Chronicling Dodgers

One of my favourite sets of the year, 2020 Panini Chronicles, dropped during my hiatus. I went through a good pile of it, with 4 hobby boxes and a some random group breaks coming my way. I'll recap the boxes next week, and do the randoms throughout the week. I landed the Athletics, Blue Jays, Dodgers and White Sox in those. Since some of the Dodgers content I got was already shown off last week by Greg @ Night Owl Cards, I'll start these recaps with the remainder of those cards.

Let's open with some shininess, and a Neon Pink parallel. So bright, you almost don't notice the lack of logos. 

The big winner for the Dodgers in terms of volume was Gavin Lux. I'm impressed that I got 6 base cards, and none with the same image reused.

Meanwhile, poor Brusdar Graterol only gets one image across all his Dodgers cards. And Panini really loved that image, as it also appeared on his Optic card, and his Absolute card. 

At least when it comes to the Dodgers content I got, Timeless Treasures was my favourite design for the base cards. With a name like that, the B&W photo works nicely.

Numbered parallels? Of course there are those. And a pretty obvious photoshop job, since that is obviously Fenway in the background, and Mookie has yet to sport Dodger blue in a game there.

Dustin May, or specifically his hair, goes perfectly with a Ruby Wave parallel. Both of these are /199.

Edwin Rios was all over 2020 Panini releases, so landing one of his auto'ed cards wasn't really a surprise.

But this certainly was! If you looked at Greg's post, there was a Lux auto in there, so that means I landed two of his signatures in this, and decided to share the wealth.  Not only is this a nice on-card autograph, but it comes with a patch where the location it comes from is immediately recognizable - part of the front jersey number from their home whites. And it is a perfect way, combined with the opening Bellinger, to sandwich a post.

There you have it! 

Retail Sampler

A couple retail packs from Wally World. Kinda hard for me to pass on something with a Met visible on the packaging.

For black foil text on a darker background, it is pretty visible. These are all the retail parallels, meaning these are completely separate from the hobby version of this. But, since it is only a 100 card set, and there aren't short-prints in this, it wouldn't be hard to put the parallel base set together.

The backs don't even include a single year of stats. But at least the team logo is nice and big.

No Bills content in the pack, so I guess I'll highlight the biggest name among the rookies that I found in the pack.

Are there parallels that are exclusive to this format? Of course there are! With orange being a team colour for the Bears, that Khalil Mack card looks really well done. 

My only insert was also a parallel. Acetate greatness!

Here's the first Gallery card of the year for me. Pretty much exactly what I'd expect from this design.

Although the vertical ones where the text matches the direction of the photo does make for a better look.

Heree's one of the SPs, which are made up of 151-200 of the base set. That's kinda intimidating, but I've still ordered a pair of boxes over Black Friday that should put a dent in the regular portion at least, leaving a manageable remainder. 

There are parallels here as well.

The Heritage inserts are back as well. There's little rhyme or reason to the set represented in this, as the previous two years have been 1952, then 1965. 

And here's the final 3 cards. Given the usage of rather generic posed and action shots, the Davis really comes off something unique for the set.

And there you have it!

2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 38 - Dime Box Repacks

For the life of me, I can't recall where I read it, but someone noted that you could add repacks to your order from baseballcardstore.ca. So I added a couple of those to my order as well. I'll go through them by combining both repacks for the recap, and seeing which of the two was more interesting.

It would take a rather special card to defeat any Jordan, and Kyrie isn't going to do it. 0-1 for the second repack.

Nothing too interesting among the second card. I guess I'll give it the Burton based on being a better action photo, but neither card is really noteworthy on its own. 0-2.

Very similar photos, but the uniqueness of a WNBA card will always give it an advantage. 0-3

Weatherspoon's derp face makes it a clean sweep off the first scanner bed. 0-4.

A great action shot of a HOFer. Plus, Armstrong refused to come to Toronto after being picked in the expansion draft. Easy on so many levels, and this is becoming a laugher.

The battle of HOFers, but one is a coach card. 0-6.

Will a Chrome-y card be enough to get the first repack its first nod? Yes, even over an insert card of a HOFer.

Even with 4 seasons there, Drexler in Rockets attire still seems odd. Is Macon making a no-look pass, or is he receiving one? The first repack starts it comeback with two straight. 2-6.

Raptors content! Interestingly, both of these are gold (Medallion or Idol) parallels. Even if the Davis card wasn't a new addition to my Raptors binder, it gets the nod easily.

And a Grizzlies card as well! WOO-HOO! 4-6, but this one was actually closer than one would think.

Since the Dudley was a Prototype, and helpfully labelled as such.

From one relocated team to another, the first repack's greatness continues.

Finest is always nice, but the protective coating didn't exactly end up in the most flattering location for Mookie. We're all tied up at 6 each!

I know Golden Age isn't technically a basketball set, but how can I vote against The Iceman! 6-7!

The Nets card is the team checklist, but I really looks so bland and lazy with all the white space on it. They could have at least used the road jersey. The Anderson is a simple card, but still the better one. 

The Horry falls in the same category as the Gervin, as it isn't from a basketball set, but up against Sir Charles, it really doesn't matter. With 9 from the second repack against the 6 from the first, the Jordan-to-Barkley pack wins this battle of the field goal kickers.

And there you have it!

My Trip to the Dime Box

 It seems like every blogger has made their trip through baseballcardstore.ca and received, and shown off, their stacks of goodies. 

My turn!

Why lead with a Daniel Alfredsson playing card? That's because it was the only card I'd ordered that wasn't a 2/14 card! (Aside from the repacks, of course)

This was not the only sticker in the package, but it was the only hockey one.

Gaborik was one of the big winners in the package in terms of volume, with 17 added to his total moving him to 233 overall.

He'd need another 17 cards to tie Milan Hejduk, who is the first person in the collectioln to reach the 250 plateau.

I always like adding 'How did I not have this card already?" cards to the binder, and this 1990 Dave Dravecky is one that certainly fits that category.

That Topps card of Scott Scudder is another one that fits the category. Probably that O-Pee-Chee as well. 

Takashi Saito has 10 cards in the base set of 2008 Documentary. And I've got 7 of 'em!

Basketball seems to have really become the sole domain of adding cards featuring Gheorghe Muresan and Richard Hamilton as of late. So it is nice to add some variety with a few Tyus Edney cards.

But they were well represented as well.

Finally, the football. The QB fest starts with this solitary David Garrard.

Here's the other sticker in the package, along with the only Jim Kelly card in the bunch.

There was a scanner bed worth of Steve McNairs.

The big winner, with 18 new cards, was Drew Bledsoe. Here's 10 of those new cards. I really like the middle photo on the top line, since you really don't see too many photos of the QB flipping the ball to a teammate. 

With this addition of almost 80 cards, I'm less than 10 away from the 3000 mark for the collection. I've already added the entirety of my COMC shipment to the spreadsheet, so it looks within reach before year's end.

Anyhow, that's almost all of it. I threw a couple 15 card basketball repacks in the mix. I'll do those tomorrow.