Masked Mondays: Week 31

It is nice that this card includes a nice close-up of the mask, since that auto is something else. And whatever that something else is, it isn't good.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 30: The 3 Down Game

The season doesn't really start until your favourite team has played their first game of the season. Therefore, despite having their first game on Thursday, for me, it doesn't start until later today when my beloved Hamilton Tiger-Cats travel to Saskatchewan for a Grey Cup rematch against the Riders. So, in honour of that, here are some cards featuring players with CFL ties.

Opening up with a player who has one of those interesting records in sports, as well as someone whose fight with ALS was in the news during the Baltimore Ravens recent run to the Super Bowl. While several players have won both a Grey Cup and a Super Bowl as a player, most recently Brandon Browner, O.J. Brigance is the only player to do so for teams in the same city. He picked up his first with the Baltimore Stallions during the ill-fated US expansion, and several years later, got one with the Ravens. That won't happen again unless a team relocates here.

Joe Horn is another player that got his career started in the CFL. While Brigance played a few years with BC before going to Baltimore, Joe Horn's began during the American expansion era. Since he never went to college, when he'd do video introductions during broadcasts, instead of saying the University's name, he's say "Memphis Mad Dogs".

Sims-Walker made a short stop with Winnipeg Blue Bombers last season. Since his relics hovered in the dollar range, why not add one?

Ken-Yon Rambo might be one of the more awesome names in football history. While he never ended up playing a regular season game for the Raiders, he spent a couple years in Dallas. Then it was on to Calgary for most of his CFL career.

Staying with the Stampeders theme, here's Dave Dickenson. Dave picked up the CFL's Most Outstanding Player award in 2000, and made a move to the NFL. Instead of following in the footsteps of Doug Flutie and Jeff Garcia, Dave spent his time as a third-stringer. He then returned to the CFL, and brought hom a Grey Cup title in 2006, leading the BC Lions to a victory over Montreal.

8 hours or so until kick-off!

Under $20.00 at the June card show

Simply put, can I stay to a budget, and still get some nice cards both for myself, as well as to share with some others out there?

Of course!

Let's open with my favourite acquisition of the day, and a look that should be familiar to anybody who busted some '14 Archives. It is back to 1971-72 with this acquisition of a Charlie Burns card from O-Pee-Chee. Charlie is a member of the 2-14 binder, and this is my second card of his. With his 1968 issue sitting in my inventory at COMC, I've now passed the halfway mark for picking up his complete run of OPC cards.

Since I'm a nice guy, I always try to look for pickups for others, especially those in markets where the LCS hockey selection would be negligible. These three Getzlafs will be on their way to P,TSIA sometime next week.. The interesting one here is the base card for 10-11 The Cup. I've never busted the stuff, so I never really imagined the base cards would be as thick as they were. There will be two auto/relics in the small envelope as well, and neither of them are as thick as the base card.

Also heading out mid-week will be this Jacob Trouba, heading to someone who can't have Too Many Manninghams. I was actually quite surprised to find the Trouba for a good price, since he's still at the sticker shock stage for most of the cards of his I've seen. The light blue on the swatch indicates it is from one of the stripes on the jersey, so it is nice to get something a little different.

Speaking of different, this one wasn't. I thought I had already sent one of these out, but wasn't certain. At a good price, I didn't want to leave it on the table, so I picked it up. Turns out that this will be a dupe, but this one will make its home in my binders. I'm amused by the fact he wore Michigan colours while playing in Columbus.

Now, back to cards for myself. The Getzlaf wasn't the only card from The Cup I picked up, since I also grabbed a Marian Gaborik for my 2-14 collection. That's my 62nd card of his.

But 62 cards is not enough to maintain the lead, as these 3 cards mark the 61st, 62nd and the 63rd sleeve fillers of Milan Hejduk in my collection. This also includes my 7th relic of Milan in the collection.

Staying in Colorado, seeing Ray Bourque finally hoist the Stanley Cup was one of the great moments in the game. I can't get enough of cardboard that commemorates it, even if it is on a gaudy issue from Pacific. It's also somewhat of an oddball, as it is from one of their McDonald's issues.

And here's one more oddball. Free Kirby Puckett card in a box of Cocoa Pebbles cereal! Awesome!

