A Nice Treat

 Well, if getting one Toronto card in a pull of 50 is great, today was definitely a treat.

Here we get a handful of 1994 Collector's Choice baseball cards which are still heavy on players who won the World Series in Toronto just the couple years before.

Though not a fan of horizontal cards, hard to argue with using them when you have cards that turn out much better like Alomar and Guzman.

These also highlight what were supposed to be the next stars in Toronto and although Green did fairly well throughout his career, his best days were not in Toronto.

Some more keepers with another High Liner old-time recognition card of teams from WAY back. Here we have the Winnipeg Victorias who won the Stanley Cup in 1896.

A couple more One on One Challenge game cards don't hurt - and Jim Carey was always one to make me smile given the name similarity to Jim Carrey the actor who I always enjoyed.

No better day for an appearance by Cliff Floyd. Well, I know where he will be headed. With COVID, I had been bad at getting back into the habit of sending packages off to people (packages of the surprise kind - trades always went out ASAP but had kept them to PWEs). 

1999 Stadium Club could definitely tempt me into collecting it if we see enough of it. The cards are nice stock, though a bit curved, but the photography is what you expect from it - wonderful!

Not a complaint, just an observation - but there's been a lot less football lately from the lot.

Looking at percentages from what has come, 40% has been hockey (yay!), 25% basketball, 16% baseball and 15% football. So, it's been the lesser of the four. Wonder if it'll make a comeback at some point, but hoping not for my own collection wants/needs.

Hope all have a nice Halloween!

Three Quarters

 Three quarters is always a good milestone when completing a set. Being most of the way there, still with some room to go, but with the end zone or finish line, or goal posts, in sight.

These cards help bring me over that 75% line with the 1991-92 Parkhurst hockey set.

Luckily needed most of the run of cards from the start of the second series on the 475 card set. Taking card of a bunch of B-team players...as in Boston and Buffalo...not necessarily second tier. Cards including a second copy of an uncorrected error card...

Another set from the era which doesn't bring me anything to keep is heavily in the rest...

Still a great design as were most early Upper Deck sets.

We have some unneeded Parkhurst as well and...

What looks like the base cards from a pack of 2003-04 O Pee Chee in all of it's teal goodness.

Last up, a quick insert from basketball...

A very plain checklist, but an inserted checklist nonetheless.

Let's end another post with a PWE, this one from TCDB member Vader099 who sent along these...

A nice bunch of cards from California. Unfortunately, he learned a tough lesson in sending as it was his first mailing, and they stuck him with customs, etc instead of sending it as a true PWE. To all those in the US reading here - I am always happy going by PWE with trades across the border. I have had no issues, and it is a hobby, so there's no rush if the mail takes a couple weeks.

The Cujo was a nice bonus here, and the 2 Topps cards finish of the massive 5 card Leaf team set so a couple nice wins!

Thank you for the trade and hoep we can do more, less costly ones, in the future!

Hockey Heavy

 Not going to complain when most of the cards coming out of the lot are hockey as I am bound to get something good.

A new Leaf card definitely fits that as I didn't have this 1999-2000 Upper Deck MVP Berard card before. Definitely seen the design plenty as the Euro set from the same year which has come up in the lot plenty, had the same design.

A couple more nice additions with another One on One Challenge card, and a nice silver signature parallel from the MVP set mentioned. Always appreciate when players incorporate their number into their signature, a nice added touch.

As for the rest...

Adding to the Pinnacle cards here, but no matter what the card, that Beaupre photo is fantastic!

Touched on the basketball yesterday and that there were 10 cards MIA, well, here we get two of them to be down to 8 MIA on the 110 card set. Still expect no Shaq, Pippen, Barkley, Ewing, etc, but not bad.

Keeping with the hockey heavy theme, here is one of a number of PWE trades I have on the go, but this one of course has come in while others are on their way.

TCDB member blargh, who is a fellow Ontarian, made an offer and sent these along. I am not a fan of the Contenders sets at all, but will of course collect the Leafs. These actually help to complete the pure base (not including the SN cards) of 2017-18 Upper Deck Artifacts with the last two Leafs here (okay, there's only 3 all together anyway).

