Hiatus

I'm taking a short break. I've been updating this almost daily for years, and really need to just take things quiet for a month or two. Plus, I've got a new family member who has been keeping me busy.

Meet Mischief!

I had to say goodbye to Charlie at only 8 years old back in June after cancer tore through him, and immediately started looking for a new Airedale friend. And here she is! Boy, does she live up to her name. But, with her being my 4th, I knew what I'd be getting into, and wanted her name to reflect the personality of all my previous pups.

I'll probably re-start whenever my next COMC package arrives, and then start backtracking through my mail and breaks.

You knew I couldn't go quiet without showing you one final card, with Carter Rowney sharing his Day With the Cup with a very good dog.

Mailbag: Small but Mighty

 Over to the mailbag today, and a bubbler that showed up from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams.

We're starting with the most vintage card I've ever acquired. I had some reprints of these Tim Jordans in my collection, but these are two actual T206s. The back of the portrait card actually looks really nice, to make up for the small paper loss at the front. The batting shot was definitely pasted in some sort of location at one point. I think this was the first time I knocked a card off my not-so-reasonable wantlist as well.

Speaking of that, here's one off my reasonable wantlist. This insert set is sort of a precursor to Archives/Heritage, with Donruss taking established players, and putting them in baseball designs from their rookie season.

If the T206s weren't the big cards from this little mailer, this might have been. Since Davis was undrafted, he went through most of the releases this year being ignored by Panini. Finally, starting with Mosaic, he finally started making regular appearances in products. But because of his lack of cards, his rookie autographs as a Raptor were kinda big. While I already had his NCAA Contenders card, this is my first hit of his as a Raptor.

I'm bouncing all over the place with this, so it is time to show off the volume. The most cards in the mailer were from 1997 Pinnacle X-Press.

Including one new Delgado, a collection that really hasn't grown too much in 2020.

As I said - all over the place. Here's one of the cards I needed to wrap up the base set for 13-14 Rookie Anthology. Not counting unfulfilled redemptions, 2 cards on their way from COMC will put the final touches on the set.

3 new Bills! The Jim Kelly is a 2/14 binder dupe, but this will make a nice home in the Bills binders.

But this is pure 2/14.

While not nearly as vintage as the Tim Jordans, here's some vintage-y Mets content.

Let's end with some 1/1 plates! Excepting this Alfie out of Dominion, they were all 2/14 babies.

Some of the plates actually were used to produce some interesting photos. That Score Hejduk is from the 2013 set, and the card commemorates Hejduk's 1000th game.

Back-to-back Score plates! There's a lot of great shots in this year's Score release, and Alshon got one of them as he walks the tightrope on a reception.

But photographically, my favourite goes to David Garrard, high-stepping into the end zone for 6 out of 2009 Topps.

This mish-mash of a post that went all over the place comes to an end with a new face for the 2/14 collection. And what better way to welcome Evgeny Korolev to the collection than with both an autograph and a 1/1 plate. I'd say that would probably the first time that happened in building the collection, but as I approach 2900 cards in the collection, I can't say anything for sure beyond the basic numbers.

And there you have it! I'll be firing something back in your direction when my next COMC envelope shows up. Probably in November-ish.

When In Doubt, Rookie Anthology

Yup. Another box of RA. I still have a few more boxes that I busted a while back, and really am just waiting to recap those when the mood strikes me. 

I'll always lead with a /100 gold parallel should there be one, and there was this one in this box. A new one for my "I swear, I'm not building this parallel set" set.

If I get one of the base Rookie Selection, all I can do is hope that I can find a new home for it, whether in the collection of a trade partner, or in my latest COMC submission. In this case, it will be the former.

This may not have been a mega name for the Score autograph, but it was one I didn't have and was of a player with a decent run on this side of the Atlantic. That's far better, and more interesting than a one-and-done rookie.

Your Prizm base content. Only the Jesper Fast rookie was new to me. I'm 16 away from the base set of this, which is nuts considering I haven't built the real one. Not having the base Kucherov should be enough to keep me from going for it, though. That and there seems to be no unopened wax out there of the base product.

But this nice, shiny Prizm insert. That's a new one!

As is this auto. Vey spent some time with the Canucks and Flames in the following season, and has been in the KHL the past few years.

Nothing new with these two Select Update cards.

But this was a nice new shiny card. Melchiori is also a Kitchener Rangers alum, so that's a bonus as well.

The true rookie (#'d to jersey number) is about 60-70 cards deep in this. What are the chances that this, which falls about one or two per case, would be a dupe for me? Abbott spent one game with the Leafs, one with the Blackhawks, and has been overseas the past few seasons.

I'm 95 percent certain that I've already sent one of these to Ann Arbor in one of my multitude of mailers, so I'll be keeping this one. 

*double checks*

Make it 100 percent.

Tiny windows, but a nice looking card. I wish they'd match up the jersey in the photo with the colour of the swatches, but that seems like a minor nit to pick.

And there you have it! 

3 Downs. 3 Boxes.

There is not going to be a 2020 CFL season. But why would that stop me from busting some CFL product? Especially with Tiger-Cats content in the form of Brandon Banks on the cover?

Here's the base design. Very similar to last year's look.

