More Panini's Donruss

If you like football, and the brand Donruss as done by Panini, you'll like today! 

A whole bunch of this set to share today - so much, I am not even going to scan it all! 2023 was already three years ago....man time flies. Panini got good use out of the design with both basketball and football using the treatment this yar. As for the cards, plenty of good stars and players, though it is lacking on the rookies as it was definitely picked over before the lot made it to me.

A nice bunch of Bills cards. Won't be for me, but may find there way to someone else relatively easily as Bills fans are as common as Argo fans around Toronto.

Given the almost couple hundred cards, surprising not a lot of duplicates, though a few in the bunch.

To show the stars are still here, we have another Mahomes card. As great as he is, not sure he has more name power than Kelce though, thanks to the Swifties. Not going to have a complete set by any means with this one, but probably 2/3 done on the base cards. I really need to find someone who wants a boost to collecting some decent football base sets.

Birthday Month Pickups

It's August, and my birthday is a couple weeks away, but I did a little spend over at Pastime Sports. I have purchased from them a few times over the years and they are Canadian - located out in British Columbia. I find they are good for random older packs for my unopened pack collection and the odd cheaper older box here or there, and that about covers what I picked up in this order.

This was the one box pick up. 36 packs of 1991 Swell which is a product I like but haven't had many cards of. Given it's a 150 card base set, and this box provides 36 packs with 10 cards each, I am hoping this means I will have a complete set.

The rest - packs for the unopened pack collection...

I have a good run covered with O Pee Chee, so we get a couple more years covered there, and a Parkhurst 90s pack I didn't have.

The rest are baseball related...

The bookmarks are an amazingly unique pick up to go with some early 90s versions of packs from sets I didn't have highly represented.

The wide variety of look to how packs were done back is the 90s is fantastic and why I collect these. I mean, you get the basic foil with no player, highlights for a player, simple, graphics, just all so coll and different.

Stadium Club packs have been all over the place in design - again, very cool, but very different. Studio at least kept their packs pretty similar year to year.

Later 90s packs are a solid pick up, just outside the "junk" years, a little harder to find these so nice to also see a Fun Pack too.

A solid purchase all around and great additions to the unopened pack collection. I do recommend taking a look at least at their site, never know what interesting pick ups you may find!

Chrome Prospercting

The Lot is very good today as we get a bunch of Chrome Prospects from the 2024 Bowman offering - all inserts so one of each is kept with some coming with duplicates which go up for trade, but let's see who we get...

Bonilla was nice enough to show up in Triplicate for the Jays collection which works for me. From what he has been doing in rookie ball, not sure how far he is going to be making it in the minors, but time will tell. I mean last year we had Trey Yesavage fly through the minors, so you never know.

Most surprising to me - I didn't realize we had a card for Homer Bush Junior. I remember Homer Bush - didn't know we had a junior trying to make the bigs!

A decent bunch of keepers for the set, but one that I always think will be a more interesting set to look at 5 years later to see where they ended up.

Contending

Buying mixed sports card lots, sometimes you have to contend with cards you may not want to have and the challenge they pose in trading to something you want. Sometimes the cards are from a Panini Contenders set, and here we have both.

Like it or not, Kelce has become a household name due to the Swift impact. Amazing how much pressure that must put on any relationship.

As much as I have figured out about the card design - I just realized I don't know if the game number has any relevance. It does differ between the cards, so my guess is yes, but I don't know without looking it up....unless someone out there can shed light first.

Definitely going to have to find some football for baseball or hockey (hockey probably much less likely) trades to move these at some point.

zhouston03 Trade

 Exactly what it sounds like, I did a PWE trade with TCDB member zhouston03 and we ended up with a nice number of twam set completions which, I can't say I was planning, but are always a nice surprise with trades like this.

1995 Gold Leaf Rookies insert set has all of two Jays, and the second one is here to finish that team set with A. Gon. We have a nice "not Delgado" card from Pinnacle for fun too.

