2/14 B-ball

 There wasn't any football content in the 2/14 portion of the latest arrivals, so I'm going to wrap it up with some action from the diamond and the hardwood.

It is only card for the basketball portion, but with a whopping 5 cards, Kara Lawson is still the queen of the women's portion of the set. I guess I could load up on Kennedy Burke entries from Prizm 2022, but given that Lawson isn't from the parallel era, that really wouldn't be sporting.

These 2 cards vault me back into the title of the Marzano King over at COMC, with 68 different cards of his. I always wonder with these if the guy who ends up as the Queen of Hearts gets joked with by his teammates. 

Scott Scudder also gets a pair of new cards. That old Nashville Sounds logo is pretty great, hitting the minor league sweet spot of goofiness. 

Shininess! This Neon Green Prizm out of Spectra is /30, numbered to lower than the number of cards I have of his, 35. 

The grand finale sees my first hit of Nolan Schanuel in the collection. He's had a perfectly average 2024 so his prices remain fairly reasonable for someone who made such a quick rise to the majors. This one is a Prime Numbers parallel, numbered to a very non-prime number of 60. I always say it, but I'd rather they make one more card and number it to a prime number like 61. It would fit the set better.

But the card is number 61 in the set, so at least I get that.

There you have it!

 

Late, Lamented Insert Sets

 

If for nothing else than the chance of getting a piece of mascot fluff, some fabric from the batter's eye, or part of some random sign at the ballpark, I miss Fragments of the Farm out of Pro Debut.

2/14 Hockey

Opening up the to-be-posted box today, and all the new 2/14 content that will be entering into the hockey binder.

This definitely counts as a "How the sam scratch did I not have this card already?" addition. This is the base card, not even the glossy parallel.  I'm guessing that I saw the card, assumed I already had it, and sent it off to Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders. In case I didn't do that, I got two of these to make sure one of these will count as 'sent it off'.

Also one and done in this post is Brandon Sutter, appearing on the now-missing French variations. Even being pretty common, especially on COMC, I miss them. 

The e-pack exclusive silver parallels really turned up the brightness this season - and I'm all for it.

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Nikolaj Ehlers ties for the lead this time with 5 cards, and he provides 5 new cards. 4 of them, including that really fun Canvas entry, fall into the 'cheap because of e-packs' category. The red parallel in the corner is the only card in this post, other than the opening Nystrom, that wasn't of COMC origin. I think they were from packs in one of the retail boxes in 15-16. Whatever the source, it is a new card from his rookie year.

Colby Barlow's very patriotic entries lift him into a tie with Ehlers. I'll let other people's unsuccessful chases of Bedard in this set help to expand my collection of his. Also, since the green parallels were e-pack exclusives, I can consider that one to be a contender for the 2025 list countdown, since those became first acquirable during the valid timeframe, even if the rest of the set itself wasn't.

My collection. My rules.

There you have it!

Catching up with the Jays

 To put it nicely, this season has been miserable in Toronto. Now, I think people are just hoping for the fire sale not to end up too badly. But at least I can be reminded of better days through cardboard.

I legitimately thought that the use of Rickey Henderson as opposed to Roberto Alomar on the image signified that this was from the point in time after Alomar received his ban from baseball for general creepiness. Nope! That was 2021, but this card was from the previous year. It's like Topps knew something was about to go down.

But he did show up in late 2020 releases like Stadium Club and Archives. So, maybe not.

One pleasant reminder of '93 deserves a second!

I guess the builder of those teams also counts as a pleasant memory, here in super shiny form. I can imagine some collector seeing the shininess when going through the pack and then getting disappointed when it is a card of a GM. Their disappointment is my acquisition!

Maldonado was only around for the first of those teams. But he still counts for a pleasant trip back to those years.

The bat flip was definitely away to express oneself.

If you want a card to remember Zack Collins' part-time season in Toronto, this card, and its associated parallels, are your only opportunity which to so. Even if you need a White Sox swatch to accompany it. 

