Recent Sportlots orders: 1999 - 2007 cards

Continuing the cards from recent Sportlots orders, with these cards being from 1999 - 2007.

Top (l-r): 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends #166; 2001 Score Select #48

Bottom: 2000 Topps Gallery #63

I previously owned a parallel of the Jim Brown card. It is always nice to add the base card to a parallel.

The blue border on the Northcutt card has some chipping on the bottom. A little unfortunate, but not really that noticeable in the binder, and I have no problem paying $0.18 for it.

Even though the Kevin Johnson card came out before the Northcutt card, I figured by putting it on the bottom of the scan it would be close to the grouping of his other cards below.

Top (l-r): 2000 Bowman Chrome #29; 2001 Bowman Chrome #45

Bottom (l-r): 2001 Fleer Authority #30; 2001 Stadium Club #105

Stadium Club had great photos in football too!

Top: 2002 Donruss Elite #8

Bottom (l-r): 2001 Topps Archives #62; 2003 Donruss Gridiron Kings - Heritage Collection #HC22

When I manage to catch Browns pre-season games on tv with the Cleveland coverage, I enjoy listening to Tim Couch in the booth. Last Thursday's game had Couch in the booth, Bernie Kosar doing sideline commentary, and Joe Thomas as a special guest in the booth for the third quarter.

It is nice to pick up a couple of new Ozzie Newsome cards to my collection, including the Topps Archives reprint of his rookie card.

Top: 2002 Pacific Atomic - Countdown to Stardom #5

Bottom (l-r): 2003 Fleer Mystique #19 and #20

I don't know how many various insert cards that I have of William Green. I enjoy them, but there are so many. I guess that is what happens with a team's rookie running back.

Top (l-r): 2003 Topps Draft Picks and Prospects - Chrome Gold Refractors #85; 2003 Upper Deck Standing O #177

Bottom (l-r): 2004 Fleer Authentix #113 (#/750); 2004 Topps Draft Picks and Prospects #72

I'm sneaking in another Kevin Johnson card here. I previously owned the die-cut parallel of the football from this set.

I like the shiny refractor for the Quincy Morgan card, and the inset "ticket" on the Authentix Luke McCown card.

Top (l-r): 2004 Fleer Tradition - Blue #89; - Blue #100

Bottom (l-r): 2004 Fleer Tradition - Blue #130; - Green #167

As basic as they are, I love the colored parallels for the 2004 Fleer Tradition set.

L-R: 2004 Playoff Prime Signatures #24 (#/999); 2005 Donruss Gridiron Gear #125 (#/399)

Another Ozzie, and the beginning of a bunch of Charlie Frye cards.

Top: 2005 Donruss Throwback Threads - Rookie Hoggs #27 (#/750)

Bottom: 2005 Playoff Contenders - Legendary Contenders Green #10 (#/750)

I'm not going to complain about adding another Jim Brown card to my collection.

Top (l-r): 2005 Playoff Prestige - Draft Picks #DP3; 2005 Press Pass SE - Old School Collector's Series #OS9

Bottom (l-r): 2005 SAGE Hit - Autographs Silver #5; 2005 SAGE Hit - Reflectors Blue #R5

Here are a bunch of cards with Charlie Frye in his Akron Zips uniform. The autographed card was the most expensive card of this post at $3.00.

I've probably mentioned it before, but my roommate owns an Akron Zips baseball cap. When we stopped at a sporting goods store on a football trip to Cleveland, he wanted to buy a baseball cap, and really liked the look of the Zips caps. I don't really think he knew what it was beforehand but he likes it and still wears it a fair bit.

Top (l-r): 2005 SPx - Holoview #8; 2005 Topps Total - Silver #326

Bottom: 2005 Topps Total - Silver #139

I'm so happy that the Browns signed Phil Dawson to a one-day retirement contract. He deserves to retire with the Browns.

An interesting thing about his retirement contract - it was a legitimate contract, and they added him to a roster spot before he retired. It wasn't just a ceremonial contract. Now, from what I read, that also means that his rights stay with the Browns if he wants to come out of retirement.

