Repack-o-rama! Day 3!

My blog-o-versary has come and gone, but I'll keep up with repack fun throughout the long weekend.

Today, one of those 4 packs, 50 cards, and a bonus item repacks.

For those of you anxious to see what the bonus was, here you are! It just fell out of the package. I admit that I had no clue what this was from. COMC didn't help, but zistle did list a 1976 Hostess set where the numbering scheme matched this card. So, my bonus was a card from 1976 that appears to be half covered in the remnants from a twinkie.

AWESOME!

This card rules!

It's one I never would have even bothered to seek out. One that I would easily pass if it showed up at a show/shop. But here, it is a certain candidate for my misc binder.

Repacks are a bizarre love.

As for the packs, they were 2012 S1, 08 UD First Edition Update, 2011 Chrome and 08 Spectrum. For as much as I loved the Scott card, I was completely bored by the packs.

I guess this card for my CanCon collection was my favourite.

Off to the box of 50 misc. cards. As expected, the book value of the cards wouldn't blow anybody away, but the fun factor was far more important. Sure, there was junk wax, but not that much from the same set. While that hockey repack I opened yesterday was about 75 percent either 1990 Bowman or Score, the most here was 6. 6 from 1989 Topps and 6 from 2010 Topps.

This was my favourite from the repacked cards. Nope, the scan isn't bad. It's just heavily raining in whichever city this game was taking place. That's certainly an atmosphere you don't see a lot of in cards. And no, some of the recent cards where it is raining Gatorade don't qualify.

I'll never tire of cards where the player is laying down a bunt.

And another new card for the CanCon collection. I'm highlighting 1988 Topps cards. And I love it!

This was the oldest card among the 50. The hair. The uniform. Everything about this card just screams early 80s. The hair. The uniform. I'm sure Lipps Inc. was playing in the background when this photo was taken.

Hey! A numbered card! I just wish I had some sort of idea as to who Billy Sylvester was. He doesn't appear to have made an appearance in the bigs.

How'd this get in there?!

I don't care what year the card comes from - I love pulling a Diamond King card.

Ditto for minor league cards.

And finally, let's jump to one of the newest cards in the repack portion, and a what might be a publicity still from the remake of the Rosey Grier/Ray Milland classic "The Thing With Two Heads".

Repack-o-rama! Day 2!

And I continue to celebrate my one year blogoversary with more repack fun. I'd actually picked up two repack items from Target. One was a 100 card rack pack, the other was a 25 cards/2 packs/100+ card cube pack. The former was almost entirely junk wax era cards, including many dupes. 3 total cards in the pack from 1995 or later. While there were a couple interesting ones in there, I don't think I'll be trying another one of those.

The other was much better, and made up for the horribleness of the rack pack. 25 cards, and the two packs were 10-11 Victory and 09-10 UD Series 2. The chance at a Young Gun, and one wanted card among the others led me to choose this particular cube.

What did I find? Here's my top 10, chronologically.

1991-92 Ultimate Draft Kerry Toporowski. I've always wanted a card where the photograph is from behind and the player is mounting another. This picture may rival some of those Fabulous Ones photos/videos from the early 80s in terms of unintentional gayness.

1999-00 Crown Royale Card-Supial - Paul Kariya. Cardsupial? That might be the cheesiest name for a card set (subset?) ever. How could I not want this one more than life itself?

2006-07 Ultra Martin Biron, Mask binder card. One of three in this repackage, and 2 in my top 10.

Hey! That's a pretty good rookie card to pull. It came from the 09-10 Upper Deck pack, and wasn't even the best in the bunch.

This one was. There's a pretty good collection of YG in Series 2, ranging from Logan Couture to MacGregor Sharp. This one is closer to the former than the latter. The rest of the pack were pretty much commons. I think that Rob Niedermayer might have been the best of the lot.

Gold parallels fall at about one per box, so I guess it is as close one can get to a hit from the victory pack.

Along with a Jonathan Quick, this pack contained two mask binder cards. I liked this one a little more, so it made the top 10.

WOO-HOO! A new Gaborik for the 2/14 binder! While the UD pack may have had better card in terms of cash value, the victory one went 4 for 6 in terms of keepers that will find their way into binders. That's a killer ratio any day.

