One Card Post - A Nice Hockey Pull

What:  2013-14 Upper Deck #C91 - Ryan Spooner Young Guns Canvas RC
Where:  Pulled from a pack (retail tin from Dave & Adam's Card World)
How Much?:  Tin was $15.95 and had 12 packs, so each pack was around $1.33

Why?:  For a guy like myself who doesn't buy a whole lot of unopened wax, this was a pretty cool pull.  I'm a full-fledged fan of the Canvas inserts from Upper Deck, and the Young Guns seem to be particularly tough pulls (in fact this is the only one I've ever pulled myself to date).  To land one of a Boston Bruin was the icing on the cake.  I like it even more now that Spooner has become a regular with the B's.  In fact, he's tied for the team lead in games played this season (56 of the team's 57 games)!

Top of the Order

The latest PWE to arrive as part of the never ending back and forth between Mark Kaz of This Way to the Clubhouse and I was possibly the most random assortment yet.  For example, I wasn't even sure what this Roger Clemens game card was when I first laid eyes on it.  Turns out it's from a game Donruss released in 1995 called Top of the Order.

Mark must have run across a nice stash of these at some point, because he included four in this particular PWE.

I didn't bother to take it to the level of researching how to actually play the game, but these are certainly nice oddball additions to my Red Sox collection.

From there let's take a look at another odd card from a set I'd never seen before...

This one hails from 1995 Classic Five Sport.  Aside from baseball and basketball I'm assuming football and hockey are on the checklist, not entirely sure on the fifth sport.  A unique addition to my Nomar collection in any event.

My third Red Sox card from 2003 Fleer Rookies & Greats.  Maybe not the world's most exciting design, but with only 75 cards in the set I think the trio that I have may represent a full Sox team set!

Continuing on with the random and obscure, I doubt (m)any of you have heard of Reid Engel before.  I certainly hadn't prior to receiving this package, but there were a pair of Reids to be found...

Reid never advanced any further than AA ball and hung up the spikes for good after the 2009 season.  The various parallels that exist of this card, two of which I have here, plus a TriStar Projections base card are the only officially released Engel cards that I can find.

This is my first 1999 Pacific Invincible card, and I have to say that I dig the design.  Like most collectors I've heard weigh in on the subject, Pacific is hit or miss for me but you certainly have to admit that they were innovative at the very least.  This particular design has the inset portrait printed on a plastic type material and looks pretty slick in hand.

Closing out this envelope is this killer "Seventh Inning Stretch" Looney Tunes card from Upper Deck.  This one brought back some memories for sure, as my brothers and I had quite a few of these cards in our childhood collections.  This is the first one that's made it into my present day adult collection, and it's perfect.  Not only does it fit my Nolan Ryan collection, but the animated character is rocking a Red Sox uniform so it doubles as a new Sox card as well.

Mark, you've outdone yourself this time, every card in this post but the Manny is from an entirely new set for me!  Thanks as always, I packaged up a return PWE for you this morning that will be in tomorrow's mail...

Signature Sundays - The Heater from Van Meter

After showcasing some "lesser known" guys for Signature Sundays last weekend, let's do a complete 180 back to a HOFer this week in the form of Bob Feller!

I know Bob signed about a billion autographs before his passing late in 2010, but that doesn't make this one any less special to me.  Having a card that was held in hand and signed by Mr. Feller that pays tribute to a feat he accomplished all the way back in 1936 is beyond awesome.

All of his other career accolades aside, the one feat mentioned on this card alone is beyond impressive.  In his first career start, at just 17 years old, Feller K'd 15 batters.  He came out in his very first inning as an MLB starter and struck out the side at an age where many of us were still in high school!

This is my 15th Emerald Autograph from this set, which is much further along than I ever thought I'd get given the names on the checklist...

Draft Folder Backlog

It's been a very busy week for me, with next to no time for scanning and organizing.  Thankfully I had a healthy backlog of scanned cards from last year saved in various draft states that I never got to.  Today seems as good a day as any to clean them all up and consolidate them into a post.

Let's start with one of my guilty pleasures, buybacks.  I grabbed the seven that I'm showing today off of Sportlots many months ago because they were all minor stars from the '70s and each set me back $1.25 or less.

Aside from being a fan of the old-school team photo cards, this one was all about the fact that the legendary Dick Williams was the manager of this Expos team.  Awesome card for sure.

