Another T.M.M. Trade Package - The Basketball Goodies

2 posts today. With a box of the new Hoops release likely entering my possession tomorrow, this seems like a perfect time to post the basketball portion of the trade. Thankfully, it is small.

But this does include 1/1 #3 of the trade package. This is my second plate in the basketball portion of my 2-14 collection, and both are of Hamilton. Of course, the options for printing plates for basketball are pretty limited.

My first thought when I came across this card in the mailer was "Since Jalen is a Wolverines alumni alum, this has to be a dupe for Dennis." It was. So Jalen Rose joins Eric Nystrom in the list of guys who might be dupes in one collection, but would fit nicely into someone else's.

You'd think there would be some acetate aspect to a card that was part of a subset that included the term 'Film' as part of its title. You'd be wrong. Nice and shiny, though.

And a little Vince Carter to wrap things up.

Only the hockey left to go! As well as a hockey PWE from 2*3 Heroes. And tomorrow I break my third box of the month. Thankfully, the set heavy products go away for a bit for now.

Another T.M.M. Trade Package - The Baseball Goodies

Part 2 of 4 in the trade package.

I'll say that this package also included a Starting Lineup of Ed Sprague, but I forgot I needed to get the photo off my phone when I was writing up this post. So, it might make an appearance in either the hockey or the basketball post.

And now, on with the cards!

Let's start with the Blue Jays, and one of my secret wants. Ernie was one of my favourite Blue Jays back in the 80s, and I've really wanted to add an auto of his to my collection. Even though he's the type of player that would be perfect for Archives Fan Favorites, there are no certified Whitt autos out there. Mind you , I doubt there's a major market for forgeries of his auto, so I feel safe adding this to my Jays collection.

This one is certified, though! And despite the fact that this isn't the best surface for an autograph, Adam maintains his above average penmanship.

And here's a buybacked 1/1! Sure, this is a gimmick, but it would be a major lie if I didn't welcome adding this to my Jays collection. 

And to wrap the Toronto portion of the package up, here you have a nice miscellaneous collection of cards. An insert. A parallel. A Starting Lineup. A manu ticket. When the closest thing to a base card in the bunch is the Starting Lineup, that's a fun grouping of cards.

The Expos portion did not bring the quantity, but it did bring the quality. Shiny number Vlad and not-so-shiny, but still nice Gary Carter. Road blues!

Only one card for the CanCon collection, but it is an acetate of Larry Walker, who has to be the biggest member of that collection in terms of card volume.

And let's wrap this portion of the trade up with the Mets stuff.Again, quite the variety among these 7 cards. Vintage. Shiny. Numbered. Inserts. Parallel. That's a nice mix. The big winner here is the Nomo. This is the international variation. It is 1998, so that means one thing!

Kanji!

While not as cool as the Lingala on Ntema Ndungidi's card, still cool!

Thanks for all these, and the two more sports worth of cards still to come!

2015 Adventures in Repacks: Part 41 - No Mike Bossy auto this time

I knew I wouldn't get something as spectacular as last time, but here goes another Dollarama repack.

And here's the content of the repack. 2 regular packs. 2 repacks.

You have to take what you can get with Pro Set. I'll take a Rangers alum among the 15 as the pack hit.

I did a little better with the Score pack. A couple nice photos. A mask photo. And the gold parallel.

Ouch. The Franchise pack could be any Canadian team or an Original 6 team. As a Sens fan, I got the worst possible of the bunch. At least the Vaive looks nice.

And the rookie pack contains a dupe of one I'd received before in a repack. But at least the Lafleur looks nice.

I guess the repack Gods had to balance out the last really good repack with this one. I guess the farewell card is my favourite in the bunch, but it was a really a bland lot.

Insomnia Special: An almost perfect Senators relic

This is a nice card. A really good mix of players, appropriate for the start of the 2013 season. Promising rookies and youngsters and some good vets. Maybe I'd replace Peter Regin with a Chris Neil, but I have no beef with the selection. Nicely grouped too. Forwards on the front. Defense on the back.

But damn, does that Avalanche relic for Anderson stick out. And not in a good way.

This is a 13-14 card. Anderson was traded to Ottawa in 2010-11.

