Category: Personal Collection
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 […]
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!
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Jim Kelly – 2015 Panini Spectra Football
A couple of weeks ago I made a bit of an impulse purchase on eBay. It was a lot of eight Jim Kelly cards from the 2015 Panini Spectra Football set. This purchase led to a new trading card quest. It’s not going to be easy and it might not even be possible to find, but I’m looking to complete the rainbow of Jim Kelly variations. Here are the cards I purchased. Base 19/99 Neon Blue 04/49 Neon Blue Die-Cut 02/35 Neon Green 18/25 Neon Green Die-Cut 04/15 Neon Pink 07/10 Neon Pink Die-Cut 4/5 Neon Orange 3/3 So I’m still looking for the Neon Orange Die-Cut 1 of 1 and the Gold 1 of 1. These are obviously the hardest ones to find, and the most expensive but if anyone out there has one, please let me know. I’m willing to trade and/or buy. Either way these cards are a great addition to the person collection. Let’s Go Buffalo!
eBay purchase from Canada
One the eve of what is sure to be a historic election in the United States I received an eBay purchase from Canada. And since the Bills are on Monday Night Football for the first time in a while I had to get this post up. It was about 12 dollars and provided a pretty sweet blast from the past. Check out these very different items I’m adding to the personal collection. 1993 Stadium Club – Master Photo (Buffalo Bills) Mark Kelso. Bruce Smith, Jim Kelly, Andre Reed, Pete Metzelaars, Nate Odomes, Bill Brooks, Darryl Talley, Steve Tasker, Don Beebe, Henry Jones, Cornelius Bennett Here are two of the scans front and back. They are 5×7 and a very nice addition to the Buffalo Bills collection. The second part of the shipment was a 1980 Buffalo Bills Team set from Bells Super Markets. A store that hasn’t been around in a long time. These aren’t in the perfect condition but I really like them. They are two cards connected together with a perforation in the cardboard. These cards takes you back to being a kid and collecting the local cards. 1980 Bells Super Markets Buffalo Bills Team Set […]
Jim Kelly – 1984 USFL Rookie Card
I’ve been looking for a Jim Kelly 1984 USFL card for a very long time. I’ve found some at prices that were a little out of what I was comfortable paying. I’ve seen some graded ones on eBay going for upwards of 150 bucks. That’s a little bit more than I’m willing to pay, especially since they seem to be pretty common. I’ve seen a few ungraded ones in card shops going for $75-$100. Again they seem a little too common to be at that price. Then a few weeks ago while cruising through eBay I found a listing that I kept my eye on. It was a lot of two cards. The 1984 Jim Kelly USFL Rookie card and the 1985 Jim Kelly USFL card. Starting bid was $39.99. I watched hoping it wouldn’t raise much higher. Put in my last second bid of 60 bucks and surprisingly won the auction at $56 for both cards delivered. Not a bad price at all. And I’ve got the true Jim Kelly rookie card from his first season in professional football. At the time of this post, I’ve cataloged over 290 different Jim Kelly cards. I’ve now got cards numbered as […]