Father's Day with Milwaukee

Yesterday, one of two packages that I was waiting for in advance of a possible Canada Post work stoppage arrived. Today, the second one did. This one contained goodies from a group break at mojobreak.com over the Father's Day weekend. It was a basketball mixer that included Father's Day packs.

The packs didn't land me a hit, but at least I got some nice cards. The Joey Bats, is, of course, my favourite, but there are still some other notables. The Teddy Bridgewater salutes the sub-zero temperature game they played in the playoffs last season. After seeing this over at Raz Card Blog earlier this week, I remarked that it really should have featured a shirt-sleeved Bud Grant doing the coin toss.

And now, the break itself. It included boxes of Revolution, Limited, Gold Standard and Luxe. I landed the Milwaukee Bucks in the random. Considering that Panini is pretty good for having retired/legend content in their basketball products, I was hopeful to land a nice card from that portion of the product. And it came through.

Revolution is a gaudy set that was a Pacific release in other sports, but I believe this was the first basketball release from any company. These were the base cards in the set, and you can really tell this set had its origin in a late 1990's Pacific release.

I didn't land a base card of the Bucks' 2015-16 rookie Rashad Vaughn but I did land one of these in an infinite parallel (1:6 packs).

And here's a nice legend card like I was hoping for.

And here's the end of the Revolution with an insert and a parallel to the insert. The louder of the two is a Galactic parallel. They're kind of a tough pull, falling a rate of 1:288 for the base portion of the set, likely higher for the inserts. But that rate is still 1 per 2 cases.

I didn't land anything in the Limited boxes.

Gold Standard did land me one card. Eventually. The other Rashad Vaughn cards in this set look to be live at this point, so I shouldn't have to wait too long. This will be numbered to /49 and should include an on-card autograph to go with a green swatch.

In the meantime, this ebay 1/1 of Vaughn will suffice. Although I do think this one will be part of my next shipment to COMC, since I really don't want to store a framed card that isn't part of my PC.

And the final card, and my favourite, came from the exact same box as the framed Vaughn. And it definitely falls into the legend category.

An on-card autograph from one of the greatest of all-time! Yes, please! A beautiful design and penmanship to match. That's a nice way to wrap up a break, and if I chose not to keep the card, (I'm keeping it), it would easily pay for the break.

And there you have it.

Rewarding Myself

Paying for shipping on rewards cards might suck, but it is worth it when this:,

Becomes this:.

Finally! Some Series 2!

While I watch the mailbox over the next two days, hoping that two expected envelopes show up before the post office strike/lockout, maybe it is time to finally show off some S2.

And my first card out of S2 is:

Danny Duffy! And it is an interesting photo, which was pretty rare among the vertical base cards in this pack.

But the second card was still pretty nice, with a good photo and a it being of 2/14 baby Derek Norris.

This was the only other vertical that had anything other than a generic hitting/throwing photo was this Josh Reddick.

The horizontal cards were so much better, even with basic photos. Both Pirates cards are basic, but contrast beautifully with one being a close zoom and the other including the flight of the ball on  a more distant shot. And Hechavarria's works perfectly with the smoky borders.

Jays content!

Mets content!

And the inserts. Two parallels in this with the gold parallel (444/2016) and the photo negative parallel. That's my first of the latter. It is definitely something different. Outside of that, the Berger's Best of Ripken is the highlight of the rest.

And that starts the Series 2 set build.

Just One Card: Fear The 'fro!

You should, because it is spectacular.

And since the back features a cartoon, why not highlight that as well?

While looking around for more about Mike Gale, I came across this tongue-in-cheek listing of other folks picked 47th in the NBA draft. It is an interesting list that has several of my PC guys, 2/14 baby Tyus Edney, Cancon Todd MacCulloch and former Raptors pick Tyson Wheeler. There are some decent names in that spot as well, such as Vernon Maxwell, Gerald Wilkins, and Paul Millsap.

In the years since that was written, Kevin Murphy (2012, now in Japan), Raul Neto (2013, made his debut this past season in Utah, starting 53 games),  Russ Smith (2014, D-League mainly), Arturas Gudiatis (2015, still in Lithuania) and Jake Layman (2016, ???) fell into that spot.

And that is much more than I figured I'd write for this single card.

2016 Adventures in Repacks: Part 25 - The Dollarama Usual

Another trip to the Dollarama, another $1 hanger repack and $2 Surprise Bag purchase.

Starting with the hanger pack.

2010 Biography of a Season - Ondrej Pavelec - Nothing like starting off with a mask binder card

1991 Stadium Club - Jay Miller - Followed up with an interesting photo. Looks like the old Winnipeg Arena in the background.

1991 UD - Chris Chelios - Not as interesting as the Miller, but a nice horizontal card.
1990 Score - Mike Richter
1992 Pinnacle - Chris Chelios - A Chelios hot repack!

1991 7th Inning Sketch - The Bull - Yup. That's a Bull.

1993 Leaf - Ray Sheppard - And since it is a '93 Leaf, I do have to show the back of the card.

1992 Classic - Mike Peca - Love the Wolves unis.
1989 OPC - Patrick Flatley
2009 UD - Lubomir Visnovsky
1990 Score - Glen Hanlon
1991 Bowman - Clint Malarchuk
1994 Parkhurst - Jason Arnott

1995 Parkhurst Emerald - Roman Oksiuta - Better one of these than the usual 1990 Bowman

2011 UD - Jay Bouwmeester - I've showed this before, but I love showing cards from the outdoor games.

And that's the hanger. Not bad for a dollar, since I at least got that back in terms of interesting cards. Off to the Surprise Bag.

Here are the contents:

From least to most, I'll start with the 2010s pack.

And that was certainly a pack containing cards from the 2010s. I like the Kane photo, but it enjoyment of this is lessened by yet another legal issue for him.

