All Over the Place

 Another 2/14 post, as I approach the 3200 point in my collection, and another one that hits many of the portions of my collection.

In lieu of there ever being a The Good Doctor set, I guess Bates Motel cards will have to do for Freddie Highmore content in the collection. Until I add some 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory cards. But at least I can finally add a bedspread relic to the binders.

Showing a photo of the item is certainly one way to show off the official nature of the item.

The Black Diamond edition of Marvel cards was a release that covered pretty much all the films released under the Marvel banner, meaning I could buy an e-pack of this, and get a Scarlett Johansson and a Dave Bautista card in the same pack. But, when it comes to my 2/14 collection, Danai Gurira is the only one I care about. I just had to wait for this to drop to a reasonable price level on COMC, and swooped in.

E-pack cheapness also provided the only hockey portion of this mailer (but I do have a huge box of e-pack stuff I had shipped from that site), so it seems like this French version of his update card is a good enough way to segue into the sporting portion of this. 

I have the base version of this Maxime Boisclair card. Might as well double his total by adding the autograph to go with it. If he'd reached the NHL, Boisclair would have been the second Haitian-born NHLer. 

With these two local (ShopKo) releases, I now have 8 Jeff Dellenbach cards (out of 11 total) and am alone in the lead as the top Jeff Dellenbach at tcdb. WOO-HOO!

Marcus Smith is not a 2/14 baby.

But this card is numbered 02/14. Meaning it is totally worthy of addition to my collection. It doesn't count towards the overall total, but it is still worthy.

Jadeveon Clowney has had zero base cards so far this season, so this might be my only 2021 card of the former #1 draft pick going into the collection. If it weren't for this card, and its parallels in Immaculate, he wouldn't have had any. Given that there aren't any garnet parallels in the release, this ruby is about as close as I'll get.

Byron Mullens' presence keeps this group of numbered basketball cards from being a complete Rip Hamilton sweep. 

Tyler Clippard had a second go-around with the Arizona Diamondbacks this past season, but didn't get any cards out of that deal. That means if I want one of his more recent cards, it is a choice between Total and Heritage from 2020. With the shadows, the rather unique angle of the photo, and the blue uniforms, this was an easy choice.

The final card is for a new face! Yermin Mercedes was a career minor leaguer since his signing in 2011 before finally making his big league debut this past season. To say he made a quick start would be an understatement, as he became the first player in MLB  history to go 5-for-5 in his first start. He didn't stay at that level, but that thankfully made his Chrome auto affordable. And an interesting way to debut in my collection.

There you have it!

Battling Browns

Since Brown is a fairly common last name, I really shouldn't be too surprised if there's more than one person in the NFL Draft with it. In fact, there were 7 players with that surname that were drafted over the three days.  

One of them was Spencer Brown, who was the second guy named Brown picked in the draft, going in the third round. Notably for me and my PC, that was a pick by the Buffalo Bills, and this is the first card of his in my collection.

But, problematic for my collection is that there was a second Spencer Brown in this year's rookie class. This Spencer Brown was undrafted, but signing with the Carolina Panthers. That makes it somewhat of an annoyance when it comes to acquiring cards of the former, when cards of the latter seem to be more plentiful.

At least the second one is also a candidate for my penmanship binder. 

Blue Jays from Ann Arbor

Continuing through Dennis' mailer, here's the Blue Jays content!

Just a trio of Delgados in this, but I really like getting early career cards of his, especially ones where he's still sporting the catcher's gear. 

Here's a whole bunch more randomness before I get to the hits. 

And here we start the hits. I found a box of the 2019 Holiday packages on the shelves at Wally World way back then. Turns out that box lacked the hit. But, at least now I have a 2020 hit in the ol' binders.

It is always nice when a card with more than one relic window will at least have more than one type of relic - even if it is just a different colour jersey piece. 

So, while this is a nice looking card, especially with the Tom Cheek patch visible, the Bautista just feel like a  better card, despite licensing issues.

I have no memories of Ismael Ramirez with Toronto, but he never did reach the major leagues. Still, it is a blue parallel of his autograph, making it a perfect card for the collection.

Ah, my beloved Chronicles. Long may you continue to make appearances in my collection. 

Finally, a card from the earlier days of limited print runs. An unnumbered, but supposedly limited to 2000 copies, may not seem like much now, but this would have felt like a big deal coming out of a pack back in the day, especially when it goes into the team collection. 

Thanks for all these nice cards so far, and I still have some Mets stuff and some miscellany to get to!

2021 Adventures in Repacks Part 43 - Dollarama Duals

 Another one-of-this, one-of-that from the Dollarama, as I picked up a Surprise Bag and a hanger pack. The latter were recently reduced from 15 for $1 to 12 for $1.25, so I'll probably be getting fewer of those as opposed to the Surprises over the next while. But for now, here's one of 'em!

A 10-11 OPC isn't the most expected visible card, I'll get that one and hope for some oddness behind it.

