Sportlots purchase - cards from 1999-2001

Continuing with my Sportlots order, I'm going to post a selection of the cards that I bought for my collection, mostly from older to newer cards.

This order didn't have many cards from the 1999 expansion year. Here are four of them.

I only have one player with more than 500 cards in my collection, and that is Tim Couch. As the first overall pick, and a quarterback, he had so many cards and inserts. I'm sure I'll be adding more for the rest of my collecting days.

Top left is a Gold Ingot parallel from the Collector's Edge Fury set; top right is a Protential insert card, numbered out of 1999, from the Fleer Mystique set; bottom left is a 20th Century Superstars insert card from the Upper Deck Legends set.

The bottom right card is the base Upper Deck Black Diamond card of wide receiver Leslie Shepherd. It is the last base card that I needed for the team set. I previously had owned the die-cut parallel of this card. I'm happy to finally have the base card.

Moving on to some cards from 2000, here are four different players' cards from my purchase.

The top left card is a Bowman base card of Damon Dunn. It shows him in his Berlin Thunder uniform, and notes on the back that he was allocated to NFL Europe by the Browns. This is only my second card of Dunn, joining a Pacific card in my collection. 

The top right card is a Rookie Masters insert card of Dennis Northcutt, numbered out of 2000, from the Collector's Edge Masters set. It is one of four Browns cards in a thirty card insert set. I now have three of the four, still needing JaJuan Dawson's card.

The bottom left card is a Finest base card of Travis Prentice. It is numbered out of 2400.

The bottom right card is base card of Darrin Chiaverini from the Fleer Traditions Glossy set. There are separate sets of regular and glossy cards, and I picked up four needed glossy cards with this order. By scan, you can't really see the difference, but they are very noticeable in hand.

The following cards are more Travis Prentice rookie cards.

The top right card is a Scorecard parallel, numbered out of 2000, from the Score set.

The other two cards are from the Playoff Prestige set. The top left card is his base card, numbered out of 2500, while the bottom card is a Draft Picks insert card.

I can't say that I've ever really been a fan of numbering the base card rookies in sets. It seemed, back then, that numbered meant that I would probably never see those cards.

In the 2000 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns made Courtney Brown of Penn State the first selection overall. Here are some new cards from his rookie year to joing my collection.

The top left card is his base card from the Playoff Absolute set, numbered out of 3000; the top right card is a Big Numbers insert card from the collegiate Press Pass set; the bottom left card is his base card from the Upper Deck Gold Reserve set, numbered out of 2500; the bottom right card is his base card from the Upper Deck Legends set, numbered out of 2000.

While looking through the available cards in Sportlots and comparing them to my collection, I was rather surprised that I needed the Big Numbers insert card. I probably would have passed it up if I had seen it in a box at a card show. As it turned out, it was familiar because I already owned the die-cut version of the card.

TIm Couch wasn't ignored among my 2000 season purchases.

The top left card is a PS2000 insert card from the Pacific Private Stock set; the top right card is an Extreme Team insert card (with the X in foil that blends into the scan) from the Playoff Absolute set; the bottom left card is a base Upper Deck Encore card; the bottom right card is a Center Stage Act 1 insert card from the Upper Deck Ovation set.

After Tim Couch in my collection, the player with the second most cards is his fellow rookie expansion team member, wide receiver Kevin Johnson. I have 350 cards of Johnson. Here are some of the new ones to bring me to that number.

Not that you can really tell from the scan, but the top left card is a Gold parallel, numbered out of 199, for the Pacific set. It is the first of the sixteen Browns cards from the set that I've managed to find a Gold parallel for, so I was pretty happy to find it listed for sale.

The top right card is a base Pacific Vanguard card. I also picked up a Tim Couch from the set at the same time.

The bottom left card is a base Playoff Contenders card, while the bottom right card is an Extra parallel card from the SkyBox Dominion set.

I've always seem to like a lot of the secondary receivers on a team. Maybe it is part of cheering for an underdog, or maybe it is to say that everybody knows the number one receiver on a team, but how many know the twos, threes and fours?

For that reason, I liked getting the Darrin Chiaverini card earlier in the post, and I was really happy to find a number of JaJuan Dawson cards when I made my purchases of 2001 cards.

The top left card is the 2001 Fleer Tradition Glossy base card. Unlike the previous year's Glossy set, they actually add the word to the logo on the front of the card. This is one of four cards from the team set that I bought in this purchase.

The top right card is from the NFL Showdown 1st & Goal set. I believe this set was an expansion to the regular NFL Showdown set for the year.

