Players with only one card in my collection - 6

Another in a series showing cards of five players with only one card in my collection, and using images from The Trading Card Database. I'm using their sorting tools to look through my collection listed on their site to see who only has one card, and then finding the first five names that I haven't posted yet.

Here we go!

2018 Donruss #341

Antonio Callaway is a rookie wide receiver that was drafted in the fourth round of the 2018 NFL Draft.

He has just over 500 receiving yards this year, with four touchdowns.

I'm sure I'll wind up with many more cards of him in the future as he has been in most of the Panini sets this year. I just haven't managed to get any of his other cards yet.

2017 Panini Unparalleled - Lime Green #47

Ibraheim Campbell was drafted by the Browns in the fourth round of the 2015 NFL Draft.

Released after playing eight games with the Browns in the 2017 season, he was picked up by the Houston Texans where he played one game.

Houston waived Campbell after training camp this year, and he was claimed by the Dallas Cowboys. He was released by the Cowboys after week five, signed by the New York Jets, and played one game with them before again being released. Claimed on waivers by the Green Bay Packers, he played three games, starting the last one, before being placed on Injured Reserve on December 4th.

The 2017 Panini Unparalleled cards (base and ten parallels) are the only Cleveland Browns cards that he has. I'm sure more of his cards will eventually show up in my collection

2004 Upper Deck Reflections #169 (#/750)

Chris Pittman was an undrafted free agent that signed with the Browns from the Colorado State Rams in 2004. He didn't make the team, and I really haven't found too much information about him, but he does have a Linked In profile that says that he is now working as a Mental Health Worker / Child Development Counselor in the San Diego area.

Along with this card, there are four parallels of it to try and find.

2018 Panini Prestige #118

Dan Vitale was signed by the Browns from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice squad in October 2016. He played 24 games with the Browns in 2016 and 2017, and was placed on Injured Reserve by the Browns shortly before the 2018 season.

The Browns cut Vitale in October, and he was signed to the Green Bay Packers practice squad. The Packers promoted him to the main roster on December 1st, and he has played four games with the Packers this year.

I picked up this card at a card show with Night Owl this fall. Along with cards in this year's Panini Prestige set, he also has Browns cards in the Panini Unparalleled set for me to collect. I'm sure he'll eventually move off the list of players with only one card in my collection.

2018 Panini Unparalleled - Flight #49

Like the previous card, this one was also bought at the card show that I went to with Night Owl.

Joel Bitonio has been a very good left guard for the Browns since they drafted him out of Nevada in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He was an immediate starter as a rookie, and has started every game that he has played. Unfortunately, his 2015 and 2016 seasons ended early due to injuries.

Bitonio was named as the first alternate at left guard for this year's Pro Bowl, and for the second year in a row, the Cleveland chapter of the Pro Football Writers of America has named him the winner of the Dino Lucarelli Good Guy Award.

This year's Panini Unparalleled set contains Joel Bitonio's only NFL cards, with a base card and ten parallels to collect. That, of course, makes it likely that he'll also find his way off the list of players with only one card in my collection.

With his value to the team, and his starting to get Pro Bowl recognition, I hope that he will be found in future card sets regardless of the fact that he is an offensive lineman.


I was surprised to find three cards from this year turn up as I set up this post (and four from the last two), but in seeing that three of the five cards were found in Panini Unparalleled sets, I'll have to keep an eye on that set in the future to see if they keep giving more players their only Browns card.

(I'm not thrilled with how blurry some of the card backs were from the TCDB scans. I may have to pull these cards from my collection and scan them to fix this post. It defeats part of the idea of these posts being quick and simple to do.)

Favorite card of 2018 and a couple of Christmas gifts

Once again, P-town Tom of the Waiting 'til Next Year... blog is running a favorite card of 2018 contest.

Looking at this year where the Browns have returned to respectability, one might think that I would have a Baker Mayfield, Denzel Ward or Nick Chubb card as my favorite. These rookies have all had wonderful seasons and I hope to accumulate many of their cards over what I hope are long and successful careers in Cleveland.

