Christmas Goodies from Home...including a Deduno!

It's hard to shop for my specific card wants at Christmas, since so many of the things I collect are pretty obscure if they're listed on the internet at all.  So when my Dad asked if I wanted any cardboard for Christmas, I mixed things up a bit this year and asked for cool autos and relics in general, particularly of New England teams since those are the teams of my youth.  I think my Dad did quite well in meeting that ask - so let's see what he ended up finding!

This first picture contains the most Patriots star power from Christmas, including two stars of my youth (McGinest and Brown) and a few from my Dad's youth (Hannah, Parilli, and Cappelletti).  It's definitely great to get some nice autos across various Patriots legends for my collection, and I learned a lot about Babe Parilli from these cards, as I didn't really know much about him prior to Christmas.  I learned a lot about Cappelletti too, as prior to Christmas I just knew him as the guy Adam Vinatieri (And later Stephen Gostkowski) beat for the Patriots scoring record.

Stephon Gilmore is a pretty talented CB who won a Super Bowl with the Patriots, so definitely cool to have an autograph of his even though he's in Indy now.  I always mistakenly call him Steven, but it turns out he has a younger brother whose name really is Steven, which seems confusing as heck.

Then you have N'Keal Harry, who was a 1st round pick of the Patriots a few years ago but never really panned out.  He's in Chicago now and still not doing much but both of these cards look real nice and that enclosed Inscriptions one is especially sexy.  It's nice when busts are in higher end sets because then you can grab some singles from a set that otherwise would be way too pricey.

This is probably my favorite little lot from this group of cards I got, as I love artificial scarcity in cards and Prime Signatures was full of it!  The Brandon Lloyd /5 stands out here, both because it's so rare and because it's a fun card of a guy you don't picture in a Patriots uniform.  I love all the running bacs here as well, with BenJarvus Green-Ellis being a personal fave of the blog and Vereen and Ridley being cool for being on card autos in a mostly sticker auto set.  And then Brandon Spikes and Jerod Mayo were just ferocious defenders, so it's cool to grab autos of theirs as well.  Mayo's doing great as a coach in New England too, so it's cool his legacy continues to this day.

Now we move on to autos that aren't Patriots.  Some of these I think sellers threw in, while others my Dad thought looked cool or I might like.  I think Surtain stands out in the above image, as he has been a super solid CB since joining the league and I was always a fan of his Dad's work in Miami.  Kenneth Murray was a 1st round pick of the Chargers last year (After a trade with New England) and looks to be a tackling machine in San Diego.  Then Thomas Graham was a 6th round pick of the Bears in 2021 who actually ended up in Cleveland this year.  He's mostly a special teamer, but he's done some good work in spot moments on defense when needed.

My Dad knows I like patch/auto combos, so he got my this pretty cool one of former Titans WR Justin Hunter.  I was collecting a lot harder when he was a rookie in 2013, and remember seeing a lot of Hunter on the blogs/Blowout/etc., so it's neat to finally have a card of his of my own.  He always seemed a decent WR but got no real help from the QB room in Tennessee (With guys like Jake Locker and Charlie Whitehurst...oof).

Last autos of the bunch include two super random guys - Eurndraus Bryant and Dayo Odeyingbo.  Bryant looks to have been an undrafted free agent of the Chargers a few years ago, but I don't think he's in the league anymore.  Odeyingbo is actually a 2021 Colts draft pick, and looks pretty decent this year with 5.5 sacks for a struggling Indy team.  It's always nice to learn a little bit about some random defensive dudes!

Last but not least, we have the Deduno!  And in keeping with recent tradition, I paired him with two VHS I got for Christmas as well - Troll 2 (1990) and Dolls (1986).

The Deduno is the most important part here (LOL), as it brings me to NINETY NINE copies of his Bowman card at this point.  The next Deduno makes 100, so these are exciting times in Deduno collecting!

As for the VHS, you've probably all heard of Troll 2.  It's compared with films like The Room or Miami Connection as something that's just awesomely bad, and I've been meaning to pick up a copy for a long time.  Can't wait to sit down and watch this one with my wife, as she's never seen it.

Dolls is a lot more random, but really really good.  It's part of the Charles Band cinematic universe, who is involved in a lot of my favorite B/C/D movies from the 70's, 80's, and 90's like the Puppetmaster series, Dollman, and Laser Blast.  Dolls is a little different in that it's horror but with a pretty big heart.  The whole "lesson" of the movie is to stay imaginative and in touch with your childlike side, or else these dolls will straight up murder you.  I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it on streaming, and I'm glad to finally own a copy for my VHS collection!