With purple parallels /15 not being a thing in this year's release, that means the red parallels are bumped up from /150 to /165, meaning pretty much a similar print run with there being a numbered card or hit per pack.

Golds are still there, and still numbered /50.

As can be expected, there's also interesting photography among the base cards. These were some of my favourites from Box #1.

Probably the least interesting group of hits from the three boxes, but that's still a really nice Brandon Banks swatch for my Ti-Cats PC.

A sampling of base cards from #2. If you look in the lower right corner, you'll see something pretty rare. A card for a long snapper. I'm not sure if this is the first time someone has been listed with that position on their card, but it has to be single digits 

Box 2 definitely brought the most hits. The Declan Cross is a blank back parallel. They aren't numbered, but since the /15 purples last year were one per box, and this was the only one I found over 3 boxes, I'm going to estimate the print run of these at 10, give or take. Pulling an auto of a Ti-Cat will always be nice, even with Simoni as a Group E, the most common. 

I'm not going to highlight the base cards from Box 3, since with 4 exceptions, they were exactly the same as Box 2. I'm guessing the 4 were the ones that didn't get put in the pack that contained the Edmonton patch.

That Willie Jefferson is actually a pretty tough pull. The reigning Most Outstanding Defensive Player is a Group A hit, falling 1:506 packs. I really do like the Willie J sig as well. A nice big swatch also helps take the edge of a box that didn't provide too much in terms of set builders. 

There you have it!

Just One Pack: 2020 Archives Hanger

 

Considering I was expecting nothing on the shelves at Wally World, I was happy to find anything, such as this pack of Archives.

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Elvis Andrus in 2002 form becomes my first Archives card of 2020. I'm not the biggest fan of this design, but at least I got a card featuring Old Comiskey park and its immediately recognizable yellow railings and green seats. And Trammell is not a name that makes frequent appearances in any set with a legends portion. 

1955 should end up as my favourite portion of this set based on a pair of Mets cards in this, but I still like the Trammell/Comiskey card enough to make it my my favourite. 

Here are a pair of inserts. I don't feel like damaging my eyesight to read the odds on the pack and find out what the odds of getting these in a single hanger pack are. 

And your 1974s. Either rookies or legends in this part. The Schmidt photo seems new to me, so at least there's that. 

So, despite two Mets cards, and Dustin May's hair, the Trammell is my pick for the pack. Now if only some retail Stadium Club would appear...

Sportlots and some new Rangers

 I was adding the Kitchener Rangers alumni in my collection to TCDB at the same time I was filling up my sportlots cart, so I guess it made sense to add some here as well.

As with the 2/14 cards from yesterday, I'm going least to most, meaning I'll start with a single Matt Halischuk. Many of the cards today seem to fall in the category of "I'm surprised I didn't have this one".

Boyd Devereaux spend a couple seasons with the Rangers in the mid 90s, and was one of the better players during a decade that wasn't really the best for the team. I get three of his four NHL stops in this post, lacking only a Leafs card, of which he only saw a card in 08 O-Pee-Chee.

Hunter only spent one season with the Rangers, but a long stint is not a pre-requisite for qualifying for the binder. Part season Steve Mason counts. As does Mike Hoffman (6 games). An All-Star photo, a Franchises card, and a gold parallel does make for a nice grouping. 

I'm ending with a pair of players who helped bring the Memorial Cup to town in 2003. Eminger started the OHL season with the Caps, but returned mid-season to give the final piece they needed. Derek Roy was the team captain, and was also named tournament MVP. A 4 pack of OPC parallels, some which still exist (Retro) and some which were one and done (Micromotion) are my faves here.

And wow, those 13-14s don't get any less obnoxious with age.

There you have it!

Sportlots 2/14 Overload

 I took advantage of box shipping, and picked up a nice bunch of 2/14 additions for 3 of the 4 main sports in the binder. Sorry, baseball.

Football was the smallest portion of the incoming cards, and in a common thing with all 3 sports getting bumps, they'll all open with a single addition to the player collection with a single sticker.

Jim Kelly after getting knocked to the turf seems like a questionable photographic choice for the card, but it still counts as one of two new Jim Kelly cards.

Your big football winner was Alshon Jeffery, who with a combination of stickers, cards, Eagles and Bears moved to 115 items in the collection. All three of the stickers are from the same 2018 release.

This Byron Mullens isn't as badly angled as my scan suggests. But here's one of the few stickers in the basketball portion of the collection.

The gap between the first and second place stayed the same, with 6 new Hamilton and Muresan cards being part of the shipment. Muresan's mid-game shoe-tying is the best photograph, but that Patchworks of Hamilton is my choice for design, since that would be such a nice addition for team collectors.

The final leading single hockey sticker.

How did I not have that Score already? It is the bilingual version, but I still figure I'd have that one. The same could be said about the '89 OPC as well. That sticker is only the second Maple Leafs item in the entire collection, which seems nuts. But Poddubny is the only 2/14er that played for the Leafs and got cards from his time there. To contrast, both Montreal and Ottawa lead with 6 each. 

Milan Hejduk lead the way with 25 total additions. Here's a portion of those in a nice scanner friendly group of 10. He remains in the overall lead with 244 cards, highlighted with a SPd double diamond card in this bunch.

There you have it! There was also a bunch of Kitchener Rangers alum in there, and those make an appearance in the next post.