An unexpected envelope showed up last week from Dawg Day Cards, which means that I'll be looking for some Cleveland Browns content to return fire with, hopefully sooner rather than later.
First up, something that isn't a rectangle, but one of those pennant-shaped inserts that seem to appear randomly in Panini's products. These generic team cards are the perfect choice when you want a card for one of your team binders.
2093 definitely seems random for a card's print run, but I guess it made sense at the time. Somehow. This was part of a sweepstakes that if the player was named MVP, you'd get an uncut sheet of these. It would go to Steve Young, and this would be nothing more than a really cool card of Thurman Thomas afterwards.
D'oh! I put one of these into my COMC cart not that long ago. But, I can always throw this into my next Night Owl mailer, so it will still make its way too a good home.
Not just a Blue Jays card, but a Blue Jays card that drops my wantlist for Heritage SPs from 32 to 31.
But nothing will beat a new 2/14 card as the best card in an envelope, and it happens again here with this new Yermin Mercedes autograph. Out of my now 16 cards of his, this is the 3rd one to have some ink to go alongside it.
I'll be returning the favour shortly! Thanks for these!
I don't really expect to find a primarily NCAA baseball product at a Canadian Wal-Mart, so I guess I've got to take a shot at it.
I really don't expect to find super-interesting photography on a set like this, but it looks like they managed to squeeze at least one into the packs.
Here's the rest of the base cards. The logo-less cards were of high school draft picks. There's no way Panini is going to shell out the big bucks for random high school logos. As for the ones with logos, if you are looking for a Miami Redhawks baseball card, Sam Bachman is your only player available at this point.
The first shiny card of the pack.
And here's the promised green pulsar parallel.
And your inserts. With names like Thunderstruck and Fireworks, you know they'd look nice in shiny Prizm format, but they look really bland like this. Both of the players being dupes from base cards doesn't help either.
And here's the results of the 3-card Carolina Blue Velocity parallel pack. While I'm sure any Tar Heels cards in the set will look nice in this, that Sycamores card is just as perfect. I also admire the write-up on the back of the Justice card.
Now that is a way to get around licensing issues. Colorado Rocky Mountain squad indeed! And although they didn't get similar bios, Fulford, Bush and Martin could have. 4/15 cards made this a pack that probably should have been sent further west.
It feels like it has been a while since Night Owl announced a major giveaway in the form of 5000 cards in 250 card random lots. Since Greg called these repacks, I had to be all over it. They showed up a week or so ago, and I shifted the 250 cards immediately into one of those cubes that previously housed other repacked cards, with plans to work through them in 50 card lots.
Unlike with my usual large repack posts, I'm not doing these consecutively, but I'll get to scanning all the cards eventually.
If this was a traditional repack post, I'd call this the opener. I said to also consider this give away an opportunity to hit me back for some trade envelopes I'd sent Owl's way, so there was a nice selection of Mets in this.
And I'm scanning everything in the mailer! Because I want to! While there weren't as many Jays cards in there, there still was a nice amount. Dave Lemanczyk looked far more stylish in 1978 than in 1980. That Mats Sundin was the only hockey entry in the mailer. The Vargas has a nice photo choice to go with the design, which is even nicer since that card and its parallels were his only big league appearance.
Timelime and Focus battle it out for the "set I rarely see in repacks" title in this portion. Moustakas' card proves that cards make their way into repacks quicker for Night Owl repacks than ones I find in the retail wild. Chrome really didn't translate too well for Yankees unis in 2008, giving their home pinstripes a road grey tint.
The non-baseball portion really shines through here. Tone Loc is obvious, but did you know that Lana was in a girl group before her wrestling days? If you winced at the band name, be warned the music itself might be worse.
More Mets! More Jays! I think I basically ignored Stadium Club in 2019 (after building the base set the previous year), so any content for my team collections from that is welcome. Even if they aren't Perez-era Diamond Kings, drawn cards are also pretty nice to find, even if that means someone went through years and years of training, practice and experience to draw Travis Snider.
The Joe Carter card is from 1994, so naturally, his specific statistical standout would be being the second player to walk off a World Series win with a home run. The Carl Crawford looks better than the Hughes, and it should - that's a nice shiny refractor. And just like with all the multi-player cards in this, of course that Copeland counts as a team collection addition. Why would it not?
There's the final non-baseball card of this portion, but there will be more to come with Part 2. This is probably the array of cards that will have the most vintage-y stuff in it, and really does contrast nicely in alternating for with the more recent stuff. Despite the Mets content here, the big winner is going to be the Coca Cola issue in this group.
I'd probably like the Alomar content here more had he not been on the list of people banned from MLB, in his case for sex pestiness. Thankfully, a nice team photo, Super Joe, some O-Pee-Chee content (minus the French) and a non-Alomar card from a favourite set of mine, Hometown Heroes make this a little brighter.
