Black Friday 2-14 Additions - The Baseball Portion

Back to my COMC "to be posted" box, and this time hitting my 2/14 collection with some baseball additions.

My favourite of the baseball grouping is this card from 2015 Update. It is an image variation card, and is from a game I've mentioned here on the blog before. Derek is celebrating a walk-off grand slam, which followed a golden sombrero. It will be an excellent companion piece to this card I picked up about 9 months back.

Oddballs were also a part of this shipment. Off to 1992 and a card from The Wiz (Nobody Beats Them) and a card commemorating Yankees players from the 1980s.

And a police card of Jaime Cocanower. Also an oddly-shaped card, having more of a 4*2.5 measurements.

Looks like I'll be able to fit one of my favourite players into the 2/14 binder with Mookie Wilson lurking on the other side of this sticker from Jaime.

Heritage is always a great way to wrap up a baseball post.

P-Town Tom Goes Mets Crazy

As he drops a box stuffed fill with (almost all) Mets. The best thing about getting Mets cards via #Supertraders is that I can add a bunch of new Mets cards to my binders, but I can take the dupes and send them on the Way To The Clubhouse, which is what happened with some of the cards in the package.

Starting with the only card I knew would be coming my way, seeing it came on a pack he busted from the Walmart Marketside promo. I don't think I've even seen Marketside at any Walmart on this side of the border, so this was a really welcome addition to my Mets collection.

Some more oddballs here with cards from Cardtoons. Until I got the Pete Harnisch^H^H^H^H Harness card in here, I'd completely forgotten that Harnisch spent some time with the Mets in the mid 90s. Although I really try to block out that era from my memory as best I can. Except for Rico Brogna related things.

I guess the first of these David Wright items is kind of a Cardtoon like item as well.

Only one new Delgado in the package, but it was a new one, and a Walmart card as well.

Back to 1976 for the oldest cards in the package, with these SSPCs of Robert Gallagher and Jack Heidemann.

But old time-y Mets were still present as well, albeit in the form of newer releases.

Future Mets!

And some patriotic cards of a current Met!

While these aren't official certified autographs, I'm still adding them to my hits collection. Sewald is at the AAA level with the Mets in Las Vegas, while Koch is now in the Arizona system.

And the final card is the only non-Mets card in the collection. Fortunately, it will still find a home in my Blue Jays collection, since the Fisher Cats were their AA affiliate.

And there you have it! I'm caught up on mailings!

Or so I thought when I wrote this.

Then I got a jaybarkerfan bomb dropped on me. And that will take at least 4-5 posts to go through.

Tales of a JBF Mega-Box - Chapter 2 (of 6)

I knew I'd have to start digging into this at some point. Now is as good a time as any. I might as well show off the contents of an 800 count box worth of hockey cards sent from JBF. I sorted through the box by team, and that's going to be how I go through these.

So I don't end up with more than 30 posts from this, I'm splitting this even further, and will be posting the rest by divisions. The final group will be for the non-NHL/relocated teams, and that's what I'm leading with today.

I'm not posting everything, but will try to hit as much as I can.

And since everything fits in the box so perfectly, I'm keeping all the cards in the box instead of bindering them, excepting cards that move into my non-team PCs, and trade material.

Starting off, how about Ladies First? Classic wasn't just about Manon Rheaume. There was other representation from the distaff side, at least in this set. This set also included an appearance from future HOFer Cammi Granato.

Another card from this set features the first Erie Panthers card in my collection.

And also probably my only card that includes the text "Played for German semi-pro club".

And that acts as a perfect lead-in to this pair of European cards. And uniforms which might have more ads than your typical NASCAR vehicle. Although I am curious what creature that is lurking on the side of Petr Briza's mask next to the Skoda ad. It looks like one of the "God kills a kitten" Domo-kuns, but this mask precedes that creature's creation.

I love that logo for the Utah Grizzlies, circa 1995 or so. Simple, but ferocious.

The non-NHL portion also included some CHL cards.

And some cards with an international feel thrown in for good measure to wrap up this portion of the cards.

And now, on to some relocated NHL teams.

The Nordiques portion of the collection included a pair of Kitchener Rangers alum with Craig Wolanin and Mike Hough. The latter was part of the Memorial Cup winning 1982 team that also included Brian Bellows, Scott Stevens and Al MacInnis.

But the best thing about old Nordiques cards is some nice shots of those great uniforms.

Ditto for North Stars cards. I don't know what jersey that is in on Phil Huber, but he's listed as Minnesota on the back. The cards refer to the Kamloops Blazers on the back, but that isn't a Kamloops jersey, and he was several years removed from the WHL. Villach VSV seems to be the most likely culprit from this 1994 release.

The fun thing about this was coming across cards of folks and being reminded "Oh yes. He did play for them at one point." In this case, Mathieu Schneider and his half season in Atlanta.

And also being reminded. Oh yes. The Thrashers did wear this uniform at some point.

The Thrashers portion was populated with these cards of Ilya Kovalchuk. Who might be returning to the NHL soon, seeing as the ruble's trip into the pisser has made him probably lose more money than Krusty the Klown lost over the '84 Olympics. Without any burgers for him to spit in.