Top (l-r): 2005 Score #68 and #71

Bottom (l-r): 2005 Topps Total - Silver #68; 2006 Topps Total - Red #204

It seems to always surprise me when I need Score base cards, although for cards where the player in the Browns uniform is listed with his new team, I can easily miss them.

Top: 2005 Topps Total - Silver #348

Middle: 2005 Topps Total - Silver #421

Bottom: 2006 Topps Total - Blue #353

I guess this is time to make my usual comment about loving Topps Total.

Adding the parallels of Michael Lehan, and Derrick Frost to their base cards removes both of them from the group of players that I only have one card of in my collection.

Top (l-r): 2005 Topps Turkey Red - Red #191; 2006 Finest - Refractors #91 (#/399)

Bottom (l-r): 2006 Leaf Rookies & Stars - Gold #26 (#/299); 2006 Playoff Prestige - Turning Pro #10

The red Charlie Frye parallel is a double. I thought I was ordering the base card. Oops.

Top (l-r): 2006 Topps DPP - Chrome Black #20; 2006 Topps DPP - Chrome Black Refractors #128

Bottom (l-r): 2006 Topps Turkey Red - Autographs Gray #TW; 2007 Leaf Certified #163 (#/1500)

The chrome black refractors seem to look so much better in the scans than they do in hand.

The Travis Wilson autograph was the most expensive card of this post at $2.49.

The total purchase cost for this scan was just a little more than a blaster at $23.31.

Recent Sportlots orders - pre-move Browns

While looking to pick up some of the more recent Browns Panini football stickers, I found myself once again looking at Sportlots which is usually a good place to find cheap singles of base cards.

I ended up buying cards from multiple sellers, and after my first round of cards arrived, I went back and made another order from one of the sellers. I'm going to put all the cards together for my next few posts. Here are the cards that I picked up from before the Browns move to Baltimore.

Top (l-r): 1967 Philadelphia #40; 1966 Philadelphia #47

Bottom: 1968 Topps #215

The miscut Morrow card brings me down to needing only the checklist that lists the Browns for the 1966 Philadelphia set.

The Fichtner card brings me down to needing the checklist card, and a card of John Morrow for the 1967 Philadelphia team set.

The 1968 Frank Ryan card is the last Browns card that I needed from that set.

Top: 1984 Topps Stickers #34/184

Bottom: 1984 Topps Stickers #139/151

The top sticker has Everson Walls, of the Dallas Cowboys, paired up with the Browns kicker, Matt Bahr.

The bottom sticker is a foil All-Pro sticker with Browns linebacker Chip Banks, and tackle Mike Kenn, of the Atlanta Falcons.

These have left me still needing two more Topps Stickers to collect to complete my 1984 Topps Stickers team set.

Top (l-r): 1993 Pro Set Power - Gold #19 and #157

Bottom: 1993 Pro Set Power - Gold #159

These cards doubled my gold parallel cards from this set. I'm still missing two cards to complete the team set, both of them of Pepper Johnson.

Kosar, Matthews, Mike Johnson... Such fond memories when I see these cards.

L-R: 1993 Pacific Prisms #17; 1994 Pro Line Live - Autographs (#/1000)

This is the third Tommy Vardell autograph that I've added to my collection. At $5.00, this was the most expensive card that I purchased in my Sportlots orders.

The next card is an oddball that I already owned in its packaging, but that I wanted a second version of to open for my collection.

1994 Action Packed Mammoth #MM21 (#/25000)

Okay, so it is an Action Packed card from a set called "Mammoth". But how big are these mammoth cards? Let's put another card on it to give us perspective.

Yep, it is pretty big.

Pro Football Reference lists 107 NFL players that were born in Canada. Mark Rypien is one of them. He is one of three quarterbacks born in Canada to play in the NFL, along with Jesse Palmer with the Giants (2002-03), and Charlie O'Rourke with three teams in the 1940s.

L-R: 1994 Classic Assets #23; 1994 Classic Four Sports - Gold #59

Here are a couple of college cards of Antonio Langham that I needed.

1995 Collector's Edge Excalibur - Challengers Draft Day Redemption

I had never seen any of these redemption cards before, so I was very happy to buy this one. It was the second most expensive card that I bought in my orders, behind the Tommy Vardell autograph.

