Starting Red

 More hockey cards from the COVID lot today, and we start with a bunch of red...

I like the Biography of A Season inserts, and we get a trifecta here were is excellent. They are all new to me, and keep to keep, even if all Red Wings (at least they aren't Canadiens).

I don't mind Canadian cards though, although I don't really collect them, and the Champs cards are a bit late for Sundin to stay as this was post his time in Toronto, but the Heritage cards are short prints, so keeping those.

Black borders can look sleek, but the YoungStars Bowman don't do it for me.

Nice Leaf pick up with Travis Green. He actually had two stints in Toronto, and this was after his first, but he would come back for a couple dozen games in 2006-07 as well.

A nice smattering of hockey for today, a good end to November!

Breeeeeett!

 Now, if yo were a wrestling fan in the early 90s, you probably remember the Bret Hart spin in WWF of the Mean Joe Greene football commercial. I think the original was for Coke. You can go on to more recently when MJF copied it as well in another spoof (which was great as well).

All these are great, but absolutely not the Brett I'm looking at today, instead, it's an influx of Brett Hull.

Some Kariya cards in there too, but the Ultra and Up Close are set helpers for me, and the One on One cards as well. I'm very tempted to collect the Fleet Greats of the Game set, but not there yet, so those are up for trade if anyone is interested.

AH - the SUmmit set drives me nuts with the different parallels, but I think this is the preferred stock one, and is a keeper.

Best of the bunch though, has to be the fact that all of the 2008-09 McDonalds cards are new for me which is great! Love the set, like most McDs.

Solid day overall from the COVID lot for sure!

1997 Bowman Baseball

 As obvious from the title, today's cards from the COVID lot are all from 1997 Bowman - specifically the second series.

With the deadly to condition black borders, the cards look sharp, but ding easy. The blue accent is great, though wish they didn't foil the Bowman logo personally.

A lot of close up photos and posed shots, and as we go through, no Jays or keepers for myself.

Not a set I have any interest in collecting, and a time period that I wasn't collecting at the time, so no ties there.

Backs that don't bother with full stats, but do provide a full write up, I am sure those work for some, but I would definitely like them improved.

As a whole - a little underwhelming on names and stars, though at least I have a few Expos to pass along to Mike at Not Another Baseball Card Blog. Hope you are keeping well Mike - I know this year has been a tough one for you with your health, etc.

Majors and Minors

 Another day of random cards from the COVID lot and we get a fair variety of hockey cards, a bit from the minors, a big from the bog eagues.

Not a bad start - a couple 1990-91 Score Rookie & Traded cards that I need. I have plenty of work to do on the set, but a slow build on that one is fine with me.

Also a Leaf keeper with Marshall, but as much as I don't collect minor league cards, getting a few which have a set print run, even if it is 7,000 or 40,000, still not too shabby of a pick up. Should make for alright trade fodder.

I know that at first look, these have the 1990-91 Upper Deck style, but they are 5 year anniversary subset cards from the 1995-96 Upper Deck set. At least Sundin is in Leaf uniform on the back, so happy to keep that as a Leaf card!

We end with a bunch of 1996-97 Fleer which, I definitely have not seen much of. Not bad for design, and the goalies always make the cards look a bit better with the masks and padding, and usual action shots.

Overall, not going to complain having a few more Leaf cards and a couple set adds!

Highlighting Ottawa

 Sometimes when pulling cards from the lots, they just happen to be somewhat sorted with rhyme or reason, and today, we get mostly Ottawa Senator cards for whatever reason.

I still haven't seen enough of that 2002-03 Parkhurst Retro set to start collecting it...but it is tempting! Acrtually, the Pacific Invincible set from 2003-04 is an interesting one from a design perspective too, but again, I've only seen a couple cards in the wild.

Yay - one keeper for the day and it's a 2003-04 McD card with Alfredsson as I am getting close to 75% done that set.

As much as I think the 2006-07 Upper Deck series is a pretty good design, not quite there on wanting to collect it, so if you need a Spezza, I have a few for ya!

Dibble of 2018-19 Upper Deck

 A short and sweet pull of cards from the COVID lot today - a couple packs worth of 2018-19 Upper Deck, and let's see if we can get any set helpers from it.

Not too shabby as Faksa and Daley above are additions for me. Kane is probably the best looking card of the bunch above....

Kempe, Parise, Shattenkirk are three more set adds for me.

Myers is new too. 6 additions out of the bunch, not too bad considering I have about 1/3 of the set at this point.

Still like how clean and sharp the set looks as a whole and enjoy collecting this one. Sometimes sets feel a bit like a chore collecting them (when you may fall into having a near complete set you don't necessarily like), but not this one for me!

Packaging

 I know these may be cards and collectible to some, but I am just not feeling it. I mean, in this case, there just isn't anything player or team related, so I don't have any interest in collecting them. At the same time, I guess they are "inserts", but I just can't do it.....so, packaging material it is...for the most part.