I also added a decent variety of new Senators to my collection. The easy winner here is the Young Guns (sorry, Jeunes Lanceurs) of Jared Cowen. I don't have enough French-only cards in my collection. As for the relics, the Robin Lehner is my first relic of his in my collection. The Cory Conacher comes from the 2013 Fall Expo packs. Cory didn't spend long in Ottawa, but it is still a nice addition. And there's one more Alfie for that binder.

I love old-timey players on cards.

And to wrap this one, how about adding another Quebec Nordiques relic to my collection? And, like any Nordiques relic should be, it features the classic blue look. I picked up a Michel Goulet earlier this year, and unlike that one, there are no mysterious red splotches on either swatch. If anything, I'd be more likely to believe there was a strange stain on a Tony Twist swatch as opposed to a Michel Goulet.

And I still had about a dollar left in my pocket at the end of the day. Sadly, I didn't pass any Dollaramas on the way home to wrap up the day with a repack.

Just One Pack - 2014 Bowman Football

I'll try a pack of everything, especially if you get a decent number of cards in the pack. I didn't see any base packs of Bowman (if there even are any), so I picked up a jumbo instead. I'm pretty much sure I'm going to limit this to just one pack, as collating this set would be a nightmare. The rookies and veterans are separate, but there is nothing to distinguish them in the numbering scheme from the others. Baseball has the BP prefix, but not with football.

First card out:

LaMarcus Joyner - The good is that although the college logos are 'shopped out, at least the team logos appear, and the background is the colours of the team that drafted them. I also like both the football logo and the RC logo.
Jerome Smith
Charles Sims

Gabe Jackson - Now I have a football player I can send cards of when I send PWEs on the way to the clubhouse. He's an OL guy, so he might not have too many cards over his career.
Dominique Easley
Bradley Roby
Kyle Van Noy

Taylor Lewan - More OL guys, with this one destined for someone that can never have Too Many Manninghams.

Jarvis Landry - Here is the start of a run of 4 black parallels. The colours really work nicely here.
Michael Sam
Silas Redd
Stephon Tuitt

Andre Ellington - And here is the start of the base. Much like with Score, some rather unspectacular photo choices in these.
Jordan Cameron
Eddie Lacy
Matthew Stafford
Terrelle Pryor
LeSean McCoy
Knowshon Moreno

Andre Williams refractor auto - I can't complain about pulling an on-card auto from my only pack. He was picked by the Giants in the 4th round.
Yawin Smallwood black refractor

Terrence Williams black refractor - The best photo from the pack is one of the refractors. Even if it is a Cowboy.

Isaiah Crowell Bowman mini - I'm glad to post this just so I can put it away and not have it fall out of the bunch of cards everytime I pick it up.
Jake Locker

Russell Wilson - Wrapping up with two more black parallels.

So. This pack was opened. It contained cards. And that's about as deep as I'll get with this pack. And just like with the Score, any Bills cards were not to be seen.

One More Pack of Rookie Anthology

I went to the LCS yesterday to get a sampling of the new Bowman football. While I don't plan on building that set (especially after seeing the numbering scheme, which would drive me mad), I always like to get my hands on at least a small number of cards in the lower range sets. I'll post that later today.

Just because.

But there were a few packs of RA still out. Since I know from experience that fatter packs contain at least a numbered card, if not an auto, relic or auto/relic, I grabbed the most noticeably bulky one.

And your contents are:

Here's the base. All three of which I need for my base set. So, that's a good start.

The first insert was your standard, and expected Score card.

And there was the hit in the pack. And it is actually a pretty good one to get at this time. A standard sticker auto and single coloured relic, but it is of a player that did make some headlines on the Kings run to the Cup, along with putting up some pretty good numbers.

So, set needs were 3 for 3, along with a good hit. Not a bad haul.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 36.2 - The misc. cards

Let's continue with the repack, starting with the bonus item.

 2001 Topps HD Vladimir Guerrero - One card in, and I'm already happier with the bonus item. It's a card I don't have of a guy I collect. It features the bricks of Wrigley, and Vlad is holding a broken bat. So much awesome on one piece of cardboard, sitting loose in a repack. If you're wondering about the #9 patch, it is a patch in memory of Maurice 'Rocket' Richard. So there's hockey in this card as well. What a spectacular addition to my Vlad/Expos collection.

