2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 32 - Flea Market Repacks

This is pretty simple, a brick of about 50-60 cards for $5.00. After all, what good is it to pick up some pig tails, blackberries and corn when you can't pick up some cards on the way?

I ended up with a pretty good pack. No 2/14 guys, but my masks binders got a lot of additions.

Here were the visible cards. I opted for this one because I saw a pair of binder candidates right off the start.

And the rest.

2013 Prizm Evander Kane

2013 Prizm Kyle Turris - The only Senator
2013 Prizm Shane Doan
2013 Prizm Taylor Hall
2013 Black Diamond Nicklas Backstrom
2013 Black Diamond Jimmy Howard

2013 Black Diamond Ondrej Pavelec - A great mask shot with the view from the front.
2013 Black Diamond Jamie Benn
2013 Black Diamond Chris Stewart

2013 SPX Martin Brodeur - Boy, UD, could you use the same image more times on the same card?
2013 SPX Lee Stempniak
2013 SPX Oliver Ekman-Larsson
2013 SPX Ales Hemsky
2008 MVP Brian Rafalski
2007 MVP Cristobal Huet

2007 ITG O Canada Steven Stamkos - A nice early card for a major name.
2011 SPX Logan Couture

2007 SP Authentic Kari Lehtonen - Another appearance of the Kill Bill mask in the binder.
2007 SP Authentic Chris Drury

2007 SP Authentic J-S Giguere - And the double duck mask as well.
2009 Coll. Choice Tim Thomas
2009 Coll. Choice Zdeno Chara
2013 Prizm Steven Stamkos

2010 SP Authentic Wayne Gretzky - It doesn't matter what set or year it is from, Gretzky cards are always nice pulls.
2010 SP Authentic Johan Franzen
2010 SP Authentic Alexander Semin
2010 SP Authentic Semyon Varlamov
2010 SP Authentic Patric Hornqvist
2009 SP Authentic Phil Kessel
2009 SP Authentic Thomas Vanek
2006 Artifacts Alex Ovechkin
2006 Artifacts Patrice Bergeron

2006 Artifacts Paul Kariya - It's easy to forget the 1-2 season stints Kariya had in the later stages of his career.
2013 Titanium Taylor Hall

2005 Trilogy Ty Conklin
2005 Trilogy Sean Burke - Two great mask binder cards.

2013 Trilogy Jean Bealiveau - Ever since pulling that auto at the Expo, I really like coming across base cards of Jean.
2007 Black Diamond Tuomo Ruutu
2007 Black Diamond Mike Ribiero

2007 Heroes & Prospects Matt Duchene - A nice appearance of the uniquely coloured Battalion jersey.
2007 MVP Chris Simon
2007 MVP Rick Nash
2007 MVP Kris Draper

2000 MVP Steve Shields - A dupe for me, so this one will be off to TMM.
2000 MVP Marc Denis
2010 O-Pee-Chee Retro Kris Letang
2010 O-Pee-Chee Retro Colin Fraser

2010 O-Pee-Chee Dominek Hasek SP - From an era of OPC where they couldn't have too much border. It is a reason this set builder is dreading a return to the UD monopoly.

1997 Post World's Best - Mark Messier - A nice oddball.

1993 Classic Cammi Granato - Another oddball card featuring a future Hall of Famer. Along with the Messier, these two were my favourite cards here.
2013 Showcase Jonathan Quick

A great variety and some marquee names for $5.00.

Another Too Many Manninghams Trade - The Non-Baseball goodies

This morning, the baseball goodies got posted. Tonight, the best of the rest.

I'm always happy to welcome new faces into the 2/14 binder. While Clowney was becoming the third 2/14 birthday boy to be picked #1, 193 picks after that pick, Wenning was drafted by by Baltimore 194th overall in the 6th round of the draft. Since he was a QB, even if he doesn't play a down in '14, he still should get a bunch of cards in this year's sets. Or at least an inexpensive auto. Or at least cheaper than one of the guy drafted 193 spots earlier.

Milan Hejduk's retirement likely means that he will be surrendering his overall lead in the 2-14 binder shortly. To be honest, I've probably got enough unsorted Marian Gaboriks to have him take over the lead right now, assuming I get to sorting them within the next month. But, he is the first person in the binder to reach 60 total cards.

This is my 8th Ilya Zubov card in the 2/14 collection. He played 11 career NHL games. At least this signature is a little more legible than his usual scrawl.

