One of the good thing about e-packs is that the canvas inserts from Series 1 and Series 2 are plentiful, both on the site and cheaply via COMC. As I've never been too crazy about the Young Guns, they're easily traded for a nice number of them. Here's a handful of the ones I had in the recent shipment.
Both adorable and appropriate, here's Kirby Dach with a couple of Dachshunds.
There can also be some interesting photos on the reverse of these cards, such as this Erik Karlsson card. The front of the card does have an interesting entrance photo, but this garment sported on the back is great. Should you wonder about it, it was from an Artist's Collection of Sharks jerseys that were giveaways at games in the 2019-20 season.
If jerseys and photos from outdoor games are more your thing, there's plenty of those as well.
Another theme that appeared quite a bit was overhead photos. The shadow on the Jeff Skinner moves the Kitchener Rangers alum's card to the top of this grouping.
Trophy overload!
Sometimes, you have to break out the google machine to find out what was going on with regards to some of the photos.
However, it can be just the simplest photos that are the best.
More team select goodies from Chronicles. Toronto didn't bring the volume of the White Sox spot, but was still pretty solid with the content. Such as this America's Pastime insert of Cavan Biggio.
Still, the players that appeared on the whole really didn't bring much variety. With this Nate Pearson, you've already seen half of the players that made up this break's Toronto content.
But at least Alek Manoah had more than 1 insert appearance. The Magnitude brings some acetate to the break, and the Titan is one of the Holo Prizm parallels.
You'd expect Vlad Guerrero Jr to be all over the Toronto portion of the insert sets, and you'd be right. Here's 4 of his cards. And if you like that Certified card in the lower right of this four-pack,
it does look really nice in gold.
Perhaps you want some swatch with your Vladdy.
We don't only re-visit players seen prior when the autographs start, such as Elite providing me with my second Pearson auto in the PC, joining a Bowman's Best auto from 2017.
And here's my first Alek Manoah autograph as I revisit Zenith for his. It is interesting that this sticker has his old jersey number as part of his autograph. 47 was the number he sported prior to reaching the bigs, where he switched to 6. It looks like once the stickers run out, #6 will be here to stay.
There you have it! There was some very solid content for both teams, but I'll give the slight nod to the White Sox, but I do reserve the chance to change it should the Colas auto not come through as an on-card sig.
With Yermin Mercedes being one of the more common rookies in 2021 Chronicles, I decided to take a chance on the White Sox in an eight box group break of the product. What cards would be added to my 2/14 collection?
These ones! Acetate to a more traditional cardboard to foil to shiny, there was a little bit of everything in this, as my Yermin collection hits 10 cards already with exactly half of those come from this Chronicles release.
Still, Yermin's 4 entries don't even come close to the number of Luis Robert cards I landed. Gold Standard really translates nicely into the baseball category.
Overdrive did provide me with the only numbered base parallel in this. Overdrive is the 'new' thing in this release. It is OK, but I really have to curb my desire to shorten the set's name to the somewhat tactless 'OD'.
Non-Robert, non-Yermin cards.
Were there hits? Of course there were! His signature might be abbreviated, but it really pops nicely on the dark background in the silver ink.
But if I want to see how the gold ink looks on it, I guess I'll have to wait. Colas in a Cuban defector who is a free agent , but since most indications are that he will sign with the White Sox, this redemption went in my direction. Which would be a bummer for some other team owner if he ends up signing elsewhere. When this comes through, I'll have an on-card auto /25 of the prospect.
Should he sign with Toronto, it will also have ended up in the correct hands, as I also picked up the Jays in this and will have some cards from them to show off next post.
If you're in doubt as what to send me in a trade, you can always order me and have delivered a bunch of repacks, which is what Dennis @ TMVerlanders did this week.
Now I do still have some repacks from my previous order to get to before I start into these. I've got a 250 card basketball cube, along with some 20+1 hit hangers.