The bottom left card is a Retail LTD parallel card, numbered out of 299 from the Pacific set. I think it is a great action shot that will look nice sitting beside the base card in my 2001 binder.

The bottom right card is an Infinity Green parallel card, numbered out of 100, from the Quantum Leaf set. The base card from the set has a blue background.

The following scan shows two different versions of the same card, both based on the regular Score set.

The card on the left is from the Score Select set. The difference between it and the regular Score card is the Select below the logo.

The card on the right is a Trump parallel of the Score set. It appears to be a trump card for a pack war game on the back of the card (upper right of the card) that you can play with football cards. Regular base cards from the Score set have EE, TT, PP or BB in that area. I know nothing about it, but TCDB shows a card that has an explanation for the game. The Score Select back shows the Score Select logo in that spot of the card.

Here are two more of the Fleer Tradition Glossy cards that I bought, both of rookies for 2001.

James Jackson was a third round pick from Miami, while Gerard Warren was the third overall pick of the draft from Florida.

Both cards are numbered out of 2001.

Here are some more cards that I picked up of 2001 Browns rookies.

Here are some more James Jackson cards that I needed from collegiate sets.

Top left is a Torquers parallel from the Press Pass set; top right is a Gold parallel from the Press Pass SE set; the bottom card is a SAGE HIT base card.

For these Gerard Warren cards, the top left is a Gold parallel from the Press Pass SE set; top right is the base card from the SAGE HIT set; bottom card is not a collegiate card, but the base card from the Upper Deck Top Tier set, numbered out of 1500.

Quincy Morgan was a second round pick for the Browns out of Kansas State.

The top two cards are the base card, and a Gold parallel from the Press Pass set.

The bottom left card is the base card from the Press Pass SE set, while the bottom right is a Rarefied parallel, numbered out of 2001, from the SAGE HIT set.

And here are more from 2001, starting with cards from Pacific Private Stock.

The top two cards are Retail parallels from the main set, while the bottom three cards are all PS-2001 inserts in the Pacific Private Stock set.

The top left card is a base card of Tim Couch from Topps Gallery; the top right card of Kevin Johnson is a base card from the Topps Reserve set; the bottom left card is a base card of Dennis Northcutt from the Upper Deck Rookie F/X set; the bottom left card of Courtney Brown is also a base card from the Upper Deck Rookie F/X set. The Upper Deck Rookie R/X set mixed various Upper Deck designs throughout the set.

The top two cards show Rickey Dudley, a free agent signed by the Browns from the Raiders. They are base cards from the Playoff Contenders and Upper Deck MVP sets.

The bottom left card of Courtney Brown is a Gold parallel from the Upper Deck Victory set.

The bottom right card is a base card of Curtis Enis in the Upper Deck MVP set. Enis was a free agent from the Bears. He didn't end up playing any regular season games for the Browns.

This post is long enough, so we'll end it here and pick up with 2002 cards in the next one.

New Sportlots shipment - pre-expansion cards

I recently received a nice Sportlots shipment of some orders that had been stored for box shipment.

The next couple of posts will cover some of the cards that I bought. This first post is covering cards from before the 1999 expansion Browns teams.

This a card from the 1987 Hygrade Football's All-Time Greats set. It is a 10 card set, with Jim Brown being the only Browns card. There are also five reprint cards, three of which are Jim Brown inserts. I own two of the imprints, with a reprint of the 1962 Kahn's card missing from my collection.

Every now and then I come across a card that I need from some of the various early 1990s Collegiate Collections sets. This one comes from the 1991 Okalahoma State Cowboys multi-sport set.

Jerry Sherk was a defensive lineman that the Browns drafted in the second round of the 1970 NFL Draft. He had a twelve year career, all with the Browns. He started 131 of the 147 games that he played, and had 3 interceptions, 12 fumble recoveries and 70.5 sacks in his career. He played in four Pro Bowls, and was a first team All-Pro once in his career.

 

This 1992 Topps Gold card of James Brooks completes my set of Topps Gold cards from that set. It shows him in his old Bengals uniform which might be why I had never seen him in any Browns cards lots that I had bought over the years. It took a long time to find this.

Of course, now I can start working on the different letter and asterisk variations of this card if I want to.

This Dan Footman card is a Gold parallel from the 1993 Classic Four Sport Draft Pick Collection set. This is my first Gold parallel of the four Browns draft picks in the set.