2011 Bowman was a busy one as I got the last two of six base Blue Jays to complete the base team set, as well as sole Jays inserts from First Futures and Topps of the Class. The gold parallels I still need work on, but getting four team sets knocked out of the way is pretty darn cool for a PWE!

It always amazes me just how much Bowman product there is with all of the inserts, parallels and draft coverage they try to do, it's just a lot of cards and many are ones that didn't quite make it there. Still, I guess it provides something for team collectors to collect that are off the regular path from the standard flagship regular star players.

As always, a much appreciated trade!

In A Half Shell

Some MTG catch up today as I picked up some more packs from earlier this year.

It came to my attention that the Play booster packs went back to multiple pack art designs where sets had moved away from that for a few years. Does mean I need three per release again instead of just one if I want to cover all the artwork.

Add in so the packs for the TMNT / MTG crossover from Universes Beyond, and it became a more expensive 401games order.

The singles from TMNT were more minimal...

Do like the use of the turtle head as the set logo. Also, there of course must be pizza! The couple play boosters though came with a purchase of...

This set is one of the nicest crossovers that I may even have a bit of interest in seeing in hand. Add in a good price, and I have some packs to open later with this one.

Great box artwork though. Going to be hard to ruin it...but alas I will at some point.

What only gets better when opening though, is PWE trades. Before signing off for today, I have one to share from TCDB member Ricky_Bobby which touches on most of the different wants I collect.

We have some base set building help. 2020 Topps flagship set is now about 90% complete, and the Bruins Ultra card - was going to be for local collector Scott, but happens to be a card I need for a set build...so I'll look for a second copy for him at some point.

Jays and Leafs are always a priority. Pearson completes the Prospect Jays insert team set of four cards, while the Marnet Superstar Showcase is the second Leaf for completing that insert set.

Additional copies of Leaf cards from Timmies sets I work to complete, and other TImmies cards are always a welcome addition too. I'll have to go put those into the respective binders....which, one day hopefully will actually get completed.

Not Enough

Before we get to cards from the 2026 Lot, a quick share of some more Magic card pickups from 401games as I scoured through a few more commander sets to pull artifacts for my collection.

We start in 2020 with the Zendikar release and related Commander cards. Sure, some cards we see in many sets like Mind Stone, but the rares are nice (cheaper) pick ups with Bonehoard, Scytheclaw and Seer's Sundial.

My absolute favourite pick ups for the bunch are the Brothers' War commander set cards in the retro brown borders. You will never get me to agree the change to the silver border was a better choice in colour - I am old school and want my artifacts in the retro brown border always.

Colfenor's Urn is an interesting defensive card. If you have creatures which are going to be lost, a good way to bring them back with the use of the card, even if you lose the card after it's used.

No complete sets here, but more artifact cards now than I had before. All in, my Magic card collection is the smaller than baseball or hockey, but just ahead of wrestling - both those are only around 6,000 - 7,000 cards. Actually, speaking of hockey though, we can lead into the Lot...

Just like the Leafs didn't have enough going for them last season to be anywhere near the Stanley Cup, the 2026 Lot didn't provide enough of 2022-23 O Pee Chee Platinum's base set to have me want to fi fishing the build. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy what we did get.

Sweet as these keeper Leafs include new to me Tavares. Of course Tavares really made his career outside of Toronto, but his captaincy in Toronto was important as he was the first permanent captain in about 3 years, and the 25th captain in Team history.

If you like Chrome type cards and the O Pee Chee brand, this set is for you! Personally, I prefer the regular O Pee Chee with the massive set and when it was brown cardboard.

If you like write ups - look elsewhere as the cards are stats - and unfortunately not complete ones if your career is over about 7 years.

Sid The Kid is here!

Unfortunately the picture selection is very consistent through the set - on ice but no action in order to focus on the player without background "noise". A choice, but not my favourite way to go.

Good news for anyone looking for some set help though, just let me know.