But the Franchise pack was much better, if only for the 1994 Parkhurst Missing Link card of Floyd Patterson.

The miscellaneous repack pack drops from 8 to 6, but the cards weren't that bad. Despite rookie appearing on the Fedorov and Roussel, those were both second year cards. But it was nice to get an OHL card in this of a player that had a decent NHL career. And back-to-back Datsyuk!

And the Victory pack contained no cards I needed. Not even the insert. Bah.

In terms of keeepers, the $1 hanger was easily the better of the two.

Prestigious Bills

Time for goodies from yet another team select group break at mojobreak. A whole pile of Bills cards, which will be shared among a couple folks that regularly get packages from me (which will be the last I send out for a bit, see yesterday's post).

These are the veteran base cards. Pretty much who you'd expect in this, but it was really nice to see Jerry Hughes finally get himself a card as a member of the Bills.

The only base card parallel I landed was this Karlos Williams /100.

And the rookie content. It was Jonathan Williams that I ended up with the most cards of, with 8 of his rookies coming my way. On the other hand, the were 10 short prints in this set, and they fell at 2 per case. And the Bills had 2 of the 10. I didn't land the Cardale Jones.

But I did land one of Glenn Gronkowski. Despite the presence of short-prints in the set, I at least commend Panini for not making them all the big names in the set like Topps does with Heritage.

Panini must be really high on Reggie Ragland, as of the 8 inserts I landed, 4 were of him. The All-Americans card is acetate.

There was some variety in the other inserts in terms of players. There's my first card of Cardale, the latest quarterback of the future in Buffalo. At least with his draft position being lower than EJ, at least he shouldn't find himself in game situations before he's ready.

And the autographs!

As I said, Panini must be really high on Reggie Ragland. This is my second auto of his so far.

Adolphus Washington is a truly great football name. The Extra Points card is /100. An Underdog might find the unnumbered version arriving in a bubbler shortly. Assuming it escapes the country by Wednesday.

And finally, my first Cardale auto, numbed to 100.

I realize I've just shown three straight Ohio State autos and regularly trade with a Wolverines fan. I'd better be careful opening the next mailing, whenever that is.

[ADMIN] If you plan to send envelopes my way

For the next little while, please don't. There will very likely be post office strike/lockout starting on July 2nd, so the package will be stuck in limbo until after it ends. The reverse holds true for anybody who might be expecting a package from me.

Thanks! I'll post something when the lines clear.

ObCards:

I have to have a complete Marian Gaborik jersey by now, shouldn't I? Even if it some "One Piece at a Time" monstrosity that combines Wild, Blue Jackets, Rangers and Kings swatches.

2016 Adventures in Repacks: Part 24.2 - Comfort Food

Time for the sticker and hit portion of the set.

12 sticker packs with 5 each, and this was the only Senators one I landed. If I had to pick one Sens sticker to add, that would probably be the one I'd choose.

Nice tie.

The stickers did allow me at least one "Oh yeah, he did play there" moment, with the Tanguay sticker from his Tampa days.

Some pretty good names among the base with the Chelios and Hull. There's also a nice Bruins card in Anson "I scored a golden goal for Canada too!" Carter, and the late Ruslan Salei.

The auto wasn't the best, but at least he managed to carve out a pretty good journeyman-type career for himself.

And the relic? Why not a nice new 2/14 hit for my collection? Even though I'm sure that's going to be the worst photo of Eric Nystrom in that collection.

If not the worst photo period.

Still, a hit is a hit and I was really pleased to see this one come from the repack.

And there you have it!

2016 Adventures in Repacks: Part 24.1 - Comfort Food

A classic repack box from Wally World. This one contained, along with the relic card, the following packs:

1 97/98 Be A Player (with an autograph)
1 07/08 Ultra
3 08/09 Victory
1 10/11 Victory
1 10/11 Donruss
1 11/12 Score

All the sticker packs were 09/10 Panini. For the first post, I'll cover the card packs, ignoring the BAP with the auto, and then cover that, the relic and the stickers tomorrow. As seems to be my most common method of recapping a bunch of packs, I'll attack chronologically.

And this is not the most spectacular start to this. I guess the best card here is the parallel, with Fedorov being a Hall of Famer, albeit this coming from a stint that wasn't the most memorable.

And the big surprise was that two of the better cards came from the Victory packs.

If I'm going to get dupes of a rookie in this, it might as well be the Claude Giroux.

And along with that, why not pull a box hit from a repack box. Gold parallels are 1:36, so those are nice, even if the one I pull is of Pierre Marc-Bouchard.

And even both inserts were needs as well. I'm not actively trying to build the inserts, but if more fall into my lap, I can see myself hunting down the rest at COMC/sportlots. I have 24 of the SotC cards, and 22 of the Breakers. Both are 50 cards each. Given their repack frequency, I'll probably knock enough off the list to go for it.

The other Victory pack out wasn't nearly as good, but I did land a Sens card and a Bruins rookie. Even though I had no idea who he was before pulling the card and googling him (2 NHL games more than me, with the same number of points I've put up in the NHL).

At 10 cards, Donruss was the biggest pack, and it did land me a few cards for the PC. At least the rookie in the pack lasted more than 2 games, although he's now in Germany. Among the rest, the Staal looks really nice against the background of a sea of white in the audience, and there's also a Derek Roy for my Rangers alumni collection.

And the Score pack landed me an Alfie! It is a dupe for his binder, but will go nicely into my Sens collection. Great photo on the Toews as well. Score's photo choices were so under-rated, especially considering they matched up against UD's flagship. The 1-per-pack glossy was the Cleary.

This might have been the only repack break ever where the best cards came from the Victory release. Tomorrow, the hits and the stickers!