Oh yes, there were hits included in these as well. So those three Ilya cards weren't posted just so I could throw in a classic Simpsons reference.

Since the name 'Hartford' appears on both these cards, they will both be bound for Shoebox Legends at some point.

But since these aren't on his zistle wantlist, I'm keeping these!

And finally, here's the old school Winnipeg Jets highlights. While going with an early card of Teemu would seem to be a good choice.

But how can I vote against one of the more fun names to say in NHL history in Teppo Numminen?

And there's the highlights of the first portion of the box. I don't think I'll go 4 straight days to finish it off, but I really should try to work my way through it by summer.

2015 Spring Expo Goodies - Part 3 - 2/14 additions

The Expo is the perfect place to find some item that you'd never think of as a candidate for one of your PCs. And I used it to add some interesting things to the collection, including my single card splurge of the day.

And I'll open with a definite oddball item. I had no idea these even existed until I saw this in a dollar bin. This is a mini CD from 1999 Upper Deck Powerdeck. It doesn't seem to contain anything card related, such as printable photographs or the like, but does have a small minute long video file on it.

Here are a few screengrabs to show what video technology with cards from 1999 looks like.

And here are the specifications needed to play the disk. I wonder if anybody who would come across it would even have any idea what some of these requirements are in terms of 2015 technolgy. What is the 2015 version of 4X CD Rom or 133MHz Pentium?

Much like with basketball, I didn't expect to find too much in terms of football at the show. But I did come across this platinum parallel of Tank Tyler from the same dollar bin guy as the Powerdeck CD. Numbered to 25, it is by far the shiniest card I added.

Because if you're looking for shiny, the Champ's is not something you're going to hunt down.

And ditto for OPC Retro. I wasn't too sure if I needed this or not, but at least with Eric Nystrom if I grab a dupe, there will be a home awaiting it with TMM.

And finally, my splurge card of the day. An on-card autograph, along with 4 red swatches from the only NHL level goaltender in the 2/14 collection. The signature is pretty good, and the "Mrazek P" is definitely something different. This is /199, but the back says the swatches are supposed to be prime. None of the swatches feel like patches, so I'm guessing this was just another example of Panini screwing up. Still, since I don't have too many cards in my collection that are rookie/relic/autos, I'm glad to welcome this to my collection, and for significantly less than the COMC ones.

All over the place, but here are 5 new additions. Excepting the Hamilton, all of these were additions to player collections that were pretty sparse.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 86: More 2/14 Baseball Additions

I'm always on the lookout for new additions to any portion of the 2/14 binder. Although most of the recent COMC package contained football cards, there were enough to make on post out of the baseball additions, along with enough "and the rest" cards to make another post out of basketball and misc. cards before getting to the football.

But today, the new baseball cards, which move my overall total to 965 cards.

Since nobody in the 2/14 baseball club has/had a long cardboard career at this point, nobody has really had much of a lead in terms of of volume. In fact, with these 3 Larry Milbournes, he's now tied for the overall lead in the baseball with 23 cards, alongside Scott Scudder. I love this grouping because the most mainstream card of the bunch is the 1975 mini. It is grouped with a Senior League card and a Mother's Cookies card.

And these two put Dave Dravecky in 3rd place overall with 21 cards. Dave seems like the type of player that would show up in the Archives type sets, but he hasn't had any base cards since 1994. The Fleer card is the glossy parallel. Much like with Milbourne, the majority of cards I don't have of his are either O-Pee-Chee or Tiffanys.

Of course, all I need to do is find a good price on a bunch of Derek Norris parallels and this could be moot.

Minor league card of someone who didn't reach the majors! And the old timey logo is kinda nice as well. It looks like someone Bugs Bunny would have tangled with in Baseball Bugs.

This is my second card of Hall of Fame announcer Mel Allen. I like this card so much better than the Cooperstown card because of Yankee Stadium in the background. Of all his cards, of which there are not too many, this is the only one where the photo used was one from a baseball game.

And to wrap things up, a sticker-graph of the late Brad Halsey. There does not seem to be any on-card autographs in his library. This is my 9th card of his and my second auto.

A morning sportlots mailday

As even more cards drop off my wantlists.

And opening with an oddball McDonald's issue from 1986. This is my first McDonald's card that has nothing to do with an Upper Deck or Pacific hockey release. This actually completes my Herman Hunter card collection in my 2/14 binder, although its dimension would make it a tough fit. The card is kinda 3.75*2.75 - definitely strange measurements for a card. Although it still isn't the largest card in the collection, trailing a 4*3 CFL card from the early 80s of Ottawa Rough Rider Mike Gaines.

And up next, three more entries in my "every Raptor ever" collection. Of these, only Massenburg ever played a game for the team. Smith and Kersey were both expansion draft picks, but were cut before their opening tip off.. But, they still got cards, and even zero year Raptors count for the collection.

And finally, just an interesting photo to round the pair of envelopes. It isn't that often that a play at the plate card doesn't include the catcher.