This Aged Poorly

 

To be completely honest, this probably reached the 'aged poorly' status right after it was printed. But, if I have this card, I might as well also have this one to keep it company.

Stanley

 

Always a great thing to find on a hockey card, and especially so when e-packs make it a cheap acquisition.

And one inexpensive Bergeron card with a cameo from Stanley deserves another. (Check out the extreme left of the photo)

This Sounds Painful

 

You might want to see a doctor about that!

Youth is Served

 

Here is the the newest youngest member of the 2/14 collection on an OHL card of the Kingston Frontenacs, born in 2004. And those lines at the top and middle of the card aren't paper loss flaws - it is part of the design. I'm not sure why you'd use a design that makes the card look damaged, but that's why I'm not designing cards. 

I Wanted a Revolution

 Before heading away, I picked up a couple group break slots for my team(s). With the Raptors being really expensive this year, even moreso after Scottie's ROTY victory, I'm probably limiting my buy-ins to ones where there's a decent number of base cards available - if for nothing else than as a consolation prize.

Such as these - and these are nice and shiny ones. It was only a half-case of the product, but I'm still surprised I didn't get a complete set out of this - I didn't get a Siakam base card. But he'll still make an appearance.

Gary Trent Jr also grooved on with this parallel. 

While Barnes is the big draw for for this season, I was just as excited to see this pop up. Banton was a second round pick for Toronto, and he also is part of an important piece of trivia in team history. He's the first player born in Canada to be drafted by the team. While his fellow second-rounder David Johnson made appearances in early releases, we had to wait for Banton's cardboard debut. It was worth the wait for this shiny beauty.

I actually didn't get a Barnes base card in this, but Scottie still made a couple appearances - one on an insert, and one on an Astral parallel. While lacking a base card is disappointing, these are still pretty nice instead. And these are rarer than a base on the whole, so it isn't all the bad.

Speaking of rare...

CASE HIT!

GALACTIC!

CHASE CARD!

Yes, it was definitely worth the wait for Siakam content,

There you have it!

How to Improve an Autographed Card

 

One way is to feature the home version of the Flying V jerseys! They're especially since most photos on the cards from the times of these were taken during road trips to Washington or Long Island.  So , you got the black versions.

Baseball 2/14s

 My final vacation pre-post.

Some rare Blue Jays content to start. Minor league content certainly counts as Jays content, even if he never reached the bigs. There are 3 baseball players named Crabbe listed at TCDB. 2 of those 3 are 2/14 babies - Bruce and Callix. Both would also be Blue Jays farmhands at one point, and neither would reach the bigs with Toronto.

Here's a new face for the collection. With designs like this, it is a shame that the Fort Wayne Wizards became became the Tincaps, since this starry design is ideal for a team with that nickname. 

There was briefly a tie at 1st place in the baseball portion in terms of volume with John Marzano and Scott Scudder knotted at 53 cards each. This minor league entry gives him the lead once again.

And let's increase his lead with my 55th card of his. This is a 'web code' variation. How so?

A faint, dot-matrix-looking code in the upper right corner. That's all. But it is a variation nonetheless.

Probably the last you'll see of last year's Heritage for a bit around here, but certainly not the last you'll see of Yermin Mercedes. He barely made his cardboard debut around this time last year, and with 15 cards already,  the numbers are sure to increase. He already has about 30 cards at a dollar or less at COMC, so top spot is already within reach. 

And there you have it!

"I'm Having Trouble Believing This"

 Gordon Pinsent might have been a mainstay of Canadian TV and movies, but I will always remember him for his recurring role as tale-teller extraordinaire Hap Shaughnessy on The Red Green Show. 

Please enjoy him talking about genetics and Russian royalty.

And here's his auto of Canadiana, a set which has provided me with autographs from Chantal Kreviazuk to Trish Stratus.

Links provided, just in case some might find my claims untrustworthy.

A Story in 2 Parts

 I've often seen the same photo used on different cards, even by different companies.