2011-12 Victory - Stars of the Game insert Sidney Crosby. It's always nice to pull a card of a marquee player, especially an insert.

2011 Upper Deck National Convention VIP #5 - Bobby Orr. And this visible card was the other reason I picked up this particular repack. It doesn't matter what the era is, you can never go wrong with a card of Bobby Orr.

Repack-o-rama! Day 1!

I've realized I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of blogging about the joys of repacks, and other retail-y methods of collecting. With diversions into LCS and COMC goodies as well. So, with the 1 year mark being tomorrow, I'll spend a few days with repacks. I'll start with a trip to the Dollarama, and the ol' 15 cards for a dollar hanger packs.

Repack #1:

Visible cards:

2009 Between The Pipes - Nicklas Backstrom
2008 Collector's Choice - Senators Team Leaders

A Senators card and a mask binder card to start the deal. Not bad. It is usually a good sign for the pack when there's two binder candidates visible. Unfortunately, it was pretty much downhill from there. Lots of early 90s stuff.

The only other cards of note was a Manny Fernandez for the mask binder.

Also, a Radek Martinek. I'm highlighting it because it was the only other card form outside the early 90s in the repack. Sometimes you win with these, sometimes not so much. Oh well, I needed to restock my geocaching swag bag anyhow.

And speaking of geocaching, here's something nifty I pulled out of one of them about a week or so ago. It's from a 1988-89 Esso Stars set.

Repack #2:

Visible cards

2010 Victory Mike Cammalleri
2008 Between the Pipes Jimmy Howard

Seriously, I can't start putting together Wolverines alumni care packages too soon. Especially when I have feelers out for something interesting. And a mask binder card in the Howard. The nice view of the Grand Rapids jersey doesn't hurt either.

The rest? Not quite as junk waxy.

Some recentish Upper Deck stuff.

Sure, this one's an early 90s card, but it is a great photo. And definitely good enough for the mask binder.

And finally, one of a player that never really lived up to the hype. When he started in the OHL, he was considered to be the next great player and high draft pick to come out of the OHL. While the latter came true as he went 4th overall, he only played 79 NHL games, and routinely makes lists of biggest draft busts.

Overall, more binder cards give a slight nod to the second repack, but there really wasn't too much there beyond that. But that's the risk you take with repacks. You hope for some keepers you had no idea about hiding in there. I guess the Cloutier is the one that qualifies for that.

Repack-o-rama continues later today. Or tomorrow.

Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 4

So, which cards joined the mask binder after the show? Here you go!

The cheapest of the three, setting me back a whole dime, was this one. The brick wall motif is fairly standard, but the latin graffiti isn't so much. It's a reference to St. Peter, which makes perfect sense for someone named St-Pierre.

These other two came from a 3 for $5.00 bin.

My second card from the 02-03 Between The Pipes that I picked up - both from the same seller. I expressed my love for Hedberg's moose motif before. I won't do so a second time. The body of a penguin, head of a moose is pretty mad-sciencey.

And finally, a relic of a guy who apparently sat on the bench for at least one game to warrant a card. Another standard motif in mask land - this being the stuff that looks like a heavy metal cover.

Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 3

Hey, big spender!

I didn't go too hog wild at the Fan Expo. Most of my small collection were hits of the 1 dollar, 2 dollar or 3 for $5 variety. The most expensive purchase was a 2011 UD Stanley Cup Bruins set. But, there were still 3 items that went beyond that.

I'd finally hit ship on an order from Chapters.ca on Bob Motley's book "Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants & Stars", and am enjoying giving it a quick read. So, when I saw this card appear in a $5.00 bin, I quickly grabbed it. It might be hard to tell, but the relic in question isn't a bat, but a seat relic from Forbes Field. My only complaint is that he's pictured as being with the Crawfords as opposed to the Homestead Grays, who played in Forbes. It's a minor complaint. There's also a slight bulge on the relic, right down the middle. I'm thinking these seats might not have been the most comfortable things.

This was my most expensive single card of the day, clocking in at $7.00. It's all about the Lanny McDonald. I've wanted a swatch of his for a bit now. But I wanted one where he was pictured as a Flame, and a swatch that was Calgary colours. There were white swatches out there, but that could have been from any team. There were ones out there with blue swatches and a Flames picture? Why? This one here is far more likely to be a Flames swatch, unless it was from the arm portion of a Rockies jersey. In which case, I might like the card even more. Although I can't find any other scans of the card where the Lanny swatch is blue, so I'm betting on Calgary.

