Mailbag!

 A small bubbler did show up before the postal strike started, and now it is time to show the contents of the mailer from Dawg Day Cards' Angus.

Jim Kelly is one of a handful of players I'm not thinking "Why were dupes included" when they show up in an envelope. One for the 2/14s, one for the Bills collection is a perfect way to eliminate any need to decide where they end up. 

Last year's Score-A-Treat was very well represented in this mailer. Sure, they're paper thin, but they're still Bills cards. And yes, both the listed-with-pictured-elsewhere Curtis Samuel, and the reverse Stefon Diggs count.

This year's Score-A-Treat was also well represented with these 4 cards, even if only two of them have seen the field for the Bills this regular season. But these cards aren't as thin as the 2024 entries.

Here's a card that at one point came with stickers, something that Panini started several years back. I almost put together a complete set in 19-20 when I tried to put together a sticker set that year. I still might add all the outstanding ones to my wantlist at some point.

Total passes thrown during a regular season game for the Bills by AJ McCarron = Zero. But at least his release probably hastened Josh Allen's starter days in Buffalo.

I've mentioned the greatness of this photo of Khalil Shakir and his escape artist run after the catch for his touchdown during the playoffs before. It's still great on a parallel.

The only numbered parallel. And at least Zay is still in the league, especially after the night he got himself featured on TMZ.

The Bills content ends with this encased entry. This also my first one of those 24K Action Packed cards!

I could jailbreak it, but why would I do this to Thurman?

But the end of the Bills content doesn't end the mailer! I could have held these off for a week until the time came for the Raptors season to actually start, but that post is probably going to be pretty busy as it is, so they get put in here as a closer. 

Thanks for all these goodies ! I'll be sure to throw some Cleveland Browns content into my cart before I hit ship next time over at COMC.

And there you have it!

Resume Fire

 Canada Post has switched from a complete walkout to rotating strikes, meaning that things will take longer, but will arrive eventually. So, send away!

ObCard: Since I really have nowhere else to post it in any sort of logical multi-card posting, here's a card of a Canadian from that quintessential Canadian sport - beach volleyball. 

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 32 - Another Two

 No Chrome Update in this two-pack repack, but some flagship will suffice.

But Chrome Anniversary remains.

The flagship pack opened with a five-pack of horizontal cards - only one of which is a base player card. But at least it does use the layout well enough.

The more common vertical design features a pair of pitchers who have already seen action this post-season for the Blue Jays. Gausman's jersey looks photoshopped, which really seems odd when a player had made appearances for the team in the previous season.

Insert time! The Stars of MLB may be getting very tiresome at this point, but that '88 Votto is a pretty nice little addition to my Cancon collection. And getting an insert for a PC is always enough to make for a good repacked pack.

But there's still more, such as a third post-season starter. Not too bad for a pack that's a few years old to still be providing some mound star power. 

As for the Chrome pack, not the most exciting one. At least there was a shiny entry.

The flagship is the easy winner in this pairing. 

But there you have it!

A Fine Farewell

Sure, Jerry Rice would continue his career for several seasons after this, but this is about as great as you could as for his cardboard farewell from a brand, at least as an active player, for San Francisco.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 31 - Pretty Packaging

 

OK, not so much the packaging, but there was an interesting card as the visible one.

It is probably better like this, but I would like to see a road game variant of this with unhappy fans as well.

And it's interesting behind it as well. The first card is the only non-flagship one among the 4, and it is someone who just got paid. Jaden Schwartz gets a photo that is just about as intense as you can get from a moment when the clock is stopped. I'm sure I've shown off that Rasmus before, but it is still a fairly unique angle for a card photo.

Having something positive to say about each card is all you could ask for!

There you have it!

A 2020 Vision

 

Cardboard fans!

But at least there's an autograph to go along with it. And a pretty nice-looking Grand Rapids Griffins jersey.

There you have it!

Three Downs, but Just 2 Boxes of Upper Deck CFL

My favourite release of the year! 2025 Upper Deck CFL dropped last week. Nice colour coordination with a Blue Bomber on the packaging of a blue box. This year, they retained the make-up from last year. 100 base cards, and the same # of packs with 9 base cards, and 3 inserts parallels.

They've also kept the base design pretty much the same as previous years. Take the hockey, then take away the foil.

I'm not going to complain about the appearance of any Tiger-Cats card in the product, but Taulia was already out of the league in training camp. Surely 4+ months can give you time to replace him?

I'd rather have another kicker show up. These were 3 of the 4 in the set, as I didn't land the Sergio Castillo. No long snappers in the set this year.