But I've rarely seen photos from the same sequence, taken milliseconds apart, show up on different cards from different companies. And these look so good side-by-side in my miscellaneous football binders. 

2021 Playoff Fat Pack Break

Nothing super high end, but I am getting 40 cards out of  this pack.

Stephon Gilmore - It might not be a Bills card to open, but it is a former Bills card. As for the design, well, that's a lot of border. At least it is in the team colours.

Chris Johnson - Two cards in, and it is showing that there will also be a mix of retired players as part of the base set.

Joe Burrow
David Carr

Chase Claypool - The pride of Abbotsford, British Columbia!

Tre'Davious White - Thankfully, it did not take too long to get to an actual Bills card for the PC. 
Peyton Manning
Jamison Crowder
Courtland Sutton
Dak Prescott
T.Y. Hilton
James White

Jeffery Thompson - This looks to be his first base bard since his rookie year. Good for him. I also note he spells his first name like 2/14 binder member Alshon spells his last name.
Ray Lewis
Tony Gonzalez
Kirk Cousins
Amari Cooper
Robby Anderson

Robert Woods - Another Bills alum.
Jaire Alexander
Chris Carson

Jessie Tuggle - Jessie is one of the odder members of the 2/14 club. Very few online sources list him as such, but all his cards that list a birthdate do list him as such. This one doesn't include a birthdate on the card, so I won't count it. My binders. My rules.
Jalen Reagor
Chris Godwin
David Montgomery
Cam Akers

Brett Favre - PACKERS! WOO! PACKERS WON THE SUPER BOWL!
Ezekiel Elliott
Evan Engram
Drew Brees

Nico Collins
Greg Newsome II
Mac Jones
Nick Bolton
Dyami Brown - The shading of the background in the team colours for rookies make the dull photo choices at least somewhat more tolerable. Not that bad of a grouping here, as I've got a Collins for a future Ann Arbor mailer, and one of the better rookies in Jones.

Marquez Stevenson - Kickoff
Eric Stokes - Kickoff
Antonio Gibson - Kickoff - These parallels look to be retail exclusives. There's a second Bills card, so I'm happily punching above the weight here.

Rookie Wave - Elijah Moore - Half the card looks like a standard Mosaic base card, the other half looks like a goofy 1990s insert. The best of both worlds!

Call to Arms Blue - Ryan Tannehill - A nice final card. Not only an insert, but a parallel one as well. You even get the bonus of the shiny blue prizm meshing perfectly with the team colours. 

A couple Bills cards, a solid rookie, some trade bait and an aesthetically pleasing finale. Great pack!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 15 - A Hitless Hanger

 

No hits in this, but there's still 20 cards, and that's a nice Canadian Tire card on the top. The Superstars portion of that set was slightly SP's, so that's a slight bonus.

The first half isn't the most interesting, but I always try to look for highlights in these. The interesting photo for Richardson and one of the 'Russians' inserts from 1991 OPC are about as noteworthy as it gets.

The second half is much nicer. Horizontal photos are nice, but right in the middle is the surest keeper in this pack. I've probably got a couple New York Americans cards in the ol' collection (likely all Roy Worters from ITG releases), but that doesn't make the obscurity of the team any less special. The Lindros was probably a good pull at the time, but now, like a lot of these 'at the time' cards, is now repack fodder. 

And the finale. A boring one, but a finale.

Can one card make a repack? That Worters sure did!

They Lived By Night

On May 6th, the Gizmoplex opens for Season 13 of MST3K, at least for those who didn't get on board with the kickstarter. Santo in the Treasure of Dracula awaits for eager viewers! Get ready to have The Perico Song earworm its way into your brain!

That means it is also the perfect time to show off my new autographs featuring the performers from MSTed movies, with both of these coming from Episode 1010 - It Lives By Night, aka The Bat People.

