Too Many B-Ball cards

Finally, after 5 posts, I can put the latest envelope from TMM/V to bed.

Speaking of putting to bed, this finally fell off my set-builder want list, and wraps up the 2017 Heritage Minors non-SP base set.

And these dropped off my top 10 wantlist. Alberto Castillo's base card was, for some reason, a need for my collection of everyone who played for the Jays and earned a card, and Stieb was a need for my "that's a cool Jays card" collection.

Relics for my Delgado collection!

A David Cone relic (complete with a pinstripe) for my Mets collection.

I'm not a buyback super collector, but I won't pass on adding them to the collection either. Yes, I did check with Shane's list over at Shoebox Legends just to make sure these were not needs over there.

The baseball section wouldn't be complete without a new 2/14 card. So here's a Tyler Clippard Chrome card from 2007 Turkey Red that's numbered to /1999.

Since I really don't want to extend this to 6 posts worth, I'll consider basketball as part of the b-ball and add the single basketball card in the mailer to this post. This is the third printing plate of Richard Hamilton I have and that comprises my entire 1/1 collection in the basketball portion of the binder.

Whew. That wraps up the trade. Thanks for all these! I dropped an envelope in your direction about a week back, but that was more quantity over quality. I've got a few things in my next COMC mailer that will hopefully be more of the latter than the former.

There you have it!

Adventures in E-Packs

I will do the e-pack thing ever so often through Upper Deck, mainly due to the ease of being able to get them through COMC shipments. While I did hit the jackpot not that long ago when I landed a printing plate of a 2/14 guy, there were some less successful ones. But I'll still show off the cards!

I'm not sure why I grabbed a random pack of Goodwin Champions, but here's a tennis player from it.

Here's some retros from OPC Platinum. I really wish they'd gone for the look from that year's OPC instead of the 07-08 design.

That Popeye rink board ad comes through again!

Much like with the physical packs, the e-packs of 2018 CFL contain either a numbered parallel...

or a hit! Chris Randle was just released by the Bombers , but will probably be signing his name to a contract with another team shortly. And that will be a nice signature on the contract, since he's also a candidate for the penmanship binder.

And there you have it!

One Card Only: But a Third Prime Patch

Joining a Derek Roy and Mikkel Boedker, this is the third patch out of Panini Prime making its way to my Kitchener Rangers alum collection.

The photo on the back makes it very obvious which part of the jersey the swatch comes from - the upper corner of the shoulder patch. Murphy is still trying to make a go of it on this side of the Atlantic, playing in the Minnesota Wild's system.

Mulitple Mets

My COMC to-be-posted box awaits, and today, nothing but Mets cards escape the box.

While I'd expect a photo like this to appear on a Stadium Club card, I wouldn't expect something this from Bowman. This is just a perfect use of the horizontal format for a photo. Lurking in the background is a pretty obscure Cubs player, as Tommy Shields sported #1 for the Cubs back in 1993, and only made a handful of appearances.

I'm somewhat surprised that this isn't a photo of Orosco from the actual World Series days of the Mets.

I didn't bust too much Heritage High #s this year, so I had to rely on COMC to get my hands on the 5 card Miracle insert series from this year. While it is filled with the usual suspects, how much fun is it to pull acquire Al Weis card from a 2018 set?

And to keep the theme, here we have a whole bunch more cards either from Heritage, or with a retro theme to them. The Cedeno is the only numbered card in this group, being a /100 glossy parallel. Which actually isn't very retro at all.

But there you have it!

Too Many 2/14 Football Cards

Again, I return to the recent mailer from TMM/TMV in this post, and today, as the title indicates, it is 2/14 football entries in this post. I'm ordering these by volume, lowest # of cards to highest.

He still has yet to throw a pass during a regular season game, but I still have 15 cards of his.

Cards where he is listed as Tank > Cards where he is listed as DeMarcus. Even without it being a 1/1, that Tyler would easily be the better of these two cards.

The former #1 pick made a pair of appearances, with both cards containing a swatch. Although there is a date on the card that matches a playoff game between the Texans and Raiders, I'll assume that only the photo, not the swatch is from that day.

3 Bledsoes. 3 different teams.

These 3 McNairs make him the 4th member of the binder to hit triple digits, joining jim Kelly, Marian Gaborik and Milan Hejduk.

The last trio of cards features David Garrard, all three of which are numbered. The Playoff card is /149, the Gridiron Gear is /250 and the patch relic is /65.

The big winner here was Alshon Jeffrey, who moves into 3rd place in the football category with 86 cards to Bledsoe's 85. The middle right card is from something called TCSP (Tri-City Sports PL), which googling seems to show it is a hit themed repack company, but with nothing positive about it in terms of reviews. But at least it is an obscure addition, and there are some nice shiny/gaudy entries as well. And another 1/1!

