Masked Mondays Week 28

At least the Blue Jays were kind enough to stink right from the start as opposed to the Mets who strung me along before imploding.

The pack of Opening Day from this morning was a bit of a dud to say the least. So, time to go back to a reliable pack bust in a repack. This particular repack was the handmade flea market variety, which usually consists of base cards from some of the recent mid-range sets. It usually works out to a dime or less per card.

I'll get to the non-goaltender cards tomorrow in yet another adventures in repacks. Today, time for another Masked Monday.

This was one of the two visible cards in the repack.

This was not. But I did decide to put this up as a contrast to the Fuhr. It shows how nicely the classic masks work with the select design and how they really pop nicely against the background, and how the busier designs just become unrecognizable.

Here's another shiny Panini card where a basic design pops off the card beautifully.

I was kinda surprised to find a junk wax card in this. This might be the first one I found that wasn't either a Gretzky or Hull. Still, it is mask binder worthy.

It wouldn't be a masked post if I didn't feature at least one that looks like a heavy metal album cover.

I can't call this one a heavy metal album cover, as I can't imagine too many bands would incorporate teal into their design. It is a nice view of the skull creature that is a constant on the Nabokov mask.

I think I like these cards better than 6/7th of the Opening Day pack. Cespedes rocking the throwback kept it from being a clean sweep.

Just one pack of 2014 Opening Day

This seemed appropriate for Opening Day (which isn't really until your favourite team is set to play).

#189 Matt Holliday. Decent enough start. Great contrast with the image of Bob Gibson in the back.

#88 Yoenis Cespedes. Throwback!
#148 Yu Darvish

Opening Day Stars #ODS-5 - Ryan Braun. Just my luck. I pull one of those neat 3Dish cards, and it is of one of the least popular players in the game. Thanks, card gods.

#43 Victor Martinez. But this decent photo makes up for it. Not really.
#45 Carl Crawford

#199 Ryan Braun. FML.

A rarity

It isn't often that I bust a pack of anything that the oldest player in the pack is a rookie card. The most recent time that happened that I can recall is when I pull a 1990 Sergei Makarov from a repack. But, when I tried just one pack of 2013-14 Elite basketball, it happened again.

A 31-year old rookie. And a subject of a rather interesting article at grantland. Cool!

And I swear that I'll clear off my scanner soom. Really.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 18

How about a basketball repack for a Saturday posting?

As usual, there are many candidates for favourite card in the repack. Usually, I'll go for a favourite action photo of the bunch, and this one is a great one. Firstly, it features my fave team from before the Raptors came to be (and one I still follow), and it perfectly illustrates how crazy things can get underneath the basket. In addition to Mercer, I count 6 others visible in this shot, 4 Magic (although you can only see one player's lower two-thirds) and two Celtics. A great photo choice that rocks with the full-bleed.

However, the sheer craziness of Metal Universe will always make it a favourite card contender. I'm not sure about the railroad crossing, though. Are the red stripes on it supposed to parallel the wings across the jersey? Or am I just over-analyzing late 90s card way too much?

Third place goes to this Greats of the Game Kenny Walker. It has a nice design for a retro themed set, and more importantly, his nickname of "Sky" is on the back. Looking at his autos on COMC, he also includes it in his auto. He's also got pretty good penmanship, pretty much ensuring that I'll be adding one of his cards to my cart at some point.

Raptors content! WOO-HOO!

And some Hall of Fame content as well. It really doesn't matter what the year is, or the era is, pulling a Jordan card is always nice.

I pulled a new Muresan for the 2/14 collection. While I technically did have one with this front...

I didn't have one from the German parallel. It's my 27th card of his.

From the "right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing" files, this card!

These repacks always seem to contain at least one WNBA card. In this repack, this was it.

With a variety of cards, you're going to come across some ghastly designs. 1995 Fleer speaks for itself, but the other one is pretty bad as well. The brand's name is several times bigger than the players name, and the positioning and black shoes hides the first part of the name. You have to flip the card over to determine that it is an Eric Mobley card.

Much like a WNBA card, each of these also seems to contain a 1981 Topps card. This one isn't a bad pull from that set.

