Tip-off!

 The Raptors start off tonight, in a city that probably considers them to be background noise at this point to the sports scene in the city. But I still realize that this is the perfect day to show off much of the Raptors content that has shown up over the past few months.

I added this to my COMC inventory quite a while ago, back when I considered there zero chance he'd get an actual Raptors card. With his role as a veteran bench guy, I thought this would suffice to salute his time here. And then he showed up in some lower-end sticker dumps last year. Oops.

Sandro Mamukelashvili signed with the Raptors this off-season. I'm thinking he might slip into a lower end release as a Raptor, but this will satisfy my desire to add a card of his to the binder.

Alijah Martin was a 2nd-round pick in the most recent draft. Since he is a rookie, he'll certainly show up somewhere in a Raptors jersey during the season. He looks to spend his time between the big club and the G-League 905.

Speaking of the 905, of course their cards count towards the collection.

Now, some actual Toronto Raptors card. Ulrich Chomche was a second round pick last year. He made into 7 games, and that's the extent of his Raptors career, as he was among the final cuts going into the season. It seems this was an injury situation, so it really follows the recent Christian Koloko story, and the sense that you hope he makes it back to league. 

Jamal Shead's addition puts be a Ja'Kobe Walker away from completing the set from the 2024 Raptors draft class.

I do realize that pursuing the entire Raptors portion of the 2019 Road to the Finals insert set would be a futile endeavor that would do nothing more than drain my wallet, probably to bankruptcy. But at least I've now completed the entire first round portion of it.

Now, it is time to move away from the COMC stuff, and on to the stuff from a group break of Revolution.

I didn't get the complete base set, but seeing as this was only a part case, I wasn't surprised. Plus, I'm guessing the rookie/legend portion are SPd. Still, I did get one. And I'm OK with that. My only surprise is that there weren't any of the City Edition jerseys yet. Fortunately, there's already one with RJ Barrett rocking it sitting in my COMC inventory.

Since I did also get a Fractal parallel of that Walter card.

While I didn't land a base card from the Legends portion, it was made up for with a trio of parallels. There's another Fractal here, but also a Lightning parallel /175, and a Cosmic /99.

And one more autograph to go along with it. I'd already had one of his, but I can't have too many Raptorgraphs!

There you have it!

Montreal Flashbacks

 Just a bunch of Montreal baseball cards today - no particular reason as to why, but there's never really a bad reason to show them off.

Seeing Jackie in a Montreal Royals uniform, and reading about the team he would eventually debut for, makes this pretty easy to find the source for the photo. And it looks like we head off to Havana for it.  That makes this a rare three-country photo thanks to the brochure. 

If it weren't for Fleer Tradition, there would be no cardboard evidence that Todd Zeile ever played for the Expos. Since it was the Update set in 2003, and the regular set in 2004 that were the only cards featuring him there. He'd actually be with the Mets for a repeat performance in 2004, and that got a few more pack-pullable options, such as MLB Showdown and Topps Total.

Not to complain about an Expos appearance post-relocation, but a family-themed card of Tim Raines should probably have him with the Orioles, and also include a photo of him with his son/teammate.

This was probably a case of just going through COMC, looking for the least expensive relic, and adding it to my inventory. If you look carefully, there's a hit of a pinstripe in the upper corner.

Start with a non-Expos card, end with one too. Sure, this Heritage retro card (out of Pro Debut) is a Harrisburg Senators card, but since they were affiliated with the Expos at the time of the era if not the release, this is totally, 100% an Expos card. My binder - my decision.

And there you have it!

Always a Reason

 

This seems like a rather odd card to add into my miscellaneous collection. But I have my reason.

For this one, it is because I found this story amusing.

And it also provides a perfectly logical reason as to why a lot of modern autographs are illegible. Although I would need to see a Darryl Ashmore cut auto to verify this.

There you have it!

Uniformity

Just a whole bunch of alternate uniforms in today's post. I probably would have called this something throwback related, but then there's that Seahawks entry in the lower corner. It makes the bottom of a lot of Seahawks-related worst uniform combo lists. and when you're up against the all-neon color rush uniforms, that says alot.

Other than that, it is nice to see how the other teams' entries evolved, especially on ones like the Eagles and Jets with wildly different color schemes. 

 

There you have it!

Mailbag!

 A small bubbler did show up before the postal strike started, and now it is time to show the contents of the mailer from Dawg Day Cards' Angus.

Jim Kelly is one of a handful of players I'm not thinking "Why were dupes included" when they show up in an envelope. One for the 2/14s, one for the Bills collection is a perfect way to eliminate any need to decide where they end up. 

Last year's Score-A-Treat was very well represented in this mailer. Sure, they're paper thin, but they're still Bills cards. And yes, both the listed-with-pictured-elsewhere Curtis Samuel, and the reverse Stefon Diggs count.

This year's Score-A-Treat was also well represented with these 4 cards, even if only two of them have seen the field for the Bills this regular season. But these cards aren't as thin as the 2024 entries.

Here's a card that at one point came with stickers, something that Panini started several years back. I almost put together a complete set in 19-20 when I tried to put together a sticker set that year. I still might add all the outstanding ones to my wantlist at some point.

Total passes thrown during a regular season game for the Bills by AJ McCarron = Zero. But at least his release probably hastened Josh Allen's starter days in Buffalo.

