Mailbag 2/14s

 Back to back posts from the TMV bubbler! Because why not?

Normally, I lead with something leaning towards the base end of the groupings. Today, I start with one of the better ones. Is it because the Alshon-less Eagles are on their way to Super Bowl? Not really, but Alshon was the volume king of the 2/14s in this.

6 cards was enough to do that in this post. He's now at the 135 mark with a nice mix of cards from the Bears and Eagles days, with a handful of NCAA ones as well. 

Drew Bledsoe was the other football guy to have multiple cards with these 3. That BledsOe's had been on my wantlist for a while, mainly because I didn't want to pull the trigger on it for $8 over at COMC, but I still liked the pun and the cheesiness of it. I loved the 'Crunch Time' of Pascal Siakam, so why shouldn't this one be a favourite? 

Steve McNair does seem to have a rather derpy face on his card, but it is all about the numbers as I approach the 3500 mark, so I'll take it.

Hackenberg has to lead the NFL portion of the collection in terms of number of cards compared to games played with 26. But. especially after having a Mr. Irrelevant see success this past season, I remain confident that there will be another QB drafted that has little chance of seeing the field, but still getting a pile of cards, just so they don't miss out. 

Kennedy Burke made her collection debut not that long ago, with an appearance in the WNBA Prizm release. With all of the parallels,  this card has 18 other variations out there. I've got 3 of them. With this, she's 1 behind Kara Lawson for the WNBA lead. That seems odd, since Lawson's career was 13 seasons. Oh the days before all these parallels.

Speaking of parallels, here's as low as you can go for print run. And I'm now halfway towards being able to produce my own photos of Brandon Sutter. WOO-HOO!

And there you have some more cards from that mailer! Thanks for all these, and the cards still to be displayed here!

Mailbag: Bills, Bills, Bills

I'll be taking many trips into the recent TMV mailer over the next couple weeks with a bunch of theme posts. Even with there being no Bills action for the foreseeable future, Sunday still seems like a perfect day to show things off.

I had both these cards on my reasonable wantlist, and would have been happy with either of them. How can I not want a card that features a nose tackle celebrating a TD? It is even better that this is two different photos of the same moment. The position itself hasn't made appearances on cards for ages, as they now use the more generic DT listing, so there's also that little bit of rareness. BJ Raji might have been the last to be listed as such, but I really don't feel like looking through every card.

With "Sauce" Gardner showing up this past season to join with "Boogie", I love that nicknames are starting to appear on player's cards again. While I don't think we'll get back to the days of Rock Raines and Doc Gooden, I'll take this where I can get it.

2 cards. Four Hall of Famers! I guess I could call that Dynasty card a 2/14 one for the presence of Jim Kelly, but the extra names do make it more of a Bills card.

Numbered parallels!

Hit Parade time! Moss didn't really make an Instant Impact with the Bills, but Nyheim Hines sure did with those 2 KO returns for TDs after they were traded for each other. 

At least once per game when Nick O'Leary would get a touch, the announcers would be certain to mention that he is the grandson of Jack Nicklaus. So I might as well continue the tradition with the posting of a couple of his autos. 

Jonathan Williams wins the numbers battle of the Bills portion with this trio of hits. Pen Pals tend to be the first on-card autographs in NFL releases, and even if, like Williams, they don't pan out, they are among the more popular options for autographs.  And we get all three team colours represented among the swatches, since there is a hint of red on the Limited patch. The blue one is from a rather basic Panini release, but all the foil makes it look like something that might come from a higher end set. 

And now I still have 2/14, Raptors, Mets and Miscellany to show off. PROGRESS!

There you have it!

New 2/14 Faces

 As the big day approaches for this blog, I'm off to my COMC box for a 2/14 interlude, so I can make sure all of them appear before I have to go through my posts to pick my top released cards from the past year. Starting off, some new faces.

I'm leading with some miscellaneous stuff, and here's a new card from the entertainment industry. Victoria Cartagena was in the first season of Gotham, and that was enough to land her character a card in the release. She was also in Batwoman, so there's another opportunity for cards. As with Danai Gurira and Okoye, cards featuring the character itself don't count, but ones that feature the performer in the role do. My collection. My rules.

The recent World Cup gave me a chance to hunt down some stickers/cards featuring the participants. And that also means new candidates can appear. Thankfully, they make it super easy to spot new candidates by having the birthday featured prominently on the front of the card. I also have the usual ones to add at some point (Adams, Cavani, Eriksen, Embolo & di Maria), but I was far more excited by a new face.

