2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 12

Last time on 2014 AiR, I busted a 20 pack repack and came up with 1:3600 pull of a Terry Bradshaw film strip /10. Which I ebayed, and it turned into enough to pick up an extra hobby box as I build the Heritage 2014 set.

Yesterday, my repack busting netted me two 80's Topps Tiffany. Not really sellable, but still cool and unexpected. And just like with the last one, I'm following up the best of the repack with the rest of the cool stuff.

Leading off, here's the visible cards. A Met and an Ortiz insert were the deciding factor in this particular repack. Moreso the Ortiz than the Rodriguez.

The usual two packs were in there. 1989 Fleer and 2012 Topps Update. This sticker was my favourite of the former.

And this was the best of the latter. Usually when I bust these, the Fleer has the most interesting cards. Not this time.

In addition to the Rodriguez and the sticker, this was it for Mets content.

But it was a 3 to 1 lead over the Blue Jays, with this being the only Jays card in the repack.

But I did grab a future Blue Jay and a PC guy.

2nd most prevalent in the box was a bunch of cards from 1986 Topps Update. Nothing really book value intensive, but I'm guessing the Robby Thompson is probably the best in that terms. But, I'm strange, and the easy winner is Billy Jo Robidoux.

But 9 cards weren't the big leader.

10, or 20 depending on your view, 1990 Topps stickers. Lots of Pirates, which was good, since I sent off a care package to Bob Walk the Plank earlier this morning.

In the battle for the most interesting (or strange) photo of the batch, I'll just call it a three-way tie with these two.

And to continue with the rear view theme, here's a pair of oddballs. Sorry, Orel, but your relatively normal card is paired with Wade Boggs' hinder.

Let's leave that behind and look at some repack vintage from 1978. In repack land, 1978 is vintage to me.

Minor league goodies as well.

How to wrap this up?

A shiny Chipper!

Not bad at all. The two unexpected Tiffany cards were the highlight, so anything else was a bonus.

Repack at Tiffany's

Like I can resist the siren's song of the card aisle at Target. This time, I picked up my usual. A 100 card plastic hanger repack.

I'll get into the full contents tomorrow. But two of the cards surprised me.

At first, this one wasn't a surprise. There were a starting 9 worth of 1986 Topps Traded cards in there, and that wasn't even the most prevalent year/set of cardboard in there. But as I continued on, I paused. This one is pretty shiny. Glossy even.

I turned it over.

That's not your typical 80's Topps back. That's one of those /5000 Tiffany cards! Neat! They aren't super rare, but they're still not what you'd expect to find in a repack. 80's Shiny cards! Welcome to the binders, Ray!

And one good Shiny deserves another.

With a beautifully clear back.

As far as zistle tells me, these are my first Tiffany cards. Repack surprises always rule!

Condition. Schmondition.

Who cares about such things as tape damage, bent corners and peeling, when I can add a new player into my 2-14 collection?

Welcome to the collection, Howie Glover! This is my 2nd 60s Parkhurst card in the binder. Or, since the size isn't standard, stored outside of the binder.

 The cheapest of these at COMC is $8.95. I didn't even pay half that, including shipping.

"I went to the McDonald's in Shelbyville on Friday night..."

There really is a Simpsonsism for every occasion. Although this wasn't quite on par with the context on the sspecific episode. In this case, circumstance took me to an out of town Dollarama. I felt like trying my odds with the repacks, so I searched out the card area.

No Surprise boxes.

No 15 card repacks either.

All they had were Toronto Maple Leafs themed repacks.

No way, Jose on those.

But I wanted to bust something! Anything!

It'll do. Maybe I'll hit a PC guy.

Pack 1:

Logos - Penguins & Lightning - First up is a pair of logo cards. I think they're supposed to top the various team pages. Maybe if I picked up a free album at the Expo at the Panini booth, I'd be able to confirm that.
Logos - Predators & Wild - Back to back logos. Although these list the Central Division on it. Again, maybe I should have picked up the album for reference.
Brad Marchand

Mike Richards - Hey, there's a PC guy for my Kitchener Rangers alumni collection! One PC guy is allo I asked for. And I got it.
Logos - Kings & Wild - These were in the style of the Pens/Lightning one.
Mark Giordano

Thomas Hickey - Double rookie class is everywhere!

Pack 2 -

Half the Blackhawks team - This is from just after their "don't touch the trophy" Western Conference win.
Dion Phaneuf
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

Patrick Sharp - It's a Blackhawks hot pack!
Mike Green
Sean Couturier
Brenden Dillon

Well, it beats busting nothing.

Alfredsson stockup

Courtesy of sportlots!

Rookie Alfredsson!

Retro-ish Alfredssons!

Shiny Alfredssons!

Acetate Alfredssons!

Full bleed Alfredssons!

Framed Alfredssons!

More-border-than-Alfredsson Alfredssons!

And more! More! MORE!

Time to Splurge: Just 1 Pack - Of 13-14 Totally Certified Hockey

Sometimes, you buy the higher end scratch off tickets. This was one of those times.

Did I get my money back in terms of the guaranteed hit? Of course not.

But I still think I beat the odds in getting something nice for myself.

As in the one hit I pulled was for my favourite team! You might remember Eric Gryba as the guy that leveled Lars Eller in last year's playoffs. Looking at the checklist, the Senators might be the least represented team in terms of hits in the set. So, if I look at it through that perspective, I beat the odds. If you weren't a Sens fan, though, you'd probably have hated this pack.

