Night Owl Surprises

I received a package from everyone's favourite Night Owl last week. 

Opened it up and it had a little note "Happy Spring/Start of Baseball Season! Enjoy!"

Of course, being Night Owl, there were cards.. Glorious cards.. 

Bowman will almost always be an automatic need, since I basically ignored Bowman due to the number of parallels.

The Score Young Superstars cards were nice to get since I needed these for the Jays Binder. I have them in the sets already.

Oh Henry! Some shiny ones too.. Pinnacle going all Topps Finest here. Same with Donruss, actually. 

Jeremy Lee was drafted by the Jays in 1993 at 18. He was done baseball by 1998. 

Turner Ward is a Jays card in disguise. He's in an Indians uniform, but had been acquired by Toronto. 

I find it funny that people don't feel the 1990 Classic is as retina searing as the 1991 Fleer set is. Though it's almost a 1991 Fleer/1990 Donruss hybrid. 

The Donaldson in the corner is a parallel.. Thank you for mentioning that on the penny sleeve. I likely wouldn't have known. 

Finally, some Heritage Jays. Both these guys were walking injuries last year.. Hoping this year turns out differently for them. Sanchez can definitely help the rotation. 

Thank you Night Owl!! 

Twitter Trade

I recently completed a trade through Twitter with Jenny Miller. She was looking for some top loaders and penny sleeves and offered cards in return. 

I sent off a bunch of sleeves and top loaders to her and I received cards! What a great concept!

Some Jays over the years. 

Oddly enough, I didn't have the Cecil Fielder OPC.

Saunders is going into the Jays binder. Though I think the set might be one I don't work on anymore, so it could sit in the Canadians binder. 

Delino DeShields!

Fred McGriff!

Alex Gonzalez. 

Nice batch of cards here. 

Finally, some Heritage. 

Thanks for the trade! 

Birthday Post Part 2

Well, last post was about the purchase I made from Dave and Adams.. 

Update: They returned my email. They don't have the cards to replace, unfortunately. They're offering store credit or a refund. I want to keep the set and maybe find the missing cards on COMC or on eBay or something. So maybe a partial credit or something? I don't know.. 

Anyway... I also bought cards from COMC. 

They came in around the same time as the D&A order. 

A Jeff Heath reprint. A Canadian player from the same city I was born in. It's from BLC in 1985. 

I always love getting cards like this. I also appreciate how his cards are relatively inexpensive on COMC. I generally have the mindset that anything before 1975 is too expensive for me. 

A Tommy Hutton Hostess card from 1978. These are really cool. If you look though, there's a lot of bright blue in this photo. Blue skies, blue uniform... Blue eyes... 

This looks like it was part of a panel, with the perforations on the side. According to the TCDB, it's from the 2009 World Baseball Classic, and was released as part of a panel for a promo. There's also a Justin Morneau card that I need to find. 

Speaking of Canadians, a couple new Larry Walker cards. 

The top one is one of those Collector's Choice In-set-subsets.. (I miss those, rather than the 160000 inserts and variations we have now)

The bottom is a second copy of a 1993 Diamond Kings card.. I love them. I have always loved the Diamond Kings cards. 

And with this card, my 1992 Topps needs are done.. Well, for the base cards anyway. 

Steve Wilson Base and Gold Winners. 

This one is interesting. Fleer mixed up these two cards. On the back of the Nigel Wilson card is a writeup for Darrell Whitmore. 

Darrell Whitmore's card has Nigel Wilson's writeup.. So I bought both. 

A couple more Wilsons, these from Bowman. 

He had the regular card and foil card in the same set. 

Can I throw in this: I miss those uniforms. 

Nigel as a member of the Edmonton Trappers. They were the AAA team for the Marlins at the time. 

Really, nothing like being at the other end of a different country from the Major League team you play for.. Just a mere 3000 miles away.. 

Some 1995 Fleer cards. These are all inserts. 

League Leaders and All Stars here. Ken Hill and Pat Hentgen. 

Headliners Joe Carter card. 

This was a rather interesting one. 

The back mentioned he was the first to have 3 consecutive 100 RBI seasons for three different teams. 

A Fergie Jenkins card from 1967. This was a nice one to get, and relatively inexpensive at $6.15 USD on COMC. 

It is off centred, but I'm not too worried about that. It's a nice addition to the collection. 

A more modern card. This one is from 2013, and is from the Panini Cooperstown Collection set. International Play.

It's an interesting design, but at the same time, I don't know if I really like how much room the flag takes up. But it's a way to get around copyright, so...

Remember earlier how I said cards before 1975 I tend to believe the cards are too expensive for me?

Well, I found two for under $20 each. This is the second one, obviously. 