As for Wynton Bernard, there's no time in Toronto to commemorate, as he never made the big league team. He got his 15 minutes of fame after reaching the majors with the Rockies after a ten year journey through the minor leagues. He'd get cards with the Rockies, including autos, and also some update cards with the Jays. This, is so much more interesting to me, especially with an on-card autograph for a zero game player.

There you have it!

Mailbag Catch-up

 A while back, I got a contact from Wes, aka JayBarkerFan, a blogger of long ago. He had some Raptors and Bills to send my way, and I provided the address. I had a few Braves/Crimson Tide cards set aside, and sent them out. I'd also pulled the encased Spencer Strider in a repack not long after, so that got thrown in too.

Here's what came my way:

Random CFL additions? Not so random - they're both Waterloo Warriors alumni. Both overlapped with my time at the school, and it was nice to see Smith go to the Tiger-Cats during those years. One of the two Bradleys is a red parallel.

Off to the Bills portion, and this entry that hits a couple nice sweet spots of my collection - shiny and incredibly cheesy. And it is also a Josh Allen, and he's pretty much the only reason I'm optimistic this upcoming season won't be incredibly mediocre. 

These football-textured entries are fun little additions to the insert portion of the collection.

HOFers! BRUUUUUCE!

And the rest of the Bills contingent of the package. More Josh Allen, as he's the only one in the post still with the Bills. I already miss Tre'Davious White.

Raptors time! I may have a lot of great cards of the players, autographs, relics and low-numbered brightness. But this card of the mascot (even if it is a dupe) might be my favourite one. Now that I have a second, maybe I should find out if The Raptor does TTM autos.

A small collection of base, inserts and parallels. At least Barnes is still with the team among this group. That Norman Powell couldn't have gone any better with the mix of jersey and parallel colours.

It stunk to lose these guys during the season, but seeing them walk during free agency without any compensation would have been much worse.

When Kyle Lowry retires, he plans to sign a one-day contract to retire as a Raptor. It's 'when', since he recenrly re-upped with Philly for the upcoming season. I'll guess that signing will also include an announcement of #7 being retired. Vince Carter should be the first to get that treatment, but there's still some bitterness over his departure from the team, so I'll guess Kyle goes first.

Speaking of #7, that's what this is numbered to. This Cyber Monday stamped parallel might not have the shininess you'd expect from a low-numbered card, Still, the lowest numbered Jonas card in my collection, despite being a pure gimmick card.

There you have it!

New Sens-ations

A whole bunch of new Sens cards for the collection, some from a group break, some from COMC that weren't too expensive because of e-pack.

Two posts within a week starting with an Ice Reps mascot appearance. Yes, the greatness of Sparty makes up the derpy facial expression on Brady.

The best moment from yet another lost season last year might have been Stutzle's mid-air, last-second goal during the Global Series games in Sweden. Take your glory where and when you can. 

I'll always be partial to including a city scene as part of the design. It's even better when they use different photos for different players. The only beef I have here is that it's the same area of the city - where the Ottawa River and Rideau Canal meet. Jake has the view approaching the locks, Tim's got the locks themselves.

Here's a whole bunch more e-pack cards - except one. That was one of a handful of true base cards I needed of his. Using tcdb as a guide, I have 374/409. 

Switching over to group break goodies, here's the team's regular base set out of a half-case Extended. That Hamonic is already one of my favourite Sens base cards. Also important was to get a second Kubalik for my Kitchener Rangers alum collection.

While it wouldn't have been guaranteed at 36 SPd cards in the half-case, I did also get all 4 of their cards from the SP'd Young Guns/Draft portion of the set. Jarventie is making his first Ottawa appearance in my collection, but he's had AHL Belleville cards before (including in this very post). Angus Crookshank is an awesome name for hockey, but it might even sound better if he were a curler. 

Off to the inserts! Canvas continues through Extended, providing, in general, more interesting photo choices than the regular ones. I said more interesting, not more flattering. A self-snowing by Stutzle definitely is the former.

The best thing about these Holoview Retros is that there are 3 photos on the front - and none of them are re-used. The full-colour photo is re-used on the back, so nothing is perfect.

Even more inserts! The color match on the Seeing Red is nice, but that would likely look hideous if there isn't a perfect color combo.

