most of my time there searching through a Canadian rarity - the baseball dime box. But, I still walked around and found a few hits to make their way into a few of my binders.

First up, I added 3 hits to the front page of the my 2/14 birthday binder.

All these cards were $2.00. This was one that I had my eyes on over at COMC, but wasn't willing to part with about $8 for it. This was far more reasonable. A nice sized swatch as well. Plus, it is a member of hockey's most famous family.

This was a player who I had little desire to chase hits of. Although he's a Senator here, he barely reached double digits in game played. But, when one shows up in the box for a sane price, I had to go for it.

Milan is the leading scorer (for now) among 2/14 babies. Although I do think Marian Gaborik will pass him eventually. There is a two-sided relic with both these players on it that will end up high on my wantlist (when I reconstruct it). For now, this will suffice for his entry.

Up until now, my goalie mask binder has remained hit free. Heck, I've actually transferred out a /99 Olaf Kolzig card that I didn't realize was a numbered hit. So, it is yet to be determined where this Rask card will end up. Tuukka's mask is moving way up on my list of faves. It still hasn't knocked out the Mike Smith one, though.

Dipping my toe into Listia land

Living outside of the US doesn't give me as many options on the site as my stateside collecting bretheren. But it still gives me a handful of cards to choose from. I also generally go for cards with free shipping, which cuts my options even more. Still, I was able to add this card to the mask binder for 167 credits.

You've got to look at the card at a 45 degree angle to better see the mask without all the shininess. Thankfully, the back photo is much clearer, and it might even end up back to front in the binder as a result.

Dollar store box busting time again

I suppose I could return to the Zellers blasters. Or finally get around to the cards I picked up at the December show. But hey, why not show that you can bust cheap $2 boxes and still have some nice cards come out.

Opening up with a 4 card goalie repack. Yet another Mark Fitzpatrick Bowman comes my way. I'll soon be able to wallpaper a small room with them. I've already got the Montoya in my mask binder, so that one will be put aside in a pack set to go to a certain Wolverines alumni fan in mid-January. The other two will make their way to the binder as well. I've got a surprising # of Sean Burke cards in it.

A supposed premium pack with $5 value. I'm not really going to look it up, but all are on their way into binders. Cam Ward, of course, is in the mask binder. A somewhat obscure rookie, a parallel of a potential Hall of Famer, and a new team card without a photoshopped jersey are all going in the misc. hockey binder.

A pack of 4 80s cards. The Klima is a rookie card. The Lanny card will be a nice addition to my slowly-developing collection of his cards. It is also nice to find a Flying V jersey as well.

The final pack was a 5 pack with a guaranteed Hall of Famer. Usually that means a standard early 90s card. What was it this time?

I originally thought that the Larry Murphy card would be the Hall of famer. It fit the criteria for this type of repack. But, nope. There was a 5th card in the pack, and it really was unexpected.

A 30-year old Guy LaFleur card, A sweet find, even though it looks like the photo was taken when Guy was in the penalty box. It may not be a super valuable card, but I still liked it enough that I'll put it in a hard toploader.

I definitely got my $2 worth of surprise from that box.

December Sportslots Goodies - Part 3

Continuing on with the Sportlots stuff. Today, a bunch of new entries to the hockey side of eventual 2-14 binder.

This one is my favourite, based on the obscurity factor. He doesn't appear to have any NHL cards, but did only appear in 6 games with the Isles in 95-96, picking up no points but did get 14 minutes worth of penalties. I thought there were no cards of him out there, but I guess that is why those sites have search engines. You never know.

For non obscure reasons, this is my other fave from the shipments. How many times do you see a player with eye black on for his picture? There aren't many, and the ones that are out there come from the Winter and Heritage Classics. Marian is probably the guy in the snap cases with the most cards, and will probably be among the players to need at least 2 pages.

Milan is the guy with the most points among 2/14 babies, with about 150 point lead an Gaborik, but also with about a 270 game edge as well.

One of two Senators (as best I can recall) to have stops with my favourite team. Sean lasted 3.5 seasons in the Capital region, and played from 92 through 2008. The other one only made it through 11 games in total. So, which player is it that I have the relic card of, that set me back 2 whole dollars. Yup. The 11 gamer - Ilya Zubov.

For the same reason as the Damaso Marte cards I posted yesterday, I've got way too many Viktor Kozlov cards. At least I've been able to resist picking up the KHL card that I saw on  COMC earlier today.

29 games over 4 seasons with Buffalo and Tampa. This does seem to be his only NHL issued card.

7 games. But twice the number of  cards. This one, and a Be A Player card from 99-00. And yes, I plan to acquire both of them. And the final hockey card picked up this month for the birthday binder is:

Yet another 83-84 card. A rare occasion where I will intentionally acquire a Maple Leafs card.

December Sportslots Goodies - Part 2

I'll keep working my way through the card until mail resumes on the 27th, and hopefully my Black Friday goodies from COMC will be in it.

I'll open with a couple of additions to the goalie mask binder. First up is one that I didn't even know about until a couple weeks back.

Another film-themed goalie mask for the collection. I've got Kari Lehtonen's Kill Bill mask. I've got Jason Bacashihua's Friday the 13th mask. Time to add another - Corey's Psycho mask. I don't mind paying out 18 cents for a card that really won't be found in many dime bins at shows.

