2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 24.1 - Football From The Source

I'm switching to a football repack today.

The first of these I tried earlier this year was pretty good. Let's go again!

Only cards this time in the repack. I'll go chronologically, and end with the Superstars.

The appearance of Mongo in this means this is the second repack in the shipment that I can use the wrestling tag on. Also, if you're not following "what will mongo do next?" on twitter, why aren't you?

The best card in the 90s pack was a new Jim Kelly for the 2/14 collection, but that success won't be repeated with this one. Here, the big winner was this great Curtis Conway card from 1998 Metal Universe. A bear in the background of a Bears card? Perfect!

Kicker mojo! Although a kicker was far more likely to make an appearance on cardboard in the junk wax era than in today's releases.

Even some CFL love!

Here's the rest of the 90s pack. The three Upper Deck cards at the top were in numerical order for the set as well.

I guess I had to wait until 2000 for there to be some 2/14 content in this one. This is my 114th card of Bledsoe. Joe Horn's card mentions his CFL time, so that's a bonus as well. And then there's firearms aficionado Plaxico Burress!

Bills content, an insert, and the always great Chargers unis on the always great Classics design.

Your Superstars! Newton and Jones are, but with only a few games under his belt, Alan Harper really does not.  But it is a rookie card, so there is that.

There you have it! I'm expecting my Score box to arrive tomorrow, so I'll take a break from football repacks for the time being, and return to this when I'm through recapping the box .

One Card Only: Black Fri-Ray

The Black Friday promotional release seems like an odd place to find an autograph of a CFL quarterback, and certain HOFer, but I won't complain about it and add it to my collection of CFL hits. I'm not sure why Panini did this, but maybe they were making a go at a CFL license, only to lose out to Upper Deck. This is from 2014, and UD started in 2015, so this is as good a guess as any.

Another True Crime themed card

But not Forensic Files this time.

"The cop planted the drugs" seems to be a familiar refrain.

Only this time, the cop REALLY DID plant the drugs.

I don't know if I could be as forgiving as Orlando Bowen, though.

Expo-sing new 2/14 cards

Much of what I got at the Expo were set-builders. I knocked two O-Pee-Chee sets completely off, along with a bunch of Heritage. How many cards did I get for my birthday PC? A grand total of 4.

This one wasn't a single card purchase. I landed this one in a box break of 2019 Upper Deck CFL. I couldn't see myself doing two CFL themed posts within a week of each other, so this shows up here. There's one or two of these /15 purple parallels per box, so I really beat the odds with landing the only 2/14 baby among the 200 card base set.

And 4/15? 4+15=19. That's numbered to his number. Sorta. still an e-bay 1/1!

Even better! This puts my total 2/14 collection at the 2500 mark!

I actually purchased a soccer card at the Expo. This one is a little more common than the CFL card, it comes in at /250. This is my first Premier League numbered card.

Signature Series card #1.

Signature Series card #2. While neither has the most spectacular penmanship, Hejduk does retain his 18 card lead at the top of the collection leader board.

But there you have it!

OSKEE WEE WEE!

It is Grey Cup weekend, with the CFL championship being contested in Calgary this year. And this year, my beloved Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be playing for the championship against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. As you read this, I'll be on my way westward for the game, and am going to use this weekend to highlight some of the related cards in my COMC to-be-posted box.

It is rare that e-packs through with a perfect card for the collection. And then I remembered last year I bought a box of the e-pack product Compendium last year on a Black Friday whim, only to get a printing plate of 2/14 baby Petr Mrazek. So I shouldn't be surprised that on another whim, I get another card that hits a PC, this sweet jumbo jersey relic of Jeremiah Masoli. Getting Ti-Cat stripes on this huge swatch? Even better! Unfortunately for Masoli, he got injured part way through the season while on his way to an outstanding year and won't be on the field Sunday.

But Dane Evans will be. He took over at QB after the injury, and after a few early hiccups, settled in perfectly to the position, leading the team to finish with a 15-3 record during the regular season. The interesting thing about this photo is that it kinda looks like he's wearing the colours of his Sunday opponent of Winnipeg, but he's actually sporting his NCAA Tulsa Golden Hurricane colours. He's probably played his way into the #1 position going into next season, unfortunately for Masoli.

While it isn't as great as the swatch, this is another pretty nice card off of the CFL epacks, from last year's release. Simoni is the Eastern nominee for Most Outstanding Defensive Player, after leading the league in tackles with 98. That's despite being suspended for two games. By the time you read this, he may already have won the award, which is being announced on Thursday night.

And there you have it! Some boxes are set to break over the weekend.

A post for the Coulrophobic

After yesterday's very Clowney post, here's one with no Jadeveon, but still featuring a bunch of 2/14 binder newness.

Here's the only new member of this collection. Although the only place I can find him listed as a 2/14 baby is tradingcarddb, that's enough for me!

This sticker of Herman Hunter sitting on the bench for the Eagles will be happy alongside all the cards of him sitting on the bench for the Lions.

I actually had a significant wait until this Barker card was available for cheaper than the parallel with an autograph.

There is a position designation you don't see on cards anymore. Special Teams. Mainly because they don't get cards anymore.

Here's a couple solid 1980s football card designs. That might be influenced by how perfectly the 1986 green borders work with Jets team colours.

Jim Kelly was, as usual, the star of the 2/14 portion of the mailer. Any card featuring him counts, including those tainted by the appearance of a QB that made me nostalgic for J.P. Losman.

Drawn card! This definitely counts as a "How did I not already have this card?" card.

