Just in time for the season! Cody Ceci redemption #2!

In which this

turns into this:

Nice to see a pair of red swatches on this one after the plain white swatch on the last one. It is a stickergraph, but so was the last one and so have all my Rookie Selection cards.

Recycled photo on the back.

And here's the two redeemed Cody redemptions side-by-side. Although I have added his base from Score to my every Senators collection, it is nice to add a couple of hits of his. Cody is an Ottawa guy from the start. He was born in the Capital, played junior hockey for the 67s, and now his NHL career starts in the city.

2014 Heritage Minor League Box Break - Part 3 of 4

After the juvenile post this morning, let's keep plowing through this with what seems to be weekly posts. Maybe I should at least get through this in full before the base set completing cards arrive from justcommons.

Pack 13:

The background scenery elevate my favourite cards in this group, with the small, minor-league stadium's outfield bleachers looming behind Beck. The outfield ads behind Ryan McMahon are also a nice touch, and if that is bunting behind Josh Bell, that one is nice as well.

Pack 14:

Only my second SP of the break, with the Lively being #222 in the set. It is appropriate that the Santana Redhawks card is extremely red. Other than that, pretty bland.

Pack 15:

Back to back packs with SPs. The Soler isn't a bad SP to get. Sam Selman looks somewhat mannequin-like on his card. Even among the non-SPs, a couple good base cards to not need to purchase with the Starling and the Wong. And there's another Gabriel for TWTTC to chase.

Pack 16:

At least that should be the last of the contest entry cards. My first Met of this portion of the break appears with Dominic Smith. The Clint Frazier is a reused photo from the pack, but that does seem appropriate in a "You could pull this card" sense. Angelo Gumbs is an awesome name. Very mobsterish. If he wasn't a Yankee, I might actually chase one of his hits.

Pack 17:

Kris Bryant is not a short-print in this? Wow. I really commend Topps' font control for fitting Flying Squirrels on the Crick card.

Pack 18:

And here's the final of the 6. Much like with the Chris Beck, the use of the minor league stadium's usual outfield ads enhance the posed shots of Coulter and the Goforth and the in-game photo of Walker.

So, lots of stuff to build the set here, even if there wasn't a hit or numbered card.

Lost in Translation

Of all the ways to experiment with the translation from Cyrillic to English, I don't think you could have done worse than this.

SAMMY!

aka a retail hanger break of 2014 Topps football.

In which I pulled a card of my current Buffalo Bills man-crush. Although Dan Carpenter is more crushy today as opposed to Sammy, his juggling catch was still incredible for late game heroics.

Now even though I picked up a base set of 2014 Topps, I still wanted to try a retail break. I'd at least take a chance at pulling a Watkins or Clowney relic.

That isn't Watkins or Clowney. I'm definitely not on team Manziel, so I'll probably be unloading this one before long, or at least while some people are anticipating his move into a starter's role.

Although I didn't pull a Clowney for my 2/14 collection. A great photo too, likely as he nailed one of his highlight real grabs from last season.

But the real reason I went for another pack, despite having the set, was a chance at dupes of some of the great photos in the set.

I knew this was likely going to be my favourite one after it showed up on someone's blog. It didn't change after I worked my way through the base set I ordered. What a perfect shot to display the all weather nature of football.

But this photo of Trent Richardson really comes close, base on the framing. Sure, it is a generic card of a guy running, but the unfortunate Jacksonville Jaguar flat on his back behind him elevated this card from that status. I think that's former Paul Posluszny out there. I wonder if Paul would do a TTM on this card?

And cards of defensive players with the ball are always fun. They're even more fun when it is a Miami Dolphin getting shown up.

Johnny Football was one of the inserts. Here are the rest of them. Nothing much of note for me here, although I did land the base of Jeremy Hill as well. Johnny Hekker is my third Play 60 Community Heroes card, and my first of someone that has cards anywhere outside of this subset. Mind you, he made his cardboard debut in this set's base set.

Not a bad rip for the price. I should at least get my money back on the Johnny Football, so all is well.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 53: Bills, Bills, Bills

What better post for a Sunday morning before a Bills game than to post the latest round of Bills cards to come my way via COMC?

While this is half of a Bills card, it did allow me to cheaply acquire a hit of the final 2013 Bills rookie that had one with this double relic featuring Kiko Alonso, and the spectacularly named Barkevious Mingo. It is a plain white watch for Kiko, but since he wasn't part of the rookie premiere, this is listed as a game worn relic as opposed to event worn. The Mingo is also listed as such. It might not be a solo hit (I'm hoping to take advantage of his being out for the season and get one cheaply next year), but it is hard to hate a hit that united two of the most fun names to say in the 2013 rookie class. Kiko and Barkevious. Alonso and Mingo. Together, they fight crime! Or at least they would, if they ever put me in charge of a network.

But here's a nice solo Kiko as well. Spectra included Rookie of the Week cards, done in the style of the year's various Panini releases. Fortunately, Kiko matched up with my favourite design from last year, Rookies & Stars.