Although not nearly  as detailed as Corey's, I still liked this colour-coordinated entry from Gilles Meloche. I don't have a lot of pre 90s stuff in the binder, so adding this one was an easy choice. That wasn't the only entry from 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee that came in.

More Cooperalls!

And the infamous Lanny McDonald practice jersey.

I wanted to add a Jerome Williams card into my Raptors set, but I wanted one that also had his "Junk Yard Dog" nickname on it somewhere. After cross-referencing with COMC, this seemed to be the only one out there.

I saw this card posted over at dime boxes, and thought it would be a perfect addition to misc. baseball binder. I always like picking up something different, and this definitely is. It honours Brent Mayne picking up a win in a game - the first for a catcher.

This is another one that I learned about because of its appearance on another blog. In this case, it is the Oh My O-Pee-Chee blog. Holding the baseball and looking intense is pretty generic. Holding the baseball in a goofy manner is not so much so, although there always seems to be 1 or 2 in any set.

Another Canadian issue for another 18 cents. I think I've got the 4 Blue Jays issues in these cousins to the Diamond Kings but still need the Youmans and Reardon for the Expos. The Wallach is probably stuck at the Customs office. So the only Expo in my possession is the Raines. There's your segue.

As best I can tell, this was the last card for Tim Raines.

December Sportslots Goodies - Part 1

Still waiting for the COMC Black Friday goodies to get here, but a couple envelopes via sportlots did end up in my mailbox today. I could have stayed true to the season and waited until tomorrow to open the package, but since I know what was in them anyhow, what good would that do?

Anyhow, here's some of the stuff, in between Canada Customs getting off their hinders, and returning to the Zellers blasters.

Once again, I found a couple random cards on top and on the bottom of the package. This was one of them. Many creases. Not even close to being centered. If there were a condition of 'dire' this card would be categorized as such, Yet it is a strong candidate for my random binder. It's probably the jersey.

This one will probably end up in a sleeve with 4 or other misc. cards, and up in a geocache near me in the spring. Yes. I have a box full of sleeves with 4-7 cards in them that I drop off as I go. Heck, we've got 2 caches where the trading material within is exclusively cards. I even left 2 1992 Upper Deck Jose Canseco #333 cards when I did one of them as my 666th cache. I think I took a 2006-07 Ultra Daniel Alfredsson.

Now onto the cards I actually wanted.

A pair of Damaso Marte cards. I'm working on a binder filled with cards of players that I share a Valentine's Day birthday with. Damaso, along with the NHL's Viktor Kozlov, are the two players that I match up with perfectly on both date and year. So, I probably have more cards of those two players that anybody outside of their immediate family members should have. There will be a few more of cards that fall into the 2/14 category between now and when I return to either the Zellers blasters, Dollarama surprise boxes or my eventual COMC package.

I might as well pick up a card of a guy who has become a fixture on Blue Jays games as a studio analyst over the past few years. He even did a segment on how to doctor baseballs. He's also a big fan of the Canadian Football League, having attended Colts...err...CFLers...um....Stalliions games while he was in Baltimore, and now attends and hosts Grey Cup parties in the host city each year. 

It isn't the most flattering Al Leiter card by far. But, since I've got a small collection of Mets in their post 9/11 caps (OK. Just one Mike Piazza), this one is welcomed in that mix. 

I missed out on this one in the Shoebox Legends draft. I had to get this one. Yes. It was solely for the amazing fashion statement. As someone once said, I hope he was wearing waterproof pants, because that jacket is a pisser. 

I might as well pick up yet another hockey card that is really cheap, but iconic. Sure, the airbrushing on this one is horrific. Seriously, a silver helmet? Why? But that scowl. Those missing teeth. The sleazy moustache. The only way this could be more 80s of a card is if Winamp started playing Der Komissar while I was typing it up. Oh wait. It did.

Speaking of facial hair:

This is one of four Lanny cards that entered my possession over the past week or so. 2 in the sportlots envelopes. One from a Dollarama box. One from the Zellers blasters. I'm starting to think about working on a PC of Lanny cards. As long as I stay away from his Leafs cards and the hits, it shouldn't be too hard to acquire a few.

Zellers is closing, so I'll Bust Blasters - Part 4

Here's the last of the first 16 packs.

This really is not the most exciting group of cards to open it up. Devin's a guarantee for miscellany binder. The teal background really looks good behind the black uniform. Rechlicz is another journeyman enforcer type player. He's actually made a really interesting run to the NHL. Might be another candidate to join Devin in the binder. I've already put the Pacioretty card in the trade pile for a certain Michigan fan.

It is hard to hate an Upper Deck hockey pack from their flagship set. At least one card in the pack will have an interesting photo. Langkow's a great horizontal card, and it is hard to hate any card of the mustachioed Parros. Still, the celebratory Marc-Andre card is easily my favourite of this bunch.

The oldest pack of cards that were in the box yielded these 96-97 Summits. A nice LeClair photo is my highlight here.

Wrapping it up with the closest thing to a hit in the box - a 2009 OPC Retro Ovechkin. For now, it is one for the old hard toploader but it might end up as tradebait at some point.

So, that's one box down. One to go. With the discount, I certainly got my money's worth from the box - which worked out to about $1 a pack. The only truly dud pack was the Topps Attax.