Mucho Mets - A&G

Off to the mailbag again, and the Mets content from a recent case break of Allen & Ginter. Maybe this will take the sting away from last night's mess of a game.

While it did land me an extra card, I'm not too crazy about these Home Run Challenge cards being in Ginter. They really throw off the theme of the set when you pull one.

Regular base.

SP base. The SP don't really seem as SP as one sees in something like Heritage, as I got 3 each of these in the case, while getting between 4 and 6 of the regular base.

There's a hot box in each case with all the cards being glossy parallels. That brought a few more Mets into the binder.

Minis! The bottom 3 were all Ginter back parallels, to go alongside the two black border parallels. The only dupe in the whole grouping was a second regular back of Todd Frazier.

This was the Mets only entry in the internationally-patriotic World Talent series. I just wish they'd centered the globe on this over Cuba for a little more accuracy.

There were also a couple of inserts from the Fantasy Gold Mine series. I don't need Fantasy themed cards in football, and I'm equally uninterested in them in baseball sets as well. So, I end with Cespedes. No hits out of Ginter, but when I get to Optic next time, that will be remedied.

There you have it!

Mucho Mets

Today is as good a time as any to reach into my COMC-to-be-posted box, and post the Mets content within.

Gary Carter? Mr. Met? That's a great way to start off a Mets post. As a bonus, the Let's Go Mets is made from some sort of soft material. Does this count as a manu-patch?

Ollie Perez with his salute to Turk Wendell.

Some more Piazzas. Faux-heritage is nice, but a cardboard salute to his post 9/11 homer is the easy winner in this two-card battle.

The only thing better than a Topps Kids cards is two of them.

And the only hit in the Mets portion of the box was this Joe McEwing auto. While Super Joe wasn't close to superstar status, he was a cult favourite during some rather depressing seasons. And that's just fine for Archives Fan Favourites.

There you have it!

I'm Gonna Have a Piazza! I'm Gonna Have a Piazza!

I'm gonna have a lot of Piazzas to post as I start posting the goodies from my latest mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams, along with some team goodies.

Mini Piazza!

Horizontal Piazza, both rectangular and not!

And a whole buncha regular vertical Piazzas, some shiny, some acetate, but all welcome additions.

But wait, there's more! There were also a handful of cards for some of my other collections, and this seems to be as good a place as any to post these.

A random Black Diamond card of John Olerud to start.

A random Larry Walker for my CanCon collection. The home plate portion on this scans louder than the card really is.

Only one Blue Jays card in this bunch, but it is an interesting looking Jose Cruz Jr.

A couple Vlads wrap up this baseball portion.

Miscellaneous Sens content!

Two of my last three posts wrap up with a Bruce Smith card. He's worthy of the honour.

And that's about 1/3 of what I have to post. I've still got a pile of stuff to get to. 2/14 stuff is next, although perhaps not tomorrow.

Mets in the Mail

Time to wrap up a trade with Too Many Manninghams, and fatten out the Mets content with some cards in a mailer from #supertrader Waiting 'til Next Year.

Only one hit among the group, and it is an autograph of Generation-K alum Paul Wilson. Ah, what coulda been. Has it been long enough that we no longer hate Dallas Green for wrecking those arms?

I will never tire of pulling Action Packed cards from mailers or repacks. Probably, if the embossed cards like this continued well past the early 90's that wouldn't be so.

Must highlight Metal Universe. Even if they scan so poorly as to obscure the background in scans, some of the background choices are a bit out there. Sure, Rey Ordonez straddling a subway is kinda unique, but does it really compare to a bug-eyed Tony Womack diving out of the way of a plane?

I had no idea an all-framed set existed until I opened the WTNY mailer.

The big winner here was the Mike Piazza portion of my binders, adding 5 new cards to their pages, even if he shares the bill with Robin Ventura on one of them.

And to end things, some miscellaneous Mets from the binder, with a slight emphasis on chrome-y, shiny cards.

Thanks for all these goodies. It was nice to finally be caught up on the packages.

And then a package from COMC showed up this morning.

Not A 2*3 Package - Part 1 of 2

Back to the mailbag for Part 1 of a package that showed up from Jeff @ 2*3 Heroes. This will be the variety post, as a variety of PCs will be hit with the cards in this post.

