Raptors Mega-Post

 Just a whole bunch of Raptors cards from various sources. Group breaks! Trade mailers! COMC!

COMC to open. And why not start with a sticker insert! Because stickers are awesome! 

Will Barton played in 16 games for the Raptors last season. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that he won't be getting a card. So a Memphis Tigers card is the perfect substitute. 

A shiny four-way card saluting their championship season? Yes, that's a sure-fire addition to the collection. It just took way too long for me to pull the trigger and add it. 

Sometimes, I'll just go to COMC and just look for the cheapest Raptors hit that I don't have and just add it to my inventory. This was one such card. 

Doubling up are a pair of cards of the first Canadian ever drafted by the team. He's a Celtic now, but is still part of team history.

Such an accomplishment also deserves an autograph, right?

You can go for a nice black background and still have a super colourful card. But it is from Recon, which has given the vibes of early Skybox sets, so seeing a design that does so shouldn't be surprising.

That's it for COMC - now off to a mailer from Cards on Cards. Much of the package was Raptors content, so I'm adding them all here. Everything else will appear in a second post in the not too distant future.

I was happy to see a nice number of the Prizm Monopoly cards in this. Those packs never made their way to this side of the border, so that automatically makes them among the more welcome cards in this mailer. With so many releases in a season, the rookie logo doesn't mean what it did back in the day, but that doesn't mean that I'm not happy to see it on his cards. The middle card is a retail parallel from Select, with the lower-right one being from the Rookies and Stars portion of Chronicles. I swear that I'm the only Raptors fan that actually liked those purple/black alternate uniforms like VanVleet sported on the Optic.

More Chronicles. Like with R&S, I think the Score portion was a retail exclusive. More Monopoly! There's a nice group of parallels here. The Precious is an obvious purple, but the names of some of the others may be less so. Holo Laser Green for the Anunoby, and Blue Shimmer on Siakam. The Banton in the middle is a less obvious green parallel, since all that changes colour is the foil. The inclusion of the Bargnani relic reminded me that my collection has gone way too long without having a Bargnani auto in it. 

Edit: That little Bargnani problem is solved.

Since the Fun Fact migrated over on the Score from the football release, I'm obligated to show off the 'Fun Fact'.

Contenders! Stickers!

The parallels included also had numbered versions too.

The Monopoly set also had numbered parallels. Because of course it did. Here's the Gold Money Shimmer version, out of 500. 

I don't care if he didn't develop into a Brazilian Kevin Durant. I still love adding his cards to my collection. They give the vibe of hope and optimism to the collection. If that makes any sense. 

Group break goodies!

Some Select base cards. Exactly what I expected - just a chance to bump up the numbers game in the binders. 

But for a set that generally doesn't have the most memorable photography, there is an occasional gem that slips through. And here is one that just perfectly works with a horizontal medium. Desperation attempts to save a ball from going out-of-bounds isn't a theme that appears too often on a card, but we get one here. 

Chronicles tends to be rookie intensive, but Siakam still merited one card in the extensive base set.

Rookie intensive for the Raptors means a nice array of Christian Koloko stuff. The best thing about it is that each card features a different uniform. 

There you have it!