Expo Post 1: The Quest for 4000

 As I continue my climb to 4000 cards in the 2/14 collection, I figured out I'd add to the binders at the Expo. And here's the damage I did:

The bulk of cards I brought home were out of 2024 Heritage, whether part of the hobby box or in terms of singles to build the set, I was sure to add a couple singles to the pile. Nick Pivetta is part of the set, but he's hiding among the SPs. I'll probably limit myself to his set build card. 

But I did learn that Nolan Schanuel's middle name is Ryan. What more could you ask for a baseball player? Other than him being a pitcher versus a first baseman. Please let him pitch just one inning during a blowout. Please?

Here's a couple more Nolan appearances, moving his current count to 7. This might be my first Big League cards in the binders. 

While Pivetta is a SP in Heritage, he's on a base card in Series 1. With the Green Monster behind him, this is definitely going to be a Top 10 contender when I start my 2025 countdown.

A shared card is still a +1 for the collection.

Although I prefer solo cards.

Even better than a solo relic card - a card that incorporates the player's nickname in the design. Mind you, some of the entries in this set are bland. What good is a Priest card for Priest Holmes? At least McNair gets his nickname added. 

Hockey is always king at the Expo, and it comprises the bulk of my additions. 

Milan Hejduk had a one-card lead over Marian Gaborik for the overall lead in terms of cards in the collection, and he retained the lead 260-259 after these addition. Hejduk's card is a blue parallel, numbered to 850. Gaborik's is a HoloFX insert from 2007.

With 5 variations of his base card out of 2023-24 O-Pee-Chee, Nikolaj Ehlers was the big winner here. The purple version is /49. With Bedard as a chase card in this, I couldn't even find any retail to bust. So I'm content with this.

And here's a few more cards to put me at the 125 mark for his count. 

There you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 12 - The Gap

While I probably would start digging through the Expo goodies today, that involves scanning cards, and I'm just too lazy for that. So, some repacked hangers from Walmart that have already been scanned.

This will be the extent of the 23-24 Artifacts, which is surprising given who is on the packages. But, yeah. This is pretty much what I expected. I don't like how the design cuts off part of the image, even if it is just the stick or part of the leg. But given that everybody buying this was likely chasing Bedard, I don't think too many people bothered with the base.

The other hanger was two packs that have shown up before: 2021 Topps UK and 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversary.

Hey! A Blue Jays card is the first one! That's a nice way to start. Other than that, a couple cards bound for elsewhere, and not much else of note. 

But I did add an insert as well. So, there was that.

But there was something really nice in that pack of Anniversary. As gaudy as that is, it should be a lower numbered parallel.

/50 is a pretty low numbered card to find in some random pack that was part of a cheap-o repack. This is a Gold & Rose Gold 70th Wave Refractor, which fall at a rate of 1:196 packs in this release. Not bad at all!

And there you have it!

Commence Set Build!

 

And a blaster of Heritage seems to be a fine way to start. Even though I guess you can say it started with the group break. But these were the first I've pulled from packs.

They do look nice all stacked in numerical order after busting.

My favourite card in the bunch? Based on the photo, this one. I love that Kimbrel seems to be crouched over to try and fit in the cramped space of the card that confines him within its borders.

I did get one of those old-timey manager cards, even if seeing Berra in a '75 set as a Yankee really doesn't make sense. Although I do have a more accurate one on the way, alongside with some card that has red ink scrawled on it. 

No Mets base cards (but again, that will be remedied), but here's a couple Jays that are unneeded because of the group break.

My favourite card back trivia? The Goodman seems odd, since the trivia generally is a direct reference to the player or their team. I'm not sure what, if any connection Hunter Goodman and Elvis Luciano have aside from being baseball players. As for Navarro, I just like that the font makes it look like  Minoso was 527 years old when he hit that home run.

Whoa! The colours man, the colours!

The SPs. At 3-per, the blasters are probably a better option than hobby if that's what you are hunting. 

Finally, the inserts. That Seaver was the only Mets card I got in the box. The Kershaw is from the Baseball Sensations inserts, which look to be retail exclusives. It is already set aside for my next mailer to Night Owl. The other two should be familiar to anybody who has seen a hobby box break.

There you have it! Approximately 400 cards more to go!

Bills! Bills! Bills!

 

aka Part 2 of the Night Owl mailer. It really packed a Paup! *groans* OK. It was the most significant of the three teams represented in the mailer. Better?

Best photos of the bunch go to a pair of horizontal photos. It looks like half of the offensive line is trying, and failing to prevent Cornelius Bennett from hurrying Joe Montana. That game vs KC was my first ever in-person Bills game, and it was a stomping. On the other side, you've got Pete Metzelaars just casually looking the ball into his hands, even with a defender draped over him.

Aside from that, here's cards from a set I had no idea even existed. There was a six-card set under the Donruss banner that saluted one of the Bills in Toronto games. The other cards were the opposition Dolphins, so I got the important half.

As for the rest of it - 6 decades worth of Bills!

70s! I don't know if this is a dupe, but if it is, he's an Oregon alum that will be joining the next mailer I send to Kerry @ Cards on Cards.