Here are the details for the redemption.

For the Browns, this redemption card was to be redeemed for a card of linebacker Craig Powell. I don't own the Craig Powell card yet.

L-R: 1995 Pacific #86; 1995 Playoff Prime - Minis #124

I don't know how I didn't already own this Issac Booth card. I would have thought that I had completed the Browns team set, but my wantlist said otherwise.

This is my first Issac Booth card, and there are two parallels to find to go along with it.

This Leroy Hoard card is the last mini that I needed for the team set.

1995 Pacific Gridiron #14

I've shown the red parallel of this base card before. I still really love these oversized cards for their backs that actually talk about the game where the photo was taken.

I know that I've shown the back before, but since I love it so much, I'll show it again.

Over 76,000 fans at the game. Hard for a NFL owner to make money with that sort of attendance.

I really hope that with the announcement that they will be inducting more people into the NFL Hall of Fame to celebrate the 100th year of the NFL, that there is no consideration at all given to the Browns former owner that moved the team. (Yes, I'm not even going to name him here.)

1995 Pacific Gridiron - Copper #61

This was supposed to be the red parallel that I ordered, which would complete my team set. Instead I was sent the copper parallel, which is my first of that parallel.

(Of course, knowing that the copper parallel of Herschel Walker is on The Herschel Hoard's ten most wanted list, I immediately went back to look to see if the seller had a "red" Herschel Walker for sale. Sadly, he didn't have any Herschel Walker Gridiron cards.)

Here is the back, which you'll see is from the same game as the Eric Metcalf card.

This ends the pre-move portion of my purchase.

Not that I intended to do one of those "build a blaster" type of posts, but I just looke at the receipts and calculated how much I spent on the cards in this post. They came to $19.72, of which about half of which came from two cards.

It also turns out that all of these cards, along with a bunch of newer ones, came from the same seller - 'kbartell'. He is a great seller, and my shipment went out very quickly and arrived in great shape.

Blaster of 2019 Donruss football

While picking up my mail last weekend, I stopped by the nearby Walmart and, among other things, I looked through their card section. In it I found cards from a set that I hadn't seen yet, 2019 Donruss football.

Once I got home, I realized why I hadn't seen it yet. It wasn't supposed to release until today. That being said, I guess that I got an early look at a new set.

I've done well opening packs this year. With 88 cards in here, I hope to pull at least three Browns cards from the blaster.

Pack 1:

It was nice to see a Pat Tillman card as the first card in the blaster. I don't recall seeing him represented as one of the retired players in any recent sets.

In general, I like the fronts, although they seem to fall into the trend that Night Owl pointed out recently of having a lot of diagonal lines.

I am happy to see the team logo and position on the front. I don't know why they wrote the team name vertically beside the team logo. They made it so faint that it is barely readable. Why bother at that point?

A canvas parallel of a Bengals player. Is it going to be one of those blasters that aggravates me with good cards of division rivals?

Pack 2:

Well, this pack opened a lot nicer than the previous one. This is my first Schobert card in a Browns uniform. I previously owned two cards of him in a college uniform.

Once again, I will use the back of a Browns card to show what the backs look like.

Unlike some of the other Panini set backs from this year, these backs show some biographical information of the player with their height, weight and college.

Again, although they show career totals, they don't give an idea of how long the career has been. It is hard to know whether his totals are impressive or not. The card doesn't show it, but Schobert was drafted by the Browns in 2016.

The back of this card has a funny thing that I've never really noticed before. I originally looked at Joe Schobert's statistics at Pro Football Reference, and noticed that the career tackle numbers there didn't match up with the numbers on the back of the card. I then checked his profile at NFL.com, and saw that the career tackle numbers matched the back of the card.

I don't know why Pro Football Reference's numbers do not match NFL.com's numbers, but I guess this card back shows that Panini takes their numbers from the NFL.

The Garoppolo card is a Press Proof Silver Die-Cut numbered out of 75. I guess from looking at the two packs so far, that inserts or special cards are the seventh cards in the eight card packs.