In this photo, Paul Carr probably isn't recognizable from the movie, since he's clean-shaven here. He was Dr. Kipling in the movie, or, as Kevin Murphy called him, Dr. Groovy W. Ski Bum. I like that so much better. 

There was more than one doctor in the film as the guy who...very...very...slowly (and in a budget friendly manner) turned into a bat person was also a doctor. Bitten by a bat, he did one of the best scenery-chewing performances in a MSTed movie. Which was entertaining in an odd way, since if you don't have the make-up budget to make a bat/human hybrid, you might as well ham it up until another production has a selection of other creature costumes you can combine and create something bat-like. 

Anyhow, both had nice enough signatures, and they used the space available well for the autos. 

When I add the autograph of Jackey/Debbie from Manos, I've now got a binder page worth of MSTed performers. HIKEEBA!

Hooray for Hollywood!

 And Hooray for some new cards for the 2/14 collection!

Classic Hollywood on a vintage card, dating back to 1939 for this appearance of John Barrymore. He's shown portraying Mercutio here, to bring some Shakespearian sophistication into the binder.

That's far more extensive of a biography that I'd expect out of a card back that was adhesive. Check out that second sentence in it for one of the more impressive run-on sentences ever immortalized on cardboard. Wow. Does anyone to take a shot at diagramming that sentence?

Another 1939 set, and it is a set called "My Favorite Part". What was Florence Rice's favorite part?

There you go!

My appearances of Florence Henderson in the collection so far have been cards featuring the entire cast of the Brady Bunch. Here, things are a little less crowded.

But Edward Platt gets the solo treatment on this card, which is the second one in my collection featuring him. No need to say "Sorry about that" here, as his previous appearance was, like Florence, one featuring more of the cast in the photo. Both of these come from the same set, 1998 Inkworks TV's Coolest Classics.

I have this photo of Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny in the collection, but not in Magic Motion form prior to this.

Finally, the Gremlins set. I've decided that any card that features a photo of Zach Galligan counts towards the collection, not just his specific cards featuring the character. This bumps my total cards of Galligan, all from this set, to 4. I could also put the top and bottom ones in my MST3K collection, for those also show Hoyt Axton. Hoyt, sings one of the more famous tunes ever forced upon the denizens of the Satellite of Love.

MY MY MY MY GOD!

BABY OIL!

Mitchell!

There you have it!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 14 - Hanging Around the 7/11

 

The easiest way to get me to purchase a repack is to put a Mets card at the front of it. 

Here's a better look at that opening card. Chrome and Ginter seem wrong together, but they don't look too bad in hand. The Rutte card I posted at the start of my trip was an insert from the 2021 version of this set. So I guess I'm learning to like it.

That brick background on the Greinke looks really goofy, especially with a sorta-action shot in front of it. It looks so much better when it is the bricks of Wrigley behind a home plate photo on a card like the Ultra.  Looks like a lucky fan is about to get a very unique souvenir courtesy of Orlando Merced,

Also courtesy of Orlando, enjoy some trivia!

3 straight horizontal cards makes for an unexpected repack portion, and they all are interesting uses of the medium. The Watson design gives me vibes of what Upper Deck is using this year for their flagship set, but show you can use something similar, and still use interesting photos. Such a dull release this season. 

Now that's an interesting hit. Getting a logo-ed baseball autograph from Panini, and having it be of a  longtime major leaguer makes for a great card. Even when the numbering shows off exactly how many stickers they had at Panini HQ. Given the opening card for this as a late 2020 release, it is somewhat unexpected to get this, since Watson had passed before this repack was assembled. But a cool auto is still a cool auto, and I'm definitely happy with it.

Another Mets card! There's also some Canadian content with the pride of the Maritimes, Vince Horsman. 1990 Bowman remains as boring in baseball as it is in hockey.

We're ending on some Heritage Minors, which always offers the potential for some fun in terms of minor league team names and uniforms. A fun team name, and a card of a player who reached the bigs? Great ending!

And there you have it!