Here are some of my favourite photos out of the 89/100 base cards I landed. As nice as seeing Pimpleton in the process of making a reception is pretty nice, I've got to give the nod to TJ Lee, and the defensive player with the ball in this grouping.

The final 20 cards in the base set are "Season Standouts", which highlights individual performances. Some of these players repeat in this subset, some don't. But it did lead to me getting two Bo Levi Mitchell base cards in the same pack.

And here is proof that you can wipe the background from a card image, and still have a great photo. This is why I specified that my favourite photo earlier was my choice in that group of three. This one blows those other three away. Defensive player diving with the ball!

Strangely, Rolan didn't get a true base card in the set, despite being the reigning Most Outstanding Defensive Player in the CFL.

Of course there are parallels, at 1 or 2 per pack, golds are the most common. They have very little to distinguish them from the regular base, just that little gold strip next to the name.

Although the background being changed does make the Season Standouts far more obvious.

Next up are Deluxe parallels. They're more obvious with the numbering on the front, and the UD hologram on the back. Each box provided 6 of these, with one being a dupe.

Finally, the hits. All the hits were autos this year. The first name only auto is pretty different, and the ink that is on that sticker has some fairly legible cursive. This does make for my second straight year pulling a Stavros-graph. Santos-Knox is a former Ti-Cat, so there's that as well.

And the Eastern Division love continued in the second box. Since I didn't get any of the High Gloss entries this year, that Peters auto/relic is the lowest numbered cards of the boxes. The Standouts parallels are the portion of the set that got the auto/relic parallels. Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund gets the "long name" pass for having a shorter autograph. Finally, another Hamilton autograph to complete the Eastern sweep in terms of hits.

Considering I landed 3 Ti-Cats autographs, and got closer to completing the base set than the year prior, it is a thumbs up for these boxes.

There you have it!

My Newest MST3Ked Auto

 It's Gary Lockwood!

He's got a pair of MST3Ked roles under his belt. He was George in The Magic Sword, and in terms of screen time, was the star of the movie. But, since they had Basil Rathbone and Estelle Winwood available, they were listed as the stars. The movie was one of the better ones featured on the show, and even the MST3K crew admitted it was "actually pretty good". They'd make up for its quality later in season 4, with Manos, Attack of the The Eye Creatures and Monster a Go-Go being forced upon the SOL crew.

Gary was also in 'Kitten With a Whip' in an uncredited role. Not as said kitten, which was Ann Margaret.

But there you have it!

PWE Chronicles: Everything Else

The other stuff in the PWEs gets shown off today.

The 2/14 collection gets 3 new Nolan Schanuels. Unfortunately for me, I had added that Heritage entry to my latest COMC shipment. Oops on me not remembering the generosity and the "Hey! I know someone that PCs that person!" memories of the card community.

My collection of local product Jamal Murray also got a nice little boost as well, with a little bill of shininess thrown in. And I've got another one coming up this year, and Will Riley going later in the draft than Jamal did, his stuff should be a little more affordable.

Stickers too!

And since I have no place else to logically place it other than a one-card post, here's one from the 1995 Fleer-ish Top Class that was in my COMC to-be-posted box. But it does include the hometown, something Panini rarely did, and the whole set did provide my only chance at a Raptors card of Thad Young.

Thanks for all the goodies, Kerry! Watch your mailbox for a goodie box!

There you have it!

PWE Chronicles: The Raptors

 

Time to work through the Raptors content in a trio of PWEs that arrived from Kerry @ Cards on Cards. It was finally enough for me to work my way through the complete pain-in-the-arse that shipping to the States has turned into. I totally understand why ebay sellers are doing this.

PWEs are the perfect choice for stickers. If I didn't have a few oversized items in the package, I probably would have used it to send all those OPC stickers I sent stateside yesterday morning.  As for these, I hope the idea to match the photo of Barrett wearing the Raptors jersey that matches the Canadian flag was intentional. 

Now to the actual cards. I was certain I already had that Kleiza, but I was probably just mixing it up with one of my other cards featuring the camo jerseys. I barely remembered that Totally Certified made itis return as a standalone product this past season, although it had been seen in Chronicles. Finally, Ed Pinckney was another one that seemed to be a dupe but than I noticed it was an Electric Court parallel. Never mind!

A little bit of shiniess in the second and final batch of Raptors content. Red, White and Blue parallels always seem a little off for Canadian teams in Prizm releases. I would be also pretty amused if the Independence Day parallels in Topps had the Jays cards /67 instead. 

That's it for the Raptors content, but 3 PWEs can contain so much more - like Jamal Murray and some 2/14s! That's next post.

There you have it!