And finally, a $3.00 card. Why? I'm not an Atkins fan, and the low numbering /15 isn't relevant. I simply like how three of the four swatches have pinstripes. For something numbered this low, I don't think it is too much to ask for at least two colours to be part of the swatch.

Now with all the costly stuff out of the way, maybe now I can devote the rest of the week to stuff that was a toonie or less.

Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 2

Cards? What makes you think I only picked up cards at the Expo? There was a dealer that had miscellaneous items from the last season the Mets played at Shea.

Such as a ticket brochure.

A Dunkin' Donuts card.

A souvenir cup.

And a pocket schedule. All great items for a Mets fan that has an international border between himself and NYC.

But I didn't just get a Mets item for the non-cards collection. I also grabbed this pocket schedule for the inaugural Senators season. Although you kinda want to forget a season where they won a grand total of one game on the road.

Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 1

Time to start working my way through these. Not the quantity I would have liked, although I did get what should be the last card(s) to wrap up Score hockey, although I'm not going to say anything for sure until the binder migration takes place.

Today, I'll go through the handful of Senators cards I picked up.

This one was the only Senators hit I grabbed that day. For a dollar, I picked up a gold parallel autograph of the late Karel Rachunek. Karel was one of the players that was killed in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash 2 years ago.

In my efforts to acquire at least one card of every Senator who had one in Ottawa, Pageau might be the last one to fall. Despite a decent run in the playoffs, he didn't get a card in the Score set, so I had to pick up the OPC instead. I still have to do another cross reference with the wikipedia Senators list with zistle, just in case there is a Mike Bales or Philip Crowe out there that I don't have.

Since I don't really have enough appearance of Lalime's Marvin the Martian mask, I grabbed one more. I don't know what it says about my childhood that two of my favourite masks feature Looney Tunes characters.

You knew some Alfie cards would be coming home with me. I really loved how the design worked on last year's Black Diamond set, so I was very happy to bring home the double diamond SP from the set.

And finally, this beauty from Pinnacle Mint 1996. Both the card and the coin came out of what might have been the best organized quarter bin I've ever come across.

The Mailbag and the 2/14 Binder

Quickie recap of the Fan Expo: A little higher end than I would have liked, but I still saw familiar faces from the other shows that I was able to hit up, and get some sets completed, some wantlists filled, some unique items and some trade bait. I'll probably be highlighting some of those over the next few weeks off and on.

But today, I'll highlight some of the goodies that showed up over the past week in envelopes of various sizes. Whether in a PWE, or a bubble envelope as part of a zistle trade, 13 new cards are on their way into the binder, along with 3 new faces. I'll start with them.

Age before beauty with these, and I'll head back to 1963 for this card from the TV series combat that featured Vic Morrow. He was probably best known for Combat prior to his death in 1982. It was one of the more infamous ones in Hollywood, as he was decapitated by a helicopter during an accident on the set of the Twilight Zone movie. The incident can be found very easily on youtube if you so desire. The only thing you'd get from it is that he never had a chance, and mercifully, couldn't have even known what hit him.

New face #2 is Timothy Toone. He was Mr. Irrelevant in the 2010 NFL draft, going last overall. He's spent some time bouncing around practice squads, but did get some time on the main roster of the Falcons. He's now with the Saints.

And the final new face for the binder. This card of figure skater Jojo Starbuck comes from an insert set in 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 2 hockey. It's a peculiar insert set that doesn't include any NHLers, but instead various winter Olympians, past & present.

Part of a zistle trade included a bunch of familiar faces in the binder. I'm probably the only person who would actually request a 1988 Topps Card as part of a trade. But, I didn't have this particular 1988 Topps card in the ol' binder.

2 new Richard Hamiltons for the binder. A hit and a base card, the latter being my first Bulls-era card for him.

And from the same base set, the only other guy with current cards in the NBA.

Darius Songaila's total has doubled! WOO-HOO!

And to wrap it up, my second hit for Tank Tyler. As I said before, I love that he signs his nickname instead of his real name. What would you rather have? A card signed by Dave Williams or by Tiger Williams.

And that's 13 new cards looking for binder space!