Story

The 2026 Lot comes with a reminder today - every card has a story. A story of how it was received, how it became part of a collection, how it travelled to get to where it is, a story that one can only guess many times, what the full story is. I am left with such questions on two different cards from the lot today.

This one is easy to identify as "what" it is. In 1994, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were huge, new, and everywhere. I was 14 at the time, and the timing of when the show was on in the morning, when little else was on, left it prime to be watched. I thought it was fine, but didn't go out of my way to watch it. I did like the green ranger and white ranger storylines, which were so different for a "kids" show.

Why is there only the one sticker? Sure, I am assuming that is the case as there is plenty of cards left in the lot, though I can say, there isn't a large run of stickers that I can spy. How did a single sticker come to be, instead of a full pack? Did someone collect along the way? No idea, but at least I know what it is.

This, I had no clue on. So, I did something I have never done before, downloaded and used Google Lens on my phone to search the web for information on what the heck this is, and - success!

Apparently, this is a card from a game called The Ressistance: Avalon which was published in 2012. Obviously not the English version, but it's a King Arthur themes bluffing style game which has a number of game cards like this. Here we have Percival - and the card's two lines of text are "Percival" and "Knows Merlin" underneath it, which is obviously game related.

An intriguing pick up, but begs questions like - why only one cards? How did it get into a card lot like this? Who is the poor soul who stopped being able to play their game because Percival went missing? Where will Percival go since I will just use him to package some trades?

Well, either way, the stories for these cards will not end with me....

More Snow In June

 As expected, we continue getting snow with the 2023 Topps Holiday baseball set, and that's a good thing considering I am now working on the set, and with the additions today move above the 50% mark on completing the base set with 106.200.

Haven't seen any of the short prints, and I am not expecting, and that is okay. I don't really see the draw of having photoshopped candy canes, or Santa hats on certain players, though at least it ties into the theme. Having the fake snow plastered across the background is enough of a tie in for me.

Solid number of additions, given the cards in this bunch, but the highlight is the triple Jays...

Like the Springer sprawl - though prefer the non-holiday version so the snow doesn't distract from a great card.

If anyone else has needs for the set, I still have a bunch of duplicates, but here is a snap shot from the traders added today...

As you can see, some in multiples. Always entertaining offers, so reach out if I can send anything your way, whether you have anything for trade or not, as I really need to start moving some cards out of the trader boxes.

No Need To Be Square

 Hello, first time attendee to the blog, another from the 2026 Lot - we have 2022-23 Donruss Optic basketball.

A surprise to none, it is the same design as Donruss for the year, just in Chrome form - so the cards don't scan nearly as well and the players look more like standouts in a dark gloom of a background. The cards look much better in hand, but one thing is clear on the cards...

I know it's part of the design, but why do we need the floating little white box under the Donruss Optic logi in the top left corner? I mean, is this the donut hole from the "O" that just feel from the logo, but didn't get cleaned up? What is the point of the little box? I swear, I'd expect there to be parallels either with a different colour block, or variations of the cards where the block is missing - I mean, this is Panini...

Getting use to Panini backs, these are standard enough, and luckily, no floating blocks to be seen, so I don' have to feel like I'm playing Minecraft or something. 

Lowry as a Heat...no thank you....you are and always will be a Raptor.

My first foray of cards into the set, and with it being 200 cards, not including the short printed/rookie cards of the final 50, a couple more grabs like this and I can get someone a nice start of the set if needed.

From The Grinch

Always a good day when a trade let's you finish a set, and this trade with TCDB member iamthegrinch. One of the few trades I initiate, the Paul Bearer card below was the last card in the 1999 Comic Images WWF Smackdown set I needed to finish the 72 card set.

Wasn't going to just trade and send a single card in a PWE, so we were able to expand it a bit, and I got some more wrestling cards in the trade accordingly.

It allows me to share My back in his pre-Ryback state as Skip. I wasn't a huge Ryback fan, but was 1,000 times better than Skip.

Still not a Chronicles fan by anyway, but happy to get them and nice to see...Rob...Van....Dam...

Thank you for the trade!

Change Of Mind

Sometimes, I don't plan to collect a set, but enough comes along in a lot that I figure, I like it enough - so let's go for it. We'll, that is what we have today with baseball's 2023 Topps Holiday set.

I went back and adjusted for the earlier cards I picked up, and then added some from today as well...

Those are all keepers and bump to about 1/3 done on the base set with more, I am sure, to come. I still prefer the designs with say, snowy edging instead of snow across all the background, but just personal preference there of course.

Nice pickup for the Jays collection with Gaus.

As for the duplicates...

