Fortunate Son

 

As in, fortunate that his parents signed him up for baseball and not football. 

Dare I Tempt Fate Again?

Posting a Bills card on playoff game day almost didn't work out last week. But it looks like I am stupid enough to do it again this week.

But there is a reason for this:

Players posing with their new jersey at the draft > Training camp/Rookie Premiere photos.

Worth the Wait?

 This might not really be a Raptors card, but for the sake of my binders - this is a Raptors card. 

Sure, they've never worn mustard yellow, but at least the Scottie Barnes auto is on-card.

Rick Moranis' Understudy from Spaceballs

 

"He's just the kicker! The helmet doesn't have to fit too exact, does it?"

They Keep Getting Younger

 I guess when you have a collection based around birthdays, the person who holds the position of being the youngest in the collection will constantly change. As long as cards of actual children don't come out, that position will probably be filled by somebody with a Canadian Hockey League card. 

That position was previously held Tommy Budnick, and with this card, he is tied with a second player born in 2004. Here's a CHL card of Nolan Lalonde. And since he is debuting in my collection, let's debut him in style with an Exclusives parallel. He wasn't drafted in the most recent draft, but it does appear that he signed with Columbus. So, there's still hope for some NHL cards.

As for Colby Barlow, he seems far more likely to be making future appearances. He's eligible in the next entry draft, and several mock drafts have him going around the 11th overall position. So, this might actually result in somebody with a lot of cards to collect in the near future, especially considering how UD tends to put rookies in every imaginable release.

He's also born in 2005, and that makes him the youngest member of the 2/14 collection.  

I'm not sure who the oldest member of the collection would be, but I'd guess Frederick Douglass until I can do a more detailed look.

There you have it!

A Long Snapper! Very Tasty!

 

And no, I won't trade this auto for what is in the box.

Wildness

 

Sure, the Jacksonville comeback last evening was shocking. But the Bills still hold the playoff record, and didn't have to start their comeback during the second quarter. 

While it usually ends up being Andre Reed that gets the nod on cards that salute that game, since he is a HOFer and all, it is nice to see Frank Reich make an appearance on one. I didn't even notice that this was actually a /99 silver parallel when I added it to my cart, and admit I didn't even notice it until I was uploading these scans.

I'm probably tempting fate by uploading these on the morning of the Bills playoff game.  

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2.3 - A Week of Surprises

 Hockey for the finale!

Looks like I get supplies as part of this one. But since I had a COMC shipment arrive and need to repackage stuff for future mailouts, that's OK.

As expected, the 70s/80s was all 80s. But I did get a pushpin 1988, and that Kevin Lowe was probably one of the more action-packed base cards of that set, if not the decade.

The HOF pack gave me an insert with that Fuhr, and a patriotic entry for Mike Gartner, so there's also something interesting to go alongside the solid names of this repack.

I guess all three of these count as Superstars. That's all I ask for from one of these. Rantanen is the second non-base card in this, it is the green parallel out of 2018 Ice. I'd still give up the parallels for these cards just to be acetate base cards again.

The 90s pack. Except for that Moog card, that's what I expected from this - lots of early 90s stuff. Still, coming off the most recent edition of the World Juniors, that is a nice looking Brisebois. 

Definitely not the most exciting one I've ever busted, but if I get a couple keepers, I'm happy. 

There you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2.2 - A Week of Surprises

Today, the football one!

Warrick Dunn might not be the first name that would come to mind when you're thinking of 8000+ yard rushers, but he did that, and threw in almost 3000 more for insurance. But when you're thinking of the first name to come to mind, Dickerson certainly would be among the names. Frank Gore doubled the 8000 total. Exactly. As he finished with 16000, or third all time. 

This could just as easily have been the 8000+ repack, as all of these players reached the 12000 plateau in their careers. If the Faulk out of 1999 SPX doesn't end up as the brightest card in the repack, the one that does may blind me. Since I love variety in my repacks, it is nice how this contrasts as I also get the very understated, although also very orange, Sanders card.

Here's the 90s pack. Even though those last 3 cards from 1983, 2000 and 1989 respectively, don't count towards that. There was so much 1990 Pro Set out there, that even a Hall of Famer's draft card in that Cortez Kennedy is still just repack filler. There's also a hint of things that would become more commonplace in the hobby, with die-cuts and foil/chrome/prizm cards. 

I will go to my cardboard grave convinced that if, in 1990, Donruss had used team colours for the borders instead of generic red, that it would be up there with 1987 Topps as one of the best remembered designs of that era. 

Yup. These are definitely 5 Quarterbacks. But this is a pretty bland grouping on the whole, despite a couple good careers there with Dalton and Flacco.

No Bills content, but that gaudy Faulk was one of the easiest 'KEEPER' cards that I've found in there.

And there you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2.1 - A Week of Surprises

I still have a bunch of repacks left over from last year, so I'll plow through a bunch of them this week with 3, maybe 4 Surprise bags, depending on how lazy I am when it comes to scanning.

First up, a basketball one, with these contents:

And we're off!

At least one of the cards isn't from the early 90s. All 3 of these players had reached the 15K point plateau by the time these cards were available in packs. So there's that.

Here's the 90s stuff. There's a couple interesting cards here. Drawn card!  I had no idea how blurry Anthony Mason was in the earlier years of his career. The David Wood is an interesting photo. There are a lot of cards with photos of a player running up the court, but seeing them do so without the ball isn't that common. And Cherokee Parks is a fun name to say out loud.

The 2010s. Yup. Kinda blah. At least Gooden has colourful borders. And the Green has those tiny shorts. that despite being a 2010s card, are definitely not 2010-ish. Still, pretty boring.

And here's the card from the Memorabilia repack. 

But despite the front of the card claiming it was Game Worn, the back of the card does seem to imply that it really only made its appearance in one of the Saturday events, and not the actual game. But at least that's still more accurate than "not from any specific game, event or season". 

Spud! Seeing a player running up court without the ball might be a rarity, but seeing the pre-game stretch on a card might be ever rarer. I've been seeing a good number of these 1981s lately in these Presstine repacks, and I'm all for it. Askia Jones is this repack's example of a player I had absolutely no memories whatsoever of. But he did still manage 11 more NBA appearances than I have.

With the Richardson, a couple interesting photos and a hit is enough to make this a pretty good repack experience.

Football is the next one! 

There you have it!