However, looking through the 2018 cards that I added to my Browns collection, the one that jumped out at me went in a different direction. I feel that it is a nice tribute to a future Hall of Famer.

Here is my favorite 2018 card that I added to my collection:

I love the photo of Joe Thomas carrying his helmet. It shows him, the person. I also don't mind the shiny pattern in the background that helps spotlight Thomas further.

I'm also very pleased with the write-up on the back of the card.

Thank you, Joe Thomas, for the great career that you had with the Browns.

I've really enjoyed seeing Thomas on Thursday Night Football telecasts. I really hope to see him in more prominent tv roles. I find him to really be funny, with good insights.

-----

I exchanged Christmas gifts with a good friend today.

I bought him a remote controlled R2-D2, his wife some chocolates and a page-a-day calendar, and his daughter a couple of board games and Barbie-like Bella Twins wrestling figures.

From them, I received a book:

Of course, my comment about the book was that since the Browns have never made a Super Bowl there won't be any stories worth reading in there.

To go with it, they also gave me something that I have never owned before:

I have a number of Browns jerseys, but have never owned a Kosar one. The oldest jersey, and my first jersey, was an Ozzie Newsome one. I am very happy to add this one to the rest of them. And I am happy to have another old style, classic jersey.

A funny thing about the jersey is that after he gave it to me, he joked that now he needed to get a Cowboys Kosar jersey that we could wear together. Okay, that really isn't that funny, but then I told him that if he did that we would then have to get his oldest friend, and my roommate his own Kosar jersey too. My roommate is a Miami Hurricanes fan. I just think it would be funny for all of us to go to a bar wearing different Kosar jerseys. (We don't have any Miami Dolphins fans in our group.)

Not Another Secret Santa Blog post

Okay, so that title doesn't sound great, but once again I participated in the card blogger Secret Santa exchange, this year organized by Jon at the A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts blog. Great job, Jon!

My secret gift arrived yesterday, just under the Christmas wire, delivered by Canada Post to my home address. Having submitted both my home address, and my US PO Box, I didn't know where my gift would show up.

As it turns out, the Canadian address probably made it easier, as I had a Canadian Secret Santa this year. My blog post title has probably clued you in to the fact that it is Mike at the Not Another Baseball Card Blog!

Now, unfortunately for Mike, as a Browns collector I know how tough it can be to find stuff for my collection in Canada, and I'm sorry if I forced him to order stuff in for me.

Anyway, on to the great cards that he found for me!

1950 Bowman #44

Jim Martin was drafted by the Browns in the Second Round of the 1950 NFL Draft, the Browns first season in the NFL. He helped that team win the 1950 NFL Championship, coming up with an important sack for a safety in the Divisional Final against the Giants that the Browns won 8-3.

Following the 1950 season, Martin was traded to the Detroit Lions, where he played eleven seasons, and won three more NFL Championships - all against the Browns.

I had previously owned one Jim Martin card, a 1990 Notre Dame Collegiate card. It is nice to add his Browns card to my collection.

1950 Bowman #79

Tony Adamle started with the Browns in the AAFC in 1947, and played with the Browns through the 1951 season before leaving the team to go to medical school.

While still in school, Adamle came back to the Browns to play for the 1954 season, helping the Browns win their second NFL Championship. His agreement with the team was for him to be allowed to practice with the team only one time per week so that he could continue his studies. He retired after the 1954 season to continue his medical schooling and start his medical career.

(For those that recognize the Adamle name, he is the father of Mike Adamle, former NFL running back, sports broadcaster, host of the American Gladiators, and a General Manager for WWE Raw in 2008.)

This is the first Tony Adamle card in my collection. He also has a 1951 Bowman card for me to find.


Mike, thanks for the beautiful Secret Santa cards! They are very welcome additions to my collection!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Black Friday purchase at Teamsets4u.com

Around Black Friday, I received an email from Teamsets4u.com letting me know that there was a 10% off Black Friday sale on the site. I decided to take a look to see if there was any Browns sets that I wanted to buy.

I found two.

The first is the Topps Collection parallel team set for 2004 Topps.

