Mailbag: Raptors Goodies

 I'm returning to the Too Many Verlanders mailer today, and today, the basketball goodies that don't feature 2/14 babies show up.

Let's throwback to the earlier days of the team, both in terms of a card from that time period, and a card that flashes back to that time. Any appearance of the classic dino jerseys is a fun time.

Shiny parallels! 

Bruno Caboclo never developed into the Brazilian Kevin Durant, and was eternally two years away from being two years away. But his cards still have his charm in the collection, and one can't really expect every late pick in the first round to develop into a Siakam. 

If it weren't for that game used letter of Alfredsson in this mailer, this would be the game-used highlight of the package. While that's obviously a Knicks swatch used on this card, and I'm not overly certain where it comes from on their jersey (the lack of orange is throwing me off), but it really does look like the type of swatch that should accompany a card in a release called National Treasures.

The Toronto Raptors' king in this post is Norman Powell, a perfectly solid member of their championship team. He's shown here on a magenta plate of his 20-21 Optic card, although this item itself is so much thicker than a full pack of Optic this has to have been inserted in a National Treasures release. He was probably already in Portland (or maybe even Los Angeles) by the time these could be pack-pulled.

And here's a signature of Powell. I would think an insert set would describe more along the lines of a lay-up or dunking photo versus a jump shot, but at least his feet do appear to be off the ground, which isn't always a guarantee in these. I've added the tie-dye parallel of this earlier from Panini Points. Collect the rainbow! 

There you have it!

2/14s from COMC - Part 2

 After yesterday's post only football (both gridiron and pitch) and hockey remain.

Throwback uniforms are a wonderful way to start any post, even though it forces me to admit that I didn't have this card in my collection already. Which was a mistake I rectified as soon as I realized this card existed.

Even if the options are limited to cards commemorating his time with the Patriots, I'm still really happy to see Drew Bledsoe making more frequent appearances in sets. Still, how about a Bills card, or even a Cowboys card for some variety?

It might be parallels, but Jadeveon Clowney was the only NFLer in the box to make multiple appearances. 

My complete lack of knowledge of soccer has me grouping all three of these guys together. All 3 of them can be found in recent World Cup releases, so there are plenty of chances for me to add more of them to the collection. Cavani is currently the leader of the soccer portion of the collection with a whopping 6 cards. 

I can't recall if I traded my way to this on e-pack, or just picked it up via COMC. Given that it is available for 35 cents at the latter, probably that. But I'll never discount my willingness to do something stupid with my money.

Yesterday, Len Gabrielson was the biggest addition with 5 cards, but thanks to the 'cheap because of e-packs' quality of these, it is very easy to stock up on the Ehlers stuff for the collection. 

Also, these 6 cards push me pass the 3500 total overall in the collection with my 2/14 collection now at 3505 total cards across all genres. I doubt I'll reach the 4000 total by next year unless someone drops an absolute bomb worth of soccer cards on me, but maybe I can set a realistic goal of reaching that total before my years on the planet reach 50. 

That's feasible, right?

2/14s from COMC - Part 1

There was a lot of 2/14 content in my latest COMC mailer. Enough that I'm spreading it out over 3 posts. I've already shown off some the newest faces in the collection. Over this and my next post, it will be time for the more familiar faces of the collection. 

Somewhat surprisingly, I still haven't added any 2022 entry to the binders yet, whether his base card from Topps flagship or any of his hits from Panini releases. So, the extent of my Yermin additions in this post come from an Overdrive parallel from Chronicles. 

The King of the first post is Len Gabrielson, who moves up to an even dozen appearances with some sweet, sweet vintage! The first 3 are from mainstream releases (Floating heads!) but the bottom two are a little more obscure. The B&W is from a 1969 Milton Bradley game, while the other is a Sports Collectors Photostamp, also from 1969. His 1965 OPC card is the last major card of his I don't have, and I've also put his 1990 Target card on my wantlist. 

Hunter Barnhart provides the only hit in this post, with an autograph out of 2020 Elite Extra Edition. He's been fighting the injury bug so far in his career, with only a single appearance in 2022 so far. But that has no influence on any desire of mine to acquire as many of his cards for the binders as I can.

Topps returned to basketball releases with 2021 Finest. It consisted primariy of retired players in their street clothes. Boring, but at least it did give me a chance to add a new Gheorge Muresan card to the collection, seeing as any card counts. And yes, cards of former Raptors will also count for that collection. 