If I can pick up a numbered parallel cheaply, then why not? This is an emerald parallel from Topps last go-around with Triple Threads as a football product.

Appropriately, I added 12 new Jim Kelly cards to my collection with the mailer. That SP Authentic card in the upper corner really looks like something from a higher end set than SP Authentic.

And there you have it! I'll be switching over to basketball in the next post.

Mailbag: Wes' Grand Finale - Post #1

All around the blogosphere, people are posting their recaps of the loot from Wes (jaybarkerfan) and his last hurrah of busting wax. It is time for me to do the same. The goodies were extensive in the container, so much so I imagine it will take at least 4 posts to recap everything. I need to start somewhere, so today, it is the football content.

Bills! Bills! Bills! An excuse to break out the Bruuuce label is a great way to start off a post. McCoy is still a Bill for now, but might be cut for salary cap reasons, or general scumbaggery. 

Here's a handful of numbered Bills cards as well. 

Here's the first football relic of the post. Zay had an interesting off-season last year, but recovered enough to lead the team in receiving TDs. 

Finally, a somewhat odd relic. As a linebacker, Preston probably didn't touch the football on the date in question (and I'm not looking up a 4.5 year old preseason game to find out), but this is still pretty cool with it being tied to a specific game. To be more accurate, this is a 2016 Panini Day - Game Dated Materials Cracked Ice card. Preston is now with the Bengals.

I'd also hooked Wes up with some CFL content. Here's some numbered cards out of 2018 Upper Deck. I busted a lot of this, and each pack contained either a numbered card (150, 50 or 15) or a hit. Buckley is the interesting one in this group, as QBs out of Canadian universities rarely make CFL teams in that position. He retired in the previous off-season to go to med school.

Speaking of hits, here's two of them from this. Both of these guys have signed with NFL teams this offseason, with Thurman going to the Bears and Spencer to the Steelers. If I didn't group all my cards from this set together in a single binder, Thurman would be an easy addition to the penmanship collection.

And we head back in time for even more CFL to end the post. Crandell had a decent CFL career, leading Calgary to the 2001 Grey Cup title and has moved on to a coaching career in both the CFL and university ranks. Calvillo is just professional football's all-time yardage leader. No big deal.

And there's one post from this. As I stated earlier, there will be at least 3 more. 

Adventures in E-Packs

I will do the e-pack thing ever so often through Upper Deck, mainly due to the ease of being able to get them through COMC shipments. While I did hit the jackpot not that long ago when I landed a printing plate of a 2/14 guy, there were some less successful ones. But I'll still show off the cards!

I'm not sure why I grabbed a random pack of Goodwin Champions, but here's a tennis player from it.

Here's some retros from OPC Platinum. I really wish they'd gone for the look from that year's OPC instead of the 07-08 design.

That Popeye rink board ad comes through again!

Much like with the physical packs, the e-packs of 2018 CFL contain either a numbered parallel...

or a hit! Chris Randle was just released by the Bombers , but will probably be signing his name to a contract with another team shortly. And that will be a nice signature on the contract, since he's also a candidate for the penmanship binder.

And there you have it!

Expo Recap Part 6

Vintage! More accurately, previously enjoyed vintage. There was a dealer with a handful of these, and I got a handful for other collectors on my list, I still picked up a few for myself.

I'm not a Phillies collector, but I do like seeing the 'Fightin' Phillies' on a card. And hey, if the table is X for $Y and I have X-1, I certainly can do worse than adding a random 1953 card to the mix.

A chance to pick up a decent shot of a Kentucky Colonels jersey? Sure.

The Floridians? Ditto. Back to 1971 for these two cards.

And some vintage CFL as well. I usually find myself getting these for stateside NCAA alumni collectors, so it was different to get one for myself. And he's a Hall of Famer as well.

Another HOFer and the most recent card in this post, coming from 1972.

While a card from his playing days wouldn't show up on a "X for $Y" table, this one from his coaching days certainly might. The Kraut liner grew up right around the corner from me. After his passing last year, I came across a photo of him in his youth. The three homes you see all the way in the back are still standing, as is the factory above his shoulder, although that has fallen into disrepair in recent years.

The back of the card even references the Kraut Line, and I don't even need to rub a coin over the back of the card to find the answer!

And there you go! Some not so vintage pick-ups tomorrow.

Expo Recap Part 4

A short break from boxes for some 2/14 acquisitions.

I was able to knock a pair of cards of my not-so-realistic want list at the show, and that's a really great thing. I wanted a vintage card from Geoffrion's time with the NY Rangers and while I'd prefer the 66-67 "TV set" version, this 67-68 is just as good. This is my second card of his from his playing days in the collection, joining a 1960 Parkhurst.

Slightly miscut, but I don't really care as this 1959 Ronnie Knox joins the football collection in his second appearance. He's definitely one of the more interesting members of the binder, and I've rambled about him before. Check that link out, mainly for the fact it gave me an excuse to post about the Batman surfing episode.

Tall Boy! Off to 1969 for the third and final vintage acquisition. This also becomes the oldest of the basketball cards in my 2/14 collection.

Let's fast forward to this decade, and my status as Keith Wenning super collector. I had his regular autograph from this set, and now I've got the canvas version.

From cardboard from the 60s to shiny die-cut cards of today, here's a pair of Alshons to wrap this post up. The orange is /249 and the blue is /199. Incredibly, I got both these parallels, and completely forgot to add the base version to my stack. Oops!

But there you have it! Back to the box breaks tomorrow!