Pack 3:

I guess if I'm going to get a Steelers card, it is best to get one of their retired legends. It is fun to contrast the facemask on the Bradshaw card with the ones on the Prescott and Wilson cards.

No insert or special card in this pack, but it is nice to get a Dwayne Haskins rookie card.

I said it in one of my previous posts. I like seeing kicker cards, and although Tucker plays for the Ravens, he is one of the best in league history.

Pack 4:

I guess my favorite from this scan would be the Greg Olsen card. It is too bad that he has suffered serious injuries the last two seasons.

Once again, it looks like I didn't get any special cards in this pack. I did pick up my third Bengals card though.

Pack 5:

Another kicker card with Adam Vinatieri, the oldest player in the NFL.

Back to getting a special card in the seven slot, and this time it is a Browns card. This is my first Odell Beckham Jr. card in a Browns uniform. 

This card appears to be part of the Retro 1989 insert set, but Donruss didn't put out football cards in 1989. I'm sure, though, that all of the baseball collectors that read this will recognize the card as being of the 1989 Donruss baseball card design.

Here is the back, which, as expected, is also in the 1989 Donruss baseball design.

Pack 6:

I'm happy to see another Browns card on the top of a pack.

I love getting new Ozzie Newsome cards, but he really seems to be the Browns legend in a lot of Panini sets.

This makes the third Browns card in the blaster, which if each team had even distribution, most teams should have three.

Another Bengals card in the back half of this pack.

Pack 7:

Mark Ingram is shown in his new Baltimore Ravens uniform while Robert Quinn is listed with the Cowboys while still shown in his Dolphins uniform. Ingram signed with the Ravens on March 13, 2019, while Quinn was traded to the Cowboys on March 28.  I don't know if there was a deadline to photoshop photos that Quinn missed, or if it was just because Quinn switched numbers when he joined the Cowboys, and they didn't want to change the number on the jersey.

Here is my memorabilia card from the blaster, and like the other special cards, it is in the seventh spot in the pack.

Since I pointed it out for the other players that changed teams in this pack, Case Keenum is in his new Redskins uniform. His trade to the Redskins became official on March 13.

Pack 8:

Jason Witten announced in February 2019 that he was going to come out of retirement and return to the Cowboys.

Munoz gives me a fifth Bengals card in the blaster. For the veteran, the helmet is different than for the current players.

After going back and looking at the Browns cards, it happens there too. I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention. I noticed it in a previous Donruss set, but not this time. Oops.

Pack 9:

I like the Drew Bledsoe card.

The Saquon Barkley insert is nice, and I got a sixth Bengals card.

I just noticed that this Ryan Finley Rated Rookie card has a different photo than the canvas parallel Ryan Finley Rated Rookie card that I pulled in the first pack. The set has photo variations, but the set listing on Cardboard Connection doesn't list any canvas parallels for the variations.

I've looked online and seen that the Dwayne Haskins canvas card also has a different image than the regular Rated Rookie card that was in my blaster. I guess the canvas Rated Rookies must be variants rather than parallels.


Pack 10:

I like the photo of Calvin Ridley with the Falcons logo on the wall behind him.

I guess that not only is this a Raiders hot pack, but also a Raiders hot scan. (Is that a thing?)

Pack 11:

It is too bad that Doug Baldwin had to retire due to injury

So ends my blaster. I like the cards, and there are still a bunch of Browns to find in the set so I'll probably buy some more of it. I'm not even going to complain that I seemed to pull more Bengals cards than any other team.

It's too bad that I took so long to write this up as it could have been a preview post as opposed to just a release day post.

eBay purchase and a TCDB trade

Recently on eBay, I managed to win an eBay auction with a minimum $0.99 bid, with $0.99 shipping.

1971 Kellogg's #49

For some reason, I've never found the two Browns from the 1971 Kellogg's set at card shows. I don't check eBay for them often, but on occasion I take a look. Luckily, I spotted this one about a day and a half before its auction was going to end.

There were scans of both the front and back of the card in the listing, and perhaps others thought it was too rough to bid on, but I am thrilled to add this card to my collection.