Footman was a second round draft pick of the Browns, out of Florida State, in the 1993 NFL Draft. He spent six years in the NFL, three with the Browns, one with the Ravens following the move to Baltimore, and then two with the Colts.

Eric Zeier was a third round pick of the Browns, out of Georgia, in the 1995 NFL Draft. He wound up starting four games for the Browns in the 1995 season before their move to Baltimore.

The card on the left is from the 1995 Classic Five Sport Multi-Sport set, while the one on the right is from the 1995 Signature Rookies Fame and Fortune Multi-Sport set. The card is dark, but it has gold print in different areas that don't really appear in the scan.

A couple of months ago, there was a Blog Bat-Around going on where people showed players they liked on teams they didn't like. I started a blog post on it, but didn't finish it. I have a big cheat. Many cards from 1996 show players I like still in their Browns uniforms, but on cards with the Baltimore Ravens team designation.

These three cards show Michael Jackson, Antonio Langham, and Rob Burnett, and finish off the cards I've been looking for from 1996 Topps.

I'll finish this post here, and get started with expansion Browns cards with the next post.

In person trade with TCDB member sandyrusty

 A month ago, I heard from TCDB member sandyrusty that he was going to be in Ottawa and had some Browns cards that I wanted.

After a bit of back and forth, I had a bunch of football cards coming my way, and found a bunch of baseball cards to give him.

First up was a nice 2011 Upper Deck World of Sports card of Eric Metcalf. It may be celebrating his Texas Longhorns career, but that led to him becoming the Browns first round pick in 1989. I collect college cards of Browns draft picks, especially when they become one of my favorite players for the Browns team that they were on.

Next there were a couple of cards from the 2018 Score set.

Denzel Ward was the 4th overall draft pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, out of Ohio State. It was a good pick, and he is the star of the Browns secondary. He's made five Pro Bowls in his eight seasons.

Former Notre Dame QB DeShone Kizer was a second round pick of the Browns in the 2017 NFL Draft. He wound up starting 15 games for the Browns that season before being traded to the Green Bay Packers.

There was also this Nick Chubb Blitz insert card from the 2020 Panini Playbook set.

Chubb has the third most career rushing yards for the Browns franchise, behind Jim Brown and Leroy Kelly. His yards per game average of 80.5 only follows Jim Brown and his 104.3 average.

Also from the 2020 Panini Playbook set were these two Harrison Bryant cards, his regular card and its Orange parallel.

After four seasons with the Browns, Bryant signed as a free agent with the Raiders. He played one season with the Raiders before moving on to the Texans for one year. He signed with the Seahawks in April of this year.

You may be surprised to see two 1990 Pro Set cards in the trade. They are corrected versions of these two Chargers. In the error cards, Bernstine is listed as TE on the back, and O'Neal is listed as a LB and DE on the front.

For 1990 Pro Set, I still need a number of error or corrected cards. For the complete set, I need the Pro Bowl Eric Dickerson card that was removed from the set early due to a contractual dispute.

I also received a couple of small stacks of 1989 Pro Set cards and 1991 Fleer Stars 'n' Stripes cards that he had. I know I have other cards from both sets in boxes somewhere so I picked them up for future set builds.

Thank you, Bruno, for the trade, and it was great meeting you in person! I look forward to the next time.

Some Recent Card Show Purchases

I attended a local Ottawa card show last Sunday, and am going to share a selection of my purchases from the show.

I would say the highlight of my purchases was this autographed Bernie Kosar card.

This is my fourth Kosar autographed card, and the first one on a sticker.

Topps kind of mailed it in on the back.

Another interesting "hit" that I bought at the show was this card:

 

One of the local dealers found this card in Toronto, and bought it, correctly guessing that I would want it.

He wondered what sort of material from the rookie premiere day was in this card. He thought it might be part of a glove. I looked at it, and guessed part of a shoe.

Looking for the card on the Trading Card Database, with the serial number it has, it was part of a 2012 Panini Limited Blue Chip Shoes insert set.

Woo hoo! I was right!

Nearly a couple of weeks ago, I commented on a fairly new football card blog, Cardboard Canon, that I enjoyed the Panini Illusion cards that showed modern and older players on the same card. I found one at the show.

It matched up O.J. Howard with a fellow Alabama Tight End, Browns Hall of Fame player, Ozzie Newsome.

Coincidentally, Cardboard Canon is a Buccaneers supporter, so this card would probably fit in his collection too.

I also bought other new cards of two different Browns players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

As well as a couple of other favored veterans.

Personally, I believe that Clay Matthews should be in the Hall of Fame. This Panini Phoenix parallel is numbered out of 35.

