Vintage Leafs

I don't go out of my way to get vintage Leaf cards, but will be happy to collect them, I just always feel it isn't fair for me to offer various cards from other, newer eras, for older Leaf cards. Some people are more hesitant or against trading across eras. I am fine doing it, but have a hard time guessing how someone else values cards from one era to another. I always try to give me than I am getting in value, which is fine because a lot of the time, the cards I am trading, whether worth a quarter or a dollar, I picked up usually in large lots where I paid a penny or two, so always more than happy to pass along some of that savings to trade partners.

Gader08 on TCDB sent a request to provide some older (and a few newer) cards, so let's take a look.

I didn't finish and of the sets here for my Leaf team sets, but getting a 1974-75 O Pee Chee team card was fantastic, however the near perfect Clark rookie card is the best of the bunch. Some of the quality is "good" rather than mint, but that doesn't really bother me since I'd collect more copies of any of the above anyway.

Though I didn't get the cards in great numbers, the 1986-87 Topps set is one of, if not, the first set of hockey cards I remember getting a few cards from and thinking how awesome they were. For baseball, it was 1984 O Pee Chee, but I didn't really get a lot of cards until the late 80s when everyone was selling them.

Actually, since I did it yesterday for baseball, here are the top 5 Leaf names in my collection (if I were to guess, Gilmour and Sundin should be near the top):

Mats Sundin - 476

Wendel Clark - 266

Doug Gilmour - 258

Felix Potvin - 233

Dave Ellett - 195

Yeah, those feel about right, and nice Clark is up there too.

Not just vintage pick ups though, with a couple Timmies helpers and newer set additions to boot, but those vintage cards were great!

Another October Box Trade

 A smaller trade that I can cover in one post, as this one went across the border with US TCDB member shredtacular who was able too send me a bunch of Toronto cards and a few set helpers as well, so let's take a look!

We start great, with the second of two 1984 Toronto Fleer Stickers, so I have them both now, though there is still a variation I can pick up, but I consider it "complete" for the team "set".

The Dave Stieb's beside it are both one and done Jays for the respective releases as well.

A few of the cards ended up being copies as I was picking up the Jays card in multiple deals at the same time, like the Topps Dill Joe Carter card in the bottom left, but as I keep and collect the duplicates as well, works fine for me.

A number of Cruz Jr. cards in the trade as well. He is a name I have added a lot to my collection through TCDB trades with the late 90s and early 2000s being a period I didn't collect, and I think many did step away from the hobby at that time as well, so one of the gap times I have worked on filling the last 5-7 years.

I don't know why Victory sets worked so much better in hockey than baseball, but I don't like the baseball versions. Add in "Ultimate Victory" and yeah, doesn't impress me much at all. Maybe better than the off colour used for 2002 Topps Traded & Rookies, but not too much better.

With the additional Delgado cards, it got me wondering what Jays names top the list for my collection - so took a look, and here are the top 5...

Joe Carter - 432

Roberto Alomar - 378

Dave Stieb - 378

George Bell - 364

Kelly Gruber - 350

Carlos Delgado - 348

I added the sixth spot since that was where Delgado fell. Now, the interesting part is - those are the total card numbers, which makes sense given the dupes I have from the late 80s and early 90s. If I look at number of unique different cards, Carlos Delgado is actually first with 300.

With the ways cards are manufactured now - it's easy to get 300 different cards of a player - heck, some sets may have that many for a star player alone given inserts and parallels these days. Someone who played in the 70s and 80s may have 300 total cards for their career.

A few non-Jays to do a bit of work on a couple Opening Day base sets. I think I still have a blaster box for each, and some possible help in a baseball card lot that I may be able to start working through at the start of the new year, but we shall see.

Speaking of cards I was getting from two different sources, the Mosaic cards here are all dupes as I just got these all in from Shaw Racing I believe.

The Stadium Club team set is now done - yay! There was some hockey as well, and though I picked up a few Bruins for someone else, will leave those aside and just show the Leaf content.

Not going to make a comment about how a perfect Toronto Maple Leaf card is showing a golf pose....*sigh*...

Really appreciate the trade, and all the additions to the collection!

Trade With PaulGebauer

May not be creative, but the title is true - here is a trade from TCDB member PaulGebauer with cards to me that are all Jays...

Everything here is 1994-1995, right at the tail end of my collecting as a kid, so doesn't surprise I am still filling holes in my Jays collection.

I may not have completed any Jays sets with these cards, but a couple of the sets I like get some nice help here.

I like the 1994 Topps Gold parallels so Tony helps there, and any time I see the 1995 Studio credit card design, I really enjoy it. This marks three for the Jays team set on these, so a few more to go. A shame it wasn't earlier to highlight John's season average of .363 in 1993. Actually, people forget, that wasn't John's only season over .350 average as it was .354 in 1998 as a Met.