One more from last year's release. A concussion during a preseason game prevented Kevin Kolb from making any official appearances as a Bill. I guess that's a zero-year card (tm: Nick @ Dime Boxes)

I guess this technically isn't a Bills card. It could be a Mississippi State Bulldogs card. Or it could be a San Francisco 49ers card based on who he was drafted by and played the past few seasons for. But now, he's about one of several dozen running backs the Bills seemingly have on their roster. At least his penmanship is nice and legible.

I should have at least one really great photo in every team grab I do at COMC, so here's one of Ted Washington, putting 325 pounds of hurt on an unfortunate Houston Oiler. The card reads 325 pounds, but as the late, great Gorilla Monsoon might say, "Highly Unlikely".

And to wrap things up, here's a Doug Flutie. The foil might make this card illegible, but this is from the a Memorable Moments subset. The moment in question was Flutie's naked bootleg against Jacksonville in 1998. The photo, sadly, is not from that game, since the Bills were in their home blues then.

So, with this post out of the way, I'm ready for 2-2 to become 2-3, since confidence about the team only leads to disappointment as a Bills fan.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 52: Baseball additions to the 2/14 folder

I've already posted all the basketball, football, hockey and miscellaneous entries into the binder. So, that leaves just the baseball, before I return to the box filled with COMC goodies and post the 2/14 stuff from the previous 4 categories from my latest mailings. So, here are the cards that put my overall binder total at 818.

Sometimes it is a puzzle as to what card to lead with. In this case, there was no debate as to what card would be first up. SSPC? Sideburns? And a look on his face that says "if you so much as snicker at these sideburns, you're dead meat".Yup, this 1975 SSPC of Larry Milbourne had to lead the way. The bright uniform was also a plus.

And one Larry Milbourne deserves two more. Now, that isn't a sign I need to clean my scanner on his 1982 Fleer issue. That does appear to legitimately be a loose hair on the image. My total for Milbourne is now at 15, with 5 more on the way from Just Commons. When they show up, the only Milbournes I will not have are his O-Pee-Chee issues, his '75 mini and his 1976 SSPC to complete the non-oddball collection.

OPC and a '75 mini are also the only cards I need to get the complete Will McEnaney collection as well, with the addition of these two cards.

And here's a new one for me of 2/14 perfect match Damaso Marte. I think I only need about 2 or 3 more base cards to get all of his cards. I'm only a 2004 Topps Total, a 2005 Topps Total (a card he shares with Cliff Politte) and a 2005 Showdown away from that Frankenset. He's the first baseball guy to crack to 20 card barrier, and it moves him into a tie for 8th overall with Brandon Sutter and David Garrard.

A shared card still counts as a card, and this one makes it his third card in the collection. There's only about 2 more left to finish off the Garibay collection.

Callix Crabbe is also about 3 or so cards from finishing his Frankenset. This is my 8th overall of his.

Brad Halsey stands at 8 as well. He's actually got a pretty decent base collection, so I still have a good number to chase down with his cards.

And here's the only baseball card in this post that isn't a base card. A Cognac parallel of Tyler Clippard. He's the only one of these guys still active in the bigs, and he now busts in double digits with my 10th card of his. Tyler also recently had a bobblehead in Washington, and as best as I can tell, is the only 2-14 baseball player to be so honoured.

So, there's 10 more cards out of the ol' COMC box.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 56: A new repack type! Let's try it out!

I'll try any repack once, especially seeing something new in the card aisle. Namely this:

10 packs and a toy Zamboni?! I'll go for it at least once.

These were the packs:

1997 Donruss
1999 MVP: Stanley Cup Edition
1999 Upper Deck Series 2 * 2
2000 Victory
2002 Quest For The Cup
2007 MVP
2012 Score
Tristar Hidden Treasures * 2 (Basically, a repack within a repack)

Ouch. That's not exactly a spectacular lineup of packs, but maybe I'll salvage things from the content. And on the plus side, I've never busted '99 MVP, '00 Victory and '02 Quest, so I can cross those off my bucket lists. And some of these are pretty packed in terms of card count, so I'll get a good number of base.

But, I've bought it, so let's dig in.

The die cast was an Edmonton Oilers Zamboni (Yes, I can actually call this a Zamboni - it reads Zamboni on the front), coming with this card, which is from a 2008 Die Cast Upper Deck set. Yes. There were cards to go exclusively with the toy. Which explained why I couldn't quite work out which set this card was supposed to come from until I turned the card over.

And a chronological look at the rest, hitting only the highlights or lowlights from each pack.

1997 Donruss:

Quite the start. Poor Brandon Convery.

But at least the rest of the pack contained a trio of Sens (Alfie is a dupe), a nice Jeff Hackett for the masks binder, and an interesting photo on the Ray Sheppard of a struggle by the boards. The Ron Francis is a pretty nice card as well for the coming off the bench shot. When I was doing my top 50 Senators cards, that Ron Tugnutt ranked #15.