Despite the fact I probably could have got this card for less than $5.00 on ebay.

And here's the base. Trust me that they're not as hard to read the name in person as opposed to in the scan. You just need the right angle.

So, this lotto ticket really didn't pay off. But a hit for my Senators collection is far better to have as opposed to merely a piece of paper and some foil shavings.

Not quite dime-box goodies - Part 6 or Masked Mondays Week 27

My one goal in life is to finish with this box before the Expo. That's in May. At this pace, I would offer 50/50 odds.

I often look for random cards of Marty when hunting through dime bins to send off to Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams. I might as well keep one for myself. Calder is quite reserved for an entry from Pacific. Battleship gray? Never wear battleship gray, or use it in your design. At least apply some of Little Richard Simmons' advice to your design. As for the mask, it's the Turco standard with the horrible beast and a brick wall.

Now this dust and fingerprint magnet is more what to expect from Pacific. And Turek's masks do use the old standby of heavy metal album cover-esque stuff, although he takes it too literally by using Eddie the Head in his designs.

I picked this one up simply because I didn't have any Isles-era Luongo cards. He's still wearing his QMJHL mask at this point.

Nothing too spectacular to wrap things up. Just a Chrome rookie of Stephen Valiquette. It's your basic beast mask, although he did opt for a really great Spiderman look as his career wound down.

4 more binder cards. A good Monday post.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 11 - 20 Football Packs Part 2 - Best of the Rest

And now, we delve into the world of questionable licensing and missing logos. Since this portion really wasn't as interesting as the Topps, I'm going to lead with the promised hit.

The plus side of this is that he's still playing, seeing a lot of action last season with the Rams after Sam Bradford went down with an injury. The not-so-plus side of this is that I could have picked this up for 90 cents from COMC.

And now, let's move on with the questionable licensing portion.

I'll say this about the SAGE. They've got interesting things written on their packaging. I've never seen "Content subject to change" written on card packages. It didn't exactly fill me with confidence regarding the contents. But, all the packages did contain the advertised contents, as opposed to some randomly appearing 1991 Fleer football cards.

I'll say this as a positive for this stuff. In some cases, they found creative ways to remove logos and still create an interesting card. For someone born in Hawaii, incorporating the lei into the card works perfectly.

And this one works nicely as well, using another close-up to show that Werner was a member of a championship team. Not the championship team, but he did play on the Orange Bowl winning team. Thus making the orange on the card perfect.

But, most of them were pretty blah. I'm guessing Senior Bowl jerseys are perfectly legal to be used in this, as there were a lot of them.

But, for a photography fan when it comes to cards, there really wasn't a whole lot notable about these packs. When I give the nod to a pair of unlicensed close-ups, it is really a bland overall break. Third place goes to this card from Gridiron Gear, and that's solely for the throwback Rams uniforms.

Buffalo Bills content? Here you go! Rogers was a Bill for the pre-season prior to being released and moving on to Indianapolis. That still counts for me! Hey, did you know Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Haarvaard? IF you didn't, you never watched a Bills game during his time at the helm.

Out of 30 cards in the Gridiron Gear, two were future Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Going into a season where the Bombers might be worse than the expansion RedBlacks, I really wouldn't want to wish that mess on anybody.

In closing, it's an interesting product, but there were way too many of the same product in here. I got tired of opening the same product with the same design 7 or more times. I was almost hoping for some 1990 Score just to break the monotony.

But wrapping things up with a Bradshaw /10 really made it hard to evaluate my perception of the product. Without it, I'd certainly give it a pass a second time, unless I could see there was some variety in the packs being busted. But with it, I'm happier with the things. Heck, if it had been the Jim Kelly as opposed to the Terry Bradshaw, I might have gone out to pick a second or even a third one up.

It did satisfy my pack busting urges until Heritage drops, so that's the biggest bonus of all.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 11 - 20 Football Packs Part 1 - Top of the Topps

In terms of book value, nothing else in the repack will equal the pull I detailed yesterday. However, I'm not the type that buys repacks on the hope of a major hit. I buy them hoping for some nice cards I didn't know about (especially since I had such horrible luck pulling Bills last year from Topps, and gave up early).

So, for recapping the less extravagant goodies, in terms of card volume, it was pretty much an even split between the Topps 2012 cards, and everything else. So, that seemed like a logical way to break things up into 2 posts.

This one also came out of the rack pack and it was by far my favourite of the bunch. If you know his story, you'll know why this a such a great addition to the set, and why it will be so welcome in my collection. It really feels like the football version of the Adam Greenberg card.

Next up, my favourite picture in the bunch. The action shots in this were surprisingly sparse, at least among my cards. This one was probably the best of the bunch, with the bonus of it being the sunset base card for Tomlinson.

In the past, having Bills in he background, ala the Tomlinson would be as close as I came to pulling Bills cards. With 1 rack pack and 7 retail packs, that had to change. Right?

Whew! The streak is broken!

The packs promised a rookie card in every pack. With 8 packs, I ended up with 18 cards stamped as such.

Nick Foles was the best of the bunch, even though he wasn't the most significant news maker among the rookies I pulled.

And hey, there's a throwback uniform! Awesome!

As for the inserts, there were a pair of reprints.

A couple golds.

And some Tall Boys. No Bills among the inserts, but at least there 4 base cards were a starting point for acquiring Bills. And lots of fun cards among the 8 Topps packs. It's always nice how pulling cards from your favourite teams or PC guys can improve your perception of a pack busting experience.