Damage Done

 When I hit ship on my latest COMC cards back in May, I was given an arrival date of late September. It showed up yesterday, giving me a 6-week bonus.

So, It looks like I'll be highlighting these for the next bit. First up, it was the major portion of the shipment, knocking out a bunch of cards from my set build of 2013-14 Rookie Anthology. 

I'd already landed many of the major names from the Rookie Selection portion, namely the McKinnon , Galchenyuk, Rielly and the Forsberg. While I'd pulled several Barkov auto/relics from the other sets, I never got one of these.

If not for the Barkov, this Hertl would have been the big name.

The penmanship skills of the Dual Rookie Class weren't exactly the best, so that really leaves the battle between DeKeyser and Hertl for the nicest autograph in the group.

With apologies to my regular trading partner in Ann Arbor, I'm keeping this Trouba for the set. 

There ended up being 13 total Rookie Selection cards in the shipment. Of the rest, I'm highlighting this because with the somewhat unexpected yellow swatch to make it the most colourful of the bunch. I now have 90 of the 96 cards in hand, 2 outstanding redemptions, 1 never-fulfilled redemption (Up yours, JT Miller) and 3 that will be in hand at some point.

I can always throw in a few bonus RA cards, such as this pair of Kitchener Rangers alums.

And I can also add a card from what might have been the only insert set I didn't pull a card from - Complete Rookies. L-R, theres a jersey relic, a seam, a patch and a fight strap piece.

There you have it! More from this shipment next post as I'll recap another pile of Jamal Murray additions.

Mailbag: One! Two! Three Complete Sets! Ah Ah Ah!

The mailbag finally re-opens after waiting for a trio of mailers to arrive.

Courtesy of a mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams, here's the final card from 2018 Optic.

From the same mailer, here's the final 8 cards from last year's Score football. That's been replaced on the wantlist with the only 2 cards I didn't get in my hobby box, retail or LCS build from this year's release.

The final set builder damage to my wantlist is this, although I'd already checked this one off when Dennis told me it would be in a future mailer.

In fact, with cards currently in my COMC inventory, I've finally finished the base set of Rookie Anthology.

That's 92 rookie/auto/relics out of 249 in hand/COMC, the Filip Forsberg that was actually /125 in hand, a redemption that never got fulfilled (JT Miller), 1 redemption that may or may not come through (Jonas Brodin), and another one:

that also may or may not come through (even though these did go live at one point). I saw a group break and bought the Blues slot specifically to chase this redemption, and BAM it came through. Whether it does or not, I'm still calling this set as complete as it can be.

Whew. It was worth the wait for this.

The Set Build Continues

The 2020 Score set build continues with some retail, with this consisting of a blaster and a hanger pack.

My favourite base card in these items is another one that features a defensive player holding the ball - football's version of a pitcher at the plate photo.

My favourite fun facts in these - anybody for pizza?

Naturally, there are parallels in these. The golds are exclusive to the blasters.

With the reds being available in the jumbo hanger packs.

There are inserts as well that are retail-exclusive. This is likely my favourite, since it salutes the defensive players that always seem to fall off the main set checklists.

Deep Dive? Yeah, this one's pretty out there.

But at least you can see the full photo on the back.

Do the inserts also have parallels? Naturally!

And each blaster does promise a relic card. Freshman Flashbacks is Panini's way of saying that they still had a Brandin Cooks jersey around from his first season, so they decide to relic dump them in this product. Better than nothin', I guess.

There you have it!

Mailbag!

My second trip to the mailbag in a week! I'm getting efficient at this!  This one arrived from Greg @ Night Owl Cards in the past week.

Set building is a good way to start off a post, and with this, a pair of cards dropped off that list. Last year's Optic had Justin Turner removed from it.

Joining it in the set binders is this SP from this year's Heritage High Numbers.

And here's a random addition to my 2/14 collection.

A Sportflics team card is a perfect way to segue over to the team portion of the mailer.

Here's a scanner bed of Expos that were in the set. There's a couple nice buybacks from '75 and an Andre Dawson gold parallel in the mix. But the big winner here, as can be expected from me, is the hologram. I miss those.