1999 MVP:

More mask stuff here, with a nice trio of cards. The Novoseltsev is a silver signature parallel, but the big winner here is the Swedish Elite League card of Daniel Sedin. It isn't really valuable, but is a neat addtion to my misc. collection.

1999 UD:

Two more mask cards, and a pair of really good or good names represented here. The photos were depressingly generic in this, so the Samsanov bench shot really stands out. There's another decent name to get a rookie card of, but, just my luck, of the two packs of cards, it was this one and this one only that had the dinged corner.

2000 Victory:

A 12 card pack! Wow! And 6 cards for the mask binder. OK. 5 and a half. But even if I didn't have that binder, that Thibault would easily win the photo war in this pack. The re-used photo on the side just continues the perfect awkwardness of his position.

2002 QftC:

Only 4 cards here, so I can highlight all of them. The Turco will probably be destined for TMM. Krog is such a great name for a hockey player. He spent much of his career over on this side of the pond bouncing between the AHL and NHL, and has been overseas for the past several years. Pacific Complete seems to be some sort of attempt at Topps Total, but the only cards I've ever found from these have been inserted in other Pacific products.

2007 MVP:

Of course, just like with the Tanguay, the nice rookie card of Jack Johnson is dinged up. I hope TMM doesn't care. Other than that, another mask card in Kari Lehtonen, and a nice Steve Sullivan replica signature makes me want to hunt down a real one.

2012 Score:

Score's photography wasn't too bad the season before last. A nice scramble by the net on the Jones parallel, a great low angle shot on Wellwood, and a nice celebratory shot for Vanek.

The Tristar:

Pack 1:

I was surprised that there was some nice stuff in here. The Lalime is a dupe, but since all his Marvin the Martian Sens cards are in that collection, this can go nicely into the mask binder. The Pro Set cartoon card is a reproduction of a cartoon that covers the early history of the Bruins. Of course, the die-cut Gratton is dinged up as well.

Pack 2:

Dupes in a repacked pack. Yikes. The Calle is a dupe for my 2/14 collection, and there's some more Pro Set. The Brodeur is a nice card though, and is from an ITG Toronto Star set.

So, while this definitely won't be the best repack I've ever busted, I still can't be too unhappy. The pre-2005 portion of my mask binder gained a lot of cards, and was nice to bust some hockey packs with 12 cards. And the Zamboni is kinda neat.

Redemption time! And Just one Pack of 2014 Fleer Ultra.

Two subjects in one post. Why not?

Firstly, a redemption came through. As this:

Turned into this:

A plain white swatch. And a sticker graph. Not what I was hoping for, but at least it is my first hit of Cody for my Sens collection. I've got a second one on the way. It is the base from the Rookie Anthology set with two swatches and another autograph. While I think that will be a sticker as well, hopefully at least one other swatch will be a red or black one.

And now, one pack worth of the new Fleer Ultra release, starting with the base:

Here they are. I was kinda hoping for some full bleed photos on at least one of the sides on the photo, but the photos pop nicely. Very much like some recent Score releases in hockey. And that silver at the bottom of the design really is ugly and unneeded. Take that out, put the black on the bottom and extend the photos to full bleed and you'd really have a nice looking base set.

But the backs are really nice and colourful, with the strip with the birthdate and the like done in the team colours. In retrospect, I should have used the backs from any of the other cards, with red, green or yellow strips. More unneeded silver strips as well at the top and bottom, though. Remove that and you might be able to fit in a couple more lines of stats.

But, you pick this up for the inserts. And this one pack had a nice one.

Gong Show Grinders, featuring Milan Lucic laying out an unfortunate opponent. The design and visual of the die-cut gives this card almost an audio feel, letting you hear the thud of the collision. And it is for my second favourite team (and my favourite before I lived in Ottawa), this is a nice keeper. While I probably won't chase much of the base, I'll be looking for some of the inserts that meet with my personal collections.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 51 - Answering an eternal basketball question

Namely, what is a Knick anyhow?

Apparently, that fellow in the upper right corner was a Knick. Or a Knickerbocker. Whatever, it is a nice addition to my collection that benefits from Panini's usage of historically accurate logos to match the era the photo was taken. For someone in his mid 80s at the time of this autographing of the sticker, that's some mighty fine penmanship. Harry's a Hall of Famer, and the back of the card mentions how he'd battle for rebounds in the days before that was even an official stat.

And continuing with the old logos theme:

Here's the Rochester Royals.

And here you have the Syracuse Nationals.

And although there is no logo here, this still brings some awesome on the cardboard. The high school gym like setting with the team name on the seafoam green painted walls. The afros. The plaid pants. The sleazy 70s mustache. The "Could you please put your knees a little closer together?" shorts.

On second thought, maybe it was good there wasn't a logo on the card. I don't think I could handle something that overwhelmingly great.