The promised 5 rookie cards. Even though they were numbered into the thousands, I'm still surprised to pull a pair of numbered cards with the Miller & Augustin. The latter had a cup of coffee with the Raptors this season, before falling victim to the numbers game after the Rudy Gay trade and moving on with the Bulls.

Finally, to salute one of my favourite MST3K episodes...

Chief?

Chavez Trading

Even if your randomed team in a group break isn't one of your favourites, it is likely somebody else's. So, you can turn around and swap those hits.

So, when I got a couple Dodger autos, they got swapped out for some Mets and Jay goodness.

Mets plural. Jay singular. As in only one Jays card. But it is a nice shiny one. Or a Prizm-y. Or refractor-y. Or rainbow-y. Or whatever term they use for the Donruss cards.

But, Mets were the biggest part of this two-envelope trade.

Literally.

As this Matt Harvey box topper was in the second envelope. So, yes, the Mets were the biggest part of this trade. Not only in terms of size of cards and number of cards.

Next up in Mets land, a former Met looks to turn two in a this yellow parallel.

To wrap it up, a pair of autos from a pair of Andrews.

Church struggled a bit in his A-ball debut. But, he was only 18, so I'll overlook an ERA of 5.91 to start his baseball career.

But this one is more interesting to me, as I love coming across autos and hits for guys who don't have many. And Andrew Brown surely qualifies. In fact, this Donruss appears to be the only certified one I can find for him.

Thanks for the trade, Chavez Ravining. I've put the /100 AGon mini aside for you until I can maybe find some more Dodger-y hits at the Expo.

Mojo-breaking some 13-14 Certified Hockey

Since it was cheaper to pick a team than to buy a single pack at the LCS, I opted for the former. Since my one pack actually contained a Senators hit, I went away from Ottawa, and looked instead to gamble on some guys from my PCs and grabbed Detroit and Carolina. The former would give me the chance at my first Daniel Alfredsson Red Wings cards and some Petr Mrazeks for the 2/14 collection, and the latter would give me a chance at some Ryan Murphy for my Rangers alumni collection.

I did get some nice cards for 2 of those guys, and 2 out of 3 ain't bad!

Carolina didn't work out so well as a pick, as I completely skunked on Ryan Murphy. However, I did pick up a hit for my goalie mask binders in this John Muse. John's NHL experience consists of sitting on the bench as a backup, but that was still enough to qualify for a card. Nice mask, although it is your standard heavy metal album wannabe design.

This isn't a hit, but it might actually turn out to be the better card of the two in terms of value. It is a nice, shiny, /25 of Elias Lindholm, the Hurricanes' #1 draft pick, 5th overall. Really. It is him. It isn't like you can tell from looking at the scan. The gold really scans poorly to the point of being illegible.

Here were the base cards for the team. I didn't get a Ryan Murphy, but I'll still get to add a new Skinner into my Rangers alum collection.

Detroit, however, was much better for me in terms of PC building.

In addition to two base cards, I also added this sweet addition to my Alfredsson collection. This blue parallel is /50, and looks just beautiful with the contrasting colours.

Hey! Here's my second Petr Mrazek swatch for that collection, and my first solo hit of his. This card isn't numbered.

But this one was! It's a /25 of Mrazek. No, I don't know why the red cards and the gold cards are both /25 yet are different colours. I think this is the mirror parallel.

But the best Wings card wasn't one for my PC. It is this nice small patch card of Danny DeKeyser. I'm guessing it is from the name plate. Numbered to 50, I'm guessing this will end up in the post-Expo trade package I send to Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams.

And the Detroit base. 2 Datsyuks. 2 Alfies.

3 hits, with 1 being a direct addition to my PC, the other being a general addition. 3 parallels numbered to 50 or less. And two base cards for my PCs. That's probably better than I'd do on a pair of packs at the LCS.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 17 - Part 2

Nothing as spectacular as the hand-number A-Gon mini in this, but that was what I expected. There were still some nice cards, though and some unexpected surprises.

This was the bonus card. The past 3 bonus items from these repacks have been minis. An Ichiro from Heritage. A 206 of Brandon Phillips (Caramels back) and now this one (Polar Bear back).

