Oh MST3K You're So Fine

 Today, it is time to show off a couple of new autographs in my collection featuring performers that were in MSTed movies. 

The post's title gives a slight hint as to who the first auto is of. While Toni Basil is far better known for her 80s hit "Mickey", she's known to MSTies for her appearance in Village of the Giants (episode 523) as "Red". She's not the only one from this movie to have certified autographs out there - ones of Beau Bridges and Ron Howard are also out there, with the latter being very much out of my price range. The movie itself was probably one of the better ones to be featured on the show. 

The second autograph fast forwards to season 8, and one of the movies that was part of the long streak of black & white films to start off the Sci-Fi run - Terror from the Year 5000. Salome Jens' role in the movie, as the titular Terror, was actually her first credited film role. It's somewhat interesting to see her autographed card here playing the contrasting character name of 'Ancient Humanoid'. She'd return to the Star Trek universe in Deep Space Nine, as a Shapeshifter, appearing in 15 episodes. While autographs exist of that character as well, I opted for this one due to the contrast of this and her future character.

There you have it!

Three-Down Megapost

 More goodies from my COMC to-be-posted box, and a pile of goodies from the CFL portion of the box.

I'm going chronologically through these. There's nothing older than this 2018 entry for this post. While I'd rather have a little more team colour in these swatches, it's still a nice little addition to the Ti-Cats PC. Simoni retired earlier this year, but he's certainly going to be returning to the city when it is time for his bust to join the Hall of Fame in a few years.

One and done from the lost season of 2020 as well. I'm not too sure as to why, but it might be this season that I have the most cards from. 

Here's Simoni again!

2022 was a crap design for hockey, but even worse for football, since they re-used the same boring image 3 times on the card. 

And even worst, the cardboard debut for University of Waterloo gets hosed up by putting the wrong team logo on the card and, even worse, the wrong player's image on the card. That's actually an image of the far paler Matthew Arbuckle on the card. At least the green swatch would indicate that this was an Edmonton Elks jersey used. He didn't appear on any set in 2023, so I'm hoping he finally gets a correct card in 2024.

Finally, the most recent release. Lots of gold here, even though an e-pack combinable blue parallel snuck in here.

Here's a numbered parallel to celebrate Bo Levi's switch over to Hamilton. The red signifies the parallel, not an error that they failed to completely scrub his Stampeders legacy. With these releases, it's a guess as to which reason.

And for the first time since 2017, there were inserts in the set that weren't also hits. It is a shame that was such a bland and generic one such as 'Greatness', but at least it wasn't an attempt at bringing 'Portraits' over from hockey.

There you have it!

Raptors Megapost

 Just a whole pile of Raptors cards today, from a bunch of sources. Some from COMC, some from group breaks, some from the recent TMV mailer. I'm leading this off with the COMC arrivals.

If there is one player that could signify the late, unlamented 23-24 season in Toronto, it would be Jontay Porter. Just a colossal mess. I realized that even before he got booted from the league he wouldn't get a Raptors card. So I added this. And despite his idiocy, he still counts towards the binders. 

I was convinced that Brown's time with the team would be short, figuring he'd be quickly traded along once the tank was on. He stayed around, and finished the season with the team. He's already appeared on Raptors card, and you'll see one later on in this post. But, as with Porter - this still counts.

Random Bosh!

Shiny! Shiny! Shiny!

I'm staying with Prizm for my first Jalen McDaniels auto. Strangely, he's in the Prizm base set, but is still pictured with Philly there. He's even got autos that also show him in the 76ers uni. But here, he's properly shown as a Raptor. Looks like they thought his signature was Sensational enough to wait until the last minute to run the presses for that insert set. And I thank them for it.

The Prizm finale features a card from the Luck of the Lottery insert set. The luck didn't quite work out this past lottery, but at least we get Gradey's magnificent draft day suit preserved eternally on cardboard.

The COMC finale - Huskies throwback! That's a nice way to end this portion, and shift to the TMV portion.

Starting with a relic from Terrence Ross, who did have a 51 point game to his credit while with the Raptors, but will probably be better remembered for some of his dunks. Such as busting out in-game 360s. Or the time he dunked through Kenneth Faried. 

Let's lower that numbering by 50 with this Amir Johnson Silver Press Proof.

There's always room for some Vinsanity in a Raptors team post.

Especially when they include relics. An auto is probably still well out of my price range. Neither of these is a jersey piece, if you look closer you'd see the black one is part of a warm-up, with the white being part of the shorts. But hey, I now have a piece of Vince Carter's shorts!

I'm not going to hit everything in the group breaks. But there were some highlights of note - here's Gradey Dick returning for a groove parallel.

But the big one here is the current Franchise - Scottie Barnes as he makes his first appearance. This is the Cubic parallel, limited to 50 copies.

Recon was only a partial case, so I wasn't surprised that I didn't get a complete team set out of the deal. But that's perfectly fine, as I got the first Raptors cards of three of the new arrivals with the team. And there's that Brown that I was never expecting to see.

Gary Trent Jr, the odd man out among the four base cards I got, makes another appearance in /299 bronze parallel form.

Although I didn't get a base card of his, here's an insert of Gradey Dick. But just using his last name on the front of the card is definitely a choice.

What better way to end a post than with a new autograph for the collection? Nowell was a perfectly fine second round draft pick and that's all I can ask for - some solid presence on the bench if needed and to develop into something more in the future. 