I go back 20 years for Matteo Brighi, with a nice foil-y card, who also gives me a chance to practice my Italian with the back of the card, even though the best I can really do is infer that this was from some type of young stars insert set. Why else would it be named 'Promesse'?

More Italian! And a set named 'Fournier Ciclismo 92', which looks to be so obscure, I can't even find it at TCDB. But I do have my first cycling card in the collection!

I guess a true vintage card of Arthur Irwin, which would date to the 1800s, would probably dent the ol' wallet too much. But a modern card is just fine. 

He's also got one of the more interesting card backs in the binders.

Here's the only one to make more than one appearance. Ethan Small made his big league debut last year, but in 2020 he could be found in various prospect-themed releases and insert sets. Seeing how every Topps release tends to be filled with every rookie imaginable, I'll probably have a lot more chances to add Ethan Small content in 2023.

The only hit in this bunch features Tyreke Smith, a draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks. There were two 2/14 guys (Marquis Hayes) drafted in 2022, and both of them were placed on injured reserve to start the season. At least it was consistent! That probably means there won't be too many actual Seattle cards of his, if any, in later releases, but the fact that the 'punt God' still got some Bills cards makes me optimistic for Smith.

If nothing else.

There you have it!

Mailbag: And Worthy of a One-card Post

 The first big mailbag of the year has shown up, and as expected from a mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders, it was an all-over the place mailer. I was warned that I might have to pay customs fees on this, as there was a card in there that put things a little higher than a usual one.

And I'm guessing this one was the one:

A game-used nameplate letter? Yup, that's definitely going to be one of the more unique items in the ol' Alfie binder. This is listed as 10/10, but since that's the only N in his name, I feel fairly safe calling this one a 1/1. This is the only my second game-worn nameplate card in the collection, joining a Genuine Letters of Patrice Bergeron that I pulled from 12-13 Prime. 

He might not be photographically featured on the front, but he is on the back!

Aside from some of the autos in the binders this quickly has entered the top tier of Alfie cards! 

Thanks for this beauty, and there are certainly more to come! 

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 3 - Hanging Packs

 

Repacked packs! There were several options available, but I had to go for the one with Topps UK as the visible pack for the obscurity factor.

I wasn't expecting anything other than base cards in that pack, so I guess I can't claim to be disappointed. It was just a coincidence that the great Tyler Stephenson "bubble" card ended up in the center spot. A diving catch, cardboard fans, and outfield ivy make this a solid photographic pack at least. That Corey Seager is already set aside for a future mailer to Watertown. 

And the A&G pack. Typical Ginter, with only one of the cards featuring an active MLBer. I'd be really happy to have received that Carter card in this, only I had a second copy waiting to be shown off in my "COMC To-Be-Posted" box. OOPS! But that means one of them can be mailed out to a Jays fan in another future outgoing mail. 

But at least each pack had some interesting stuff in it, and that's all I ask for!

There you have it!

Fortunate Son

 

As in, fortunate that his parents signed him up for baseball and not football. 

Dare I Tempt Fate Again?

Posting a Bills card on playoff game day almost didn't work out last week. But it looks like I am stupid enough to do it again this week.

But there is a reason for this:

Players posing with their new jersey at the draft > Training camp/Rookie Premiere photos.

Worth the Wait?

 This might not really be a Raptors card, but for the sake of my binders - this is a Raptors card. 

Sure, they've never worn mustard yellow, but at least the auto is on-card.

Rick Moranis' Understudy from Spaceballs

 

"He's just the kicker! The helmet doesn't have to fit too exact, does it?"

They Keep Getting Younger

 I guess when you have a collection based around birthdays, the person who holds the position of being the youngest in the collection will constantly change. As long as cards of actual children don't come out, that position will probably be filled by somebody with a Canadian Hockey League card. 

That position was previously held Tommy Budnick, and with this card, he is tied with a second player born in 2004. Here's a CHL card of Nolan Lalonde. And since he is debuting in my collection, let's debut him in style with an Exclusives parallel. He wasn't drafted in the most recent draft, but it does appear that he signed with Columbus. So, there's still hope for some NHL cards.

As for Colby Barlow, he seems far more likely to be making future appearances. He's eligible in the next entry draft, and several mock drafts have him going around the 11th overall position. So, this might actually result in somebody with a lot of cards to collect in the near future, especially considering how UD tends to put rookies in every imaginable release.

He's also born in 2005, and that makes him the youngest member of the 2/14 collection.  

I'm not sure who the oldest member of the collection would be, but I'd guess Frederick Douglass until I can do a more detailed look.

There you have it!

A Long Snapper! Very Tasty!

 

And no, I won't trade this auto for what is in the box.