Leaving the 2/14 folder behind, but staying with the Sens, here's a new card for my Sens hit collection. And a new player, as Brian Lee makes his debut among the hits.

And to wrap things up, a nice patriotic appearance of Lanny McDonald. I'm not sure what this relic comes from, just that it was used in an official hockey game. Are old-timers games considered official?

So, that wraps up another trade. As usual, there is another package on its way to Dennis already, sent before this one even arrived.

Another Too Many Manninghams Trade - The Baseball goodies

Another package of Wolverines went stateside, this was part of the return package. It seemed mathematically simple to split it into cards for the baseball collection, and everything else. So I did.

Opening up with a hit, and my second auto of Derek Norris. I thought for a second that this was a dupe for me, but my other Bowman auto of Norris was on a Platinum card. It is a nice on-card auto for someone that's having a very good year so far in Oakland, and is sitting third in the all-star voting. He's easily the best active baseballer in the 2/14 collection.

Here's a card that can make its way into two separate collections - Canadians or the Blue Jays. I know my Koskie stuff in the latter is pretty sparse, so that's likely where it will be heading.

But this one is pure CanCon. And it a painted card as well! WOO-HOO!

Even nicer is this relic of Morneau. It does two things. It salutes a big game for Morneau, and includes a nice pinstriped relic. I wish it would have included a little more about the game on the card other than just the relevant stats. The game was a 12-0 victory over the White Sox at Chicago and it was actually the second part of a doubleheader. As always, thank you baseball-reference.com!

Gary Carter - Mike Piazza - Ben Petrick. Of course.

This is another one of those cards that I'm glad to add simply because it is so easy for cards that celebrate your team's championship to get lost in the shuffle. I'm thinking the photo is from the 1992 win, but I really don't remember my championship T-shirts too well.

Shiny Vlad! Shiny Carlos! WOO-HOO!

And wrapping it up with a shiny Mets sticker. Since shiny stickers rule!

COMC Challenge Cards Part 23: More hockey and the 2/14 binder

Here are 5 more cards for the hockey portion of the binder. Which really isn't organized at all into such things as sports, or years, or anything other than "hits and vintage in the front".

Here's one for the former. Unless you consider 1999 to be vintage.

A new player made his cardboard debut this season in a Heroes and Prospects set. He's a prospect, but the son of a former. If you're thinking the last name seems familiar, you're right, Ryan is the son of slapshot master Al MacInnis. He's also following in his footsteps by playing his junior hockey with my hometown team, the Kitchener Rangers. And he's also a 2/14 baby. While I've got lots of Al in my Rangers alum collection, this is my first card of Ryan. He's also the third Rangers alum in the 2/14 collection, joining Boris Valabik and the late Walt Poddubny.

It is hard for to pass on any new card of Boom Boom.

Jan Nemecek only had two cards released nationally during his tenure with the NHL. Considering his tenure lasted only 7 games, I'm happy that he has any cards with which to add. Of course, if he played nowadays, he'd have base cards in every set, as well as dozens of parallels.

I'm not sure which I prefer.

He's another OHL card, this one featuring Norm Milley of the Sudbury Wolves. I've mentioned in the past that the Wolves might have my favourite OHL uniforms. I won't again. I just need to add his Black Diamond card to have at least one version of all his mainstream cards.

Ah the strike year. When you'd get cards like this from the various European leagues. But who am I to complain about finally adding a card featuring the Slovak League?

COMC Challenge Cards Part 22: Alfie!

In terms of volume, my second envelope from the COMC was filled with cards of Daniel Alfredsson. I won't post all of them, but here are a few highlights. These cards were all in the 50 cent range.

WOO-HOO! A holo-Alfie! And a crazy variety of a die-cut as well. There are three different images of Alfredsson on the front of the card (there's a third behind the head shot on the hologram). But, despite all the gimmicks, this colour scheme makes it far more understated than you'd think for a holo-card.

This is another one that seems far louder in the scan, as the background doesn't really pop like it does when it is scanned.

More bright, shiny Alfie.

The photos in this group were pretty generic - just bland skating shots. So, for my pick for favourite photo is this interesting back shot of Alfredsson. It is certainly different, if nothing else.

The best thing about this is that now, all the cards from my two COMC envelopes now fit perfectly in the box, thus making things easier to store as they move from box to binder.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 21: A 2nd Centerpiece

I'm not sure if this one will be the centerpiece of my Bills collection, or my 2/14 collection. Either way, this is a perfect addition to either.

