Friday, 14 February 2025

Annual 2/14 Post

Time again for my annual salute to the 2/14 binder. The rule of this countdown is that the card must have been both issued and in-hand within the past year. That means the e-pack cards of Lane Hutson that I have don't count, since they aren't printed yet. They will qualify for next year, though. Also, only one appearance per subject. Although that really wasn't a problem this year.

With that out of the way, here's the top 10.

10.  

Sure, it's a bright gimmick card. But, it does feature Jaxon Smith-Njigba rocking the Seahawks throwbacks. That's good enough.

9.
It was a bland year for  Jim Kelly cards. Considering what won last year's countdown, anything would be a step down.

8. 
Just a fun photo of someone whose MLB time seems to be winding down. At least he gets a pretty nice card to go out on.

7.
Seeing as I tried to build the Heritage set this year, I figure it should make at least one appearance in the countdown. There were 3 members in the base set this year, and they'll be showing up later.

6.
Brooks Lee is one of two people on this list to make their debut in my collection this year, matching perfectly to his MLB debut. Since the liquid metal of Nikolaj Ehlers was one of the last cards I cut from this list, I need some garishness on here. So, I give you a lunar glow parallel. Even with him appearing in Series 1 this year, since he's a rookie, there will probably be many other chances to add other cards of his for the 2026 countdown.

5.
Hey! Topps Chrome! Welcome back! I pick this over the Speckle parallel since it is far less obnoxious, and I got loud cards out of the way on the previous card.

4. 
Here's the other debut in the post. Caroline Marks goes a couple spots above Brooks Lee since she also causes surfing to make its collection debut. That's worthy of a climb into 4th position.

3.
I knew I'd have a lot of Gabriel Moreno options to choose from. I decided to use him for the Stadium Club content in this (I try to only use one card per set as well). It may not be as iconic as Jose Bautista's, but that's a different angle for this type of photo as well. 

2.
The only hit on the countdown is this. I have better cards of his. More interesting photos. More interesting sets. Even an auto. But I pack-pulled this one from a retail blaster. Opening a pack and finding a wonderful entry to the PC is always going to move things up in the rankings.

1.
For the 2nd time overall, the top spot goes to a Tyler Bass entry. In 2021, his autographed appearance in Contenders took the top spot. For the second time in a row, a Buffalo Bills card takes the top spot, although there are 116 more copies of this one than last year's Jim Kelly winner. Heck, for the third straight year, it is a Buffalo card that takes the prize, with a Gabriel Moreno entry from his time with the Buffalo Bisons getting the spot.

Here, we have one of the more memorable moments of the past season for Buffalo. Bass had struggled a bit going into this game, but got the chance to win the game with a late field goal. I'm sure most of the stadium thought Buffalo would have a better chance to get a first down on 4th than to make a field goal. But Tyler's kick would have been good from several yards beyond the 61 yarder he nailed. It was a wonderful moment in many ways, and its cardboard preservation gives it the win.

And now, to start looking for potential entries in 2026. Looks like I've got at least one player to look forward to during the NFL draft.

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

So Nice, I Bought 'em Twice

I (kinda) doubled up on a couple cards in my most recent COMC shipment, picking up one for me, and one for a trading partner.

I just loved how he combined the first letters of his first name to make for a memorable signature. But, since he was a Michigan Wolverines alum, I knew I couldn't get one to show off without getting a second to ship off to Dennis at TMV in a future mailer. So, I'll keep up in one in my penmanship collection, with one to be sent off.  Kemp's only cards were in this set, so I didn't really have much choice.
As for this, this red parallel was a nice colour match with the Raptors jersey in the photo. It wasn't too expensive either, so one Chris Boucher for me, and one for Kerry @ Cards on Cards. Boucher also survived the trade deadline to still be on the team, so there's still one player left from the 2019 Championship season. I just wish he'd make more than occasional appearances in sets.

But there you have it!

Tuesday, 11 February 2025

Basketball via Michigan

 Time to show off the basketball portion of the mailer.