And I've still got 50 cards to go!

2010 Topps Kerry Wood
1989 All-Star Glossy Andre Dawson
1991 Score Mariano Duncan
1991 Score Roberto Kelly
1991 Fleer Jim Presley

1988 Score Tim Burke - Expos content! Blue border. Blue road uniform. Perfection!

1988 Score Shane Mack - The bricks of Wrigley appear again.
1991 Fleer Don Mattingly

1988 Fleer Glossy Bret Saberhagen - WOO-HOO! A Parallel!

1988 Fleer Glossy Willie Hernandez - WOO-HOO! Another one! Both of whom have Cy Young awards to their name.

2010 Topps Cubs Franchise - The scoreboard of Wrigley with the ivy beneath it for a beautiful day game. What more could you ask for with a Cubs team card?
2010 Topps Bud Norris
2010 Topps Mat Gamel
2010 Topps Shairon Martis
2010 Topps Chris Coghlan
2010 Topps Mark Teahan
2010 Topps Carl Pavano

2010 Topps Giants Franchise - Nice photo, but not even close to the Cubs card in terms of awesomeness.
2010 Topps Ian Snell
2010 Topps Joba Chamberlain

2002 Bowman Josh Girdley - An obscure Expos card is always nice, even if Josh never made it past A ball.
2003 Bowman Barry Zito
1992 Bowman Darryl Kile
1997 Topps Jose Rosado
1993 UD Kirt Manwaring
1991 Fleer Geno Petralli

1988 Topps Jay Baller - AWESOME! This is a definite contender for the sleaziest photo in card history. The Topps photographer thinks he's posing for a picture. In reality, Jay is scanning the stands looking for whichever female he's going to try his tasteless pick-up lines on. If Leisure Suit Larry played baseball, he'd look like this. If 3 of the 4 corners weren't noticably dinged, I'd submit this for grading. Even though I'm sure the Jim Moore put me on the Beckett version of the no-fly list.

1983 Topps Joey McLaughlin - No card can follow up the Jay Baller, but a Blue Jay card is a nice effort.
1989 Donruss Gary Pettis

1987 Donruss Tim Burke
1992 UD Omar Vizquel
1992 Donruss Pedro Guerrero
1992 Donruss Craig Biggio
1991 UD Steve Farr

1989 Score Sid Fernandez - El Sid was the only Met in this portion of the repack.
1989 Score Steve Buechele

1991 UD Shane Mack - Interesting how both the front and the back of the card has Shane somewhere in the process of a head-first slide. At least I hope that's what was going on.

1982 Topps John Martin - The oldest card in the repack.
1989 Donruss Pat Tabler
1995 Topps Tommy Davis
1989 Fleer Dennis Lamp
1996 Topps Carlos Baerga
1989 Topps Rich Gossage

1994 Stadium Club Tony Gwynn - Sigh.
1991 Topps Tom Candiotti

1993 Topps John Burkett - I do find the back far more interesting than the front, as the avid bowler looks like one as he faces the batter. In fact, there are many cards with him in that pose.

1998 UD Larry Walker - New cards for my Cancon collection are very welcome as well.

1990 KMart Tony Gwynn - Sigh. Again.

1991 Nolan Ryan - "Don't Mess With Texas." And an interesting oddball to wrap it up.

As happens more frequently than it should, the 50 random cards are many times better than the packs.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 36.1 - The Four Packs

A 4 pack/50 cards/bonus item repack seems like a perfect insomnia special.

The four packs were 09 Spectrum, 12 Chrome, 13 Heritage and 13 GQ (I'll assume all retail). Just like I listed them there here, I'll attack this chronologically.

At least the blue parallel was a new Russell Martin for my Cancon collection.

Nothing but base in the chrome. And a reminder that I should probably clean my scanner. And the knowledge that I'll forget for another month until I scan more shiny cards.

And hey, there is one of those /999 Chrome parallels in this. It is 819/999, so at least I can send it off for some serial numbered insanity at a later date. Of course, because I dropped a PWE off to $30aWH earlier this week, so it makes perfect sense that I pull this after that.

And here are the GQ. A David Wright is the easy highlight for me here.

Not the most spectacular of packs. Fortunately, the loose cards were much better in terms of keepers.