Unlike other seasons where they have a gold foil Topps Collection logo on the cards, the difference with these cards is that the foil on the cards is gold, as opposed to silver for the regular base cards. (Of course the gold didn't scan well so you'll have to take my word for it.)

Top (l-r): 2004 Topps - Collection #103 and #79

Bottom (l-r): 2004 Topps - Collection #156 and #128

I guess this would be a parallel of the Topps sunset card for Tim Couch, as he was released by the Browns in 2004, and never made any other teams afterwards.

Top: 2004 Topps - Collection #185

Bottom (l-r): 2004 Topps - Collection #232 and #214

Two more quarterbacks in this scan. After watching Garcia play in the CFL, and after he went to San Francisco, I was so excited about him coming to the Browns. Unfortunately he didn't live up to my expectations.

Top: 2004 Topps - Collection #263

Bottom (l-r): 2004 Topps - Collection #283 and #277

I love the accent on the André Davis card. Or rather, the apostrophe after his name.

Isn't it fun having an André Davis and an Andra Davis on the same team?

Top: 2004 Topps - Collection #368

Bottom (l-r): 2004 Topps - Collection #374 and #370

Here's the rookies, and they include a fourth quarterback in the 13 card team set. All four quarterbacks started games for the Browns at some point in their careers.

Although it was nice to get that team set, I'm a little more excited about the next one. It is another parallel, but this time it is the five card Gold parallel team set of the 2007 Playoff NFL Playoffs Browns. The Gold parallel cards are numbered out of 299.

Top (l-r): 2007 Playoff NFL Playoffs - Gold #24 and #23

Bottom: 2007 Playoff NFL Playoffs #167

Two receiving veterans along with a rookie cornerback, but the next scan is why I wanted this team set.

L-R: 2007 Playoff NFL Playoffs #117 and #104

A rookie parallel of future Hall of Famer Joe Thomas, along with one of former quarterback Brady Quinn.

I was so happy with the 2007 NFL Draft. I liked the idea of grabbing Thomas to play left tackle, although I'm not going to claim that I knew how good he would be. As a Notre Dame fan, I was so happy to see the Browns also draft Brady Quinn.

As soon as I saw this 2007 parallel team set available, I knew that I would be buying it to get these two cards.

 Above, I mentioned that these cards were numbered out of 299. I don't know how the Gold sets were distributed, but I'm thinking that they must have been sold as factory sets, as all my numbers matched.

Woo hoo! All eBay 1 of 1s! Well, except for the fact that I really don't care what serial number I get. If you care, though, perhaps your team's cards are available for sale at the Teams4u website. I will admit, however, that it is pretty cool to have matching serial number cards.

I just looked at the birthdates on the above cards. It is too bad that I didn't post this yesterday, it was Joe Thomas' birthday. A happy belated birthday to Joe Thomas!

I'm very happy to have found both of these team sets.

A minute a card: five random cards from my collection 7

Okay, life got busy so it isn't weekly, but here is another installment showing five random cards from my collection from the collection randomizer at The Trading Card Database, with one minute of commentary on each card.

2015 Panini Contenders Draft Picks #104

Ah, Vince Mayle. My favorite player to collect that never made a Browns regular season team.

An old roommate is a Washington State Cougars fan, so I watched a lot of his college games. I hoped he would do well.

2001 Score #322

Drafted third overall. I thought he had a decent stint with the Browns before being traded to Denver, but I don't think he really lived up to the billing of a number three pick. Probably tough to do as a defensive tackle.

1996 Upper Deck #243

Ugh. One of those Ravens cards that I have to collect because the player is wearing the Browns uniform from the previous year.

At least Antonio Langham had a chance to go back and wear the Browns uniform again in 1999.

2008 Leaf Rookies & Stars - Longevity Silver Holofoil #103 (#/99)

I like the photo on this card taken during a snowy game. I guess that is where the "elements" on the card comes from.

This card isn't purple, that is just coloring added to the holofoil card by my scanner.

1989 Panini Stickers #252

I collected these stickers when they came out. The great thing about the card boom in the late 80s/early 90s is that NFL cards and stickers came to stores in Canada.

I always like Brian Brennan on those 1980s Browns teams. He was a dependable receiver.