There are a bunch of these - 15-20, and the difference is just the date as it relates to the contest. I mean, they at least feel like cards and there seem to be some want on TCDB, so I'll be willing to track and trade these ones at least.

The 1999 Opening Day versions (the bottom scans in the above), are paper and glued together, so not going to keep them since most are "ruined" anyway. Similarly, the generic ad cards on the top of the scan, just packaging material.

I can look at the bright side though, it's nice to have items for packing which are perfectly sized to protect the cards when mailing!

PWE Round Up

Before getting to more of the COVID lot, wanted to cover a few trades that came in by PWE from various trade partners.

First up is a one off PWE from TCDB member Nathan-John-Mercer.

2021-22 Upper Deck Marner, a pretty nice pick up, and leaves me with a single Young Gun card missing to finish off my Leaf base set.

Next, a quick trade with fuxthepot who I got some 1992 Studio help.

Still some 1988 Donruss variations I am missing too, but this trade was just build around a bit of set help - love those early 90s Studio sets as they were so different.

We also have a small PWE trade with TCDB member BLWinborn40....

A nice three Jays, and my first 2018 Topps Big League Gold parallel.

Last up, a trade with FireprrofLowlife...

A really great 1982 help[er with Brett, but two cool wrestling cards make this PWE worth while. I will say, Fleer wrestling cards circa early 2000 were pretty darn good like Jericho here. There were a number of sets, but they stood out to me, just don't have a lot of them.

Doesn't take a lot of cards to get a decent little trade done and glad to be able to share a few of them today.

Actually, trade wise, 2023 is my most eventful year all around - over 110 trades in the year and over 7,000 cards moved (about 4k out and 3k in). Actually, it's more than I did in my first 4 years of being on TCDB combined!

Opening Millenium

 It's been a bit, but back to the COVID lot for some more cards. Today we get some 2000 Topps Opening Day.

If you didn't know it was the opening day set, they made sure to take up 1/8 of the card with a nice big Opening Day 2000 foil logo on the front of EVERY CARD. I guess they figured adding the Topps logo into it was too much, so you still also get the Topps name separately as well for good measure.

At only 165 cards for the base set, it's a manageable set to collect, but with the 30-40 cards in this bunch that would be covered, I'm not quite drawn to this one yet. Maybe if more come from the late we can revisit, but for now, all up for trade.

I will say, the Dante card with a certain wall behind him, not only let's you know the park the card was in, makes for a very nice card.

No Jays unfortunately, and no error cards, so all trade bait for now, though the pictures are pretty nice all around, and the grey border isn't offensive, though just adds to the grey with the foiling, so could be a bit better, but a middling set personally. I will say, I like the 1999 set a bit better, if for no other reason than the Opening Day logo was less obtrusive on the front.

Who?

Hello, and no, I am not talking about Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart and his WCW character, I am talking about the recent Magic release of Doctor Who from the Universes Beyond series. Magic likes to team up and make special releases like this, or Walking Dead, or almost Harry Potter, and they are unique and different, though I see them more as a money grab, and I remain a sucker unfortunately.

I was never a fan of the show, so I don't have that connection to these, but I do pick up the COllector pack as that is the only way they were released, and some of the cheaper artifact cards as well...

For those interested, there is not set or draft boosters, just the decks and collector packs essentially, so at least I don't have more than one booster to pick up, but still a solid bunch of cards which I don't feel like spending a dollar or two on to get most of them. Will wait and give some time to see if at least the common cards come down to a quarter pricing sooner than later.

Getting a bit much on the releases as I think there were a couple others recently and might be another before the end of the year. I should count, but feels like we are getting to more than one release a month these days. I miss when it was more likely 4 a year.

At My Price

 So, here's a big reason why I love trading - the prices of cards in new releases, I just find a bit excessive. I find it harder and harder to justify the price for cards - I mean, it's typical to spend about $1 a card when buying a blaster box these days. I'd much rather find a way to trade for some of these newer cards, because many of the cards in my traders, I picked up for a penny or two each.

They still obviously have more value, it's just the benefit of buying lots, and doing the work (and where needed, paying postage), to get the cards you want instead, and today, the Shaw Racing package provides me with 44 of the 100 base cards from the 2021 Topps WWE Women's Division that I wouldn't have otherwise picked up.

I would probably rather a solid colour effect for the brand, rather than the white "light" interruption bands here, but it is what it is - they can't all be winning designs.

Becky6 starts the cards from a few of the insert sets, the best of which is the 55 card roster insert, of which I picked up 20 cards as per below.

The roster cards may be simple in purpose and design, but they are great.

Personal faves of the bunch here - I don't mind Liv, really like Shotzi and wish they had a bit more direction for her, and interested to see how Gigi fares.

One card from NXT 2.0 release, and speaking of expensive cards, a bunch of the newer Panini Prizm release which is priced higher than I want to pay.

A few inserts from the 2022 release as well to end it.

I appreciate all of the wrestling additions, and look forward to new year as I expect I should be able to trade another box back and forth next October with Shaw Racing again.