Nothing too odd behind it in the first group, but that face-off card from Forsberg is a pretty nice photo. And that Durham is perfectly acceptable as a mask binder card. 

The second half was pretty bland, until it wrapped up with the great photo choice on the Tabaracci card. You might see the player not touching the ground on a skater's card, but that's pretty rare for the goaltender's card. 

Your final card. 

A few keepers here, but really not anything too notable on the whole. 

All repacked content on the Surprise Bag.

As usual, starting clockwise from the upper left, and that means the 90s pack this time. And that usually means junk wax era stuff, and that's accurate. At least there's Whalers content for Shoebox Legends. Not the Bowman card, but the Vopat. He's listed as being drafted by Hartford on the back. He'd never play a game for them. 

Promise me 4 cards from an Original Six team, give me 5! WOO-HOO!

The 2000s pack was interesting - sandwiching a  player who never reached the NHL alongside 2 who played throughout the entire decade.

When Mario Lemieux is the Superstar promised within the Superstar pack, that's a pretty good way to end it. Turgeon and Nieuwendyk were no slouches either. Poor, poor Randy Wood is really the odd man out here. 

There you have it!

Happiness

 

My 2/14 collection really didn't have enough content where the player is jumping on the scorer's table to celebrate a championship. Here's my 4th Kara Lawson card to change all that!

Gridiron Goodies from Ann Arbor

 A return package from Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams showed up last week - one so stuffed full of goodness that I'm going to have to break it up into 3 or 4 posts.  So, up first, a whole bunch of needs and wants hit from the football portion of the mailer.

As usual, 2/14 goodness leads the way.  I think I have more Keith Wenning signatures in my collection at this point than his financial advisers.

Drew Bledsoe lead the 2/14 pack this time around, with various cards of various levels of shininess and forgettable Patriots unis. 

Championship! That's just Contenders' fancy way of saying that this is a rookie card /50. The regular veterans in this parallel set are /250, and I just added the Steve McNair version to my COMC inventory to eventually keep this one company in the set.

Speaking of Steve McNair, here he is! The die-cut album-themed card is kinda interesting, but the Absolute SSD card in the top left wins this battle, with the portrait portion of the card appearing in acetate form.

How 'bout a swatch? It goes alongside the XFractor of David Garrard as part of the very solid 2/14 Quarterback Club (and there wasn't any Jim Kelly in the mailer!).

Another swatch here as part of the 4 Jadeveon Clowney cards bound for the binder. I was surprised that I didn't have that dual card with him and Dee Ford, but only had one of the numbered parallels. There's an appropriate shininess to the Thunder/Lighting card that might not translate on the scan.

A set named Phoenix should also be kinda bright, and the one that was part of the new Alshons certainly was. 

To end the 2/14 portion, here we have a printing plate that would combine with its yellow, cyan and black kinfolk to form the image on his 2007 Leaf Limited card. I really should count how many football plates I've got in the collection, because I'll bet most of them came from TMV/M mailers.

My 2021 Score set build dropped to single digits with a pile of cards from that set. All I need is 4 cards, 2 of which are Justin Fields. May the Bears continue to crap the bed to drive to cost of those down even more. As for what I scanned, I just opted for some of my favourite photos from the group.

Nothing but Bills left!

Here they are in numbered (on the back) format. 

Here's some relics. 

The winner in the relic department was Trent Edwards, one of several QBs of the future in the first part of this century. Sure, he may not have had the best run, but I still like him better than JP Losman. Or Peterman.

And his penmanship is really good, and I'm willing to overlook a questionable on-field performance when you have a nice-looking signature. He's joined here by Damar Hamlin, a 6th round pick this past year out of Pitt. Because of a redshirt year, he was a teammate in 2016 of the aforementioned Nathan Peterman. 

Or if both types of hits are your thing - here's both of 'em on a single card!

And there's a nice portion of the bubbler, and I haven't even touched on all the baseball content! 

Recapping Raptors

 I've been posting basketball all week, why not one more post? So today, it is Raptors content from my COMC shipment.

I loves me some Fred VanVleet. And let's start it off with a Kings release with cards that look like they should look - a garish background. 

Or if you want something that's more of a modern thing, garish backgrounds, mixed with shininess. That's a Reactive Orange, Green Prizm and Pink Camo parallel, as you go left to right across this threesome.

Anytime is a good time to add a random JYD card to the binder.

Easiest 'Bumper Stumpers' ever.

Rodney Hood came to the Raptors as part of  the Powell/Trent trade. He moved on to the Bucks in the off-season. Based on his partial season stint with the team, I can't imagine him getting a card with the team. So, this card of him with Duke will suffice for the collection. 

Freddie Gillespie was undrafted, but had a perfectly fine rookie season for the Raptors last year. However, his training camp/pre-season this year was disappointing, and he was released before the current season started. His only cards have been in Contenders Draft, so this is the perfect one-season card for him. And like with the Hood, since this is a collegiate card, and there aren't any NBA cards of him, this counts as a Raptors card. 

There you have it!