2017 Gypsy Queen 2 Box Break - Part 3

Still with box 1, and the inserts contained within.

Box toppers can be found in this season's release. Despite the Glassworks name, these aren't going to be mistaken for glass. They're merely chrome-ish. These are purple parallels, the most common of the parallels.

There aren't any minis in this release, but these are as close as you get. They're the same height as regular base, and about a half-inch narrower. They offer predictions for how the player will perform in the upcoming season. While it would be interesting to re-visit as the season moves forward, I'll probably have forgotten about these by then.

Painted cards! They might not be Diamond Kings, but I'll still welcome these to the binders. I guess that Sale was painted early in the off-season. But each player gets two cards in this, so the second Sale has him with Boston.

Auto 1. It is definitely a unique-looking auto. The J followed by the M and an open-topped G? That's my attempt to parse it.

And here's #2! And it is not only a Mets auto, it appears to be the missing backplate variation. These aren't numbered, but the black & white variations (1:150) are /99, and these are 1:276. So, /50? /75? Your guess is as good as mine.

A Mets auto is a great way to wrap up a box. Still one more box to get to. I'll probably skip on the base cards in that, but will get to hits and parallels when I get around to posting it. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week...

2017 Gypsy Queen 2 Box Break - Part 2

Time to dig in! I'll start with the first box, and its base/parallels.

These might only be base cards, but it was nice to knock out two of the bigger non-rookie names in the first box. I do love the bricks behind Bryant on what looks to be a home run trot.

2 Jays base cards in my first pack. 2 the rest of the way home. Sounds about right.

Mets content!

As for the parallels, the most common were these unnumbered 'missing backplate' ones. They seem more "left in a sunny window too long" as opposed to missing backplate, but who am I to complain about a parallel set's name?

If backplates can be missing, I guess nameplates can as well. Such as Dan Straily's here.

Finally, since I'm way too lazy to pull these from top loaders after putting them in, here's the rest of the base and parallels. Smith is one of the 20 SPs (1 per box). The /250 purples fall at 1:13, while the /50 B&W are 1:31 packs.

Tomorrow: Fortune Tellers! Art! Autos!

2017 Gypsy Queen 2 Box Break - Part 1

My boxes are here! I'm passing on flagship and Heritage for the GQ set-building experience this year. While there are SPs in this set, they're limited to retired players, and it seems less vital that I add these to the set, unlike with Heritage.

Just the first pack for the day. Very Blue Jays intensive with 2 cards of the locals, and I'm sure that was a Jays uniform at one point on Edwin.

Having the card number in the middle of the card is different. As long as it doesn't make collating the base set too much of an annoyance, I won't be that bothered by it.

And now if you'll excuse me, I still have 47 more packs and 2 box toppers to bust.

A Plethora of Raptors

2 case breaks worth. The new Prestige and the new Select.

Here's the base for Prestige. A nice clean design, and the logo/name on the bottom is in a style that makes me think of 2009-10 Upper Deck hockey. I'd maybe like some more variety with the style of photo chosen, but the look is still pretty clean.

There's a few of these gold-tinged parallels per box. I landed these two, neither of which are numbered.

And the inserts, featuring the expected appearances of Lowry and DeRozan. The Reminiscent compare a rookie to a veteran. If Poeltl turns out to be an Andrew Bogut type, I'll have no complaints.

Here's the base with Select. A little more veteran content here, with a design that is pretty much what one expects from Select.

Shiny!

More shiny! The gold parallel is the big card for me from this break, as these popular parallels are /10. The white parallel beside it is /149.

And it wouldn't be a Raptors group break from a 16-17 release without a Pascal Siakam autograph coming my way. This is out of 49, and is a Die-Cut Rookie Autographs Scope card. That's a mouthful.

And there you have it. I'm expecting a pair of Gypsy Queen boxes to arrive tomorrow, so I'll be covering those over the rest of the week.

Four if by Sportlots - Part 3

Another Sportlots PWE.

A worthy use of my 4 card limit, as these 3 put the final nails into the coffin of 2013 Pro Debut. Jimenez seemed to be the Blue Jays catcher-of-the-future for several seasons, but was released in February and is in the Texas system now. Chris Reed pitched 4 innings over 2 games for the Marlins and retired in February. Pat Light saw action of the Red Sox and Twins last year, and is now in Pittsburgh.

And there's no better 4th card for the envelope than yet another 2/14 card. This is my 67th Jim Kelly card in the binder.

And there you have it!

2017 Adventures in Repacks - Part 8

Not 1, but 2 hanger packs from the Dollarama today. Because why not?

2012 Heroes & Prospects - Brad Marchand - Always fun to start off with some Junior hockey uniforms. In this case, a flashback to Marchard with the Val d'Or Foreurs of the QMJHL.
1990 Bowman - Keith Acton
1992 UD - Marty McInnis
1990 Pro Set - Chris Nilan

1997 Certified - Patrick Lalime - A pre Marvin the Martian mask (since he had yet to play for the Sens), from a set I'm not used to seeing much of in these.