This portion was primarily Raptors, but a couple stragglers for other PCs slipped their way into the envelope. Such as this autograph of the king of the collection's basketball portion - Richard Hamilton. As a nice little oddity, this sage card is out of 610 copies. I usually need to go to an Elite Extra Edition to find a print run for a card like that.
The only other non-Raptor outsider was this Steve Nash bound for the CanCon collection. I'd cringe at the Key Kraze subset title, but there is far more cringeworthy insert set names to come.
Such as 'Air Club for Men'? Or 'Air Force One Five'? Anni-Vince-ary? As I said - cringeworthy. But these are a nice collection of unnumbered inserts.
A few numbered cards. The orange parallel of Bargnani is to 1199, and the team checklist from Donruss is /100. 
One more numbered item - here's Kyle Lowry on a printing plate. The actual item is from 19-20 National Treasures and their Jersey Treasures insert set. Just the cyan portion here!
If you remember his career with the Raptors, using the term Power alongside Rafael Araujo is quite the stretch of the term. That jersey probably saw garbage time minutes.
Ah. Much better. Even if only one of them is a Raptors hit, putting these two together on a card is a perfect card to salute the team during the 00's decade. 
A third straight appearance of a Raptors legend wraps things up. In terms of having their jersey in the rafters, either him or Bosh would make the best case for joining Vince up there. It wouldn't be the #3 he's sporting here though, but the #7 that he'd have to wait for the Bargnani trade to start wearing. Even if Kyle only did the initials autograph, there's still a really nice use of space, and it shows nicely on an acetate issue as well. 

That leaves on the baseball content and the 2/14 football content to go!

There you have it!

Sunday, 9 February 2025

BIlls! Bills! Bills!

The key to Bills Fandom is to never get optimistic. That makes the letdown when they lose far more manageable. That said, today is the perfect day to go through a whole pile of Bills and Bills-related cards that have shown up recently. These cover trade envelopes and COMC acquisitions.

They could have combined both players on the card to highlight this play, but what's the fun in that? That's especially true since both ends of the 98 yard TD deserve a nod.
This one was inspired by a recent repack. I noted how the back included not only the player's college, but that school's nickname. I can appreciate finally knowing that Kutztown's nickname was the Golden Bears.
Speaking of colleges, here's three cards of players I didn't think would get any as Bills. I'm 2 for 3 with that prediction, as Taylor Rapp showed up in Mosaic this year. Sadly, he wasn't wearing his Guardian Cap in that photo.
Punter card!
And a nice memory for the player preserved forever on cardboard to end the COMC portion of this post.
Rasul Douglas making his collection debut starts off this group from sportlots. Torrance appeared in 2023 Score, but only as a Florida Gator with the NFL shield on his card. I think he was the only one not listed with the team that drafted him. Here is one of his first cards where he was granted the dignity of appearing on the team. I like seeing guys like Evans and Beebe appearing as legends for a team that gets a lot of repetitive players for this portion of new sets.
Off to the mailbag, and a pair of nothing-but-Bills PWE envelopes that showed up this week from Crazie Joe. I was amazed at how many of the Pro Set cards in this were NOT dupes. Well over half of them were new to the Bills binder. I think those ended up with a better rate than the non Pro Set portion.  That Andre Reed Action Packed entry might be one of the least flattering photos for a star player ever. Why? Of the Pro Set cards, I love that Steve Tasker in the upper corner - it is just a wonderful depiction of a frigid game in Orchard Park.
Here's the start of the football portion of the TMV mailer. Both the Peterman and both the Grahams were examples of cards that I was certain I had, but didn't. Both Bruce Smith cards see him paired with another player. On the Nemeses card, he's matched up with Bruce Armstrong. A division rival on the OL makes perfect sense for a card of that nature. Bernie Parmalee on the other is a little less direct, but at least he's paired with a division rival that he probably often saw on the field.
Here's the numbered ones. Looking at the MVP's foil card does confirm that I still haven't been arsed to clean my scanner bed.
Let's start the Hit Parade, this time with some actual Bills cards instead of the NCAA versions. Antowain Smith was perfectly fine with the team, but he was given the impossible task of following Thurman Thomas at RB. He still had a 1000 yard season with the team, and would move on to New England and pick up a pair of Super Bowl rings in the process. As for Dustin Hopkins, he's still in the league. The 2013 draft wasn't exactly one of the best, so to see someone who is still around, even as a kicker, is surprising in the 2024 season.
Speaking of that 2013 draft, here's the Bills top draft pick that year. He didn't work out, and was off the team in 2017 when this card dropped, having moved on to Oakland. Judging by the numbering of this card, I guess Panini had 5 stickers left at Panini HQ.

And there you have it!

Thursday, 6 February 2025

Late Contenders

 With 2/14 being about a week away, I'm going to have to do a Top 10 again this year of cards that I've acquired that were also first available over the past year. My most recent COMC shipment contained a handful of late contenders for that list.

Soccer is always the odd sport out when it comes to the binders. I've got enough different players to warrant their own section in the spreadsheets, but not enough of anybody to really make anybody the runaway leader in terms of cards. Angel di Maria might be one of the more decorated members of the soccer portion, but this is only his 3rd card. And that still places him in second place in the collection.
I'll go on an unlicensed kick for a bit, with this pair of cards out of Topps Chrome. This might be the first cards where he's referred to as Rip on the front of the cards. That should probably count for something when I'm doing up the list, right? 