I could complain that it is a sticker autograph, but when there are not a lot of certified Jim Kelly autos out there, you take what you can get. This one cost me about a day and a half worth of COMC challenges (with a $40.00 daily bonus thrown in there) to acquire this card, but it was worth it. $69.99 worth of data entry to make this card mine.

It is easily the most that I've ever paid for a card (if I had really paid). I don't think I've ever come even close to that. The closest I've come is with another COMC Challenge card at $23.75, but that, like this, was solely credit. For real, physical, cash for a card, I doubt I've broken the $10.00 mark more than once or twice.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 31.2 - Randomness!

It was a big mail day, as my second COMC challenge package, along with a trade package from TMM. But, I still have this to get to from yesterday. Let's see what came out of the random card portion of the repack.

This was the bonus item:

2000 Pacific Gold Crown Die-Cut - Mark McGwire

If it is circa 2000 Pacific, you know it is going to be hideously loud. And boy, is it ever. At least it is of a marquee player from the time. This thing is so loud, it crosses back over to being really a neat card.

And now, on to the random 50.

KMart 25th Anniversary - Star of the 70's Nolan Ryan - A nice oddball to start.
2010 Topps - 2009 ERA Leaders
1989 Glossy All-Stars Andre Dawson - Surprisingly, the only GA-S from this portion of the repack.

1991 Score Charlie O'Brien - WOO-HOO! A Met!
1991 Score Dave West
1991 Fleer Matt Nokes

1992 Stadium Club Paul Gibson - Another Met, and one whose tenure at Shea I'd completely forgotten.
1991 Score Eric Gunderson

1988 Fleer Glossy Mark Williamson - I wasn't expecting one of the Glossy parallels.
1992 Fleer Andy Mota

2008 Topps Back to School Grady Sizemore - A photo with the player signing autographs on a card with a facsimile auto. Brilliant!
2010 Topps Brandon Wood
2010 Topps Melvin Mora
2010 Topps Phillies Team
2010 Topps Skip Schumaker
2010 Topps Fernando Martinez
2010 Topps Javier Vazquez
2010 Topps Scott Downs
2010 Topps Astros Team

2010 Topps Kyle Blanks - Alternate jersey!
2010 Topps Gerald Laird

2000 Topps Prospects - Scott Downs/Chris George/Matt Belisle - It's a Scott Downs hot repack!
2010 Bowman Chrome Craig Clark - A card so bowed by Chrome technology, it stands up on its side.
1998 Leaf Denny Neagle

1997 Bowman International Jaime Bluma - USA! USA!

2008 Topps Heritage Dan Giese - I love this card. It is all about the stats on the back. Coming across cards of guys with an extensive minor league career that finally make the bigs are awesome.
1987 Donruss Manny Trillo
2009 Topps Update Ryan Franklin

1997 Sports Illustrated Emil Brown - Notwithstanding the wall of 2010 Topps, I'm loving the variety of sets represented in this repack.
1992 Stadium Club Carney LAnsford
1996 Upper Deck Rickey Henderson
1992 Upper Deck Bob Wickman

1981 Donruss Carlos Lezcano - More set variety.

2009 Prestige Kevin Smith - But this one is definitely the oddest of the odd.
1997 Upper Deck Eric Young
1992 Topps Howard Johnson

2009 Heritage Carlos Delgado - It's a dupe, but it always nice to have a Delgado in both my Mets and Delgado binder.
1991 Upper Deck Steve Wilson

1980 Topps John Lowenstein - The oldest card in the repack.

1999 Tradition Chuck Knoblauch - A great full-bleed photo.
2006 Update Andy Marte

1992 Megacards Babe Ruth #144 - Combined with #145, Bill James speculates as to how Babe Ruth would have performed had he stayed a pitcher.
1988 Score Doug Drabek
1987 Fleer Update Reid Nichols
1991 Fleer Kurt Stillwell
1989 Score Chad Kreuter

1998 Topps Mark Clark - Mesh shirts. You don't see those on cards anymore. That's a good thing.
1987 Fleer Tony Gwynn
1991 Score Hal Morris
1987 All-Star Rickey Henderson

What a great variety of sets represented here. More than 30 different sets showed up among 51 cards! That's always fun, and why I'll always enjoy grabbing a repack.