Here's some rarer inserts. You can't really tell because the design scans horribly, but that Grieg is a triple diamond, coming in at 1:50 packs. The Special Forces are 1:60, and are acetate, even if the colouring/photo reduce the transparency.

I'm not sure what the ratio of these are, but I do know there should only be 999 more of these out there.

A trio of nice Stutzles, including a couple tougher pulls makes for a successful break!

There you have it!

A new MST3ked movie Autograph

 

Dan Pastorini, from episode #1205, Killer Fish, has joined my collection of the MSTed. He played Hans in the movie, alongside a bunch of familiar names such as Lee Majors, Gary Collins and Margaux Hemingway. 

Don't confuse Killer Fish with another movie shown on the show - Devil Fish. Devil Fish was a Jaws ripoff. Killer Fish ripped off Piranha.

See! Totally different movies!

This joins Marcy Lafferty as my second Season 12 auto, and is my first sports card auto, with a potential #2 entering my COMC inventory minutes ago. Since this collection is for the movies shown, not the episodes themselves, Robert Smith's auto doesn't count.

There you have it!

An Extension

I never managed to find any UD Series 2 in the retail wild. Too many Bedard chasers out there, and I'm really only hunt cards once-a-week if I'm at Walmart. This time, there was a few hanger boxes of Extended there, along with another first for me - a soccer repack. If I collected outside of 2/14 guys, I might have opted for the latter.

Alas,

I still opted for Extended.

First card out hits that sweet spot of a sweet photo, as Rasmus Dahlin makes his entrance at the All-Star Game. Or the Skills Competition. Nice, even if it is 2023's game. 

If the jerseys weren't enough proof they used the previous year's ASG, here's more. Kadri wasn't an all-star this season. Calgary was represented (sorta) by Elias Lindholm, who had actually been traded to Vancouver just prior. Speaking of Vancouver - sweet throwback! Also, an ASG exclusive mask is a sweet way to add a new card to the mask binder.

Sens content! I do have a pile of group break Sens from Extended on the way, so this will end up as a dupe. Still, they're fun to pull!

The insert portion. Simon technically isn't an insert - it's one of those SP'd base cards. When UD runs out of potential rookies to stick in the set, they just make draft pick themed cards. The Dubois can act as a "Oh yeah, he was on the Kings in 23-24" reminder, and the Knies Dazzlers is an orange parallel - retail exclusives.

If you liked that earlier appearance of the Canucks throwbacks, but instead wanted the full look, now you have it  The whip effect on a stick always looks nice with the perfect angle. And there's the second Wings cards (with a Wolverine bonus this time) bound for Ann Arbor.

And there's a bunch more fairly non-standard photos for the finale. 

A perfectly fine break of a hanger box. 

There you have it!

A Ranger Roundup

Back to my COMC to-be-posted box, and cards representing, either directly or indirectly, players who have spent time with the Kitchener Rangers.

Back-to-back doggie posts! Sort of. Landeskog does seem like an odd choice for inclusion in a set in 23-24, since he missed all of this season and the previous one. He does plan to appear in 24-25, so the potential to pule on more cards featuring him returns.

Despite having a pile of team awards over his career (Memorial Cup, Calder Cup, Stanley Cup, Olympic gold) I didn't have any cards directly saluting Mike Richards' time with the Rangers.

Eminger was Richards' teammate on their Memorial Cup winning team, returning to junior after a short stint in Washington. He didn't have quite the championship career that Richards managed to, but still managed almost 500 NHL games over it. He also spent 200+ games in the AHL, and here's evidence he was rather happy during one of them in Portland.

The only numbered card - Jeff Skinner on /100 colour-matching red parallel out of 13-14 Totally Certified. 

And the only hit. Ingham did get a card in an Extended release after serving as back-up for some time with the Kings, but has yet to get into an official game. He's still doing the AHL thing with the Ontario Reign.

And a bunch of "cheap because of e-packs" additions. I've never really entered anything into TCDB outside of the hits, but I'm fairly certain that Gibson would probably lead the way if I counted them up. Mainly because he's been in pretty much every set non-stop since 2013.

There you have it!