Along with one of these from the ol' 7-11.
Let's get a better look at the first card, minus all that plastic in the way. Chronicles will always get me to pull a baseball repack off the pegs.
There's an interesting photo to start off, even with it being a checklist card. Dave Henderson gives one of the first appearances of a bat flip on cardboard. That Ryan Klesko would have been a decent base card to pull at the time. Now it is repack fodder.
Fleer Tradition may have tried just a little too hard to create a retro-ish version of the two-image Topps cards. That grass just seems too bright. Expos content as well, and there's some HOF content too. I guess Icons is the oddball set in this portion.
His 1988 Topps entry was the only major release appearance Keedy would get over his career. Both Canadian teams appear in this portion, and Coles would go on to spend some time with the Jays during their second WS win. Paul Waner is the second HOFer, and that's gonna be my pick for my favourite card in the pack. And since you are probably wondering, yes, Jonah Arenado is the brother of Nolan Arenado, which is helpfully confirmed on the card's back.
Start with unlicensed Panini, end with unlicensed Panini. The circle of repack life.
For the second time in this repack, some 2013 Prestige is the opener.
Derek Carr is a perfectly acceptable way to start the hidden cards portion of this. Kyle Brady had a very solid 13 year career, but he'll always be the "We Want Sapp" guy from the 1995 draft. The Jerome Bettis card is a bit of nightmare fuel to ask the question "What would a sentient bobble head look like?". And there's some more 1980!
With this Michael Bennett card combining with the Bates from yesterday, 2003 UD has provided a couple nice photos on the Vikings cards in this repack. Chad Pennington returns to the repack, but sadly, that's the last 1980 card I'll receive here. For the second time in the recap, I also end up with a HOF lineman out of 1990 Pro Set as the middle card in a group of 9. Kevin Dyson could be a gaudy Fleer mid 90s card, but it is from 2000.
The last of Chad Pennington. The last of the cards.
All in all, I liked the 1980s in this, I added a couple cards to my 2/14 collection, and there were a lot of solid names throughout. All for less than I'd shell out for pretty much any single football hobby pack. A hobby pack would like not be able to generate the satisfaction from this.
What was on the side that had 56 instead of 50 cards?
The great pennant design out of 2018 Classics is a great way to start! I'm still looking for a few cards to finish that set off, BTW. *hint* *hint* (gestures towards set wantlist at the side)
We start off with a streak of 4 straight QBs to open the cards behind it. And look who leads the way! 2/14 baby Drew Bledsoe! That's a need for the collection as well! There's a couple parallels here. That Pennington is a very obvious one, but that Tolbert is also one of the glossy parallels that score used at the time. There's a HOFer in the middle of it all, and Mike Webster, sadly, was the first former NFLer to be diagnosed with CTE.
More Bledsoe! More Pennington! And while the former has made his final appearance in this repack, there will be even more of Chad Pennington to come in the final post. But that's yet another new card for the 2/14 collection. Another 1980 entry as well! The Bates wins the photo war in this batch, with him leaving Otis Smith tackling the air.
The final grouping - more 2/14 content with Steve McNair! Alas, this is a collection dupe. But there's yet another 1980 entry, along with a card that was sent out already to a Wolverines collector in Ann Arbor. The Vikings content in this portion was really great for providing photos of defenders being left in the dust, as it does so with the Kyle Rudolph.
There you have it! Another 28 more for the final post!
What was on the reverse of the first part of this? Let's start off with this Prizm card.
Behind it? That Gurley is coming off his MVP season in 2017. He's gone from that, to completely out of the league. The drop-off can come quickly for RBs. I really don't have too many "receiving the snap/holding for the kick" cards in the PC.
The Star Rookies content continues here. Kevin Walter was a 7th rounder, and managed a ten year NFL career, which is pretty notable for the 255th overall pick. None of those games were with the Giants, though. More 1980 content as well!
