One of Toronto's most famous:
And one of Pittsburgh's most infamous.Monday 21 October 2024
Player to be Named Later
Saturday 19 October 2024
New Faces of the 2/14 Collection
A grand total of 4 new faces have been added to my 2/14 collection, and it is time to show them off!
My first surfer! More importantly, Caroline Marks might also be the first individual Olympic Gold Medalist in the collection, having picked up a surfing medal this past summer in Paris. All my others with the medal are in team events, such as Milan Hejduk, Angel di Maria and Kara Lawson. Of course, I may research my way to more to acquire, or to already be in there.My policy of googling people I hadn't heard of beforehand ran into a bump here, as most of my results were of the character from the movie Get Out. But I didn't come across anything negative about any real Rod Williams, so I'll assume all is well with this one.I had been seeing Juan Graterol's name on the list of Feb 14 birthdays over at baseball-reference for a few years, and just assumed I'd had at least one of his cards. Nope! Then again, this was about as close as things got to a mainstream card of his. Everything else was just a local minor-league issue. So, it is this - or nothing. Thank you, Topps Total, for your completeness.Thursday 17 October 2024
The Ranger Roundup
Shininess!
Tuesday 15 October 2024
Chasing, and Capturing
2024 Upper Deck CFL dropped last week. I picked up two boxes, hoping to build the base set. Unfortunately, the base content in the box was remarkably similar and I ended up 25-ish short of the base set.
But that really didn't matter, since I landed what was probably my personal chase card in the product.
A Tre-Ford patch/auto!Monday 14 October 2024
Bills! Bills! Bills!
As the team crashes down to their expected reality over the past two games, let's see some 2024 Bills courtesy of a Score group break.
Here's the veteran/legend base. Sort of a 1990 Score vibe for the border, although it is killed with the addition of the additional white border to make things crowded. They also did that back in 2019 with the 1989 salute, but I really didn't feel that then. I'm not sure why - maybe I just liked the base photography more.
Here's the rookies, still in their college attire of various licensing and photoshopping. I'm not sure, but I think Frank Gore Sr and Jr are the first father/son combo in the Bills collection. Something I found interesting about the design is that photos are re-used for the rookies on the back of the card, but the veterans got new ones. There's a sports crossover on the only insert I got, with 1991 Baseball's "The Franchise" design being ported over to football.Let's see some autographs. Frank Gore Jr's experience with the Bills has been on the practice squad, but I want to complete the father/son set with a Gore Sr. Bills auto. There aren't too many of those out there, so my dream might have to be fulfilled with a Miami Hurricanes one.Green autograph parallels were somewhat more SPd than the regular versions, but I'm not too sure as to what level. I don't really care too much other than for curiosity's sake, since this card of their top draft pick is a keeper. His first games have been perfectly fine for a rookie, especially with the way the targets have been spreadd around so far this season.
Saturday 12 October 2024
2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 28 - Alternating
It looks like since I ordered in an equal number of baseball and football repacks, it would be logical to alternate between the two whenever I go to the box.
Therefore:
A baseball one is next. And the first card is one that certainly would have inspired me to pull this particular repack off the shelf.A little more 80s content than I expected from the first portion, with 4 of them appearing. The Tartabull is an entry from the Traded set, and there's OPC content too! It is also nice to compare an original 1989 design to the Archives version in the same group. Bryan House is pictured with the Oklahoma City 89ers. Does that count too?And here's the hit - another auto. And looking at all the other repacks, unless they're super thin, all the hits are going to be autos. As for Gorski, he's still doing the minor league climb, and has shown nice power so far.Oooo. A parallel! My only question was if it was named something simple like Red, or something higher end like Ruby? It was Red. And both a Leaf version of a card and an OPC in the same repack? More of that, please!All the way back to 1981 for what will probably be the oldest card in any of these repacks with the Lowenstein. Lowenstein (my name is Zweig). I wouldn't be too surprised if that Laskey is the second oldest in any of these.A rather bland, unlicensed ending, but at least I can show it off as a half-hearted salute to the 1987 Donruss that appeared earlier.Friday 11 October 2024
Perfect Time for a Mets Post
And to work my way through the absolute stack of Mets content that was in the TMV mailer,which included items of all shapesand sizes, in terms of really largeor just slightly larger than their 2*3 counterparts.
Finally, a pair of numbered cards (Noah /99, Alay /199), and it is finally hit parade time.Given he only wore the black Mets jerseys for one season, I'm not so certain that this is a Mets swatch. Even though the time of this being a 2005 card would line up. I still choose to believe this is.This. This certainly is a Mets swatch.Even if Brodey never reached the majors with the Mets, this is still a really sweet colour matched auto. So I still like it! Any Mets hit is a good Mets hit.With his career just underway, this was probably a really hot pull at the time. Now, with his active career ended, it isn't as much so. But this was still the highlight of the Mets portion, especially since this isn't the year UD opted to use E-Zee-Fade ink on them.
Wednesday 9 October 2024
Yermin Hunting
Yeah, so there was quite a bit of Yermin Mercedes content in my most recent COMC shipment. Enough to push my total to 65. I got in a group break of Chronicles at the time in order to pile on the Yermin content. These were 5 that I didn't get in the pile of White Sox content. But at least I'd (eventually) land a pretty nice looking Oscar Colas autograph from that.Randomness!The only numbered card in the mailer was this /150 blue parallel of the Gold Label card in that group of 6.