Plus, these might be the only basketball cards that will even count towards the list as potential entries.
Even before parallels are considered, Drew Bledsoe and Jim Kelly have about a dozen entries among the base cards in Composite, which had a Chronicles vibe of a bunch of designs that could have had individual releases, but didn't get them. At least the front facing photos don't do that bad of a job of hiding the lack of licensing. 
That Bats parallel of Jaxon Smith-Njigba might be the brightest card I have that isn't some sort of abrasive parallel. I'd have to watch some 80s music videos to see that much neon. 
As is seemingly the usual, Nikolaj Ehlers takes advantage of the cheapness of epack cards to win the numbers game in 2/14 posts. The top row features silver and outburst parallels from flagship with a Liquid Metal Platinum parallel and Black Diamond insert on the bottom. The LM card is the only numbered card in the bunch. I'm not sure how scientifically accurate the representation of liquid metal is, but that's certainly a...unique background.

I'm not sure how many of these will show up in one week's time, but there you have it!

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Hockey via Michigan

 There wasn't just repacks in the most recent mailer from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders, there were a bunch of loose cards hitting all sorts of PCs of mine. Here's the small hockey portion.

Literature! Actual reading material that can be opened up!
It might not be the most spectacular reading material, but the content inside is pretty nice. This becomes my second booklet in the collection, joining a National Treasures auto/patch of Christian Hackenberg. Fortunately for Nikolaj Ehlers, his NHL career went far better than Hack's NFL one.
But even an open booklet card can't compare to the size of this. It's a scanner bed-sized auto out of 2006 Signature Portraits. This was a set that came in a large envelope for packs, with each pack containing one of these large autographs, and then a small clear sleeve with the base cards. Size-wise, it is probably the biggest card in the collection.
Also size-wise, this Jason Spezza is probably the biggest card in the Senators collection as well. 
It wasn't just oversized items, there were metallic items included in the item. This might be the closest thing to a normal card in this post. In the sense you can find it in a normal-sized pack. Roman Schmidt was a third-round pick of Tampa, and is now doing his thing in the AHL.
The final item? Also not even cardboard!

This is a mini jersey of Dany Heatley, out of UD's 2006-07 Mini Jersey collection. That's proof that for a couple post-lost season seasons, UD was really thinking outside the box when it comes to releases. 

That's it for hockey! But there's plenty more to come in future, staggered posts.

Monday, 3 February 2025

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 5 - Another Two-Pack

 Back to the ol' repack pile, and the continued football/baseball alternating, albeit this time, in the same post.

Here's the opener -  a very diagonal Donruss entry.
The first hidden card is a pretty cool one. I think this is the only release that featured Edgerrin James both listed with, and also pictured with Seattle. He'd play 7 games with them. Aside from that, the Drewery is a pretty cool photo showing how every inch matters when you're advancing the ball.
Steve Broussard rocking the Zubaz! 
And here's the hit. I have zero memory of this player, but at least it he was good enough to get an autographed card at one point in Bowman Sterling. That's closer than I'd ever get. It also ties the Colts and Seahawks with 3 cards each in this repack.
Nothing too interesting in the final grouping. I'm getting really bored with all the Quarterback Challenge in all these. They seem like the only constant - seems like the 1990 Bowmans in their older hockey repacks.
A defensive player for the finale is somewhat different when considering modern cards.

I did get shorted a card in all this, but a couple interesting ones with the fashionable Broussard and the Seahawk-shown James help to make up for it.
How does the baseball one compare? The opening card is a little higher end than the opener in the football one. Bowman's Best > Donruss.
Definitely not the most interesting opening cards.
And these aren't much more interesting.
But the hit, coming out of 2019 Topps Tek definitely picks things up. An acetate auto of somebody I'd actually heard of is an improvement over the football one. Mind you, I'm 99 percent sure I only know of Tucker through cards. 
This time, the bunch of cards is a lot more interesting. The angle on Horton's photo isn't a very common one for pitcher photos. That's nicely followed up with a HOFer, and then there's some of the Wrigley Ivy right behind it. On the bottom, 1981 makes an appearance, and it is of the only player drafted first overall twice. 
Oh well. The finale isn't the most interesting, but at least Pena did reach the big leagues (albeit with the Brewers).

From a repack carried by the base cards to one carried by the hit, it was a typical repack experience. And that's all I ask for.

There you have it!