Snow or not - I like that Albies card, great action shot.

No surprise the bump up I percentage with putting some cards to the collection instead of for trade.

Contending

 Not showing all the cards from 2020 Panini Contenders which all came from the 2026 lot today, but this will give a good sampling...

Aaron Rodgers as card number one - we have the usual Cobtenders design. I don't know what the significance, if any, for the game number is. I did however get 3 copies of the Gronk card for what it's worth.

The Titan uniform could easily go for a CFL Argonauts uniform.

Big Ben, and backs that lack stats. 

No inserts or parallels, but about 100 cards with a few dupes, but a good part of the base set. Should be good trade fodder for when I get active enough to reach out and initiate trades on TCDB. Which I promise will happen one of these days...

More Flagship

 The 2026 Lot is back with some more Topps baseball and we get some more set help today too...

No surprise for the flagship set that the help is mostly RCs since I think the lot I got before had many of them pulled. For the Opening Day set, I was working mainly from a couple blasters I bought, so still some holes to fill there. The Smith card is actually an error card addition given it's not Smith in the photo, but seven keepers works nicely for me.

Traders a plenty that I can, hopefully, eventually, turn into the cards I am missing...

A double shot of Martinez and EE...

I still love the ballpark photos on the team cards, and Rosario with the bunch of dirt still looks like a great card and stands out.

Almora and the Ivy stand out similarly as well. The more I see of these 2019 sets, the more I think they were one of the best sets of the 2017-2022 period and might stretch it even further than that actually.

Incompletions

Too much football today...see below, so let's share a trade in baseball since that will be a better share (well, better for my collection). I had a nice little PWE trade with TCDB member baseball_752 which netted about 1/3 of the remaining 2021 Topps flagship set cards I am missing - down to 20 on that front.

I don't think I have any big name rookie cards left, so completion is possible. We also had some Jays content in the trade too...

I have never been a big fan of the Fire set designs, but I'll take the Jays, thank you. Clase is a Jay if you look at the card. On the back, it's the Toronto name and logo....still counts to me, but I will want a second copy for the error collection as well.

A great trade and many thank yous.

Football on tap with the 2026 Lot today, and a few neat things to point out...

We start with an 80s 1000 yard insert - nice.

The bulk of the cards from today are what would have been completed box sets which were broken apart for whatever reason. The box set has the foil logo on the front, but otherwise is the same as the Topps set for the year.

Not sure why the single 2000 year card and a bunch of 1999, but so be it. As for the Platinum set cards, unlike the last ones, this bunch is actual base cards and not parallels.

We end with a Kelce card. I wonder how much of a Swift impact there has been, if any, on his card prices.

On Topps

 Baseball from the 2026 Lot today being some unexpected keepers...

Flagship Topps helpers isnt unusual but from the early 10s - nice....and a JJ Bowman insert too. The cards have generally been from the last few years, or the high production "junk" years, so nice to see a bit different here.

Some more 2019 Topps Heritage, though no keepers. Still need to see a bunch more before I consider collecting the massive set.

I may not be a big fan of Prizm, and in this case, the "Tier" system of the base set, but I can get behind seeing newer cards for Ozzie, Brooks, Robin (below), Brett (below as well), and Rod - very cool.

Not too bad a day and some solid trade fodder.

I Don't remember These...

 A bunch of football from the 2026 Lot today, but I'm going to focus on one card - top middle in the first scan....

I don't think I ever realized that the 1990 Pro Set football set had these Superbowl inserts. Apparently one a pack from the first series, I don't think I have ever had one in hand, and since I never opened football packs, wouldn't have come across them other than in a lot purchase like this. Well, with as much of the base set I have seen, this is the first insert that crossed my path.

It isn't anything specifically spectacular, but would have been cool for the time. I like the idea of an insert set highlighting all the Super Bowls to date, so thumbs up on content, and now I can at least say I have seen a card from it.

The Joe Montana league leader card from Fleer 1991 is a nice card highlighting a great.

Draft Pick sets are not my thing, but are big to Panini so we have some 2016 Contenders cards here - I know Rob at least. I'd much prefer more 2008 Topps Chrome cards like the Marshall card instead though, but maybe that's just me.

I do like the 2001 Donruss retro design and insert set from the 2021 product, nice.

If you were looking for "hits" for the day, the couple Brady cards are probably the winners as anything Brady is a good pick up when talking football. Last card up...

Doesn't show in the scan, but the corner is so bent out of shape, I am deeming this to be packing material. I try and be pretty good about condition of trade bait, and some, I just can't put up for trade, but I also can't just throw out cards, so it's a good way to keep them going with purpose.