Bills content! WOO-HOO! I'll just ignore what happened this past Sunday. The almost finale, Gibran Hamdan, is another interesting entry to the ol' PC. He was the first player of Pakistani descent to play in an NFL game.
But that card was only the almost finale, as I figured that all 3 of the UD cards had more interesting photos on the back of the card as opposed to the ones chosen to the front. The one through the net has to be even rarer as a card image than what was used on the front. The greatness that is the punter card!
I've only done one repack post this month. That's gotta change. So here's a bunch of football cards. The description fibs, though. There were the expected 50 cards on one side of this, but the other had 56. More cards is no problem, though.
As I usually do with these 100 hangers, I'm scanning every card over this and the following 3 posts.
Kenny Britt opens up the 50 card portion. Back when there was some type of variety to the Prestige design, as opposed to rather repetitive "text on a diagonal" that has been used the past several years.
Some Chrome to start it off. 2016 Donruss is one of my favourite lower end designs in recent usage - I love the colourful, albeit random salute to the 1990 design. Plus you got a guy named Roosevelt. Nice start!
That's a pair of great photos opening and closing the opening line. Jack Murphy Stadium is almost the real star of the picture despite the featured player getting a TD. A whole different type of celebration, one that would now draw a flag, gives Stadium Club a pair of memorable entries. Foil on green doesn't really allow for a name to be legible, so that's Juston Wood on the Star Rookies card. He wasn't, as he never played a game in the NFL. That's still closer to the NFL than I!
Back when taking a memorable photo was worthy of a card itself! There's also some 1980 mojo in this one, and that's one of several that will show up in this repack. Does this count as vintage? In repack-land, it certainly does!
And it is a perfect way to wrap up the first batch of card from this one.
And I wrap up my Expo posts with some prospecting at a fraction of the price of Bowman. Just like Pro Debut, with only some of the licensing!
Pack 1:
And we're underway! You can see how the licensing works in this - just fine for NCAA photos, not so fine for MLB. The 'hidden' portion of the Wallace auto seems to be a pretty accurate description of that subset, since this card, and its parallels, were the only mainstream cards Wallace has had. Looking at other Royce Lewis relics in this, they alternate between grey and white/pinstripe, and any relic with a pinstripe is automatically the better one.
Pack 2:
That Luke Little might be the most boring card photo ever, and it was re-used on all his Panini cards. Hickman's golden die-cut will probably be the shiniest card of the break. You can also see one of the more interesting parts of this break - the Dominican Prospect cards. Even if they don't end up signing in MLB, they're unique collectibles.
Pack 3:
1/1 Mojo! WOO-HOO! I've got a few autographed plates in the collection, but this might be the first one of them that isn't a sticker. Since the name isn't visible, I had to flip the card over to see that the image is of Bryce Jarvis, a first-rounder for the Diamondbacks. Anthony Walters is a Mets card, so at least I've landed one PC card. Trei Cruz is the son of Jose Cruz Jr, and that's about as close I came to a Blue Jays card in this.
Pack 4:
I guess this is a hot box for guys named Bryce. Fran Alduey signed with Cleveland earlier this year, and has made his debut in their minors as well. So there is reason to watch for some of the other names in this product. We also get another super-boring photo with Cuban prospect Norge Vera, but at least it could conceivably be taken during a game.
Pack 5:
Another Mets card in the final pack! The Hidden Gem actually has cardboard appearances before, and his father, Rodney, played in the majors. Rodney is probably more famous for something that happened in the minors, though. He's the "run through the wall" guy.
At least he's remembered for something!
Finally, unlike the Cruz from the Prime Numbers parallel set in the earlier pack, the Valencia is actually numbered to a prime number - 59. Don't believe me! Then believe the beloved Prime Number Shitting Bear!
If you can't believe the bear, who can you believe?
And that's the box, and that's the extent of my Expo acquisitions!