So close to perfection.

A Good News, Bad News Kinda Day

Bad News: Blue Jays down 0-2.

Good News: Mets up 2-0.

Bad News: Election Day! And my political poll may have had the most incompetent poll clerk that this nation had to offer.

Good News: No more election commercials!

Bad News: Mail day included a summons for jury duty.

Good News: Mail day included some very desired cards!

Starting with a '4 if by Sportlots' envelope. I'm not the biggest fan of manu-relics, but sometimes they just are perfect for me.

Since I was there for the Wright home run debut. I'd completely forgotten about this happening until this subset was included in '15 sets. The mind blank was probably influenced greatly by seeing Eric Valent hit for the cycle later on in the series.

And yes - I am willing to add baseball cards to my mask binder. The disallowing of any sort of creativity on catchers that employ the hockey style mask is one of my minor peeves about baseball. But at least that gives me some chase cards from the 00s.

And just before 2015 Update hits the LCS, here are the last two cards I needed to finish that set. It was annoying to try to figure out what the last card was I needed. Zistle showed I needed just one, but the box seemed two out. Then I realized I'd grabbed the Derek Norris single for the 2/14 collection, and added it at zistle, without adding the necessary card to the set build.

That's the 4 cards via sportlots. Howzabout one from ebay?

My first Karlsson graph!

If jury duty mails are offset by card mails like this, then keep the former coming!

Another T.M.M. Trade Package - The Football Goodies

Time once again to wind my way through another mail package from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams/Verlanders. This was a rather varied package, enough so that I can break the package down by sport and get a quartet of posts out of this. Which will go up over the next couple weeks or so. But today, since it is Sunday, time for the football!

Let's start with the biggest addition to my collection. Sure, this looks normal enough, but it is the biggest card in the collection at 8*10. Fortunately, a single pocket page was included with this, so it can fit nicely into the binder. Even better, there will be something for the other side of it once I get to posting the basketball.

More 2/14? Why not? A quartet of new Alshons for that collection. He's now in third place for that collection, leaping past both David Garrard and Drew Bledsoe with 32 cards total of his. He's 3 behind Steve McNair.

But Jim Kelly maintains his lead, with a slight bump up to 52 total with this insert out of this year's Score. It is accompanied by an unnumbered gold parallel of Sammy Watkins. Jim for the 2/14 binder. Sammy for the Bills binder. Jim Kelly, the one player I don't mind getting dupes of, since both will find homes.

And that leads to a bunch more Bills. My mind is blown that Boobie Dixon got a base card in this year's set. On the plus side, that means I can move his college era auto'd card out of the Bills binder and into the penmanship binder.

And on the plus size, Marcell Dareus. Wow.

I don't care that Fred's gone. I still like this manu-patch. Even though it doesn't match the October pink of the photo.

There was a note in the package about becoming a James Hardy super collector. I guess I am now. Of course, I had to check in with the always reliable wiki to see what was up with him post-football.

Unable to make it in the NFL, Hardy turned his attention to Hollywood. He is currently pursuing a career in modeling and acting.

Hey, that's kinda cool.

On May 4, 2014, Hardy was arrested on felony charges following a dispute at his home in Los Angeles, in which a visibly drugged Hardy attacked police officers responding to a disturbing the peace call.

In November 2014, it was reported a judge deemed Hardy unfit for trial and remanded him to a mental facility. 

Serves me right for scrolling past the opening paragraph. That said, until the bodies start piling up, I'll still add these cards to my Bills binder.

Let's make things better with the last Bills item.

Just a 1/1 yellow Willis McGahee plate. The best thing is that the phrases "unfit for trial" and "remanded him to a mental facility" don't appear in his wikipedia article. And my memories of him with the Bills are more positive than not. That's always a plus for a card of anybody whose career with the Bills falls in as part of the playoff drought. This is my second 1/1 in that collection, joining a David Nelson plate.

And to wrap it up, here's a card that was sent for my set build of 2015 Topps. There were about a dozen more, but I'm highlighting this one since it is a card of a kicker.

That's it for today. Back tomorrow with something repack related.

2015-16 Artifacts Box Break - Part 2

4 packs left!

