More Martians?

Well, here it is, the first box I purchased since 2014. This 2017 Topps Mars Attacks Revenge box contains the entire set as well as a collection of parallels and hits.

I was expecting packs but instead Topps packed it out like a factory set with the base cards to the right and the parallels and hits to the left. One thing that got me wondering, why wasn’t the set packed in numerical order? The cards were in random order.

I went through the box quickly last night, I will collate the set and post what I pulled next week.

Panini Rewards? Well, At Least In Name

After sitting on Panini Points for longer than I can remember, I decided to just pick something because I was tired of waiting for anything special that fit in my collection. I scrolled through the dozens and dozens of cards from products like 2009 Elite Extra Edition baseball, 2011 Totally Certified football and 2014 Threads basketball for the teams I collect, and I was down to a couple of options. I ended up selecting a 2013-14 Spectra Indelible Ink of former University of Arizona great, Sean Elliott, and a base purple parallel 2018 Panini XR Football Russell Wilson. The Wilson card sent to me turned out to be a Christmas card, so that is pretty cool.

Toss in $5 for shipping and boom! Wait… I still have 200 points (facepalm)

Bear Down On Cardboard

Many moons ago, almost 7 months ago, Angus from Dawg Day Cards sent me an email asking if I was interested in a box of 1990 Collegiate Arizona Wildcats that he picked up. I am always happy to add any University of Arizona cards to my collection and having an entire box of Wildcats is even better. The box got put in a drawer with cards to be sorted and supplies and ended up getting covered before I unearthed it Tuesday night. 

The set was released in 1990 so busting this box brought back some wonderful memories for me when I was growing up in Tucson from 1979 through 1988. Adding to the fun was that some of the players, like my mini-PC Steve Kerr, had multiple cards in the set. 

Chuck Cecil was one of the hardest hitting DBs in the NFL playing for the Packers, Cardinals and Oilers. After his playing days he went on to coach for the Titans from 2001-2010 and then spent 4 years with the Rams. He is currently the Director of Player Development for the U of A. He is my second favorite Wildcat after Steve Kerr.

Kenny Lofton, best known for his 16 year MLB career, initially came to Arizona on a basketball scholarship and didn’t even try out for the baseball team until his junior year. He made a Final Four appearance backing up Steve Kerr in 1988.

Coach Jerry Kindall had a very unmemorable 8-year MLB career but while coaching the Wildcats he won 3 College World Series titles and the baseball field is now named after him. 

The final card I am highlighting is not someone I would expect most people outside of Arizona would know, Mo Udall. Following his freshman year at Arizona he went in to the Air Force during WWII (1942-1946), returning to the University after his enlistment was up. He was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 1948, becoming the first basketball player from the school to play professionally. He eventually went on to Congress, spending 30 years in the House of Representatives.

Thank you for the box Angus, that was very kind of you to think of me when you came across it. I was able to put together the entire 125-card set with three packs left and plenty of dupes. 

Can 5 Cards Make You A Supercollector?

Many people look up to Pat Tillman, myself included. The man gave up a career playing in the NFL to join the Army along with his brother, who gave up a career in baseball after signing with the Cleveland Indians. In 2004 he was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan. 

Pat Tillman’s NFL career was brief (1998-2001), and he only has a total of 8 cards, though TCDB only lists 6. The others being one that I believe was part of a 2001 Pepsi promotion and the other a mythological 2010 Leaf Sports Icons Cut Signatures Update #642.

I have five of the cards, I have seen the Pepsi card and the front of the 2017 Donruss Certified Cuts- Legendary Cuts while the Leaf card is a mystery to me. I see the 2010 Leaf card as one of those “If there are no pictures, it didn’t happen” situations. I don’t believe it exists unless someone can verify it. Either way, the 2017 Donruss and 2010 Leaf cards are listed as #1/1 so I have no hope of ever owning them, so the Pepsi card is now a White Whale.  

2001 Fleer Tradition #325

2001 Fleer Tradition Glossy #325

2001 NFL Showdown #13

2001 Upper Deck MVP #7

2001 Upper Deck MVP F/X #7

Question Day- Did You Take Part In The Sales?

Today is question day:

Did you take part of any of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales?

For the last few years I have taken part of COMC’s weekend sales, I prefer picking up singles over gambling with a box. Two years ago they included scratchers in the orders where people could win COMC credit or free shipping but they didn’t do it last year or this year. Instead they include $5 COMC credit with every 100 cards you have included in your shipment. This is part of the reason I don’t request shipment throughout the year until Black Friday.

This year I did something I haven’t done in a long time, I ordered a Mars Attacks Revenge box from Dave and Adams. This will be the first box that I have opened since 2013 or 2014 but this was just an exception due to the product. It was $29.95 and each box includes a complete base card set, 25 green parallels, a sketch card and one additional hit (autographs or printing plates). I am working on the Mars Attacks sets, otherwise I wouldn’t have purchased the box.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday.

Handle With Care

I have a couple of “glass” cards like Leaf’s Trinity Pure cards and they are cool, but they aren’t glass and not super thick. Panini has released a couple of glass cards over the past few years and I was able to add a 2016-17 Panini Absolute Glass Steve Nash to my collection.