It might make for something different when it comes to the photo, but that Ultra card really looks like one that should appear on a Chris King card as opposed to an Edney. I don't have any of his in my Grizzlies collection, so that would have solved one problem.

Rip Hamilton remains in the lead of the basketball portion of the collection,  moving to 92 with these additions. I probably should push him over the 100 mark sooner rather than later, but I just find it kind of bland with there really only being two players, him and Muresan, that have a significant number of cards available. 

And since there really was no other place to put this, here's a manufactured patch that counts towards to collection. Since Oregon became a state on 2/14, cards devoted to the state do count. There's also an Arizona manupatch, but it looks like these inserts were shorter printed for more recent statehoods, so it is a little costlier than this one. 

There you have it!

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea: A set with an autograph card in every pack.

Bad Idea: Knowing that every card will have an auto'ed parallel, and using photos with dark uniforms. 

Another Chronicles 21-22 NBA Pack

 

Just another example of a pack I've had lurking around for a bit, but just have been too lazy to scan some of the contents of and post. 

Absolute provides the first card of the pack, and an example of how small the font can be when necessary. 

The important thing for me - how many Scottie Barnes cards were in the pack. And there were two of them. The Marquee is a new one for me, but the Essentials was a dupe. 

Shifting to hanger pack exclusives, here's the 4 Scores.

But the Fun Facts are more interesting to me as usual. Even with 2 of the 6 cover boys represented among the Scores.

Here's the green parallels. BONES!

And here's a sampling of some of the sets represented among the designs. Like with the football release, the Playbook design really looks good with the full team colour border, so it might be favourite among the sets seen in this post. Luminance was kinda blah this year.

But there you have it!

Mailbag 2/14s

 Back to back posts from the TMV bubbler! Because why not?

Normally, I lead with something leaning towards the base end of the groupings. Today, I start with one of the better ones. Is it because the Alshon-less Eagles are on their way to Super Bowl? Not really, but Alshon was the volume king of the 2/14s in this.

6 cards was enough to do that in this post. He's now at the 135 mark with a nice mix of cards from the Bears and Eagles days, with a handful of NCAA ones as well. 

Drew Bledsoe was the other football guy to have multiple cards with these 3. That BledsOe's had been on my wantlist for a while, mainly because I didn't want to pull the trigger on it for $8 over at COMC, but I still liked the pun and the cheesiness of it. I loved the 'Crunch Time' of Pascal Siakam, so why shouldn't this one be a favourite? 

Steve McNair does seem to have a rather derpy face on his card, but it is all about the numbers as I approach the 3500 mark, so I'll take it.

Hackenberg has to lead the NFL portion of the collection in terms of number of cards compared to games played with 26. But. especially after having a Mr. Irrelevant see success this past season, I remain confident that there will be another QB drafted that has little chance of seeing the field, but still getting a pile of cards, just so they don't miss out. 

Kennedy Burke made her collection debut not that long ago, with an appearance in the WNBA Prizm release. With all of the parallels,  this card has 18 other variations out there. I've got 3 of them. With this, she's 1 behind Kara Lawson for the WNBA lead. That seems odd, since Lawson's career was 13 seasons. Oh the days before all these parallels.

Speaking of parallels, here's as low as you can go for print run. And I'm now halfway towards being able to produce my own photos of Brandon Sutter. WOO-HOO!

And there you have some more cards from that mailer! Thanks for all these, and the cards still to be displayed here!

Mailbag: Bills, Bills, Bills

I'll be taking many trips into the recent TMV mailer over the next couple weeks with a bunch of theme posts. Even with there being no Bills action for the foreseeable future, Sunday still seems like a perfect day to show things off.

I had both these cards on my reasonable wantlist, and would have been happy with either of them. How can I not want a card that features a nose tackle celebrating a TD? It is even better that this is two different photos of the same moment. The position itself hasn't made appearances on cards for ages, as they now use the more generic DT listing, so there's also that little bit of rareness. BJ Raji might have been the last to be listed as such, but I really don't feel like looking through every card.

With "Sauce" Gardner showing up this past season to join with "Boogie", I love that nicknames are starting to appear on player's cards again. While I don't think we'll get back to the days of Rock Raines and Doc Gooden, I'll take this where I can get it.

2 cards. Four Hall of Famers! I guess I could call that Dynasty card a 2/14 one for the presence of Jim Kelly, but the extra names do make it more of a Bills card.

Numbered parallels!

Hit Parade time! Moss didn't really make an Instant Impact with the Bills, but Nyheim Hines sure did with those 2 KO returns for TDs after they were traded for each other. 

