Ginter Mets

Back to the mailbag again, and yet more Mets cards from the recent (read: about two months old) mailer from Kerry @ Cards on Cards. I still have at least two more group posts to go (one Bowman/Stad. Club, one miscellaneous) before I finally wrap this up. Today, as the subject indicates, it is the day(s) of Allen & Ginter.

All the cards were from 2015 through 2017, which was good because aside from a few random packs, I didn't acquire much of the stuff from those years. This was the only mini in the entire package.

I guess I'm doing this chronologically. as this was the only base card out of 2015.

And an insert.

2016 base.

2016 inserts.

2017 base.

And the 2017 insert.

So, I'm not at my most verbose today. I might have more codeine in my system than blood, so I just took advantage of the fact that all these were pre-scanned. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 34.3 - Too Long

I'm not done with the repack fest yet - I've still got a pair of Dollarama Surprise Bags to get to.

Here we have the contents of the first one. No supplies, just cardboard this time.

All flagship UD in the 2010s pack, and nothing very interesting photographically either.

The Canadian team pack wasn't the best, but the Messier insert was nice. Chris Joseph's son was one of the players that was killed in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

I guess the Richter is the rookie card in this group. The Simon is a mouthful of a set/subset name, originating from 1997-98 Pacific Invincible NHL Regime. Whew.

The UD pack will wrap this group up. A couple notable cards were in it, including the only card that Jens Schwabe got in his hockey career, and Ken Sutton falling over on his Star Rookie card. He's still controlling the puck, it still looks he's being mocked by the Polly-O String Cheese parrot.

The two repacks were pretty similar. There were two of the exact same items, a pack of 1991 cards, and then the only different item this time being the 6 card pack.

Not much of note in the Score pack, so I'll highlight the Kitchener Rangers alum.

Less junk wax this time around in the Canadian team pack, even though the team in question stayed the same. The Hall card from his rookie season looks nice, but I cropped out that both the right side corners were dinged.

At least there was one non-flagship card in this group of 3 2010s card, and it is a pretty nice mask binder addition.

But the mask binder war is won this time my the Alex Auld out of Victory. One of my favourite motifs is the design where the goalie's face is in the open mouth of the team's mascot/logo.

And there you have it. Nothing major, but for $4 total, that was expected. And the Auld is a perfectly fine best card at that cost.

2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 34.2 - Too Long

The repack wraps up with these 8 packs:

2 2009-10 OPC
1 2009-10 UD S2
2 2013-14 Prizm
1 2013-14 UD S1
1 2014-15 UD S2
1 2015-16 UD S1

I guess I'll start with the O-Pee-Chee. Here's one pack.

And the other one. Looks like I'm now a Barret Jackman super-collector as one pack had the regular base card, and the other had the retro parallel.

The Prizm packs got my second Senators card of the repack, along with some mask binder cards, but the big winner is that Bobby Clarke card. Die-cut, and featuring the Stanley Cup? Great! The only way that would be better is if the photo was of his famous toothless grin.

I'm just grouping all the UD packs together, and opening with the interesting photos from the packs. The Cody Hodgson is the winner here, with an angle not seen much on hockey cards.

And the inserts from the packs. While it isn't on par with the Auston Matthews I grabbed in a repack earlier this year, Murphy is still in the league, and that's good for a repack. There's a Trouba for a TMM pack, and the second glove close-up out of 15-16 UD as well, joining the base card of Eric Nystrom from the same release.

And there you have it.

2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 34.1 - Too Long

It has been too long (more than two weeks) since my last repack post, although it always has been too long between repacks. So, let's bust a bunch of packs from a Walmart 16 pack repack.

Up first, the list of packs. They're all the retail versions, where applicable.

2 2009-10 OPC
1 2009-10 UD S2
2 2010-11 Score
1 2011-12 Score
3 2012-13 Score
1 2013-14 Score
2 2013-14 Prizm
1 2013-14 UD S1
1 2014-15 UD S2
1 2015-16 UD S1
1 2016-17 Artifacts

After 8 12-13 Score packs in the last one, it is nice to have some variety in the Score packs this time around. I'll start off with those this time, and then wrap it up with the Artifacts.

The earliest Score packs were the best of the lot. Alternate jerseys! Mask binder cards! A Rangers alum! And a die-cut. How did I not know that those Snow Globe cards were a thing? The one-per-pack glossy parallels were the Smyth and Ellis.

The single pack of 11-12 wasn't too bad either. It landed me the only Senators card from this portion of the packs, along with a perfectly framed Season Highlight card. Stanley and a retired number on its way to the rafters on the same image? Beautiful!

Unlike last time which resulted in an autograph, there wasn't too much to note in the 12-13s. Just these gold parallels.

But I did get a First Goal card to accompany the gold parallel in the 13-14 Score pack. There's an insert set that UD should rip off the idea of for one of their lower end releases.

And just the expected base cards out of the Artifacts pack.

But there's the highlights from the 8 packs. 8 more next time!