First up, my Mets collection. I'd been waiting for this card for a bit, ever since being able to hunt down a Patrick Kane autograph at the Expo. It might have come sooner, but Canada Post was being questionable, and I put a moratorium on mailings. That said, this one was worth the wait. Who can't love an on-card autograph of a guy on the same team he cheered for growing up?

How did I not already have that Wright/Strawberry card? That said, my favourite here is the Gallery card, since that also hits my love for drawn cards.

As we move into the hockey, here's two new cards for my 2/14 collection. The Hejduk is another one I was certain I had, but my zistle list told me otherwise. Marian Gaborik is lurking in the upper right corner of this card. Considering I have football team leader cards where 1/4 of the card is dedicated to a 2/14 baby, why shouldn't this qualify?

Just one card, but still welcome in my Kitchener Rangers alum collection. Even though this technically wouldn't be an alumni card.

Staying with the Rangers, this time the New York version, here's a /100 gold parallel from 13-14 Rookie Anthology, a set I've busted a lot of, but it really does pack a punch for the value.

More mask cards. The Miller, complete with all the classic Canucks colours, might be my favourite card from last season. But Portfolio really did have a lot of strong contenders for that. Still, the simple paint job works perfectly on the mask to go with the uniform, and you do have to check the card twice to make sure it isn't a Kirk McLean.

Here's a bunch of Sens cards, all new to my collection.

And a parallel and a hit. The Sens picked up 4 jersey cards among the checklist in this set, and now I'm only an Erik Karlsson away from completing that.

And there's part of the envelope. The majority of it in terms of volume was for my pre-2005 masks binder photo, and I'll hit the highlights from that in my next recap post.

Anatomy of a Complete Parallel Set - Part 2

And now, time for the next 50 cards in the set.

51 Phil Nevin - And we're off and running with a card of then quite hyped prospect. Until I looked closer at his career, he stuck around a lot longer than I thought, finishing his run in 2006.
52 Craig Biggio
53 Brian L. Hunter
54 Doug Drabek
55 Jeff Bagwell
56 Derek Bell
57 Mike Piazza
58 Raul Mondesi
59 Eric Karros

60 Mike Piazza - He might not be a Met yet, but I'll still highlight a Piazza card.
61 Ramon J. Martinez
62 Billy Ashley

63 Rondell White
64 Jeff Fassero
65 Moises Alou
66 Tony Tarasco
67 Rondell White
68 Pedro Martinez - There's all the Expos. Back when they had to specify which Pedro Martinez it was. The Expos were leading the league when the strike happened, so I guess they get 6 cards.

69 Bobby M. Jones
70 Bobby Bonilla
71 Bobby M. Jones
72 Bret Saberhagen - The Mets only ranked 4 cards among the base, but did get 3 rookies earlies on.
73 Darren Daulton
74 Darren Daulton
75 Gregg Jefferies
76 Tyler Greene
77 Heathcliff Slocumb
78 Lenny Dykstra
79 Jay Bell
80 Denny Neagle
81 Orlando Merced

82 Jay Bell - Nice cameo for Ozzie.

83 Ozzie Smith - And he goes back to back as he turns two in spring training.
84 Ken Hill
85 Ozzie Smith
86 Bernard Gilkey
87 Ray Lankford
88 Tony Gwynn
89 Ken Caminiti

90 Tony Gwynn - They do have a good variety of pictures in this, with an autograph signing shot.
91 Joey Hamilton

92 Bip Roberts - Is it still considered a Bipping when you do it yourself? Nice cameo here as well.

93 Deion Sanders - Here's a run I'd completely blanked on: Sanders as a Giant.
94 Glenallen Hill
95 Matt Williams
96 Barry Bonds

97 Rod Beck - Pitcher at the plate! And a Jagr-esque mullet.
98 Eddie Murray
99 Cal Ripken, Jr. - These two were the checklists.

100 Roberto Alomar - And it wraps up with the other subset in this, one with a post-season theme.

Tales of a JBF Mega-Box - Mucho Mets!

Circular Mets!

Sticky Mets!

Mini Mets!

70s Mets!

80s Mets!

More 80s Mets!

Delgado!

Piazza!

Wright!

Vertical Numbered Mets!

Horizontal Numbered Mets!

Mets Ink!

Mets Fabric!

And much,

much,

more!

Seriously, there were 30 more Mets cards at least in this. And I still have at least three more posts to go to wrap this box up.