Whew. That only leaves baseball to wrap up a 5 post mailer. I'll try to wrap this up later this week.

2019 Adventures in Repacks - Part 2 - Volume

After 1 Surprise Bag from the Dollarama in my first repack post, let's try 4 this time! Those were the contents, but if you prefer to read rather than discern, these were the contents:

Toploaders - 1
1990 Score - 1
2008 Victory - 1
Goalie - 1
70s/80s - 1
2010s - 2
Rookie - 2
Superstar - 2
1990s - 5

For anything where the total # of cards is less than or equal to what will fit on my scanner, I'll show everything. For the others, I'll hit the highlights. Simple!

So, that basically means just the highlights of the Score pack and the 90s repack, and everything else appears.

I'll start with the packs. There really wasn't anything notable in the 1990 Score pack, so here's a classic Nordiques jersey.

I was hopeful for a new insert for the Victory set, but all I got were base cards. At least there was a Sens card in the mix.

As for the repacks in the repack, I'll just do these in the order they uploaded.

As expected, the 70s/80s pack didn't contain anything 70s, and had the usual pair of 1989s appear. But at least the third card does trace to the early as opposed to the late 1980s. And more Nords blue!

These were the most interesting cards from the 90s packs. Lots of early 90s Bowman and Score, but still some good stuff. French UD! A Sens card! A patriotic card! The Eagle mask! Rangers alum Al MacInnis! That's not bad for all the early 90s stuff.

The first of the 2010s pack was very New York, as all 3 cards came from the teams there. The Mika card is an acetate Ice card. 

Hey, 3 of the 4 cards in the goalie pack were mask binder cards. I have no complaints about a 75 percent hit rate.

The two rookies in the rookie pack were bland, but the pair of Tony Horaceks, 1 per repack, was at least interesting in terms of collation. As for my favourite card, it surprisingly is the Leafs card, as I love when a card features a smile from a player missing a tooth or 4.

And this ends with the Superstar pack. While the Superstars portion was interesting, based on landing a Tim Horton's card as one of them, I was intrigued by the Grigorenko, mainly because I couldn't place it. I'd recognized the flashback to the 1989 Score design, and knew it made plenty of appearances in that year's football release. But hockey? Turns out this was from a retail insert set called Rising Rookies. I guess it is pretty obscure, since it doesn't even appear on Panini's own checklists on the site. 

So there you have it! 

Too Many Hockey Cards

Looks like it is back to the recent mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams/Verlanders today. This is post #3 featuring content from it, with at least two more to go.

While this doesn't hit any of my PCs other than my unofficial "holograms rule" PC, that's enough for me.

Now the 2/14 collection is an official one, and it gains two cards with these additions. Milan remains 7 up in the player lead for the collection, 192 to 185.

Al's chase of Stanley wasn't as successful with the Blues as it was with the Flames, but this is still a great addition to my Rangers alum collection.

One more Rangers alum.

Now to switch over to my Sens PC, with a pair of cards destined for hits/numbered cards portion of that binder. Volchenkov is numbered on the back, and is out of /299.

Only one relic card in this group of hockey cards, but at least it was nice enough to include three of them!

From a Spezza relic to a pair of Spezza plates. One Dallas, one Ottawa. Will we be able to break this tie?

Yup! After having zero in my possession a month ago, this is now my second framed plate relic coming from a release of The Cup. Unlike the earlier Matt O'Connor, here the relic comes from an actual Cup card, and is of his base /249 card in the release.

Thanks so much for these cards, and keep your eyes on your mailbox as I'll be dropping something off at the post office today, and have some COMC goodies on the way for a second mailer.

One Card Only: Let Nikki Play!

Looks like she took time out from play to develop a nice looking signature.

Pack Sampler

No LCS trips for me so far in 2019, so I'll dip into my collection of already scanned cards for a pack from December, a single jumbo pack of 2018 Bowman Draft.

I always judge a product by the first card. In this case, it is guy named Osiris so it is an amazing start. This should indicate a high enjoyment level of a product, but I haven't busted any packs since this one.

There are chrome parallels.

And the shiny refractors.

And a numbered parallel. How can a photo, where the player is pitching the ball, have the baseball look more photoshoppped than the jersey?

Here's an insert. I guess I can't complain about landing a Yankees card here when I get a Mets card in the Chromes.

And I landed an autograph! Lynch was a supplemental first round pick, and the interesting design to the 'D' in the autograph probably puts him in the upper echelon in terms of penmanship among the 2018 draft class.

There you have it!