At least once per game when Nick O'Leary would get a touch, the announcers would be certain to mention that he is the grandson of Jack Nicklaus. So I might as well continue the tradition with the posting of a couple of his autos. 

Jonathan Williams wins the numbers battle of the Bills portion with this trio of hits. Pen Pals tend to be the first on-card autographs in NFL releases, and even if, like Williams, they don't pan out, they are among the more popular options for autographs.  And we get all three team colours represented among the swatches, since there is a hint of red on the Limited patch. The blue one is from a rather basic Panini release, but all the foil makes it look like something that might come from a higher end set. 

And now I still have 2/14, Raptors, Mets and Miscellany to show off. PROGRESS!

There you have it!

New 2/14 Faces

 As the big day approaches for this blog, I'm off to my COMC box for a 2/14 interlude, so I can make sure all of them appear before I have to go through my posts to pick my top released cards from the past year. Starting off, some new faces.

I'm leading with some miscellaneous stuff, and here's a new card from the entertainment industry. Victoria Cartagena was in the first season of Gotham, and that was enough to land her character a card in the release. She was also in Batwoman, so there's another opportunity for cards. As with Danai Gurira and Okoye, cards featuring the character itself don't count, but ones that feature the performer in the role do. My collection. My rules.

The recent World Cup gave me a chance to hunt down some stickers/cards featuring the participants. And that also means new candidates can appear. Thankfully, they make it super easy to spot new candidates by having the birthday featured prominently on the front of the card. I also have the usual ones to add at some point (Adams, Cavani, Eriksen, Embolo & di Maria), but I was far more excited by a new face.

I go back 20 years for Matteo Brighi, with a nice foil-y card, who also gives me a chance to practice my Italian with the back of the card, even though the best I can really do is infer that this was from some type of young stars insert set. Why else would it be named 'Promesse'?

More Italian! And a set named 'Fournier Ciclismo 92', which looks to be so obscure, I can't even find it at TCDB. But I do have my first cycling card in the collection!

I guess a true vintage card of Arthur Irwin, which would date to the 1800s, would probably dent the ol' wallet too much. But a modern card is just fine. 

He's also got one of the more interesting card backs in the binders.

Here's the only one to make more than one appearance. Ethan Small made his big league debut last year, but in 2020 he could be found in various prospect-themed releases and insert sets. Seeing how every Topps release tends to be filled with every rookie imaginable, I'll probably have a lot more chances to add Ethan Small content in 2023.

The only hit in this bunch features Tyreke Smith, a draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks. There were two 2/14 guys (Marquis Hayes) drafted in 2022, and both of them were placed on injured reserve to start the season. At least it was consistent! That probably means there won't be too many actual Seattle cards of his, if any, in later releases, but the fact that the 'punt God' still got some Bills cards makes me optimistic for Smith.

If nothing else.

There you have it!

Mailbag: And Worthy of a One-card Post

 The first big mailbag of the year has shown up, and as expected from a mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders, it was an all-over the place mailer. I was warned that I might have to pay customs fees on this, as there was a card in there that put things a little higher than a usual one.

And I'm guessing this one was the one:

A game-used nameplate letter? Yup, that's definitely going to be one of the more unique items in the ol' Alfie binder. This is listed as 10/10, but since that's the only N in his name, I feel fairly safe calling this one a 1/1. This is the only my second game-worn nameplate card in the collection, joining a Genuine Letters of Patrice Bergeron that I pulled from 12-13 Prime. 

He might not be photographically featured on the front, but he is on the back!

Aside from some of the autos in the binders this quickly has entered the top tier of Alfie cards! 

Thanks for this beauty, and there are certainly more to come! 

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 3 - Hanging Packs

 

Repacked packs! There were several options available, but I had to go for the one with Topps UK as the visible pack for the obscurity factor.

I wasn't expecting anything other than base cards in that pack, so I guess I can't claim to be disappointed. It was just a coincidence that the great Tyler Stephenson "bubble" card ended up in the center spot. A diving catch, cardboard fans, and outfield ivy make this a solid photographic pack at least. That Corey Seager is already set aside for a future mailer to Watertown. 

And the A&G pack. Typical Ginter, with only one of the cards featuring an active MLBer. I'd be really happy to have received that Carter card in this, only I had a second copy waiting to be shown off in my "COMC To-Be-Posted" box. OOPS! But that means one of them can be mailed out to a Jays fan in another future outgoing mail. 

But at least each pack had some interesting stuff in it, and that's all I ask for!

There you have it!