The Stadium Club I've busted this year stands at a super disappointing 'zero'. So, I didn't have a chance to pull cards of either Vlad. Such as this one.

I always love coming bat relics for pitchers.  I really don't have a lot of relics in the ol' Expos binder - mainly autos, so these are nice little additions.

If I work horizontally, there was also a scanner bed worth of Mets. That might be one of Mookie's least flattering Mets cards.

More Stadium Club content in terms of parallels. PNC Park looks so nice in sepia.

Nothing too notable among the Blue Jays stuff, although that's going to be one of Marcus Stroman's last cards in Jays gear.

And there you have it! Thanks for these goodies, and I'll be scanning for Dodgers or you for a future mailer.

Just 8 Cards

Only 8 cards, but these were the 8 I needed to put the last nails into the coffin of the base set of 2019 Heritage.

Bring on High Numbers!

Retailing

I only need a handful of cards to wrap up this base set, let's make one attempt before I post a wantlist and look for singles. This wasn't the best idea on my part, as I needed 11 base cards beforehand, and after this, I still needed 11.

I have to show off some base cards, right? I know I showed this one when I was recapping my hobby box, but this still deserves another spotlight.

I know that when recapping the box, I complained about how the great photo choices weren't transferred to the rookies. But this precipitation-enhanced photo is a standout.

You're promised 4 purple parallels in the hanger box, and these were the regular base cards I landed ones of. Incredibly, both these two were part of the 11 regular base cards I needed for the set. Perfect.

I'm not sure why the purple extends all over the veteran base cards, but not the rookies. Shurmur was undrafted, but signed with the Chiefs.

The inserts are also given the parallel treatment in retail releases. Of course, the one I get is from my least favourite subjects for insert sets - fantasy sports.

That's a good enough choice for a card to segue into the inserts in the box. More Fantasy Stars with the regular cards, but at least this has super intense eyes on the photo.

Yup. These are still obnoxiously shiny in retail.

Strange that the cards you'd imagine to be obnoxiously shiny, especially given some of Epix's past usage of foil. The moment is supposed to be of Zeke leaping over an opposing player, but you'd think they'd at least try to include the hurdled player.

Celebration was probably my favourite subset last year. The Mile High Salute during the Steelers game was the specific one getting the nod in this photo.

But at least I got a bright red player-worn swatch in all this.

Anyhow, I've finally updated the set building wantlist to include the cards from this set. Only two weeks after busting this. Efficiency!

2019 Topps Heritage 2 Box Break - Part 4 of 4

Heritage box breaking has to come to a close, and it will do so with these 12 packs.

Pack 37:

Blue Jays content is a nice way to start off the final batch of packs.

Pack 38:

This is Mets content. Sorta. It salutes a pair of strikeout leaders.

Pack 39:

Another insert.

Pack 40:

Sunny Dunedin and a pair of Blue Jays base cards.

Pack 41:

A pretty nice looking bat barrel card among the regular base cards.

Pack 42:

There's the first SP of this portion of the break. The Blue Jays warranted 5 Rookie Stars in this set. I assume deciding who went on the 3 player card and who went on the 2 player card involved slips of paper and a hat.

Pack 43:

A Mets card and a Jays card in the same pack! A PC pack?

Pack 44:

More Mets content! And you'll find Nimmo among the SP portion of the set.

Pack 45:

Another NAP insert.

Pack 46:

A black parallel, and it does look nice with the Rockies' uniforms and team colours. Although these aren't numbered, these set-wide parallels are supposedly /50.

Pack 47:

An Action parallel! Yes, that's what it says on the back. This is more accurately described as a player substitution RC SP parallel, with Tucker (who does have a shared Astros team card with Cionel Perez) replacing Joakim Soria in this.

Pack 48:

SP to end the boxes.

In terms of parallels and hits, the boxes were pretty average. In terms of collation, they were perfect. There were no dupes among the two boxes. No regular base dupes. No SP dupes. Nothing. What more could a set builder ask for. In fact, when combined with the cards from the handful of loose packs I'd picked up, there were only 5 cards I was missing from the 1-400 portion of the set.

Naturally, there are a pile of SPs I still need, but this will allow me to assault that portion more directly. I'll probably get that wantlist up over the next week or so.

There you have it!