Pete Vuckovich and his epic mustache, courtesy of '79 Topps.

I always think of Nelson Briles from his earlier days with the Cardinals, but couldn't resist this card nonetheless.

Love this pre-game warm-up shot of the great Vada Pinson.

Closing out the buybacks is a super off-center (top to bottom) card from the '72 Topps World Series subset prominently featuring HOFer Brooks Robinson.

If you've been reading my blog over the years, you may recall that I've been very slowly chipping away at these one-per-hobby-box yellow parallels from Champ's hockey.  The Black and Gold of the Bruins' sweaters is a perfect match as far as these go...

You can't often find these for less than at least a couple bucks per, even for the less collectible players, so when I found a handful for around a buck each I jumped at the opportunity.

There are a hundred of these in total, so it's unlikely at best that I'll ever knock out the set.

This handful brings me up to 24, just one more will bring me to a quarter complete...

Pulled this Kevin Youkilis from a pack of 2009 O-Pee-Chee.  I don't need any more sets to chase right now, if anything I'm working on downsizing my collection, but if I was going to pick another one to go after this set would be very high on the list.

I think I can safely say that Wonderful Terrific Monds is the most unique name in my entire autograph collection.  I've seen a few of this guy's cards over the years but didn't know he had a certified auto out there until I stumbled upon this one on eBay (and for little money no less!).

I don't collect football cards at all, but I am a Patriots fan so somehow ended up with a couple of cards via a dime box dig just because.

These are a perfect example of cards I would pass on now that I'm trying to stay more focused, and I'll probably end up sending them out in a trade package at some point.

I scanned this one in for no other reason than I really dig the ballpark background and unique perspective used in the photograph.

Another example of lack of focus, these two Heritage Minor League cards were purchased for the simple reasons that I enjoy minor league cardboard...

...and they were the minimum price of 18 cents on Sportlots.

From that same Sportlots order, this Gold Foil parallel is the 30th Mookie Betts card in my Sox collection!  Really looking forward to watching this guy hopefully progress even further in 2016.

Lastly, another '52 Topps that I picked up for $6 during a pretty epic antique store run last year.  Well, that was fairly scatter-brained and not all that interesting.  Hopefully I'll have time to come up with something more organized and relevant over the long weekend!

One Card Post - Museum Collection Bubble

What:  1995 Pinnacle #128 - Ken Griffey Jr. - Museum Collection Parallel
Where:  eBay
How Much?:  $4.99 (plus $1.95 shipipng)

Why?:  Why not?  I've always considered this one of the more recognizable cards of the '90s.  I've wanted a copy of the Museum Collection parallel for a long time now, so when one popped up for $5 at the tail end of last year I jumped.  While I don't collect Junior specifically, I love picking up cheap to mid-range cards like this one of the latest HOFer.  Classic.

Sticky Whalers

The most recent trade package I received from longtime friend of the blog Douglas Corti, aka buckstorecards, contained enough Hartford Whalers stickers to coat a Trapper Keeper!  In fact, inside was close to an entire team set of 1988-89 Panini Stickers.

Amazingly, I had none of these in my entire collection prior to receiving this group.  The players are nice, but I like these first couple of stickers even more.  The logo sticker that led off the post is cool, but this one featuring the home and away "kits" (sorry, my inner soccer fan sneaking in there) is even more interesting.  This is back during a time when the white sweater up top would be home and the dark would be away.

For a smaller sized surface area, Panini did okay with the design for these.  The larger right portion of the sticker contains an action photo, and the left a portrait shot with player and team name.

I'm betting there are some epic mullets to be found on the checklist, but the Whalers stickers are fairly tame by '80s hockey hair standards.

Kevin Dineen gives you a nice look at those solid green road get-ups!

Ron Francis' 'fro looks like you could bounce a quarter off of it!

The last two Whalers cards on the checklist are kind of cool...

...as they each represent one half of a complete team photo.  Put them together and you get something like this:

I would have probably stuck these all over the place when I was a kid, was very thoughtful of Douglas to hook me up with all of them and give my Whalers collection a nice boost.

Oh and he included one baseball card too, an awesome autograph of catcher Blake Swihart from 2014 Bowman Sterling.  Because Douglas is just that kind of guy!

Thanks for the great cardboard always!  I'll have a return PWE on the way up north within the next few days I hope...