Wildness

 

Sure, the Jacksonville comeback last evening was shocking. But the Bills still hold the playoff record, and didn't have to start their comeback during the second quarter. 

While it usually ends up being Andre Reed that gets the nod on cards that salute that game, since he is a HOFer and all, it is nice to see Frank Reich make an appearance on one. I didn't even notice that this was actually a /99 silver parallel when I added it to my cart, and admit I didn't even notice it until I was uploading these scans.

I'm probably tempting fate by uploading these on the morning of the Bills playoff game.  

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2.3 - A Week of Surprises

 Hockey for the finale!

Looks like I get supplies as part of this one. But since I had a COMC shipment arrive and need to repackage stuff for future mailouts, that's OK.

As expected, the 70s/80s was all 80s. But I did get a pushpin 1988, and that Kevin Lowe was probably one of the more action-packed base cards of that set, if not the decade.

The HOF pack gave me an insert with that Fuhr, and a patriotic entry for Mike Gartner, so there's also something interesting to go alongside the solid names of this repack.

I guess all three of these count as Superstars. That's all I ask for from one of these. Rantanen is the second non-base card in this, it is the green parallel out of 2018 Ice. I'd still give up the parallels for these cards just to be acetate base cards again.

The 90s pack. Except for that Moog card, that's what I expected from this - lots of early 90s stuff. Still, coming off the most recent edition of the World Juniors, that is a nice looking Brisebois. 

Definitely not the most exciting one I've ever busted, but if I get a couple keepers, I'm happy. 

There you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2.2 - A Week of Surprises

Today, the football one!

Warrick Dunn might not be the first name that would come to mind when you're thinking of 8000+ yard rushers, but he did that, and threw in almost 3000 more for insurance. But when you're thinking of the first name to come to mind, Dickerson certainly would be among the names. Frank Gore doubled the 8000 total. Exactly. As he finished with 16000, or third all time. 

This could just as easily have been the 8000+ repack, as all of these players reached the 12000 plateau in their careers. If the Faulk out of 1999 SPX doesn't end up as the brightest card in the repack, the one that does may blind me. Since I love variety in my repacks, it is nice how this contrasts as I also get the very understated, although also very orange, Sanders card.

Here's the 90s pack. Even though those last 3 cards from 1983, 2000 and 1989 respectively, don't count towards that. There was so much 1990 Pro Set out there, that even a Hall of Famer's draft card in that Cortez Kennedy is still just repack filler. There's also a hint of things that would become more commonplace in the hobby, with die-cuts and foil/chrome/prizm cards. 

I will go to my cardboard grave convinced that if, in 1990, Donruss had used team colours for the borders instead of generic red, that it would be up there with 1987 Topps as one of the best remembered designs of that era. 

Yup. These are definitely 5 Quarterbacks. But this is a pretty bland grouping on the whole, despite a couple good careers there with Dalton and Flacco.

No Bills content, but that gaudy Faulk was one of the easiest 'KEEPER' cards that I've found in there.

And there you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2.1 - A Week of Surprises

I still have a bunch of repacks left over from last year, so I'll plow through a bunch of them this week with 3, maybe 4 Surprise bags, depending on how lazy I am when it comes to scanning.

First up, a basketball one, with these contents:

And we're off!

At least one of the cards isn't from the early 90s. All 3 of these players had reached the 15K point plateau by the time these cards were available in packs. So there's that.

Here's the 90s stuff. There's a couple interesting cards here. Drawn card!  I had no idea how blurry Anthony Mason was in the earlier years of his career. The David Wood is an interesting photo. There are a lot of cards with photos of a player running up the court, but seeing them do so without the ball isn't that common. And Cherokee Parks is a fun name to say out loud.

The 2010s. Yup. Kinda blah. At least Gooden has colourful borders. And the Green has those tiny shorts. that despite being a 2010s card, are definitely not 2010-ish. Still, pretty boring.

And here's the card from the Memorabilia repack. 

But despite the front of the card claiming it was Game Worn, the back of the card does seem to imply that it really only made its appearance in one of the Saturday events, and not the actual game. But at least that's still more accurate than "not from any specific game, event or season". 

Spud! Seeing a player running up court without the ball might be a rarity, but seeing the pre-game stretch on a card might be ever rarer. I've been seeing a good number of these 1981s lately in these Presstine repacks, and I'm all for it. Askia Jones is this repack's example of a player I had absolutely no memories whatsoever of. But he did still manage 11 more NBA appearances than I have.

With the Richardson, a couple interesting photos and a hit is enough to make this a pretty good repack experience.

Football is the next one! 

There you have it!