80s! Bonus - it is a food issue! 

90s! Lots of fun when you throwback to the glory years with these guys. Even though I had zero memories of Justin Armour outside of his cards. He spent his rookie year with the Bills, got injured and then bounced around with a few other teams over the next few years. Henry Jones is about as intense as one could ask for on a simple headshot image.

The Bills in Toronto cards counted as 2000s cards as do these. I don't already have that Bledsoe in my 2/14 collection, so that's going into that binder. 

2010s. The Ed Oliver is one of those cards that have been showing up in Panini sticker packs as of late. Any Bills cardboard, no matter what types of packs that originate in, are always welcome.

But the bulk of this was stuff from the 2020s. Even though Jake Fromm never took a regular season pass for the Bills, his Classics/Chronicles entry with the team colours is a really nice-looking card.

At least Greg Rousseau is still around in this group. That Playoff entry is an acetate card. 

And Khalil Shakir is still around as well! He deservedly earned some love after the touchdown against the Steelers in the playoffs. So is Elam, and him being a healthy scratch for parts of last season really make it seem that it won't be for long.

Finally, some veteran presence! And a legend! But still a couple rookies to make for the best variety in the groupings that I basically put together by set.

Thanks for all these new Bills in the collection - I've already got a small package ready to head your way, but it will certainly expand after I start building the Heritage set and pull some dupes.

And there you have it!

Cursebreaker

 After having two people pass away in the past couple weeks with their autographs sitting in my to-be-posted box, I intend to end that curse by posting all the remaining autos in that box, that I, for whatever reason, added to my COMC inventory at some point but haven't got around to posting until now.

Here's one that I intended to add to my True Crime mini-set. Seeing as I really don't want it to salute people arrested multiple times, it has people in it like Orlando Bowen, Linda Sobek, and now, James Shaw Jr. I don't think I can elaborate beyond the write-up on the card. But it is an interesting addition to the mini-collection.

I'm not really sure why I added this, the only hockey autograph in the box, to my collection. Maybe I was just in the mood to add a Chronology sig to my collection, and this was the cheapest one. But it is a nice legible signature from someone without a lot out there, so it still feels like a card that would be interesting to me.

Sure, it might be a stereotypically girly heart, but it still qualifies as adding artwork to your autograph, and that's enough for me. It might not be as massive as the one Franky Monet used, but it still counts. If only Aubrey shared her card with an adorable pooch.

What can I say I like vertical signatures on stickergraphs?

I really don't think it matters who gave you the nickname - it really takes nerve to sign Eazy E as your signature. I'll just say I hope that anybody who would be upset about that doesn't take things personally.

This was the same photo that was used on many of his rookie cards, and I immediately loved it as a rare interesting photo on a collegiate card. It's a very intimidating photo, and even better, Darrisaw is one of the great unloved (except by folks like me) on cardboard since he's an OL guy. If I were intensely following the NCAA, I'd probably cheer for the Hokies because Bruce Smith is my favourite all-time Bill. So, it also has that. And even abbreviated, a nice looking auto as well! 

This one was added exclusively because of the note COMC had on the card - (Incorrect Auto - Daniel Hamilton). One of these with the correct sticker attached is more expensive than the error version. Myself, I'd pay more for the oddity that is this one. Proper Daniel Hamilton autos from this set are also more expensive. I figure mine is a two-for-one deal.

Not only is he (in)famous for having an opposition player barf on him during a game, he also has this sentence on his wikipedia entry 

"Funderburk was charged with larceny property damage by university police after driving off with two car boots, damaging the boots and the concrete surface in the parking lot."

Which should bring back memories of Homer Simpson driving in New York.

At least it should. 

And I just liked his auto here. Probably just because the Roman numeral is on the autograph, but not on the card. 

This card could just as easily find a home in my penmanship binder as in my Expos binder. Even if his career was brief, at least he did reach the bigs for several seasons. The interesting thing about these is you can see if the signature deteriorated as he got deeper into the numbering scheme. It didn't.

Vinny Capra appeared in 8 games for the 2022 Jays. He's now in the Milwaukee system after a short stop in Pittsburgh. In a bit of an oddity for modern releases - this card out of Chrome Update, and its parallels were the only major releases he had. No base cards outside of anything but minor league team sets. But when you're a team collector, any card is a good card to welcome someone to your collection.

Here's someone else that could be in two binders. Given that he's now in the Reds system, and never made it above AAA in Toronto, he's probably bound for the penmanship one. That's likely a Buffalo Bisons jersey that's received the Panini treatment in this photo.

I'd like to think that Angel Ramirez is the reason people get "Sign Here" instructions with their cards. This wasn't just a one-off either. He also did this the next year in 1997.

Finally, the reason for this post.  I lamented in the Whitey Herzog post that Jimmy Key was in danger. Hopefully this ends it. Jimmy doesn't have a lot of post-career cards, but at least there seem to be more of him with the Jays as opposed to his other stops. Which makes finding an autograph of his slightly easier. And I'll repeat myself again - he could go into either the team binder or the penmanship binder. Here - probably the former. 

And there you have it!