Just in time for Tonight!

Actually, this pile of Raptors arrived yesterday from a group break at mojobreak, but I opted to show them off today, since the season starts off tonight.

Since all base cards are shipped in the breaks, you get lots of them. And I did. 10 boxes worth of Raptors base cards. Collation was varied. I got 9 different Bruno Caboclo baso cards, but only 5 Amir Johnsons. The base photos are all pretty generic, but the Jonas wins it easily, but that is primarily for the fact he's easily pushing past Andrea Bargnani in a way that was very familiar to Raptors fans makes the card. Disappointing that the card of Louis Williams has the team change, but doesn't change the team colour bar on top from blue to red. A quick sample of the 40 or so base cards from the handful of packs I sampled show that wasn't the norm.

Of course, there were lots of parallels as well. Starting with the upper left, there's a gold parallel of Chuck Hayes, followed by a trio of green parallels (I got 2 Williams greens). On the bottom we have the red backs. I've completed the unnumbered ranbow of Chuck Hayes with the red back joining the gold and green parallels. Finally, the only numbered base card parallel was the Kyle Lowry - a nice one to get.

Inserts? I got those as well. A nice mix of interesting photos, great moments, gaudiness and team history. And, since Panini makes the logos match the photo era, the Vince Carters have the purple dino logo on the back. I think I got all the unnumbered base inserts, missing out only on the Courtside card of Demar and the Class Action base of Tracy McGrady.

But who really needs the base insert when you end up with a /25 parallel?

And now, the hits.

There were more Raptors relics that featured players from the past (Hedo Turkoglu, Jose Caldeeron and this Bosh) than current players (only Tyler Hansbrough and Bruno Caboclo). Given that lineup, I think I'm happiest with the Bosh from that line-up.

And an autograph as well. And it is of their #1 draft pick! A nice addition, and one I'm happy to add through this instead of having to try to find it locally. The depressing thing is that on the penmanship curve when it comes to Raptors, Bruno is in the upper half easily for the team with a pretty legible last name on his. He might even be the best current player in that regards.

My goal was to have 500 different Raptors cards by the end of the year. I don't think that's going to happen, as I'm at about 380 now. But, adding Caboclo and Hayes to my collection does put me closer to my goal of getting at least one card of everybody who had at least one mainstream Raptors card released. Currently, it looks like I only need Julyan Stone and Patrick Patterson, and their only cards (so far for Patterson) are autos.

And now, I feel ready for tip-off in two hours.