Definitely a bunch of cards I would likely not have found myself out in the wild.

Many thanks!

Closer to Completing

 Yeah, getting closer to completing a set that I wouldn't be keeping anyway because it's basketball...so let's look at the highlight for me first.

Yup - a dupe Leaf card from a solid Upper Deck set. Unfortunately, not a variation from the hologram that would make in new to me, but that's okay. If I pulled a Toronto card every day, I'd be happy.

As for the nearing set completion part....have to look into the rest and specifically 1997-98 Topps Basketball.

There were enough cards missing from the 110 card base set when I last pulled through, I didn't bother getting a list of all those MIA, but I will do that here as I think this covers "the rest".

So, who is still missing?

1 - Scottie Pippen

7 - Damon Stoudamire

17 - Charles Barkley

32 - Patrick Ewing

46 - David Robinson

54 - Allen Iverson

100 - Dominique Wilkens

104 - Shawn Bradley

107 - Charles Oakley 

109 - Shaq

To be honest, given what we have seen thus far, I expect we may see 100, 104 and 107 - guys we have seen before, but the rest, I can believe would have been pulled as the stars...and Damon as a PC guy for someone else.

An interesting way to look at what other people collect I guess.

No Choice

Quick thoughts...just because these are on mind today....

I know - baseball is at the stage of presenting a World Series. I know I don't have any real preference on who should win, though maybe I have a slight leaning towards Atlanta given the two. I know I likely will not watch any of it and just catch highlights, unless we get to a game 7 maybe. I know many of you are probably more interested in it than me. I am just not that into this one - sorry.

I am also not "into" Panini becoming the new exclusive partner for WWE trading cards. I thought the writing was on the wall when Topps lost baseball, and this one is like a nail in the coffin. I don't know what Topps' plan is when it comes to trading cards going forward, but Topps in 2020 versus wherever Topps is in 2026 is going to be so very vastly different.

On the other side - maybe I should be happy that it wasn't Fanatics that took over WWE, and that it was Panini.

 No choice today - it's all going to be what it's going to be...though maybe we should all just start making our own custom card collection.

Well, one place we can get choice, with the Collector's Choice additions!

1996 baseball - which I only started collecting because of pulling the cards in this lot - has a couple decent subsets which you see here between the Stat Leader and Rookie Class cards. Not a big fan of the background on the Rookie Class cards, but they do stand out, and seem very flag-like.

The international subset is not as good to me, but mostly because I think they could have done a better job with the background as it's a bit big, you don't get the country feel - maybe a continent with it highlighted or something would have been better to me. A nice Palmeiro - another player I think was a bit underrated through his career.

Wasn't just set additions from this one, some hockey too...

The 1990-91 O Pee Chee was one of the first I collected and really liked. Here we have the Topps version which is mostly similar, but that I am also working in because I liked the O Pee Chee version that much.

Of those cards, one error add...

Dupes on the go out...with backs to show for Collector's Choice as they do differ between the subsets.

Awesome bunch, even the dupe Upper Deck checklists.

Dabblings

 These are fun pulls with great variety from the 20k in 20 Lot, which definitely looks to need a renaming to maybe 25k in 20.

These are the smattering of new cards for the 1996 Collector's Choice build and run through both series which is good. Jaha and Greeg stand out for me as guys I remember watching back in the day. I guess Steve Young as a name - though wrong sport here.

We also get two more hologram variation additions. I still just count these as base cards in my totalling, the hologram is such a minor item and most don't consider it a different card.

Ridley is another new addition for my Leaf collection out of 1994-95 Pinnacle which is nice.

We actually also get a couple inserts:

These should have just done a Biography stand alone set with this design instead of a stand alone. A set akin to Documentary in baseball. Though a massive base set to do so would mean big bucks spent in trying to put it together....

As for the rest...

First Class Giants is only a small handful subset in Collector's Choice, though could have done really well as a 50 card insert or more. Love these newer cards of stars from the past.

A bunch of hockey from sets we have seen fairly recently.

And some recent basketball too - though didn't get these subset cards yet, so a little closer to a complete set...not that it matters for my collecting.