This Panini Prizm parallel of Earnest Byner is numbered out of 49.

And I bought a bunch of cards from last year's rookies.

I'm hoping that the Browns newly rebuilt offensive line will help Judkins and Sampson have good rushing seasons.

And I'm hoping that better quarterback play will help Fannin develop better.

Mason Graham had a good rookie season even though he played the final part of the season with a broken rib.

It will also be interesting to see how his play is affected by missing this guy on the line with him:

I'll miss Myles Garrett as a Browns player. However I understand the various reasons given for his trade. It's too bad he won't spend his whole career with the Browns.

Finally, a non-sport card dealer that I buy a lot of stuff from had something interesting in one of his bins. 

Okay, a lot of you will recognize this as being a photo slide.

There were sheets with over a hundred slides in them. When I looked at the side and saw the writing, I realized all of them were from New England Patriots games. Of all of them, this was the only Browns slide.

A lot of the slides were very similar shots to each other. The photographer must have clicked in sequence for consecutive shots, waiting to see which shot turned out the best.

I don't know if the photographer was trying to capture photos for cards, but it was something neat to grab.

Being the only Browns slide, the dealer gave it to me for free. He did say that when he bought them, that he thought there were plenty more that the seller had. He said he'll look to see if they are all Patriots if he gets to see them again.

Now, the lighting for my scanner didn't get to show the action on the slide, so I decided to hold the slide up near my kitchen window and take a photo.

Okay, I really like this action shot!

I'm pretty sure the shadows on the bottom of the field are actually the bottom of the window sill that I was looking out.

Such a neat item to get. I will definitely be adding this into my 1999 Browns binder.

Being a unique item in my collection, I think that I was happier to get this than the Kosar autographed card at the beginning of the post.

What do you think of the slide?

Surprise PWE from Crazie Joe

I came home on Monday night to find a surprise PWE waiting for me from Crazie Joe's Card Corner.

I don't know how he does it, but Joe posts daily, and I always find it interesting to see what cards he finds in the various card lots that he goes through. 

I've been aware for years that I was missing this 1994 Score Mike Johnson card, but just forget to look for it. When I filter card sites for Browns cards, I forget to look for this one that shows him having moved on to the Lions.

I'm very happy to finally add this card to my collection, but still have to remember to find the gold parallel.

Over the last couple of months, I decided to sit down and compare the cards in the binders and boxes of my Browns collection to what I had recorded in the Trading Card Database.

As it turned out, I was missing about 70 cards, nothing of too great a value. (A very small percentage of the over fourteen thousand cards in my collection.)

Some of the missing may be phantom cards, created when I didn't adjust my collection when cards were changed to a different parallel than they should have been. I know I had a couple of cards that I probably didn't own the hobby version, and do have the retail version. But I'm assuming that over the years most of the missing cards were just misplaced into my doubles boxes.

In any case, since I was going through my collection, and knew that I would eventually go through my doubles, I figured to fall in to the variation rabbit hole for various things like the letter variations for printing, and for the different backs on some of the stickers. I figure that I will have many new cards to add to my collection by pulling them from my doubles.

However, this envelope contained two of these variations that were not in my collection already.

The first was another Mike Johnson, but this time a sticker from 1988 Topps Stickers.

Mike Johnson shares this sticker with Eric Martin of the Saints. 

The back of this sticker is the variation to what was already in my collection.

Al Toon is on the back of this one, while my binder already contained this sticker with Curtis Adams of the Chargers on the back.

There are also Mike Quick and Gary Clark backs to find for the Mike Johnson sticker.

Moving on to the variations of letters on the back of cards, I also needed this Tommy Vardell card that was in the envelope.

There are four different variations to this Touchdown Tommy card. I previously had the E version in my binder 

This one is the F version:

I still need to get the E* and F* versions.

I forgot about the mini stadium photos at the bottom of these card backs. 

It is nice to see Muni stadium with its mixed use playing field.

I'm sure both sets of players (baseball and football) were happy when they finally got stadiums that were exclusive to their sport.

The next card in the envelope also has a different back variation but I already had both versions in my binder.

The 1990 Topps football cards had versions with and without Topps disclaimers on the back of their cards.

I'm always happy to get any Browns cards in the mail but Bernie Kosar was always a favorite of mine so I always smile when I get another one.

The last card in the envelope was a 1988 Topps card of safety Felix Wright.

Wright signed with the Browns as a free agent in 1985 after playing three seasons with Hamilton in the CFL.