I also forget at times that Pacific was around in the mid-90s, as I always think of it more starting in the late 90s, but proof it was a 1995 set too!

Panini Panono

As we inch closer to the holiday season, we continue with the gift of trades and what they bring to the collection. Today, a PWE trade with TCDB member George1369 who was kind enough to send along a bunch of Panini cards, which I am appreciative of, but which we can discuss one of my biggest complaints about Panini.

My complaint - all of these cards are in the 2022 Panini Chronicles base set. I can understand having a subset design or a couple different designs. I can understand Archives, which isn't my preference, but using a few different throwback designs for a single base set.

Here, in 13 cards, we have 11 different designs. Thank goodness that the back of each card does reference the set, but man, how many different designs do you need for a single base set? I love when a set has uniformity to it. Put it in a minder and page after page looks similar in design, but different in photo/subject.

The good - there are actually a couple designs here I do like, and wouldn't mind as a full set - See Stone Cold and Queen Zelina, but this mish-mash set for Chronicles - just not my thing. It's still wrestling though, so I still collect it.

As for stars on cards - though I appreciate Stone Cold, Ripley wins as she's become such a great talent these days. Here's to seeing if Roxanne Perez can do the same, though she's built a bit different.

As always, appreciate the trade!

Duskmourn

It has been a couple months since this one was released, but I finally picked up some of the artifact cards and packs for my collection for this expansion. 

A solid October release ahead of Halloween given the "horror" theme, a good fit for MTG.

Some of the cards very much remind me of the Saw movies - why, probably the trap type names like Attack-In0THe-Box ir the Bear Trap, but definitely fitting the theme. The flavour text is pretty on point and cool as well as those two cards specifically are pretty solid in their comments.

Fitting enough that one of the cards is called Saw given my analogy above. None of the cards, from a play perspective, are overwhelming, but solid bunch all around for the theme and look, so I am happy with them. Still a number I didn't pick up as prices are always high on first release for rares, and typically (but not always) come down considerably after.

With that brief 401games related pickup, back to more trade sharing tomorrow, and likely the rest of this month.

Unexpected Giftings

 So once again, local Toronto collector Jeff graciously dumped a bunch of card stuffs on me, and I can only start with a big thank you as there is a lot of useful stuff here and fun stuff too.

Yeah - sideways and I am not going to fix it now - I prefer scans, but for unopened materials like this, it was just easier.

So looking at my needs, my 1991-92 Parkhurst set build is missing 10-20 cards from the second series, so that's good enough reason for me to put this aside as something to open in the future.

For the 1990 Upper Deck set - see discussion below on that one as far as the set build goes, but yeah, that'll be a fun one to open as well so saving it for a future share.

As for the Pro Set Series 1 box - I am missing a handful of error cards in it, and wouldn't mind the opportunity to crack a box of this error filled product for fun and sharing so it goes into the "open me" pile for later.

So from these, definitely a few small set keeps, and I will get to split up my try on builds for 1989 Fleer and 1990 Upper Deck since these are full sealed and excellent condition. Will take some time reorganizing for those, but excellent additions!

I know that the two The Rookies years are ones I don't have, as are the two Topps Traded sets - I have 87, 88, 90 and 91, so almost a full string, save the missing Griffey card.

The 1990 Fleer Update is complete and sealed, as is the 1991 Upper Deck Final Edition, so both additions there. The 1989 Score Rookie & Traded is missing Joel Belle and Junior, but I'll look to get those two cards now to complete it since I have the jazzy box as well.

The other items, will be finding happy new homes at some point.

Loose packs for random opening here and there for fun? Works for me! A couple of the McD packs were needs for the unopened pack collection, but the rest will make for future fun sharing!

There were loose cards as well which I'll get to sharing sooner than later for sure, but off the top, some 1982 Topps helpers, a few "hits" which are amazing, and a dabbling of Toronto cards too.

Definitely made for a great early Christmas exchange, and again leaves me thinking I don't get enough Bruins cards to supply back to Jeff, though I do have another decent pile started at least as I can't thank him enough for the surprise giftings of cards.

The End

 Today, the final of completing Jays team sets from the Shaw Racing trade, so let's go!

The Obsidian card is fantastic, and though I am not a big fan of the newer Donruss sets, I still like completing them 

.I think this is the entire Mosaic base set all picked up in this one transaction.

Not seeing double but the series one and series two Hone Run Derby cards look almost identical - but still are different!

Can I get a full out poster of the Like Father Like Son card - that is a great poster!

I think this may be my first completed Holiday set.

Good old "Mascot". I guess we didn't want to call him Ace for some reason, or it wasn't filled in on the final card that went to print.  

The Bichette Topps Bkack Gold throwback design looks near identical, very cool.

A number of one card sets, and a number of them Vladdy - go figure.

We end nicely with the UK base set complete, and Donruss too.

Definitely made a big dent in my Jays who were MIA, big thanks again to Shaw Racing for the massive trade!