Happy New Year!
Josh Allen
White Sparkle PSA 10
Josh Allen
White Sparkle PSA 10
Josh Allen
White Sparkle PSA 10
To Quote…
Marv Levy – Legendary Coach of the Buffalo Bills turned 95 year young today. Happy Birthday Coach, may the Bills finally bring home that trophy for you! Marv was one of the best at turning a phrase. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Hall of Famer over the years.
“The age factor means nothing to me. I’m old enough to know my limitations and I’m young enough to exceed them.”
– Marv Levy
“Where else would you rather be than right here, right now?”
– Marv Levy
“All the buildup and hype, everything else, is foam. The game is the beer.”
– Marv Levy
“Great football coaches have the vision to see, the faith to believe, the courage to do – and 25 great players.”
– Marv Levy
Hall of Famer.
Legendary coach.
Forever Buffalo Bill.HAPPY 95th BIRTHDAY, MARV LEVY! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/tRZJXUE0a3
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) August 3, 2020
Optic Project: Part 1
Optic Project: The Beginning and the Brady Holo
I’ve always been a bit of a collector. I like to complete the base sets because what is the point of spending all that money for one or two big “hits” and throwing away all of the other cards. While being stuck and home and trying to catalog my entire card collection, I became very aware that I had some strong collections of base sets for Optic Football.
Donruss Optic is my favorite set of the season. I can get hobby boxes on the internet and retail cards at Target and Walmart so it’s easily available. The Optic technology makes for a great looking card. It has a set size of 200 which makes collecting the base set something that’s doable. 100 base veterans, 50 base rookies, and 50 base Rated Rookies. Along with the base cards there are many parallels, each more difficult to find. Pink, Purple, Red & Yellow, Bronze, Aqua, Red, Blue, Purple, Green Gold. Some are numbered from 299 all the way down to Gold Vinyl 1 of 1. Some of them are ridiculous like White Sparkle, Green Velocity, and Black Pandora. Any given card can have about 10-15 parallels.
So here is the deal. My first attempt was 2016, I had already collected the base set, so where should I go from there. All the rookies have parallels from retail boxes with Pink and Purple. I had about 20 each of those. Not too bad. But I really like the HOLO versions of the cards and they have versions of all 200 cards in the Holo parallel. I also had a bunch of those, 30 to be specific. So that’s where I started. It’s not easy to see the difference in the Holo (left) in a scan but in person the difference is obvious.
For set collectors, I recommend SportsLots (Use the banner to the right, I’ll get a little something for sending people that way.) I went to SportsLots and checked out what the cost would be to pick up the 2016 HOLO cards. To my surprise most of them were between 18 cents and 30 cents. Sure the big rookies were more and the some stars a bit more. I had about 30 holo cards so I only needed to get 170. After spending an hour or so searching between COMC.com and SportsLots.com I was able to purchase about 160 of them leaving me to hunt down the rest from eBay.
This is where it got interesting. I got most of them, Ezekiel Elliot, Jared Goff, Michael Thomas, Tyreek Hill for under 10 bucks shipped. I was still missing two cards Tom Brady and Carson Wentz. I figured Brady wouldn’t be bad as it’s a veteran base and there would be plenty out there. Maybe I’d spend $10-15 on this card. But then something happened. I’m sure it’s some kind of market manipulation by people with lots of money in the game. The price of the Brady Card jumped. From $9.95 at the end of February to $199.00 or more where it sits today. Now there is no way I’m buying a card with Tom Brady on it for 200 bucks. Just not going to happen.
I’d love to find out what really happened here but I’m sure I never will. I’m also hoping that the price comes way back down and I can complete the 2016 Donruss Optic Holo set. I guess 199 out of 200 isn’t too bad.
I was also looking at the pink, purple, and Red/Yellow parallels at the same time. I found that some of these could be had on COMC.com and some on SportsLots.com, but the best place was to find them on eBay when someone wanted to get rid of 20 or 30 of them for cheap.
Another post is in the works for the 2016 retail parallels.
Now go open One More Pack, and as always Let’s Go Buffalo.