There are no variations to chase for 1988 Topps.

Thanks, Joe, for the great Browns cards that you sent me.

- - - - -

Earlier in the post, I commented that I had gone through my whole collection. In doing so, I forgot how nice some of the cards were. I may start doing some short posts showing some of these cards.

Sportcards From The Dollar Store Got Me to Join the Joyride

I opened my mailbox on Monday night, and was pleased to find a bubble mailer from Sportcards From The Dollar Store inside.

Along with a bunch of Browns cards was this card that allowed me to complete my 1991 UK Pro-Set MusiCards set:

The picture is the same as one of their cards in the regular set, but the number and back are different.

Of course, getting this card sent me to YouTube to search for, and watch, some Roxette videos. I think the last time I did that was after Marie passed in 2019.

Thanks, Douglas, for getting this card for me! It is great to add this to its binder to finish the set.

Before I get on to the Browns cards from the envelope, I want to apologize to Tom, and John for recent trade packages that I didn't post. (UNO Browns cards/Batman animated cards from Tom, and nine random, mostly magazine cards from John. I still haven't been down to Watertown to claim the cards you sent for Greg to give to me.)

I also owe an apology to Douglas for not posting about the last package that he sent.

If there is anyone else that didn't hear from me, I apologize to them too.

Sorry, I'm not the greatest blogger.

Now, on to the Browns cards that were in the package.

We start with a couple of quarterbacks. The Brady Quinn card is numbered out of 100.

I liked both McCoy and Quinn. I wish they would have had success with the Browns.

And there were a couple of post-career cards of Hall of Famers.

I wasn't really paying too much attention to the NFL when Paul Warfield returned to the Browns for 1976 and 1977 to finish his career. At the time, as a kid, I was watching the CFL, and Notre Dame college games.

I followed Joe Thomas for his whole career, and sadly was at his last game where he was injured.

There were some cards of Pro Bowl Browns defenders.

That Museum Collection card of Joe Haden has a good thickness to it.

I love watching Myles Garrett play, and have no problem with him having such a large contract, but I'm tired of constantly reading about whether the Browns could/should trade him, or whether he wants to be there or not. I think I would also like to stop reading about him getting speeding tickets.

Next were some cards with jersey pieces in them, of guys who catch the ball.

The Austin Hooper card is numbered out of 75.

I am curious if I were to take all the swatches out of cards that I own, how much material would I have. No doubt I wouldn't be able to make a jersey out of them, but it would sure be funny with all the different colored and patterned pieces.

That kind of reminds me of the Johnny Cash song: One Piece at a Time. Maybe I'll have to give it a listen.

But I digress.

There were also some green cards of guys that ran the ball.

Matthew Dayes mostly played Special Teams in his one season with the Browns, but did have a 71 yard kick return in one game. His card is numbered out of 99.

Nick Chubb has the third most rushing yards in Browns history, behind Hall of Famers Jim Brown and Leroy Kelly. No doubt he would have passed Kelly (less than 500 yards to go) if it wasn't for a severe knee injury against the Steelers that had the net result of limiting him to 502 yards in his last two seasons with the Browns, as opposed to the 6341 yards he had in his first five seasons.

If green isn't your color, I get it. It's not easy being green. But there were a couple of other colored parallels.

There's gold coloring around the borders of that Gold Zone Jamie Collins card.

Who doesn't like color parallels of insert cards? Here's a red Standing Ovation insert.

What? You find those parallels too subtle? Are these any better?

How about some of that Red, White and Blue for that Cedric Tillman card?

Or that full orange background on that Donovan Peoples-Jones card, numbered out of 50?

Actually, I should be happy. These are still subtle compared to many of the Prizm and Mosaic parallel cards that are out there. At least I can identify all of these.

Here are some more receiver cards.

The Panini Origins card of Cedric Tillman is a base card. It has plenty of color and is pretty thick. Nice card.

Fourth-round draft pick Antonio Callaway worked himself into a starting role, along with Jarvis Landry, with the Browns before behavioral issues led to his release in his second season.

And look, we're ending with some hits!

The Topps Supreme rookie year card of Terrance West has a nice big swatch in it, and is numbered out of 25.

The signed Carlton Mitchell card is my fourteenth autographed card of him out of 51 cards that I have of his. I just looked and saw that I'm ranked first in his cards on TCDB. The second place collector has 22.

I saw Mitchell play in the CFL when he played for my hometown Ottawa team.

Thanks again for such a great package of cards. There are some wonderful additions to my Browns collection, and it is always nice to complete a set!