Pack Sampler

A trio of random packs from the LCS for your Wednesday. I know I said the lack of Bark in the Park cards made me uninterested in Big League, but it was either this or a pack of Goodwin Champions, and baseball beat out miscellany.

I thought that originally I wouldn't be too enamoured with the photography on a lower end set, but there's a real nice variety in there. 

Although the design is very reminiscent of a recent one.

An insert. A parallel.

Not too bad for the Heritage pack. Two Mets and an action photo variation. 

Finally, the product that I don't think has made many appearances around blog-land, Upper Deck's 2018 Team Canada release. I wish they'd had a photo of Mandolese where he didn't look like a serial killer and where the top of the jersey doesn't blend into the background.

As before, the guys get a re-used photo on the back, while the women get a posed photo. Sarah Nurse is part of the diversely-talented Nurse family, being a cousin to NHLer Darnell and WNBAer Kia.

There's one insert/parallel per pack, and this is the one. Red is also a perfect choice for the background on a Team Canada parallel.

And there you have it! More hockey in the next post, whether repack or RA.

More 2/14 Football

After plowing through the Jim Kelly portion of my COMC to-be-posted box, it's now time the rest of the football cards show up.

I'm starting with single cards, and the only player who didn't have a hit or numbered card as part of the collection. But, this is still a nice, although very 90s insert out of 1999 Topps Chrome.

The Hack Attack! I don't think I could have even guessed that he was now with the Bengals.

Keith does appear to be out of the league at this point, but it is a nice on-card autograph, and this is my first hit of his as a member of the Ball State Cardinals.

This is easily the best of the one-card-only player additions, with my second Alshon Jeffery autograph joining the collection. The shoulder stripes on Bears uniforms make for some great looking patch cards.

Drew Bledsoe makes an appearance on 2 cards, with the latter being numbered out of 3000.

The Passing Grade card even has a football die-cut pull-out in it. This still only counts as a single card though.

These are much easier to count up. 2 cards, both containing autographs! Surprisingly, these are my first Hefty Lefty autographs in the collection.

And the big non-Jim Kelly winner in this group of COMC additions is David Garrard with 5 new cards. Only the die-cut Pacific Atomic card in the lower right of the post is numbered. It is probably my fave of the five too, simply for the background logo.

There you have it! Although I still have some baseball and hockey to get to, I'm really happy to knock out this large portion of cards from the "I'll post it sometime" collection.

Better Days

This year, the Buffalo Bills are not good. Both games so far this season have been decided by halftime, and with the Vikings being a 17 point favourite today, I'm guessing that's going to be three games with a similar characteristic. So, I'll return to the glory days, and post the Jim Kelly acquisitions that have been in my COMC to-be-posted box.

Edit: Note I didn't specify how the game would be decided by halftime. Call my 1-900-line!

While I generally like to build to the big card in the respective post, I really couldn't resist going against the grain today with my second Jim Kelly autograph. It isn't really an on-card auto, more of an on-patch autograph. But, since he is the only football HOFer in the collection, it is an appropriate patch. You'll have to flip it over, but the card's numbered to 40, and the photo isn't the standard passing photo, but instead a hand-off.

On to the more standard singles for this post, and a classic looking design out of the appropriately named Fleer Throwbacks.

And if you want more of a Studio-ish card, here's one out of Pinnacle, with their Showcase insert set.

And a whole pile more of cards, enough to fill up a scanner bed.

And a trio of numbered cards ends this post. A Hurricanes card really doesn't fit in with this post, but I figured it belonged here moreso than with the rest of the 2/14 football additions in a future post.

With these, Jim Kelly becomes the first football player to bust past the 100 mark in acquisitions, with 109 different cards. This also puts me past another milestone, with there now being over 2000 cards in the collection. WOO-HOO!

2013-14 Rookie Anthology Case Break - Box 4 of 12

Back to the case!

The extent of his NHL career was a spot as a back-up where he never saw the ice during the game(s), but that's enough to warrant a card. I've got a dupe of this one, and since that one has a light blue alternate jersey swatch as one of the two, that's the keeper.

Hartzell makes a second appearance in this post with a Score Update card. This is the third straight box where I've landed the Grabovski base card.

But I also picked up one of the black parallels. These were supposedly one-per-case, but I grabbed 3 in my first case break. These were more accurate, and this was my only black parallel in this one.

But it is back to dupes here with my second Brock Nelson Hot Rookies auto. I landed one of these in the previous box. At least he's still in the league.

The Prizm update gave a couple good rookies, and the Olli Maatta wasn't even a dupe!

The box provided its expected shininess with this Gazdic.

This was, but since Henderson was a Kitchener Rangers alum, it will fit nicely into that mini-collection.

These were the Select Update.

Grubauer was the backup goalie on the Capitals' way to the Stanley Cup last season, and was moved to the Avs in the offseason.

Yet another auto/relic to end it, and this is easily the best of the 3. Dumba has become a solid defender with the Wild, and re-upped with the team on a 5-year deal in the off-season.

A rough start to the box, but definitely a solid finish. There you have it!