2019 Donruss Optic Josh Allen Rainbow
Card #12 of 2019 Donruss Optic Football
Josh Allen – Buffalo Bills
Base
Holo
Aqua /299
(Currently Own 80/299, 106/299, 210/299)
Orange /199
(Currently Own 53/199, 123/199, 154/199)
Blue /150
(Currently Own 50/150, 53/150, 131/150)
Red /99
(Currently Own 93/99)
Orange Scope /79
(Currently Own 51/79)
Purple /50
(Currently Own 12/50)
Purple Stars FOTL /25
(Currently Own 23/25)
Gold /10
(Currently Own 1/10)
Missing (And Searching For!)
White Sparkle, Black Pandora /25, Green /5, Gold Vinyl /1
Let’s Go Buffalo!
National Nurses Day
Eichel is the man! Sending flowers to the Nurses at Roswell Park.
Here is the story from the Buffalo News
Sabres' Jack Eichel has 250 bouquets delivered to Roswell Park for National Nurses Day https://t.co/mERVIfBnEH
— Buffalo News Sports (@TBNSports) May 6, 2020
Don Shula 1930-2020
Miami Dolphins legendary head coach Don Shula, died Monday at the age of 90. He was the winningest coach in NFL history and led the 1972 Miami Dolphins to the NFL’s only undefeated season. A GOAT in the truest meaning.
Legends live forever. pic.twitter.com/Tz8xfNgYO2
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) May 5, 2020
Coach Shula – you will truly be missed! You embody the definition of “greatness.” You brought that winning attitude with you every day and made everyone around you better. (Part 1/2) pic.twitter.com/Ytoi5l7H4F
— Dan Marino (@DanMarino) May 4, 2020
While the rival Dolphins are my least favorite team in the NFL, you have to respect someone with the resume of Don Shula. Rest in Peace, Coach.
We express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of former @MiamiDolphins Head Coach Don Shula who passed this morning. pic.twitter.com/aVhQ5FuN4j
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) May 4, 2020
Sleeper Pick
Tonight is the 2nd round of the 2020 NFL draft. As a Bills fan last night’s draft was not as entertaining as past years have been. The Bills traded their first-round pick (among other picks) for Stefon Diggs from the Minnesota Vikings. So I’d like to think they got the best WR in the draft. As a television production professional, I watched every moment of the draft and was proud and quietly frankly impressed with what my colleagues and friends were able to broadcast to the world. Job well done!
Tonight gets a little better for the Bills fans. They have the 54th overall pick. 22 in the second round. Don’t worry there will be plenty of good players available. Thirty-five 2nd round picks have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of fame. Some of the names you know, Brett Favre, Mike Singletary, Michael Strahan, Fred Biletnikoff, Dan Deirdorf, Howie Long and Thurman Thomas. And as any good member of the #BillsMafia knows Billy Shaw drafted in 1961 and a member of the 64-45 AFL Champions and the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame! I’m a bit biased but I think Thurman Thomas is the greatest 2nd round pick in the history of the NFL. (By the way the Bills didn’t have a 1st round pick in 1988 when they drafted the Thurmanator.)
 |
 |
 |
| 1989 Pro Set | 1989 Score | 1989 Topps |
I’m a big fan of the early cards of Thurman Thomas. The Pro Set Card is just so classic. No, it’s not valuable as there were about 3 billion of the made, but it just makes me think of those late 80’s and early 90’s Bills of my youth. I was in 8th grade when the Bills went to their first Super Bowl so I have fond memories of being a youngster every time I look through my Thurman Thomas cards. I know those Super Bowls aren’t so fond of memories but my youth was!
I have a pretty hefty collection of Thurman Thomas cards. Here are a couple of my favorites.
 |
 |
| 2009 Upper Deck Black | 2019 Plates and Patches All Hall |
It’s often said that Thurman Thomas was the last piece to Bill Polian’s Super Bowl puzzle. Let’s hope the Bills can draft the last piece they need to return to the Super Bowl and maybe even a Hall of Famer!
Let’s Go Buffalo!