I've mentioned the greatness of this photo of Khalil Shakir and his escape artist run after the catch for his touchdown during the playoffs before. It's still great on a parallel.

The only numbered parallel. And at least Zay is still in the league, especially after the night he got himself featured on TMZ.

The Bills content ends with this encased entry. This also my first one of those 24K Action Packed cards!

I could jailbreak it, but why would I do this to Thurman?

But the end of the Bills content doesn't end the mailer! I could have held these off for a week until the time came for the Raptors season to actually start, but that post is probably going to be pretty busy as it is, so they get put in here as a closer. 

Thanks for all these goodies ! I'll be sure to throw some Cleveland Browns content into my cart before I hit ship next time over at COMC.

And there you have it!

Resume Fire

 Canada Post has switched from a complete walkout to rotating strikes, meaning that things will take longer, but will arrive eventually. So, send away!

ObCard: Since I really have nowhere else to post it in any sort of logical multi-card posting, here's a card of a Canadian from that quintessential Canadian sport - beach volleyball. 

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 32 - Another Two

 No Chrome Update in this two-pack repack, but some flagship will suffice.

But Chrome Anniversary remains.

The flagship pack opened with a five-pack of horizontal cards - only one of which is a base player card. But at least it does use the layout well enough.

The more common vertical design features a pair of pitchers who have already seen action this post-season for the Blue Jays. Gausman's jersey looks photoshopped, which really seems odd when a player had made appearances for the team in the previous season.

Insert time! The Stars of MLB may be getting very tiresome at this point, but that '88 Votto is a pretty nice little addition to my Cancon collection. And getting an insert for a PC is always enough to make for a good repacked pack.

But there's still more, such as a third post-season starter. Not too bad for a pack that's a few years old to still be providing some mound star power. 

As for the Chrome pack, not the most exciting one. At least there was a shiny entry.

The flagship is the easy winner in this pairing. 

But there you have it!

A Fine Farewell

Sure, Jerry Rice would continue his career for several seasons after this, but this is about as great as you could as for his cardboard farewell from a brand, at least as an active player, for San Francisco.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 31 - Pretty Packaging

 

OK, not so much the packaging, but there was an interesting card as the visible one.

It is probably better like this, but I would like to see a road game variant of this with unhappy fans as well.

And it's interesting behind it as well. The first card is the only non-flagship one among the 4, and it is someone who just got paid. Jaden Schwartz gets a photo that is just about as intense as you can get from a moment when the clock is stopped. I'm sure I've shown off that Rasmus before, but it is still a fairly unique angle for a card photo.

Having something positive to say about each card is all you could ask for!

There you have it!

A 2020 Vision

 

Cardboard fans!

But at least there's an autograph to go along with it. And a pretty nice-looking Grand Rapids Griffins jersey.

There you have it!

Three Downs, but Just 2 Boxes of Upper Deck CFL

My favourite release of the year! 2025 Upper Deck CFL dropped last week. Nice colour coordination with a Blue Bomber on the packaging of a blue box. This year, they retained the make-up from last year. 100 base cards, and the same # of packs with 9 base cards, and 3 inserts parallels.

They've also kept the base design pretty much the same as previous years. Take the hockey, then take away the foil.

I'm not going to complain about the appearance of any Tiger-Cats card in the product, but Taulia was already out of the league in training camp. Surely 4+ months can give you time to replace him?

I'd rather have another kicker show up. These were 3 of the 4 in the set, as I didn't land the Sergio Castillo. No long snappers in the set this year.

Here are some of my favourite photos out of the 89/100 base cards I landed. As nice as seeing Pimpleton in the process of making a reception is pretty nice, I've got to give the nod to TJ Lee, and the defensive player with the ball in this grouping.

The final 20 cards in the base set are "Season Standouts", which highlights individual performances. Some of these players repeat in this subset, some don't. But it did lead to me getting two Bo Levi Mitchell base cards in the same pack.

And here is proof that you can wipe the background from a card image, and still have a great photo. This is why I specified that my favourite photo earlier was my choice in that group of three. This one blows those other three away. Defensive player diving with the ball!

Strangely, Rolan didn't get a true base card in the set, despite being the reigning Most Outstanding Defensive Player in the CFL.

Of course there are parallels, at 1 or 2 per pack, golds are the most common. They have very little to distinguish them from the regular base, just that little gold strip next to the name.

Although the background being changed does make the Season Standouts far more obvious.

Next up are Deluxe parallels. They're more obvious with the numbering on the front, and the UD hologram on the back. Each box provided 6 of these, with one being a dupe.

Finally, the hits. All the hits were autos this year. The first name only auto is pretty different, and the ink that is on that sticker has some fairly legible cursive. This does make for my second straight year pulling a Stavros-graph. Santos-Knox is a former Ti-Cat, so there's that as well.

And the Eastern Division love continued in the second box. Since I didn't get any of the High Gloss entries this year, that Peters auto/relic is the lowest numbered cards of the boxes. The Standouts parallels are the portion of the set that got the auto/relic parallels. Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund gets the "long name" pass for having a shorter autograph. Finally, another Hamilton autograph to complete the Eastern sweep in terms of hits.

Considering I landed 3 Ti-Cats autographs, and got closer to completing the base set than the year prior, it is a thumbs up for these boxes.

There you have it!