I had never thought I'd have this card in my collection. It was something I just resigned myself to never having a copy of, because in my mind, a card from 1966 of a Hall of Fame player I could never afford it. 

I found it for $18.75 on COMC. I jumped at picking it up. 

Those were my purchases.. I still have a trade to go over, as well as a surprise mailday.. 

Birthday Post Part 1

Well, my birthday is this Sunday coming up. 

I'll be turning 40. 

I decided to buy myself a few small things since I had the extra money to do so.. 

The first one I want to show off is the 2011 In The Game Canadiana set. 

I bought it from Dave And Adams. It was shipped quickly and received great. The only problem, and something I've been in contact with them about, is that there were two cards missing from the set. 

The set covers all aspects of Canadian history. Sports, entertainment, politics, and more. 

Billy Bishop was a World War I flying ace, for example. He now has a couple airports in Canada named after him. 

Bat Masterson is Canadian. 

Fergie Jenkins has to be in this set. 

Fay Wray was born in Canada. She was one of the first "Scream Queens"

Banting and Best discovered insulin. 

Mad Dog Vachon makes the set for being a rather famous pro wrestler. 

Jean Belliveau played for the Canadiens. 

James Naismith invented the game of basketball.

John Diefenbaker was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada. He created the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960, which allowed First Nations peoples to vote. 

John Molson is the founder of the Molson Brewing Company. 

Larry Walker shouldn't be a surprise. 

Laura Secord is said to have walked 20 miles through the woods to let the British know about an American attack during the War of 1812. 

Louis Riel founded the Province of Manitoba and led two rebellions against the Canadian Government. 

Manon Rheaume was the first female to play in NHL exhibition games. 

Maurice Richard really needs no introduction to hockey fans/historians. 

Pamela Anderson shows up in the set. 

Patrick Roy was a Hall of Fame Goalie for the Canadiens and Avalanche. 

Pierre Trudeau is the father of our current Prime Minister, Justin. He also introduced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. 

Rich Little is an impressionist who apparently annoyed Johnny Carson.

Rene Levesque was a politician who brought the Separatist movement to the fore in Quebec. 

Sir Sandford Fleming. There is a College named after Fleming here in Peterborough. If I'm not mistaken, he spent some of his life here in town. 

Fleming is known for suggesting and implementing Standard Time. 

Terry Puhl is another baseball player that made the list.. I believe he's the third and final baseball player.

Timothy Eaton was the founder of Eaton's. It started as a department store with a mail order component. It became a nationwide chain that kept the mail order component until the company went under. 

Terry Fox lost his leg to Cancer, so he decided he was going to run across Canada to bring awareness and try to raise money to find a cure. 

The "Marathon of Hope" ended in Thunder Bay, when his cancer returned. There is now a statue and a tourist information centre outside Thunder Bay. 

Another couple wrestlers here with Trish Stratus and Whipper Billy Watson. 

William Shatner is fairly well known for a cult show. I believe it was called Star Trek..

Yvonne De Carlo ended up being on The Munsters. 

So as I mentioned, there were two cards missing. Those were Jeff Healey and Stompin' Tom Connors. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy looking through these. I'll have my COMC order up next post.

Weird And Wonderful Things

Well, starting tomorrow I'll be working a lot more. Doing evening runs as well, so by time I get home will likely be 9:30. I don't know how often I'll be writing once this starts.. 

Anyway... 

I received a random email from Angus of Dawg Day Cards recently asking if my address was the same as what he had. I confirmed it was. He replied to keep an eye on my mailbox. 

Well.. What came was a bounty of surprises. 

3D cards from Kelloggs and Sportflics. 

Those Kelloggs cards are wonderful. I didn't see these as a kid. Mainly because when these particular ones were released, I was 2 or 3.. But these are amazing. 

The small Sportflics ones are annoying to find on the Trading Card Database. 

Stickers from OPC!

More weird and wonderful here.. Seeing these actually make me want to find the sticker album. 

They also remind me of the NHL sticker albums Esso used to put out as an incentive to buy their gas. 

A couple final stickers and another oddball here. 

A 5 minute time card from Bell Canada. 

I'm sure many readers would have seen something similar in the 1990s. On the back is a 1800 number you call and then enter the PIN then the number you want to call.. 

But on the front is Joe Carter..

 Hostess cards. 

I need to get another Dave McKay for my Canadians binder, but these are cool as well. 

I was really happy to see these. 

More cereal cards.. Those Team Cards are from 1983 Sugar Crisp. 

Again, I hadn't seen these before. But they're interesting. Wider than a standard card, so they're going into my oddballs box. 

Some more recent cards here, with some Hi Tek, Finest, and other gimmick cards. 