All My Cards – April 2020
I’ve been a collector my whole life. When I was little my brother and I had just about every G.I. Joe made from 1983-1990. We had Masters of the Universe figures, Marvel figures, and Wrestling figures. I always have been a sports fan. I played organized and unorganized sports all growing up. Love watching football with my family and friends. Let’s Go Buffalo! And now I even work in sports. It seems only natural that I would have stacks of football cards. I still remember my brother having three of the 1987 Topps Randall Cunningham, and I never being able to pull one. Made me so mad.
I was away from #TheHobby for while through high school and college but once I became a productive member of society (read as tax payer), I jumped in again. Spent a few years 2001-2003 buying more cards and collectibles before I was laid off, went back to school, and made a career change. It took me a while to get back to collecting. But by 2015 I was back and I was all in. I started out with the Topps set. I was saddened to see it was the last of their NFL cards due to an exclusive contract between the league and Panini. I became obsessed with collecting the base set, including all of the variations. For another post.
I wanted a way to keep track of all my cards. And when I say all my cards, I mean every last card. Including the ones I considered valuable, to the cards I couldn’t give away with a quarter taped to them. I’m a geek at heart and have a bit of expertise in excel so I started to build spreadsheets. These spreadsheets allowed me to keep track of the cards I needed while set building and create card counts to see how many total cards I have. I’ve been slowly logging cards, it’s way more fun to rip open boxes and packs.
So now we sit here in 2020, my excels are quite elaborate. They are color coded, full printable checklists, and have easily calculated “need” lists. I don’t want to bore you all with the details of my excel geekiness, but I think they are awesome and keep me so organized. If you want to know more just ask me, I’ll explain and try to impress you with my spreadsheets all day long. I’d love to hear from some others out there on how they keep track of their collections.
With out further ado, the most resent numbers.
831 Jim Kelly Cards (439 unique)
620 Thurman Thomas Cards (306 unique)
233 Bruce Smith Cards (154 unique)
177 Andre Reed Cards (107 unique)
255 Buffalo Bills Hits (Autos, Patches, Numbered, Rookie Cards)
Let’s Go Buffalo!
91 Buffalo Sabres Cards (89 unique)
4,863 cards from 2012 Score
3,915 cards from 2018 Panini Football
2,727 cards from 2013 Topps
2,563 cards from 2015 Topps
1,593 total hockey cards
52,756 total football cards
54,349 total cards logged
I’m probably about half the way through logging all of my cards. I probably have 20,000 Pro Set cards from the late 80’s and early 90’s (Junk Wax Era!) I haven’t even begun to log my hits from other teams or any baseball, basketball, or non-sport cards. As you can see it’s a going to be a long project.
Today’s post is brought to you by a card I pulled from a box I bought at Target. It happens to also be his birthday. Happy Birthday Baker! Now go open one more pack.
Back at it!
There is a whole lot going on in the world right now with the entire country shutting down to prevent a pandemic. I’m one of the lucky ones my employer is still paying me, for now. But with that said I’ve got some extra time on my hands and I’ve decided to get back to blogging about my collection. I am hoping it will be a bit of escapism and keep my mind sharp and focused on the positive.
There isn’t going to be any real focus other than I’m going to keep it related to collecting, the hobby, and Buffalo Bills. #BillsMafia! Organization is going to be my focus on some of the first few posts. Then I’ll move into more on my collection. I’ve had stacks of boxes and stacks of cards and half-full binders all over my bonus room since I moved into my house 6 years ago. (For those of you wondering…a bonus room is an extra room someplace in the house that is neither a bedroom or a living space. Think kids play room, storage, man cave.)
I mentioned binders, this was my first card project during the pandemic shelter in place orders.
BEFORE
AFTER
My labels are my own creation using an excel spreadsheet. I’m an excel geek so I have all of my checklists and all of my cards logged into spreadsheets. At least all the ones I have logged so far. But that’s for another post. Here’s the basic break down I used for building my binder labels.
1.) Excel Spreadsheets allow me to check sizes, easily change logos and text, and keep all the labels to a similar style.
2.) 1 Inch Binders are for 200-300 cards, 23-35 pages depending on thickness of cards and whether or not you double up the cards. I don’t double up. I like to see front and back of my cards. The have a label size of 1 inch wide and 9 inches long.