I still need the Bo Scott card, but the cheapest it is available for on eBay right now is $5.25, with $3.99 shipping. I'll keep waiting to find it at a show, or for a cheaper auction to start.

The 1971 season was Erich Barnes' last in the NFL.

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Another trade envelope was waiting for me during my last trip to my P.O. Box. This one was initiated by Trading Card Database user 'mrdonnee'. He saw a 2018 Panini Prizm - Red, White and Blue parallel card of Lamar Jackson that I had on my  trade list, and offered me two Browns cards for it.

Originally, I was hoping to save the Jackson to trade for either a Baker Mayfield card, or for a parallel of one of the other Browns rookies, but when I saw one of the cards being offered, I decided it was a good trade.

L-R: 2018 Panini Prizm #155; 2018 Panini Prizm - Prizm Lazer #155

I had never actually seen one of the Prizm Lazer cards before, and thought that it would be worth trading for. Once I got the Lazer card in hand, and saw it, I was even happier with the trade. And the card scans so well too.

Thank you, 'mrdonnee'!

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This next part is just a health update, and has no cards.

I can't believe that August is here, and I know that a lot of card collectors are reading about the National right now.

A convention that I usually attend always seems to be the same weekend as the National, and it is again this year. That would be Gencon, a game convention that takes place in Indianapolis.

Sadly, I just didn't get quite healthy enough to attend Gencon this year. Although I've made the hour long drive to my P.O. Box a couple of times, and I think that I could probably sit in the car for the three hours to Syracuse if I wanted to right now (but I would probably be limping around a bit when I first got out of the car), there is no chance that I could make the approximately fourteen hour drive to Indianapolis. I don't think that I could even tolerate sitting in airline seats for the required times for flights to Indianapolis.

It sucks that I can't be at Gencon, and I've been getting texts from friends that are there that are wondering if I am there, or telling me that they've just heard about my curling accident and the follow-up surgery. I'm very disappointed that I don't get to see these friends.

For a health update, last week I went to my first rehab appointment. I had a good appointment, and the therapist gave me two stretches that she wants me to do three times daily in three sets of 30 seconds. She also told me that she wants me to go for a daily walk, suggesting that I start with five minutes and work my way up to a half hour.

After a week of doing what I was asked, I am noticing a difference.

I'm feeling it when I do my stretches, but I am also noticing that it doesn't hurt as much when I lift my leg up to get into my car. The stretches must be improving my range of motion, and that is making things better.

The walks have frustrated me. For my first walk, I figured that I would go for about ten minutes. I felt that I should be able to handle that. 

I planned out a route, and went for my walk. I couldn't walk as fast as I thought I could, and it turned out to take me about 18 minutes to walk my planned route. I know that I was limping, and I was very tired when I finished, but it didn't seem too bad.

The next day, however, I was sore, and knew that I would have to shorten my route. I knocked it down to approximately ten minutes, and have been doing that route since. At first I was feeling pain in both hips, as well as my right knee, but that has been getting better.. I know that my stride still isn't a clean one, but I don't think that I'm limping as badly either. If it goes well for the next couple of days, I'll try to stretch out the time a little bit.

I never thought that I would get to a point where I would struggle to walk. Even when I've been the most out of shape that I've been, I could, in normal circumstances, easily walk for extended lengths of time without any problems. But I guess that after four months of not really moving around much, and really only walking between rooms, or between my car and whatever building I was going to, or shopping for groceries, my body wasn't ready for such, and I use the term loosely, exercise.

I'm frustrated with my recovery time even though this is still fitting into the timeframe that the surgeon told me about before my surgery. I guess things are working out, and there are lots of things that show my that I'm getting better, but it is just too slow, and I seem to be missing out on so many things that I want to do.

Right now, my hopes are to extend the walking time, and keep the therapist happy with my progress. I would also like to get down to Syracuse or Binghamton for a ball game sometime soon, and I'd like to play a round of golf before the end of summer. (I have to ask my therapist if she thinks the golf will be possible.) I would also like to get down to a friend's birthday barbeque just outside of Baltimore at the end of August. We'll have to see if I can spend about eight hours driving by then.

I know that I probably won't be able to do all the things that I want, but at least I have something to work for with my rehab.