A Fergie Jenkins card is always nice to get, as is the Bat Flip. This time, in Chrome. 

Some more gimmick cards here. 

These... Are... Awesome!!!!

These are from the 1995 Comic Images Phil Rizzuto series. 

The first few cards in the set are ballparks. I love that Shibe Park one. It really pops.. 

Finally, there was this. It was between envelopes with a note saying that this was forgotten. 

I believe it's a "beer cozy" that will fit around a bottle of beer. I may be wrong through. It feels like of like a felt-rubber mix. 

Thank you Angus! 

Not too long ago, I also made a comment on Gavin's blog about some of his customs. 

Being in Canada, I've come across a number of people reluctant to send up here because of shipping costs.. 

I believe at one time I may have had that conversation with Gavin, but I may be mistaken. 

Anyway, I had mentioned that I liked the Jays customs he made. 

He asked my address and sent me up a few he made.

Very nice to see these. I really like them. But there was more..

These were sent up as well.. 

Thank you!

Blog Bat Around: What Do You Collect?

Probably one of the few of these I'm actually awake/aware enough to take part in.

One thing that's always asked of collectors is "What do you collect?"

Well.. Let's take a look, shall we?

Sets!

I will admit, I'm mainly working on sets from the mid-80s and early 90s. 

I'm done 1987 Topps aside from three error cards. Done 88 Donruss. Done 1984 OPC.

Still working on 1988, 1989, 1990 Topps

1990, 1991, 1992 Donruss

1990, 1991, 1992 Score

1990, 1991 Fleer

I can't be a real Canadian without a Skatey-Punchy collection, can I? 

Well, for Hockey, I collect two players: Charlie Simmer and Aaron MacKenzie. Both are from my hometown of Terrace Bay Ontario. 

As mentioned before, I received a number of Simmers from a person I knew back home. Of course, I'm on the lookout for more. 

Jays and Expos

I'm trying to get a base set for every year the Jays and Expos existed.

The Walker serves an added purpose here, as he is also Canadian. 

I also collect Canadian born players. 

There are a couple that I collect that aren't "Born" Canadians, but for my purposes, are close enough.

Kevin Reimer was born in Georgia to Canadian parents, and actually moved to BC after his playing days. 

Freddie Freeman is also the son of Canadian parents and he played for Canada in the last WBC. 

Finally.. One that is difficult to actually quantify...

Stadiums!

I love stadium cards. You can say I'm a Stadium Geek.. I love the differences in parks. The look, the way the game plays, everything.. 

This photo is actually from a mailday I haven't covered yet, but was easier to scan it than dig through and find the SkyDome card from 1992 Triple Play. 

So.. That's what I collect. 

The End of the Box

Today is the final post in the Katz box series. Quite a lot to like in there so far. Let's see what the final day brings..

The Pedro is one of those "Cards Your Mom Threw Out" inserts. Still nice to get a Pedro Expos card. 

Heritage is a set I never found up here, so getting them through trades or purchasing online is about the only way I can go about it.. 

I wonder if Brett has completely been forgotten by MLB.. And I wonder if that's a good or bad thing...

Ricky Romero, once batters realized he never threw anything over the plate, quickly found himself in the minors.

That said, I do like that black bordered Heritage card. 

Randy Johnson as an Expo is always welcome here. 

I believe it's intentional, but some of the Heritage photos look off.. Either washed out or just.. I don't know... Not real??

Hey! A Bautista patch card.. 

The J & J Blue Jays card I'm just glad they didn't go "J & J Security"

I mentioned above that Heritage is a rare animal in these parts.. Heritage Minors are like the Loch Ness Monster, or Sasquatch.. Mythical. 

The one thing that I find tough for sorting these cards is how Topps spans some inserts over the full set.. Series 1, 2, and Update. 

That All Star Game card is the reason for the rant. 

We have some Donruss cards here. 

I'll admit, the unlicensed cards do bother me somewhat... But at the same time.. I find some of these cards to be better than the mountain of crap Topps is putting out. 

With the poses in the three above here, you don't really notice they're not licensed. 

One insert I didn't understand from last year's set what the Opening Day Incredible Eats cards.. 

Why??

And moreso for this one... Buffalo Cauliflower Poutine?????

*deep breath* Ok... Let's continue...

Ok.. I like the fact that with the two base and parallels shown here, you can tell the parallel right away.

The Sepia Stadium Club is obvious. And really, it's a nice look..

The Blue Bunt again is obvious.. Though I have to say it looks like Stroman's arm is dislocated in the photo they used. 

And what a way to end it off.. Another Randy Johnson Expos card from a set just as mythical as Heritage minors. 

Thank you for the cards, Shane! I'm working on putting together something for you.