New Year, Old Cards

A big bunch of cards to peruse.

I think I've hit a first here at the blog where I busted on past Blogger's built-in character limit for tags. I like to tag each individual player whenever I show off a card that's notable (typically anything serial-numbered, signed or containing a memorabilia piece of some sort), but there was no way to do that with this bunch of cards from buckstorecards that I received back in September unless I broke this up into several posts, which isn't something I typically do. As daunting as it was to post about this massive, impressive batch, it would have been even more unwieldy to deal with it in multiple parts.

Off we go, sans tags for the Ducks cards (the bulk of these)...

I don't recall "PRESS PROOF" actually being stamped on any other so-called "press proof" parallels from Panini that I've seen before. Tots is still a free agent somehow. I wouldn't mind seeing him come back to St. Louis to be in the outfield mix.

Nick Foles cards are always going to be welcome in my collection, as he helped the Eagles to their first Super Bowl title.

Much more after the jump!

Penei Sewell is undoubtedly the most famous of the Sewell brothers, but there was another Sewell who starred at Oregon. Noah got his first starts as a pro this season, starting 9 games for the Bears.

This card is really goofy. It's one of the more aggressive die cuts that I've seen. This set from 2019 was a weird example of Panini trying to bring a high-end concept to the retail blaster box format. I enjoyed opening it, even if you actually received very few cards.

Bol Bol Alert! This is from some sort of National Sports Convention set. The pattern is really distracting.

As usual with buckstorecards, there was an interesting stack of St. Louis Blues cards. The team is a disaster once again this season, but it's still fun to remember some guys like O'Reilly, who was a key piece to their Stanley Cup winning run in his first season in St. Louis.

Robert Thomas appears to be breaking out of this honeycomb of ice blocks here.

We're firmly back in Oregon Ducks territory here, with a signed mini football helmet courtesy of Demetrius Williams.

Dillon Mitchell didn't make it in the NFL and I always wished he would have stayed at Oregon for one more year. He'll always have his 2018 Redbox Bowl MVP trophy, though. (Don't look up that game, though. Seriously.)

Rolls Royce! At first I thought this was a printing plate, because it's a metal slab, but it's actually from some Panini set called Elements.

It's another fun signed mini helmet card! D-Will was Kellen Clemens' top target for a time at Oregon.

This card is super heavy and difficult to store, but I've never minded the sort of manufactured relic things as long as they're completely up front about what they are. I do wish I could take the coin out and check it out, though.

Patrick Chung, another Ducks star, had a lengthy career in the NFL, primarily with the Patriots. I am hoping his team goes down hard in the upcoming Super Bowl.

As someone who had never been into football cards much, I've been discovering lately that Collectors Edge had some interesting looking stuff. This kind of looks like a knockoff Upper Deck design, though.

Speaking of UD, here's a pair of Ducks on an Upper Deck Pros & Prospects duo card. George Wrighster on the right is wearing one of the very first Oregon uniforms after they started redesigning everything.

Ugo Amadi has just completed his 7th season in the NFL, where he seems to have settled in as a part-time player with the Saints. (By the way... go Seahawks, I guess.)

Even more UO autos! Jevon Holland has been a starter his entire NFL career so far, which means he's one of the players that still occasionally gets cards in sets. We'll see what the Fanatics takeover will do to the checklist selection process in NFL cards (probably not much.)

Here's an oddly classy looking card from... Press Pass?! Who knew?

This is the last, but certainly not least Ducks signature found in this huge package o' stuff.

Of course, I always love a good fancy Cardinals card. Bourjos wasn't around long, but he got some interesting cards out of his time with St. Louis. I think it would have been interesting to see how his speed would be used in today's game, which has changed quite a bit in the decade plus since Bourjos was around.

This Sabas card is straight out of left field, or more accurately, the Czech Republic. It's from a set called 2001 Stadion World Stars which appears to feature pro athletes from a bunch of different sports.

My only memory of Asomugha with the Eagles was a phone call with a friend who was insistent that his addition to the team was going to be a huge, franchise-defining move. (It was not.) I had never heard of him at that point.

This triple swatch card of yet another Duck just makes me miss the Pac-12.

There was a note included with the package saying something along the lines of "I hope you like O-Pee-Chee!" Well, I certainly do! Even better -- most of the OPC needs were of the sticker variety, and most of these stickers are in fact from that Canadian company. (There's a couple of Panini stickers at the bottom, of course.)

I rarely complete the sets I set out to work on, but I can finally put this one to bed. I got really excited about Panini's Donruss set back in the 2010-11 season when they were still new at the sports cards game in the US. I still want to get more of these parallels and inserts now that Brendan Haywood has fully completed the base set. Panini didn't put out another Donruss branded basketball set until the 2014-15 season, and it was never the same.

I haven't formally added Oregon women's basketball players to my want lists yet aside from Sabrina Ionescu, but these WNBA cards are definitely going into my Ducks binders. Once the Portland Fire get up and running (hopefully there is a season this year), I'll make some decisions on how I might want to approach collecting WNBA stuff going forward.

I'll end things here in a special way with a couple of special round cards, or discs if you prefer. Lou Brock appears here on this blank back piece from 1976. No sponsor needed!

Meanwhile, from the same year, here's an Eagle from before my time on a 1976 Crane disc. It's super cool!

Thanks again to buckstorecards for the tremendously generous package from a few months back!