It is thick, about 240-pts, and inside a mag case. The case is scratched, and I have considered removing it from the Panini case and putting it in to a new one, so it will display nicely. When I purchased it, I was a bit worried, I have seen some of the card arrive shattered, but the seller did a wonderful job packaging the card. He even emailed me when it showed delivered to make sure that it came in undamaged. 

It doesn’t scan very well so I went the picture route, ignore the phone reflection. If I do remove it from the case I will scan it first and post the image on TCDB.

Question Day- Your Questions

Today is question day:

Do you have any questions you would like to appear on my Monday Question Day?

Come See The Prince Of Crime, Just 25-Cents!

In August I received some cards that the sender creates packaging with just box tape and bubble wrap. I posted about it the day I received the cards, but I forgot to follow up with the actual cards. 

The cards are the Carnival of Criminals posters insert set, an 8-card insert from the 2013 Cryptozoic Batman: The Legend set. I am a bit disappointed that Cryptozoic didn’t make it a 9-card set and include Catwoman, my favorite Batman villain. 

The cards are a cool foil board set with each villain appearing on a poster that is reminiscent of the old side-show posters that were hung at carnivals in the late 1800s-early 1900s era. The backs have a write up about the character.

Junk Wax 2.0 Has It's Advantages

I had posted this on Twitter when I got the card a few weeks ago, so if this seems familiar you aren’t experiencing déjà vu. 

I picked up this 2018 Panini National VIP Allen Iverson relic at the end of October and I paid less for the card ($3.58) than I did for shipping ($3.75). Ten years ago, you wouldn’t think that picking up a two-color patch of a Hall of Famer that is #/25 for under $4 would have ever been a reality, yet here we are. 

It is player worn, but it is a nice addition to my Iverson PC and at 180-pt I think it is the thickest card I have. 

A Somber Rememberance

It was 11:11 on 11/11/1918 that the armistice was signed that put an end to The Great War, World War I. Entire towns were wiped off the map and weapons so destructive were used that the war was known as The War To End All Wars because people felt that mankind would never want to fight another war after seeing such brutality. 

In remembrance of the armistice that ended that war, I would like to share my World War I gray whale. From the 2009 Topps American Heritage Heroes set, the World War I Soldier’s Leggings. This card sat on my Wants List since day 1 but I removed it because I had not seen one show up in a number of years and replaced it with a card I figured I would have a better chance of finding. I was fortunate enough for it to show up two weeks ago, a bit high but I had eBay Bucks that were expiring and didn't want the card to slip through my fingers once again. 

The Art Gallery- 2015 Island Dreams Prohibition Pretties

This month’s Art Gallery display is from Pierre Beauchemin, who also does work under the name “Niceroad”. He is a freelance artist that does portrait work usually, but for this set he went with an action shot. 

The card is from the 2015 Island Dreams Prohibition Pretties release, a set based on the 1920s with lots of gangsters and flappers. Who doesn’t love a running gun battle between cops and some bootleggers? I watched this card for awhile and went back and forth on it but the gangsters won me over.

Illegal Motion... Eddie Jones... Failure To Return To His Original Position

Last month after I did the “So You Don’t Have To” segment where I plunged graded cards under water for a week and then cracked the cases, I tossed the cards in to my card drawer with the intent of putting them in to the proper storage boxes when I had the time. Well, the cards are still in the drawer, but Eddie Jones is a but curvier then he had been. Now, I love curves on a girl but curves on a card are a different subject. 

I figure that the water that got in to the case is what caused the bending. I know Finest, Chrome and Prizm tend to get a bit of a bend over time if stored improperly but I have never seen anything this extreme. It was graded a SGC 96, what do you think it would come back as now? 

Question Day- Who Deserved It?

Today is question day:

Who do you feel is the best athlete to never win a championship?

I did have some problems with limiting the list, but here is my final decision:

Baseball- Ken Griffey Jr., Ted Williams, Ty Cobb & Tony Gwynn

Basketball- Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson & Malone / Stockton

Football- Jim Kelly

Hockey- Pavel Bure and Henrik / Daniel Sedin

Former Toros

I know that there are people that collect cards of athletes from their alma mater but I went to an art school so there were no sports teams. I spent my early years in Tucson, home of the University of Arizona, so I have been a Wildcat fan since I was 7 years old. But some collectors, like Defgav, have extended their collection to include their high school too. 

I don’t see this as a regular segment for me, I don’t really want to add any more PCs to my collection until I close some off, but from time to time I will pick up cards from former Mesa Mountain View Toros who went on to successful college / semi-pro /professional careers. I plan on picking up relics and autographs with the occasional RC.

I will begin with John Beck. He went to Mountain View in the late 90s, going 25-2 over his two years as a starter and winning the 5A State Football Championship his senior year. He still holds the Arizona high school record for the best TD-INT ratio, throwing 42 TDs to only 4 INT in a season. After his Mormon mission he went to BYU before being drafted by the Miami Dolphins in the second round of the 2007 NFL Draft. He spent 5 years in the league, and another 2 in the CFL.  

First up is a helmet sticker from 2007 SAGE Aspire School Pride release. The stickers are the ones that were awarded to players for good plays. The sticker on the card is not from his helmet, but an unissued sticker.

The second is from the 2007 Leaf Rookies & Stars release, two bars from his facemask what was used at the 2007 Rookie Premier. This is my third facemask relic, I always thought these were pretty neat so a nice addition to my collection.