Pack 5:

And there's a really nice, yet still disappointing card. You would think that a dual patch card numbered to just 15 would have at least one of the two be something other than a one-colour swatch. That said, at least it is a patch, seeing as it doesn't have the feel of a standard jersey swatch. Still.

Among the rest, an alternate jersey and Wolverines trade bait rounds it out. I think this and the Cammalleri were the only ones in the 100 card base, so that completes that hunt.

Pack 6:

2 mask binder cards. A parallel. And Wayne Simmonds. So far, both Flyers cards are the odd men out in both packs in that I have nothing to say about them. I'm glad to add the Gibson Pac-Man mask to my collection, and will enjoy doing so when his Duck Hunt themed mask makes its cardboard debut. And that Pavelski is just a beauty. It is always nice when the colours for the parallel work with the team colours and don't overpower things.

Pack 7:

And I continue to be a magnet for Florida Panthers hits. Probably the dullest of the packs.

Pack 8:

But this one ends it nicely. I'm surprised Subban wasn't exiled to the high numbered 'Stars' /999 portion of the set. The Rangers redemption has already been announced as Oscar Lindberg. He's off to a pretty good start to the season, so I might hang on to this and enter it when it goes live. But, I could be had, and if someone has either an unscratched Jets (announced as 2/14 baby Nikolaj Ehlers) redemption, I'd swap it.

And there's the box. My favourites of this were the Pavelski parallel and the Puempel rookie. But, still a fun break with a couple big cards. Tomorrow, start of a multi-post trade package.

2015-16 Artifacts Box Break - Part 1

Since I'm passing on building the O-Pee-Chee set this year, why not splurge and buy something a little higher end? A little different this year as there are only 8 packs, but the hits promised remains the same, with 3 alongside a rookie redemption. I think this might be Datsyuk's first time on a product's cover since 2012-13 Score, but I really don't care to check.

Pack 1:

Pretty much what you can expect. After being relegated to the /999 portion of the set the previous few years, goaltenders are back in the base 100 set this year. That is something nice for my mask binders. Of course, the first pack contains a card for Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams.

Pack 2:

Much like with my Team Canada packs, I got a relic hit and a decoy card in this one. And one fewer base card. Palat will be set aside for Jeff @ Wish They Still Came w/ Bubblegum.

Pack 3:

WOO-HOO! A Sens card! And it is one of the two folks making their cardboard debut in the early sets. I'll need another one for my Kitchener Rangers alum collection though. I could say the same thing about Shane Prince, the other one of the two.

Pack 4:

Just a base card, but another Sens card for the team collection! And it looks like I've got a pair of relics awaiting me in the second half of the box. And a rookie redemption. Still a good start though with a nice addition to the PC along with a quintet of mask binder cards.

Just A Few 2/14 Hockey Additions

I mean just a few.

I mean I should stock up on Viktor Kozlov since he's a perfect match.

And add is some Calle Johanssons that really highlight that he had a lengthy NHL career.

And then you throw in a base card of a guy with 11 games worth of experience, so he gets a photo in a Russian jersey.

While the Russian jersey can be an interesting oddity for a collection, there's nothing at all interesting about that fire snot horse jersey.

Which Eric Nystrom managed to avoid on cardboard during his tenure with the Flames.

Petr Mrazek's NHL career hasn't been long enough to get any bad jersey designs in his collection.

But here's another guy with a long NHL career. He's third overall in terms of games played (1028) behind the previously posted Johansson (1109) and Dave Lowry (1104).

One nice combination of Tampa and Montreal deserves another. Here, a trio of parallels. Gold Rush. Retro. French.

Sean Hill's 'Actually with Anaheim' card will wrap up the appearance of Habs jerseys in this post.

But not the last of the parallels. The first is Choice Reserve parallel out of Collector's Choice, and the bottom row score is a glossy parallel. I'll confess that I'm surprised I didn't have either the Score or the OPC card in the top row.

And still the King of the 2/14 binder in terms of volume remains Marian Gaborik - the first member to pass the century mark.

So. Just a few additions.

And when you're one out from a Sportlots seller's threshold, why not add a base card of the Hamburglar?