Another Shotzi

 Second pack of 2021 WWE Topps Heritage to share today...

The good - base additions with Roode and Dom, new Miz insert and Cena insert

The bad - well, not really bad, but since you get 2 A&G inserts per pack, and I already have 20 of 30 from the first box, looks like dupes will be the way those go, though they are really pretty looking.

The other - I like Shotzi. I don't know if it's the quirky character/attitude or look, or the tank she drives out in, but I enjoy her. It's almost like a reverse Liv - WWE pushes Liv Morgan as being different but to connect with the audience, but I just don't "feel" it. Maybe it's just me, as Liv does get good reactions from the audience so there's some love there for her. Again, I don't see it as much with Shotzi, and wish she would really get a solid shot. I mean, heck, she's at least on the box for this blaster.

2021 WWE Topps Heritage

 With Wrestlemania coming up in a few days, I figure I can get into the spirit by working through a blaster box of a set I really like, and still need a bunch of help on...

With the throwback design to 1990 Topps baseball, but slightly touched up to look nice and on better cardstock, the base set is one I really like and going in, I have 40 of 100 with hopes of getting to at least 60 by end of the box, assuming there shall be some dupes.

All the packs feature soccer mom hair wearing AJ Styles - a shame with his recent foot injury keeping him out, most specifically from the Rumble this past January.

Well - both Cena and The Rock A&G card are dupes, but those are really nice dupes to get. Dolph is a foil parallel, and I did need the bottom two base cards, so it's a start.

Personal comments on the a couple of the wrestlers here...

Was nice that Candice and hubby Johnny Gargano took the time off for birth of their first child and were in no rush to comeback in later 2022/early 2023. Candice is a great wrestler, just needs to be given enough opportunity to round out her personality/character on TV.

As for Dolph - when I consider great "team player" wrestlers able to be in there with anyone and make it enjoyable, I think The Miz and Dolph (and I hope neither gets offended I group them together). From his days with spirit squad, through his time with Vickie Guerrero, AJ, the Show Off, the Dirty Dawgs, he is always a solid, entertaining presence.

Rookie Invasion

Sometimes when sets show up in a lot of cards, they show up in droves, whether you want them or not.

Today, we get the rookie subset from 1991 Upper Deck football. A great looking set which is similar to Upper Deck's other offerings in other sports at the time, and with the first bunch of cards being the star rookies...not a bad "bunch" to get, though maybe no breakout hall of fame star left here.

I did want to give a bit of a sense of how many dupes some of the cards came in. Russell did play in about 150 games over a decade for a few different teams, so I would definitely call that a successful career, though that won't make this a $10 card any time soon....the overproduction being part of the culprit on that too.

If anyone does want 4-12 copies of any of the cards here, I may just have what you are looking for!

A break from COVID as I have a small wrestling blaster box to share and that will be a good fit with Wrestlemania only a few days away!

Making LEGO Jealous

 The good news? At least we are talking football cards...sorry for those who collect it. Man, this was a brick that would make LEGO jealous though. Not too many of the cards are in good enough condition to be trade material, but let's start with those...

1994 Playoff Contenders is the set, and just a few "normal" base cards survived. I have a feeling the rookie subset was finished slightly differently because all of those cards came out just fine, but the "normal" base cards were stuck together with their nice shiny gloss finish. It's a shame, the cards are solid cardstock. At least they will make good packing material in supporting and protecting other good cards.

I had to check though and make sure those rookie cards weren't some kind of emeral ice parallel....

Apparently stats are something we need to show in this set. At first I thought it was the rookie guys seen above, but in scanning some of the damaged cards below, for show....

We just get bios and write ups. With so many sets in the landscape, I can't complain about sets being a bit different as I am sure they have an audience, it just isn't me!

A Good Capper

A quick PWE trade for sharing today. This one with TCDB first time trade partner capper14 who was kind enough to send me some nice newer Blue Jays cards.

Wells is the long exception, as everything else is from the last couple years, and set I don't have a ton of. Bowman and Chrome are products I don't buy...well, I don't really buy much of anything new these days actually. Still, not only do we have base cards, but some nice mojo refractors (honestly, where do they come up with these names sometimes), and prism refractors.

One of these days I will have enough parallels of a single Jays card that I can do a nice 9 card page as I am sure they look spiffy when together like that. Actually, the more likely alternative would be a page of gold - 9 gold parallel cards of the same card.

"Mutual infield appreciation" is an interesting line for the front of a baseball card. Now, I am thrilled with any card having Vladdy and Bo, so all good there, just not what I would expect to see on a baseball card.

Awesome trade, many thanks capper!

That's Some Good Set Building

 I have mentioned that, for recent hockey sets, there isn't much I have really looked to collect, so more by default, I have fallen into collecting a number of the flagship sets.

2018-19 is no exception here either. I mean, the set is growing on me. It's very clean looking given all of the white bordering, and the photography is nice. Not a big fan of the foil logo on the fron, as I'd much rather it just be a nice coloured in logo.

However, we have a bunch of help today - all these cards are needs for me, and most all came with some number of dupes if you need any of these yourself.

A shame again that the Toronto cards aren't here when they seem that otherwise, they should have been, but I can't complain too much given the keepers here anyway.

How times change though, as I was always thought of Toronto being one of the last teams in a set when done alphabetically, and now you have Vegas, Washington, Winnipeg all behind them

They did well with the checklist cards though. The back may just be a list of names, but they did right by getting star faces together on the fronts - love it.

Catch Up!

 A quick post today to catch up on a few pick ups of late from 401games which keep up my unopened Magic The Gathering Pack Collection. THese cover a few of the more recent releases - late 2022, early 2023, though releases just keep coming, so there's already more in queue I need to get.

