Catching up with my collection - 1

Last year I made many purchases for my Browns collection, and they have mostly been sitting in a box, waiting for me to insert them into my collection.

I had pretty much added most of the base, insert and parallel cards to their binders, but various autograph and memorabilia cards still need to be dealt with.

I'm hopefully going to set up a series of posts showing these cards before I add them to their proper spots in the collection.

I really liked the first couple of years of Pro Line cards. I liked seeing photos of the players in licensed NFL gear. It was a nice change of pace for cards.

For the 1991 set, I loved the autographs. I didn't see many, and still haven't acquired most of the Browns, but I loved that they were out there.

The 1992 set caused a bit of a dislike to creep in. I loved the autographs in the Portraits part of the set, where people had just one card. I hated that the nine-card Profiles part of the set had nine different autographed cards of the players to find.

With this Van Waiters card, I only need the autographed Eric Metcalf card to complete my Browns Portraits part of the 1992 set. 

I still need way too many of the Bernie Kosar and Michael Dean Perry cards in the Profiles part.

In any case, I really enjoyed adding this autographed card from the original pre-move Browns to my collection.

The 2000 Impact - Hats Off insert set has 21 cards in it. Four are Browns cards, which seems weird, but only six teams are represented in the insert set. The Abdul-Jabbar card is the first I own of the Browns. And just because it is nice to get swatches that aren't from jerseys, I'll point out this one is a piece of a hat.

Also from 2000, from the Fleer Tradition set, is this Patchworks memorabilia card of Tim Couch. There will be many more Couch memorabilia cards to come in this post.

There are six Browns Sign of the Times cards in the 2000 SP Authentic set. This Dennis Northcutt card gives me four of them. I still need the Courtney Brown and Tim Couch cards.

Here are two Travis Prentice autographs from 2000. 

The Leaf Rookies & Stars - Rookie Autograph card is numbered out of 1000, and a base autograph card from the Playoff Contenders set.

The top and bottom left cards are from the 2001 Fleer Authority set. 

The top Tim Couch card, from the Goal Line Gear insert set, has a piece of hat in it. There is also a version of the card with a piece of pants as its relic.

The bottom left card is from the We're Number One Jerseys insert set. Tim Couch also has a card in the regular We're Number One insert set that I don't own.

The bottom right card is from a Classic Drafts Jerseys insert set in the 2001 Upper Deck set. According to the notes in the Trading Card Database, these cards were inserted into packs in a 1:288 pack ratio, and it is part of a ten card checklist.

It was fun to pick up the silver and gold versions of the 2001 Leaf Certified Materials - Fabric of the Game cards at the same time. The silver card is numbered out of 360, while the gold is numbered out of 77. Those numbers seem pretty random, and the serial numbers for different players in the insert sets were different, not a consistent number through the whole checklists.

These two cards are unusual for me. I remembered Curtis Enis being drafted high in the first round by the Bears. I didn't remember him ever signing with the Browns.

Before getting these two cards, years ago I acquired a Retail version of the base card from the 2001 Pacific Invincible set. (The top card here is a Red memorabilia version numbered out of 750 of that card. The base retail version has a headshot of Enis where the jersey piece is above.)

When I acquired my other Enis card, I looked to see how long he played with the Browns, and remember reading that he was forced to retire with a continuing knee injury, and never played with the Browns.

The bottom card is from the Game Worn Gear insert set in the 2001 Pacific Private Stock set.

According to the Trading Card Database, Curtis Enis has 12 Browns cards. Eleven of them are from Pacific sets, with the last card being a base card that I need from the 2001 Upper Deck MVP set.

Here are three memorabilia cards from three different players.

The top card is a swatch of jersey from the 2001 NFL Rookie Premiere Photo Shoot of running back James Jackson. It is from the Rookie Gear insert set in the 2001 Upper Deck Ovation set.

The middle card is, like the Tim Couch card earlier, a swatch of hat from the Goal Line Gear insert set in the 2001 Fleer Authority set. This card of wide receiver Kevin Johnson joins the pants version of the card that I already owned.

The bottom card, of running back Travis Prentice, is from the Uniformity insert set in the 2001 Fleer Game Time set. Prentice was traded to the Vikings before the start of the 2001 season.

The top card is a Rookie Premiere Jersey insert card of Gerard Warren from the 2001 Fleer Focus set. Warren was the 3rd overall pick for the Browns in the 2001 NFL Draft.

The bottom card has Gerard Warren sharing a card with the 4th overall pick from the same draft, Justin Smith of the Cincinnati Bengals. This is from the Rookie Tandem Jerseys insert set in the 2001 Playoff Honors set. I don't necessarily mind multi-player cards like this, but I must say I prefer when a Browns player isn't teamed up with a division rival.

Time for more Tim Couch memorabilia cards.

The top card is from the Game Worn Jerseys of the 2002 Pacific Atomic set.

The middle card is a jersey swatch from the Materials insert set from the 2002 Playoff Piece of the Game set. There is also a version of this card with a football piece in it that I don't own.

The bottom card is from the San Diego Bound Memorabilia insert set in the 2002 Fleer Ultra set. The Super Bowl for the 2002 season was in San Diego, so I guess this insert set was to set up hope for all of the players to get to the Super Bowl. (Note: the Browns have still never made a Super Bowl.)

This top card here is a Jerseys insert card of James Jackson from the 2001 Pacific Private Stock Titanium Postseason Edition set. (The card has a 2002 copyright date on it, so I didn't organize it properly when setting up this post. I'll make sure to put it with the 2001s in my collection.)

The bottom Kevin Johnson card, like the Tim Couch card from the previous photos, is a swatch of jersey from the Materials insert of the 2002 Playoff Piece of the Game set. Again, like the Couch card, I also need the pants variant of this card.

I love helmet cards! In the top card, you can even feel the slight rounding of the helmet piece. Even though it says helmet on it, this Tim Couch card is listed as part of the Gridiron Heritage Jerseys insert set from the 2003 Playoff Prestige set on the Trading Card Database, and is numbered out of 100 like the card in the insert set. I don't know if this means there is a jersey card to look for from this set as well, but no matter, I think the helmet piece is much cooler than another jersey swatch.

The bottom card is interesting. It is from the Sunday Showdown insert set in the 2003 Flair set, and William Green shares the card with future Brown Jamal Lewis. You can see the arrow pointing to where Green's swatch is, and the same area on the other half is a grey circle that isn't cut out. There is a a dual memorabilia card that these two share, and there is a solo Lewis card that would have his swatch, but not Green's. You can see part of the grey circle around Green's swatch on this card. This card is numbered out of 100.

I'll finish this post with these last two cards.

The top Kevin Johnson card is from the UD Game Jerseys insert set from the 2003 Upper Deck set. It is numbered out of 99. I'm not really sure what the pattern on the card for the swatch is supposed to be.

I like the look of the on-card autograph on the bottom card. It was a redemption card for a Lee Suggs exchange card in the Sign of the Times insert set from the 2003 SP Authentic set.

It has been nice to see these Browns players from the early years of the expansion team.

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Edited to add: Just heard that Jim Brown has passed away. RIP.