2009 ITG 1972 The Year in Hockey - Gary Dornhoefer - Another set I'm not used to seeing in repacks, although that will change after this post. Great retro design on these!

2001 ITG Be A Player Memorabilia - Vaclav Nedorost - Yet again, an oddball repack set.
1997 UD - Nick Boynton
1991 Score - John Druce

2001 ITG Be A Player Memorabilia - Byron Ritchie - Usually, I won't be too happy getting cards from the same set in these, but not if they're from less common repack sets.

2010 ITG Heroes & Prospects - Jordan Weal - Junior jerseys again. Jordan started appearing in NHL releases last year as a King and also as a member of his current team - the Flyers.

1991 Parkhurst - Scott Stevens - A Rangers alum!

1991 7IS - Brantt Mhyres - A 3rd CHL card. Brantt also saw NHL action, primarily in the enforcer's role, with Philly and Tampa.
2015 UD - Henrik Zetterberg

A really good repack! What will the second one offer?

2016 OPC - Trevor Lewis - I thought I might need this for the set build. I didn't, but the alternate uniform is a nice consolation prize.
1990 Bowman - Doug Crossman

1992 Stad. Club - Brad Miller - I actually needed this one not that long ago, since it is the only cardboard evidence he was with the Sens for 11 games of their expansion season.

1995 Parkhurst - Tom Barrasso - Mask binder card!

2005 UD - Sergei Samsanov - The V patch was for a vintage jersey program that certain teams were doing.

2009 ITG 1972 The Year in Hockey - Pete Mahovlich - And this set appears again.

2009 ITG Heroes & Prospects - Jordan Caron - More CHL love
1990 UD - Mick Vukota
1991 Score - Jim Sandlak

2009 ITG 1972 The Year in Hockey - Paul Shmyr - Shmyr might be one of the least flattering last names in hockey.

2009 ITG Heroes & Prospects - Angelo Esposito - A former first rounder for the Pens, he never got beyond the AHL.
1992 Stad. Club - Dave Andreychuk
1992 Topps - Pat Falloon

1991 7IS - Joe Cook - I'm torn between calling this an unflattering photo or a unique photo choice.
2014 UD - Patrick Wiercioch

Now those were definitely worthy of my toonie.

An Octet of Vlads

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. and 8.

Yeah, I'm not feeling overly verbose today.

A Rangers Round-Up

The OHL playoffs start tonight for the locals, and their seemingly annual one-and-done playoff run will be underway. But, this does give me the chance to show off my new Kitchener Rangers alum cards, with plenty of new names.

After almost 4 years in Kitchener, followed up with a similar stint in the AHL, Tyler Randell got to spend part of the 15-16 season in the NHL. He's been with Providence again this year, but did get a number of cards in mid-season releases last year. His wonderfully gaudy OPC Update retro parallel is his debut card.

Justin Bailey debuted late last season, and thus showed up with rookies in the early releases this year. As with Randell, this card was also available in e-pack form, thus absurdly inexpensive at COMC.

I've recently starting adding NHL cards of members of the Rangers coaching staff to the collection. In contrast to the Jay McKee and Mike Van Ryn stuff that covers recent coaches, here's a pair of coaches from the 70s. Murphy is shown in a mid 90's Parkhurst release, but the Morrison is pure vintage from 1970.

When an autograph is less expensive than a base card, you tend to overlook airbrushing. I love that they fixed Norm's jersey, but not the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds one behind him.

Josh was a 3rd round pick of the Blackhawks, but never played a game for them. He went on to play University hockey in Canada, with a brief stop overseas.

When you used the classic Rangers script, why would you even consider changing the jersey logo to that? Mercifully, it didn't last long. 3 of the 4 guys here are also making their binder debut, and the only one in this entire post that isn't a newcomer is on the final image - Boyd Devereaux.

And with that, I leave hoping they'll not get swept against the Attack.

My Final Zistle Trade?

Zistle might be in its final days, but there are still those clinging on to the remnants. And there are some traders still there. Someone else was doing the set build of 2016 O-Pee-Chee as well, so a trade was born.

This was probably the big rookie in the bunch of SPs that I still needed for the base set. I had to unload several of my SP dupes to get this, but am really happy this is out of the way.

With all the Wolverines alumnus in this grouping, you'd think it was a trade post for Too Many Manninghams. Nope, just 8 cards, and another SP off the wantlist.

And the final 6. Engelland is the really interesting one here, as this marked his first card since his rookie debut in the 2009 season. Stuff like this makes me appreciate the larger set, since it does allow for players who you wouldn't expect to get cards to have them.