Collecting This 'n' That

 Today we showcase the 2004 Fleer InScribed issue. A complete set all paged up. Why? Because it is so clean, classy, innovative, and why not. This is another re-pack inspired set. One card in hand, I had to work on this! Trading for these on TCDB was a real challenge. There weren't many available. It seems like the early aughts are a real missing era of cards for trading.  In the fall of 2019 I bought a box. Just for laughs today I checked eBay to see if any are available. I found one box, at more than double of what I paid. Not unexpected. If you want one you best get it soon. I don't think there are many more out there.  Let's begin the page turning, The black bordered legends start at #76 and are serial numbered out of 1000. They are quite pretty in hand.  The final 15 are the short printed rookies, numbered out of 750.  Here are some insets and parallels I have picked up along the way. I don't think I am going to chase any of these sets. None of these really...

Shoppers today seemed a little crankier today while waiting for the poor cashiers to do their thankless jobs. It's contagious. I was getting cranky listening to the crankiness, so I wandered away form the cart and Mrs. TnT.   Our store has two card sections, and I ended up at the display nearest the front of the store. Here they have the clearance packs, the odd new packs, but mostly the stuff no one wants anymore.  I could see the look of disdain in her eyes as three packs were placed at the driver's end of the cart. What? I silently said.  I don't remember if I had opened any of these Chronicles packs. It's hard to keep track. Let's see how this twenty bucks did. First up, basketball. Interesting, but meh. Football time, Indifferent. Archives time, Nothing spectacular. I guess my mini hot streak is over.  What did this twenty bucks get me. It gave me an escape even if it was for only a little while.  Thanks for reading and keep collecting. Let's try to ke...

My first season of serious collecting and card activity was the winter of 1974-75.  With my allowance and the money my grandfather - grandparents are the best - would give me on the sly, I managed to get to nearly complete the 1974-75 OPC hockey set. One short! Well, actually I was really good at our version of card flipping games. In Toronto back in the seventies kids played "knock down", "topsies" and "farsies". If you don't remember or know of these games they all included firing cards at the brick wall outside of our grade school. Any wall would do though. Winners either knocked down leaning cards, landed on, or landed closer to the wall than the other kids' flicks. These games certainly rounded the corners, but I couldn't let my mother know why. She did not approve of me gambling so I let her believe I was just a shrewd trader to get the missing cards.  One card that eluded me be it in packs, trades, or games, was the Stanley Cup special ...

While watching the Bills hang on to a win I had to rip the Archives blaster I picked up the other day. I'll get to that in a moment. I think the game against KC is going to be a close one. I'm not a fan of either team, nor am I a hater, but if I have to choose a team to root for it will be Go Bills! Now to the business at hand, seven packs of eight cards. Here's what we got, The expected four black parallels. A decent mix of players. Not too shabby. Next the three expected inserts. NO there is not a pink parallel of these . That's my scanner behaving badly. Good god, I will need to work on some settings.  And here we have a very unexpected auto! Sweet! Checking all of the usual places I cannot find pack odds for these. As of yesterday some sites were still listing the odds as TBA. Others did not even have them listed yet. If anyone knows please add in the comments below.  My overall take on this product is Topps Archives has been a little more casual in their "trib...

The last time our big box card aisle had any kind of racing cards was back in 2022 with Topps Turbo Attax F1 which was not my thing at all.  So it was quite a surprise to see these packs.  I grabbed one and then I looked at the price tag on the display. Just about choked on my tongue. Who do they think they are, Panini. With tax nearly a buck a card - the exchange rate is a killer.  Oh well, let's see what this holds. The cards are really nice. High quality stock, great shots, a Stadium Club vibe to these. Here are some sample base cards, fronts and a back. Now some inserts and parallels,  A chrome parallel - there were two in this pack.  This is a red foil parallel, The highlight of the pack. Blue foil parallel. It is numbered out of 50. Trust me - the number is on the bottom left corner - my scanner didn't pick it up well. Piastri had a couple of wins in 2024 and 4th in points. I am very happy with this card.  Not a bad pack after all! ___________________...

Today we have a real mixed bag of some new acquisitions from the past couple of weeks. It is fun to find cards that are little known and uncatalogued. It does seem to make the money flow out faster, though none of what you will see was big money, far from it. _____________________________________________________________ I first saw these cards on a local Facebook listing for what seemed to be a decent price. Before I sent message I needed to learn more about these. In that poking around I came upon an eBay listing that was about half the price with shipping included.  This oddly shaped set of 45 cards was issued by the beer brewing company, Molson, to commemorate pavilions of forty-five countries at the Expo67 World's Fair in Montreal. They came in their own box, shame this one has seen better days. The cards themselves are in great shape. Most have six sharp corners. Huh?...yup.  ____________________________________________________________ For whatever reason I seem to be dr...

 It has been a busy week at the day job and that has not left much time for cards this week. And now I'm getting "the look" and that means I have broken the rule . No leaving unprocessed cards laying around . Let's fix that with a quick post. A little something different today, soccer. I went to the card aisle looking for the newly released Archives. Nada. This is what I walked out with though,  It was surprisingly cheap. Perhaps mis-priced? Perhaps it was priced appropriately. Clearly the Prizm blasters didn't sell well with this many packs dumped into re-packs. Here's what we got, This was a quick cheap rip. I am not familiar with these players but as I enter these to my TCDB collection I'll research as I go. If there is anything you see that you must have, drop me a note (see profile). If you need any base cards of the Prizm and Donruss let me know and I will check what I got from these packs.  As always, thanks for reading and keep collecting.