The Brothers War is a great set as far as artifacts are concerned as it's a major focus in the set. Also, it's a bit of a cross with Transformers - not something I was majorly into, but if you you were, you will probably see more of the cross over / connections with it when I get to opening some packs from it.

I picked up the bundle as a way to get a set booster and a collector booster for it...

The back gives you a clear idea of what's included, and the other set packs will be opened in due course here, as I feel like it. The box is pretty nice, but as I say, it's the couple packs which I picked ut up for...

The bottom two are the sealed packs the lands and card noted come in. Will open lands, but not that exciting, so don't worry, won't show here. Last up, the mini poster...

Yeah, that one is a bit clear on the crossover, don't you think?

"Half" cards

 So, I have a hard time listing these "cards" because they are just the backs and the stickers are long gone from the other side.

Don't get me wrong, I love them and would keep them if any were Jays, but I won't bother listing them in my traders. I'll instead send them off in trades as extras or packaging. I wouldn't waste them by throwing them out as they do have use, but I wouldn't really consider them a full card for trade either since they are not complete.

Would you consider them the same as any other card? Are they "something less" because the stickers are missing? Happy to hear others thoughts or opinions...maybe I am in the minority!

Finest....Curve Ever

 A whole bunch of pringles to look at today. Scanning, you may not see it but, sitting "flat" on the table, the middle of the cards are raised about half an inch. The cards are in fine shape and not damaged, just classic warping that happens with cards, usually when one side's finish is different than the other, so over time they bend one way or the other.

Well, 1994-95 Finest...at least we have some Leaf content...

Now, there's about 150 traders here I won't scan because the warping does make them excessively hard to scan. If you need/want anything - check out my TCDB trade list, they are all there.

I will go through scanning the few uncorrected error cards as well though, just to show some more of them without too much personal pain in doing it...

I will say, all the cards have the protective film on them, and just a couple have it peeling a bit, but glad they aren't "naked"!

Almost Halfway

 Definitely not a new set to me anymore, but one that, with all of these keepers today, we get almost half way to completing.

2006-07 Upper Deck MVP is chugging along here as I close in on half of the 360 card base set done. I am only showing the keepers today, but have the 150 or so dupes listed at TCDB if you are needing cards from the set. A number of these came in duplicate - just figured I'd go with showing the variety today.

If I were to guess, there's probably the left over / picked over part of a few boxes of the set which made it into this lot, and I am good with that!

You may not get massively different photos on the fronts - very much standard in action skating shots of the featured player, but that's alright.

A shame that the Leafs do seem to be getting skipped over as I would love to have those as well of course, but on the positive side, since I collect Toronto - I do already have most of those, so it helps with the set completion. Then just the usual problem of wanting/needing two of each Leaf so I can have a copy for the set and one for the team collection.

If you collect similarly, do you settle for having one, or two?

One Insert Set Done

 On my continued quest to complete the 2022-23 Tim Hortons base and most insert sets (won't call it a master set as I am not going after the autographs, etc), I was able to complete one of the insert sets at least and get a bit closer on the base set as well...

Yes, the Hockey Triumphs insert set of 18 is now done, and also - a Gold Etchings signting! I need a bunch more though for that one.

As for the base set itself, I am at 99 of 120 cards - so well within reach, I just need to focus on a few trades, but that likely won't happen until after busy season.

That all said - the Flow of Time inserts are on the expensive side, so will have to see about those when I get narrowed down a bit more on the "easier" cards.

A big thanks to TCDB member m_y_t_h for the help today!

Legen....wait for it.....dary

 A mix of hockeyt cards from the COVID lot today.

2006-07 Upper Deck MVP is a set build that is being made by this lot. The way we are going, I could be 60-80% complete on this set by time I am doing going through the lot. Here alone we basically get a Predators base set.

A couple more base sets with assistance in 2008-09 Ultra and of course, I don't have many of them but the Legends Upper Deck set is one I like and now have a handful of base cards for.

1996-97 Summit bugs me - I can't keep straight in my mind the base set, versus metal parallel, versus the premium stock. They are different enough, I just literally don't seem to be able to keep them straight.

Well, if I am going to get dupes of a 1991-92 Score card, a rookie Marchment isn't the worst card to get!

A good mixture of cards today...always a fun go through.

A Couple More Trades

 Just as the title says, today we share a couple more trades with members of the wonderful TCDB community. First up, a trade that adds a couple more cards from the 2022-23 Tim Hortons set I am working on...

These three cards came from member jamestagli. I guess I need to get at least one of each Montreal card to complete the set...though sometimes I wonder if I should just leave them out. :)

The Andre card is great because I remember well the throwback card on the front too.

A second trade, this one with Mathieu Charbonneau who sent me a smattering of Leaf cards.

For my Leaf collection, I'll look for the different hologram variations from the early 90 sets, so we get some of those, including in French. The Leaf Limited Rookie is a one Leaf insert set which is nice too.

We even get a bonus 1991-92 O Pee Chee card on the end of things for a great PWE.

Many thanks to both traders, and all the others I have done trades with recently too!

Special Edition

The COVID lot today brings some basketball cards. Not that it matters too much since basketball isn't my thing, but we are looking at all inserts with some Special Edition cards for the most part, from the mid-90s Upper Deck. 

There are gold versions of these cards, not just the silvers like we have here. The silvers aren't as "rare", but still nice pick ups.

Decent enough names - maybe not all Hall of Fame caliber, but names I remember from the era.

Was never a big fan of Sprewell myself, but here he is too.

Not a big fan of the scans, the cards are better in hand, but not by too much unfortunately. Anyway, if anything here interests you, just let me know!