And now the 50 bonus cards.

1988 Score Tim Crews
1991 Fleer Bob Patterson
1991 Fleer John Moses
1991 Score Kirby Puckett

1991 Score Alvaro Esponoza - Henderson appears safe, but this is still an interesting photo with the ball visible as it arrives.
1989 Topps Glossy All-Star Andre Dawson - Only one of these? Bizarro Fairfield repack!

1988 Fleer Glossy Tom Henke
1988 Fleer Glossy Rick Leach
1988 Fleer Glossy Bruce Ruffin - 1988 Fleers were not a surprise. The glossy parallels were. And two of them being Blue Jays as well. Great!
2010 Topps Nationals history
2010 Topps Brian Fuentes
2010 Topps Kurt Suzuki
2010 Topps Ryan Spilborghs
2010 Topps Gerardo Parra
2010 Topps Brewers history
2010 Topps Daric Barton
2010 Topps Chris Dickerson
2010 Topps Jhonny Peralta
2010 Topps Bengie Molina
2010 Topps Victor Martinez

1982 Donruss Roy Smalley - A run of some of the most recent cards in the box leads into the oldest.
2000 Topps Ricky Ledee
1999 Bowman Eric Young

2010 Bowman Carson Kelly - A USA Prospect card was another unexpected pull.

1995 UD Special Edition Tom Glavine - But this appearance of base card from a rather premium set was even more of a surprise. Especially one of a marquee player.
1986 Topps Billy Hatcher
1988 Topps Gene Larkin
1983 Topps Detroit Leaders
1993 UD Lance Johnson

2007 Tristar Madison Bumgarner - Another pretty good player making an appearance in an early card.

1995 Donruss Pedro Martinez - No Mets in this 50 pack, but this Expo card was a nice addition.
1987 Donruss Don Slaught
1992 UD Kent Mercker
1992 Topps Eddie Murray
1992 Topps Harold Baines
1991 UD Mike Marshall
1991 UD Donnie Hill
1992 Premier Gregg Olson
1998 Score Brad Radke
1991 UD Bob Welch
1989 Donruss Tim Jones
1989 Donruss Carlos Quintana
1992 Score Javier Ortiz
1992 Pinnacle Mike LaValliere
1987 Fleer Ken Landreaux
1987 Fleer Mike LaCoss

1987 Topps All-Star Set Cal Ripken Jr.

1986 Topps Carlton Fisk

1991 Pacific Nolan Ryan - High Praise
1991 Pacific Nolan Ryan - Stanley's Delight - And 4 straight Hall of Famer cards to wrap it up.

Not a bad repack at all. Lots of keepers in here!

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 17 - Part 1 - My 2nd greatest repack pull

The packs within the repacks have been pretty good to me as of late. A 20 pack football repack landed me a /10 of Terry Bradshaw which allowed me to bust a second box of '14 Heritage and finally get a Cam Neely rookie. This find from the 4 packs/50 cards/bonus item isn't quite as spectacular, but it was still an odds beater.It came in at 1:235 odds, and unlike the Bradshaw, I think someone in the Dodger Collecting Land might be interested.

It isn't /10, but it is a hand numbered /100 mini of Adrian Gonzalez. I knew these things were /100, but I spent way too long looking for the /100 marker before finally noticing the hand numbering. I guess I've seen way to many cards with stamped numbering. This is definitely up for trade. Set building damage welcome in return.

I'll get to the misc 50 tomorrow, but I'll keep going through the packs tonight.

For the rest of the Heritage, there were only base cards. But, an appearance of the rookie trophy, and a photo that appears to be taken in front of Jamey Carroll's beach house.

At least the 4 pack of Chrome contained a shiny refractor

A Bryce Harper insert saved the GQ pack.

The 4th, and oldest pack contained the only Met in the pack portion of the repack. Or in the repack period.

But the '09 Spectrum pack was a Ken Griffey Jr hot pack! Maybe a certain Junkie would consider this the best part of the repack.

Well, as if I needed another reason to grab repacks other than randomness, a great hit is another one.