Bye week additions to my collection

So far behind on the Browns bye week. Work has been busy, and my choir's holiday concert schedule starts on Thursday night. It is going to be an interesting concert season as I'll be performing my first solo this season. I hope I don't fall flat on my face!

Speaking of the bye week, the good news is it meant that the Browns couldn't lose! I've been so very frustrated watching the Browns play, hating the lack of discipline - way too many penalties, especially before snap penalties - and watching the defense continue to not live up to expectations. I take games too hard. When they lose it pretty much ruins watching the rest of the games that week. It was a nice week to just sit and watch football without being in a bad mood.

I have a few different posts that I want to get at, and hopefully will this week: one a focus on Steve Everitt with a great article I read on him, and the second an answer to the Junior Junkie wondering what everyone's best binder page would consist of.

I didn't get down to Syracuse for a card show that I was hoping to get to this weekend. I was just a little too tired for the three hour trip each way, but I did make my one hour trip to Ogdensburg to pick up mail. Here are new additions to my Browns collection:

(L-R) 2011 Panini Limited #131, 2012 Panini Totally Certified Blue #87, 2012 Panini Certified Blue #155



Bernie Kosar is pretty much the Browns quarterback of record for my generation. His awkward sidearm throwing style might have been strange to look at, but he was very accurate and retired ranked 12th all-time in passer rating.

All three of these cards were numbered. The Limited card is #/499, the Totally Certified is #/199, and the Certified is #/100.

Moving to another quarterback with three 2012 rookie cards of Brandon Weeden.

(L-R) 2012 Topps Platinum Xfractor #102, 2012 Panini Limited Rookie Jumbo Jersey #6, 2012 Topps Platinum Rookie Jersey #PRR-BW



Brandon Weeden was let go by the Cowboys this week, and was claimed on waivers by the Houston Texans. I wish him luck as he continues his pro career.

The Limited card is #/99.

One older card showed up, which could have been part of my previous post of 1995 cards:

1995 Collector's Choice - Player's Club Platinum #253

I have all of the regular Player's Club inserts for the Browns team set, but I think this is only the third platinum parallel that I have.

2014 Press Pass - Blue #30 and 2013 Panini Prominence #109



Johnny Manziel has been named the team's starter for the rest of the season. He had a good game against Pittsburgh (one of the few bright spots), and it is time to see what he can do for the rest of the season. Of course, this trial period may determine if the Browns will be drafting a quarterback high in the first round next year.

Barkevious Mingo seems to be one of the Browns defensive players that will wind up doing better when he moves on from Cleveland. They are using him mostly as a coverage linebacker as opposed to the pass rusher that I believe that he was drafted as. He struggled through injuries in his first couple of years, but I would love to see his speed used to try to get some pass rush.

Moving on to 2015 cards:

(L-R) 2015 Bowman - 1948 Mini #BM-DJ Duke Johnson; 2015 Bowman - Rainbow Foil #29 Terrance West; 2015 Bowman - 1948 Mini #BM-DSH Danny Shelton; 2015 Panini Gridiron Kings #77 Taylor Gabriel; 2015 Panini Gridiron Kings #29 Isaiah Crowell



Generally I like the 1948 Bowman minis, but I often can't identify the player without looking at the back of the card.

As it turns out, after scanning it, I realized that the Terrance West is a double. I'll pass it on to another Browns fan.

The Gridiron King cards have a nice feel to them, and I like the what looks to be stylized artwork on the fronts. I'll work on getting the rest of the Browns later.

Lastly, on to a couple more 2015 Topps buyback cards:

Red stamp buyback of 1972 Topps #211 Bill Nelsen; Black stamp buyback of 1981 Topps #170 Joe DeLamielleure 



I have both of the original cards, and will store these with my 2015 Browns card collection.

As you can see, there are different color stamps on the buyback cards. I should really write down somewhere what I saw that the stamps represent, but I know that the red stamps are supposed to be a little rarer than the black stamps, which are the most common. I now have 7 red and 9 black Browns buyback cards from this year's Topps set.

I don't think that I'll make my way down to Ogdensburg next week. I don't want to compete with the border traffic trying to get across for any of the weekend Black Friday sales. I can't wait until I get some of my newer purchases though. One is a lot of around 50 cheap autograph cards that I bought off of COMC's pre-Black Friday sale. I know I'll be spending more money on COMC this week, I just don't know what I'll be buying!

I've got a few odds and ends to send to some people; sorry I didn't get them out this weekend.