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!

Weekend card show - Syracuse Part 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to two card shows last weekend. 

Saturday saw me wake up early, and make the two hour drive to meet up with Night Owl. He was then kind enough to do the rest of the driving to the Syracuse card show.

I will say that it was better that the Syracuse show was on the Saturday as the weather was a lot better on Saturday. There was more snow on Sunday, and I probably wouldn't have made the drive then.

Before going into the show, Night Owl gave me a team bag of cards, and apologized that there were so few Browns cards in it.

There were four.

The first was a nice 1993 Topps Gold card of Touchdown Tommy. I already have a copy of this Tommy Vardell card in my collecction, but it was good to see the card again.

The next card was a Prospector Emerald insert card of Tim Couch from the 2000 SAGE HIT series. It is numbered out of 999 on the front.

I needed this card, and am more than happy to add another Tim Couch card to my collection.

The third Browns card was this Retrospective Jerseys card of Braylon Edwards from the 2006 Fleer Hot Prospects set.

I also needed this card.

The last of the four Browns cards was this Rated Rookies Autograph Bronze insert card of Rashard Higgins from the 2016 Donruss Optics set.

This card was another one that I needed in my collection. I'm not generally like the Sportscards From the Dollar Store blog in reviewing penmanship and autographs, but this one seems a little weak. I guess I can see that the first part of the scribble may be a R, but after that, let's just swirl the pen a bit?

It turns out that I needed three of the four Browns that Night Owl found for me. I'm very happy with that.

Along with those Browns, I was also given a number of Mets cards.

I know that Night Owl is working on his 2025 Topps Heritage set. He provided me with some Mets from it.

I really think that last year's team missed the energy that Jose Iglesias brought to the team in 2024, especially with his OMG song.

I've always liked Brandon Nimmo, and his style of game, and wish him well with the Rangers. I'm going to miss watching him regularly.

I was hoping that the Mets would re-sign Edwin Diaz. As much as my nerves may have been tested when he came into games, he usually came out of it with the save. He often came up with big strikeouts when he needed them. (Sometimes after allowing walks and stolen bases to make me nervous.)

As I'm typing this, I just heard that Pete Alonso  has signed with Baltimore. Wow!

I don't fully understand all the criticism towards Alonso's defense. His throwing was bad at times, and he may not have had the greatest range, but I saw him scoop a lot of poor throws up to save the defense. The fact that he was always in the lineup, and the runs he produced overcame those flaws.

I guess it is easy for me as a fan to be upset with Alonso, Diaz and Nimmo being gone from last year's team, but it isn't my money paying them. I just hope there is a plan to replace them.

I still like all three players and hope they have much individual success.

I liked seeing the two 2024 Topps Holiday cards in the bag, with the regular card and Christmas tree variation of Jeff McNeil. Cool!

And this photo definitely shows that the lighting in my room wasn't good when I was taking them.

I know that everyone thinks of Tom Glavine as a Mets pitcher since he did win his 300th game there. He had a solid five seasons with the team.

I'm not very familiar with Chuck Estrada, but did see that he pitched seven seasons in the Majors. His final season was 1967 with the Mets.

I had heard of Tommie Agee for being on the 1969 Miracle Mets, but I didn't know until a few years back that he hit the only home run to the upper deck in left field at Shea Stadium.

Here are a couple of numbered cards. I think Curtis Granderson was a favorite wherever he played, and this is a nice Gypsy Queen card to own.

I think that the Mets are going to try playing with a  bunch of their younger talent this year. Brett Baty has shown flashes of really good play with the Mets, and he will need to play consistently to help the team.

Again, the lighting in the room sure didn't help the top card look good in the photo that I took.

I loved watching R.A. Dickey pitch with those knuckleballs, and was happy to see him win 20 games and the Cy Young in 2012.

And I'll end the Mets cards with a Mike Piazza card.  That always puts me in a better mood.

As Night Owl mentioned in his show recap, upon entering the show, we saw tables being run by his former colleague's family. I spent some money there on Browns cards, which will be among the cards in the second part of my show recap. 

A little further down there was a table that had a lot of interesting Bills stuff. It caught my eye and I wandered over to it. When the dealer there saw my Browns jacket, he said he had something that I might be interested in just around the corner of his table. I was intrigued, so I moved over to take a look.

It was a custom art piece/print that a friend of his made. It sounds as though his friend has done athletes and musicians. Coming in a cheap frame with a $5.00 price tag, I was in.

And once again, I didn't really notice my shadow in the picture until I put it into the blog.

In my recent Detroit card show blog, I picked up the 1989 and 1990 Pro Set Final Update sets.

For the original cover price, I added the 1991 Pro Set Final Update set. Again, I probably have an open one somewhere.

The seller also had a number of 3 sheet team sets for the 1993 McDonalds Gameday cards.

I already have the Browns set, and they didn't have Bills or Raiders sets that would have been nice to pick up for friends, but they did have a Packers set that I will be giving to a friend as part of her Christmas present.

He also had another set of pages that I had never seen before.

For another $5 I picked up the six sheets that Fleer and Sports Cards Magazine put out in 2001, with six cards on each page.

The seller had a bunch of other interesting items that I didn't buy, but I really wanted to make sure I was getting some Browns cards at the show, and this was one of the first tables that I had visited.

I'll continue my show post later with a part two, mostly of Browns cards but with a few other different items that caught my eye.