3.) 1and ½ Inch Binders are only slightly bigger. I use these often for Prizm or sets with 400 cards I use 1 ¼ inches wide and 9 inches long for the label.
4.) 2-inch binders need a much larger label with a width of 1 ¾ inches wide and 9 inches long. These are for sets like my prized 2015 Topps base set with all of the short prints. A collection of approximately 600 cards.
5.) I try to keep the text on the label as simple as possible. Just for ease of use when searching through the binders. (i.e. Donruss Optic Football, Topps Football, Panini Prizm)
6.) I also like to add the company logo (Topps, Panini, Upper Deck) along with the set logo (Contenders, Optic, Valor, Platinum) if the particular set has a designated logo.
7.) I then print them out on full uncut sheets of label paper. I used Avery 8165 labels (full sheet in white) that I get at the Office Depot. I’m sure you can find these labels where ever you get your printing supplies.
8.) I have a paper cutter that allows me to make very precise cuts. It’s the best way to get straight lines. (Here’s a similar one on Amazon. Paper Cutter
9.) Peel and stick to the spine of your binder. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to use my labels. I’m more than willing to share them.
My goal is 2 posts per week for the foreseeable future. But I’m going to end each post with a Buffalo Bills card. The first card of the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine is card #725 of 1990 Pro Set.
Howard “House” Ballard.
Stay in your house and open one more pack.
Let’s Go Buffalo!
Chasing Rainbows
A complete “set” of all the different parallels of an individual card. That is the goal. I never thought I be chasing rainbows, but a couple of these I just fell into. And then the closer I got the more I liked the idea. The first one that I’m working on started by finding a couple cheap printing plates on Ebay. I’ve got alerts set up and hope to find all of the missing pieces to my rainbows.
2016 Phoenix Tyrod Taylor
Collected:
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 (Red)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 (Pink)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 94/99 (Orange)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 5/25 (Yellow)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 1/1 (Magenta Printing Plate)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 1/1 (Cyan Printing Plate)
In Transit:
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 5/10 (Green)
Missing:
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 1/1 (Blue)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 1/1 (Black Printing Plate)
2016 Panini Phoenix Tyrod Taylor #11 1/1 (Yellow Printing Plate)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly
Collected:
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 195/232 (Purple)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 163/232 (Purple)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 136/199 (Emerald)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 50/99 (Gold)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 1/1 (Magenta Printing Plate)
Missing:
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 #/50 (Ruby)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 #/25 (Sapphire)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 1/1 (Onyx)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 1/1 (Black Printing Plate)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 1/1 (Yellow Printing Plate)
2015 Topps Triple Threads Jim Kelly #84 1/1 (Cyan Printing Plate)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly
Collected:
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 19/99
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 4/49 (Neon Blue)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 46/49 (Neon Blue)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 2/35 (Neon Blue Die-Cut)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 10/35 (Neon Blue Die-Cut)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 10/25 (Neon Green)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 4/15 (Neon Green Die-Cut)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 7/10 (Neon Pink)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 4/5 (Neon Pink Die-Cut)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 3/3 (Neon Orange)
Missing:
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 1/1 (Neon Orange Die-Cut)
2015 Panini Spectra Jim Kelly #55 1/1 (Gold Die-Cut)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy
Collected:
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE – Autograph (Refractor)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 162/199 – Autograph (Blue Refractor)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 84/99 – Autograph (Bubbles Refractor)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 49/50 – Autograph (Gold Refractor)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 1/5 – Autograph (Prism Refractor)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 1/1 – Autograph (Black Printing Plate)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 1/1 – Autograph (Yellow Printing Plate)
Missing:
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE #/25 – Autograph (Red)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 1/1 – Autograph (SuperFractor)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 1/1 – Autograph (Cyan Printing Plate)
2014 Bowman Chrome Kony Ealy #RCRA-KE 1/1 – Autograph (Magenta Printing Plate)
On that last one, I actually pulled the black printing plate, blue refractor, and bubbles refractors, so I knew I had to try to hunt down the rest.
If anyone out there sees any of the missing cards please shoot me a message or tweet. I’m always looking to buy or trade for these.