And that's a whole pile of Raptors! 

There you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 15 - Feeling Valued

 A couple more from the ol' Dollarama!

2 more of these!

Here's the contents of the first one! I've never busted that particular Swedish product before! I'm already enjoying this!

Among the base cards, only Tommy Sjodin was familiar to me. I remembered him from his time with the Stars in the junk wax era. But the insert really stands out on that foil-y Henrik Sedin entry from a Hands of Gold insert set. And Henrik would win the big gold medal in 2006 at the Torino Olympics.

Oooo. Premium! Even if they're extremely cheap over on COMC thanks to e-packs, it is still nice for a Canvas to show up - complete with the Popeye cameo! That Fantilli will fatten up the next mailer to Too Many Verlanders. 

The nineties easily provided the dullest content of the repacks, even with Kolzig making an appearance.

Major WOO-HOO out of the 2010s pack - with a 2/14 appearance. And it is a need! And it is a Tim Hortons food issue card! Again, WOO-HOO! It is always nicer to personally pull a new entry to the collection, no matter if it is a hobby box or repack.

It is going to be quite the challenge for the second repack to beat the first. 

This will be the content making the attempt.

As expected, pretty dull from MVP. But at least there was a Beniers fit for a future Ann Arbor mailer. Other than that, zilch.

The dullness continues with the Original 6 pack, with two of the more boring sets that show up in repacks. 1990 Bowman. 2021 UD. At least the latter is a Kitchener Rangers alum.  It doesn't appear to be a dupe as per my tcdb list, but I'm a little behind on adding that portion.

 A retro uniform with an interesting photo, two guys named Elias, two Flames cards. Repack randomness.

I'm not sure how that Formenton card slipped into the 1990s pack. Any joy of a Sens card is eliminated knowing that he's part of the London Five. The other two horizontal photos are interesting at list, even if you have to assume that the listed player on the Stadium Club card is the one facing the camera directly in the image. 

Even with a few nice cards here (Kubalik, Pettersson, Mallette) the first repack was definitely the more interesting to me.

There you have it!

Just When I Thought I Was Out

 and I thought I was done with TMV mailers, another shows up. And I'll work my way through it in stages as usual. Today, 2/14s!

This portion of the set was almost entirely football, but there were still a few that switched that up. Such as this single addition to the basketball portion of the collection.

Yermin was practically one and done in terms of baseball card releases, but what a year it was. If it weren't for Gabriel Moreno or Nolan Schanuel, I'd expect him to be the one to take over the top spot in the baseball portion eventually, based on how many cards were issued of him, and how inexpensive they would eventually become.

Baseball takes a bow here with a super addition to the collection. This has to be my first 1/1 autograph in the collection. Right? I'd check, but now realize that I probably should have the spreadsheet stored on something beyond my desktop. And maybe keep a second copy on the laptop I use 98 percent of the time for posting here.

David Garrard picked up a single entry this time around, and it interestingly salutes the rookie player, and his football idol. If you're a QB and a Giants fan, and making your NFL debut in 2003, everything would match up nicely to being a huge Phil Simms fan.

Jadeveon Clowney also makes a single appearance with this relic from 2019. 

Drew Bledsoe continues the run of #1 draft picks with these 8 cards.

That Classics card might be the lowest numbered card in the group, but as a bonus you do get the DYK factoid on the back!

One more relic.

A bunch of McNair entries. The horizontal card is an interesting - it was intended to be a redemption should McNair have been named the top offensive rookie in '95. It would end up going to Curtis Martin, making the 'Field' card the big winner. 

The latest Jim Kelly additions not only helped him maintain his lead as the king of the football portion of the collection, but with 277 total cards, he now is the overall leader in the collection. 

What better way to crown a new collection king than with a new 1/1 plate? It might be odd, name-wise, for this plate parallel to originate in a set called Unparalleled, but no complaints! 

Thanks for all these goodies, and I'll be showing off lots more in future posts!

There you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 14 - Forgotten But Not Gone

 This is something I'd done a while back to clear it off when I came across a long, LONG back-logged repack I'd purchase. This, and a couple more were ones I picked up when Target Canada was a thing, and I'd never posted the contents thereof. I still have at least one more baseball one, and a basketball one that I still haven't gotten to.

But at least there's one that I can clear out.

This was one of those envelopes that contained 4 packs and a hit.

This design hasn't aged well. Way too much border, made worse with the Topps logo dipping into the frame. But at least the Jays make an appearance. 

Upper Deck gave me exactly what  I expected from it - a couple interesting photos (Jones & Burrell), and, thanks to the size of the checklist, a couple guys I had absolutely no memory of at all (Bruney & Snyder). 

Pre-Frankie Montas!

Finally, 2012. Much as I liked the photo content among part of the UD pack, I  have to give the photo battle here to Luis Ayala. A tough-looking pitcher with a bat photo? Yes! Clay Rapada's photo angle makes it look like his arm is going to snap any second.  There's a nice play-at-the-plate in numbered form, and ending with a photo that just seems to go perfectly with the design.

Not bad at all for the packs - I'm not sure why it took me so long to finally show it off. 

No problem with the hit either. Maybe the black borders aren't the best for someone paranoid about condition, but I'm fine with it. Getting a pinstripe on the relic and a drawn element to it to the image Again, why did I keep this on the back burner for so long?

But there it is and there you have it!