3 Downs. 3 Boxes: Third Box.

Time for this hobby box fest to end.

As I got to this box, I finally got hit with some dupes. In fact, only a handful of cards were needs that dropped off the list. But, I did get some dupes of guys I'd be looking for a second card of anyhow, such as Marc-Olivier Brouilette here. He's a 2/14 baby, and this is his second card in the binder, joining a card from his Alouettes days.

The dupes continued over here among the red parallels, as Beard, Coombs and Rose make their second appearance, having also had red parallels on the previous post.

At least the golds were new.

Two golds means two purples. Both of which have interesting photos. Defensive players with the ball are the football version of pitchers at the plate, and it looks like Brian Jones is making a catch with his facemask.

At least both the game jersey cards were of active guys! With his helmet on, Jon Gott just looks like a sentient beard.

The autos here were pretty good, and were my first to feature two guys from different teams. Trevor Harris has been comfortably leading the Redblacks to the lead of a rather questionable division, and Luke Tasker makes me 3-for-3 with hits from the Ticats. If the name seems familiar, he's the son of Bills Special Teams legend Steve Tasker. This means I've acquired an auto of both father and son this year.

Despite all the base dupes, a pretty good box on the whole with the hits. By the time you read this, I'll hopefully have the needed cards updated on my wantlist.

From hobby boxes to repacks with the next post.

3 Downs. 3 Boxes: Second Box.

Time for the second of the boxes.

I'll probably only do one of the base cards per box. I'm just highlighting this one since it seems to be the type of photo that would look so much better in the horizontal format.

The red parallels.

The gold parallels. Kicker love in this! I got three of these, since I only ended up with one of the purples.

The Alouettes alternates may the uniforms that look the best in this design.

The two relics in the box. Neither player is active in the CFL at this point. Fantuz retired in the off-season. Messam, on the other hand... So I am 1-for-4 in terms of active players on the relics. Not good, but at least two of them were Ti-Cats swatches.

Double blue from the double blue on the autos, even though Lemon is with the Lions now. But, I'll take it, especially with the rarity of OL autos in the hobby as a whole.

There's Box #2. One more to go in the next post!

3 Downs. 3 Boxes: First Box.

The 2018 edition of Upper Deck CFL release dropped on Wednesday, and on paper, it seemed that it might be the best since the product's debut. It had a 200 card base set, but none of it was short-printed like previous years. Each pack would also contain either a hit or a card numbered to 150 or less, so it would feel like you'd get something nice out of each pack.

Let's see what my first box held!

This is the base card design. The cards are entirely vertical this year. Maybe the border on the left side could be a little thinner, but that's the only real complaint I have about this design. This also marks the first appearance of Antoine Pruneau's photo in the base set. He had a card in 2014, but that made the news for featuring a photo of Marcus Henry on it.

The card backs. You can't tell here, but they cut off at 5 years of stats. The photo background and design's colours change based on the parallel. Red for red, etc.

Speaking of red, here's all those parallels. Nice and bright.

Golds seem a little more subdued. As you can tell from these two scans, both kickers and offensive linemen get cards in this release. But, with the ability to have 22 cards per team (198 cards/9 teams, with 2 checklists), UD's rosters can go a little deeper.

The purple parallels are the lowest numbered parallels available. They're probably my favourite of the base designs, not so much for the numbering, but the comparatively rareness of the colour in cards.

Let's see the hits! A really good start for me, as I get a Ticats swatch first. The jumbo swatches are the only appearance of the O-Pee-Chee name in the releases. The card really doesn't have an OPC feel to it, as it is super glossy, just like the regular game jersey cards. The jumbos are rarer, at a rate of about 1 every 6 boxes.

And here are the autos. I'm glad that Adams included his number on his sticker, otherwise I thought UD might have reused a sticker from his 2011. He made the highlight reels last week for a rather unique celebration, and the CFL will now allow the use of props in TD celebrations.

And there you have it! 1 box down. 2 left!

Another Expo in the Books

While I did do well in terms of cards, both for myself and others, I figured I'd just show off my new friend in the first post after returning home.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 72: Oskee Wee Wee!

With the Super Bowl match-up set, what a perfect time of the year to show off some cards with connections to the three-down game.

This is the only actual Tiger-Cats card in the bunch, but it is a nice vintage addition to my collection, being a 1960 issue. And it is a beauty of a Hamilton legend and a CFL Hall of Famer. And it also ties into my love of professional wrestling with someone who has had a decent in-ring career as well. I now just need to get a good deal on an Ernie Ladd card.

Here's the back. A little bit of wax stuck on it, but nothing that distracts too greatly from the design.

And now, some NFL cards of guys who spent some time with the Ti-Cats this past season. Delone Carter had a cup of coffee with them, and I opted to pick up an inexpensive auto of his. This one, which comes on a piece of jersey that pulls out was among the cheapest, so that's the one I opted for. Oddball designs and concepts are always welcome additions.

And Brandon Banks. 2 kicks returned for a touchdown in 2 playoff games. And 2 more called back because of penalties. I added this one to my inventory for $3.00, just after his first (legal) TD return in the division finals. I'm guessing I'm not the only Cats fan that jumped on a cheap auto of his, since the cheapest one at COMC now is $14.75. And it is an interesting style of a "just initials" auto as well.

3 downs. 3 cards. That's perfect.