One of my favourite features from the last 2 Score NFL releases was the "Fun Fact" on the back. If I had known that the 'Did You Know' was on the back of Big League, I might have picked up a pack or three when I saw these at Walmart.
But at least that gives me one more thing to scan in these!
Here's yet another card that spent some time on my wantlist for a bit.
Not so much this particular card, but this was on my wantlist for what was used as a background for the autograph. This black and white item came from the draft board used by the NHL at the 2007 entry draft.
They even have it almost perfectly centered on the back for Jonathan Blum.
Considering my collection includes relics such as mascot fluff and football pylons, a piece of the draft board, even without an autograph to go with it, seems like another perfect addition.
Today, some more Kitchener Rangers stuff that was either picked up on e-pack or cheaply through COMC.
Up first, the AHL! Ryan hasn't seen the NHL since 18-19, but is still doing the AHL thing. Two years ago, he was in the Vegas system, thus giving me my first Henderson Silver Knights card anywhere in my collection. He was with Grand Rapids last year.
The e-pack exclusive Green Signature parallels are the set that had the most content in the mailer with these 3. And today really does seem like the perfect day to be posting a Kadri card, mere hours after he placed Colorado one game away from winning the Cup after his relatively stealth game-winner last night.
Player-wise, Dominik Kubalik was the odd-man out in the MVP group, so here he is on his own in a Dazzlers insert from 20-21. He made a return in this year's release, so there's a COMC wantlist item.
With MVP winning the volume battle in terms of sets, someone also has to win it for an individual players, and this time it is John Gibson, who now has 54 appearances in the Rangers alumni binders. I really need to put these onto a spreadsheet like with my 2/14 collection, so I can compare their counts easier. As of now, I think Gabriel Landeskog leads the way with 92.
Can't get any more e-pack exclusive than a Pack Wars card. (which I admittedly know absolutely nothing about how Pack Wars works, but if it means I can get PC cards cheaply at COMC, I approve!
Even cards /100 aren't that expensive in COMC-land, as long as the player isn't a huge name. The black update parallels are a part of Series 2, and mostly feature rookies missed in O-Pee-Chee's main set, with a handful of 'traded' cards. At least the photo works nicely with the border.
Even hits aren't that expensive. So, I am wrapping this up with a patriotic swatch of the Kings second round draft pick from last season. While this is a rather dull plain white swatch, red might have been overdoing it for that colour on this card, so I don't really have too much of a problem with it.
I rarely do the 'Topps Now' thing unless something really nice shows up for one of my team collections. July 30th last year was such a date, where there were 4 cards on the day that qualified, and I ordered the full day pass.
One was a Joey Votto during his home run streak, which I've already placed in my CanCon collection. A couple others went to team collectors on my list.
And the others are bound for my Jays/Mets collections.
After an almost two year absence, the Jays returned and played a home game in Toronto. The game ended with this great bare-handed catch from Santiago Espinal, and Topps managed to commemorate that with this perfect photo of it. And they were sporting the powder blues as well!
The rest of the team content was a couple traded cards. While I still have opportunities to pull and new Berrios cards, the Baez ones will be less common. And I guess I technically have their first cards with their new teams, so, YAY?
And here's the card backs. Because for this set, you really don't need stats, but you do need the write-up.
Today, I reach into the mailbag, and pull out a recent mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams. This one
was all over the place, but that just means a lot of my collections get bumps.Only one basketball card in there, but it does add a new relic to that collection with this shared Rip Hamilton card. Interestingly, Gordon would move on to play for Detroit, and Hamilton to the Bulls. They'd be teammates at one point, so this isn't previewing a future trade. Which would make this card even more interesting.
Here's a pair of Hall of Famers bound for the mask binder. And no, the Quebec City Post is not, and never was a thing.
A single Sens card is still a new Sens card.
The volume picks up with the football content. I'm sorta surprised that this is my first autograph of Eric Moulds in the ol' collection. He doesn't have a lot out there, especially when compared to recent players, but still has enough that I probably should have had at least one considering his 8 years with the team. Watkins relics are not new to collection, as this is my seventh.
Here's the 2/14 stuff. With the recent boost I made to the Jim Kelly portion of that PC, it is only appropriate to see some of the other QBs get appearances. Drew Bledsoe stands at 155 cards with these two, but he's still third overall behind Kelly and Steve McNair, the latter also up two to 178. That acetate chain reaction card is /3000. David Garrard closes in on the century club with 96. Alshon leads the non-QB portion of the collection with a solid 130 cards.
Blue Jays hits. Max Pentecost was thought to be the Blue Jays catcher-of-the-future for several years, before Alejandro Kirk and Gabriel Moreno moved into that role. Adam Lind had a decent stint in Toronto, and he also managed to have one of the more legible autographs in recent team history. I think I like the Kevin Cash more for how young he is in the photo as opposed to the swatch.
And some Jays hits also deserves some Mets hits.
Finally, some Carlos Delgado, who hits both worlds with his relics.
This means this post will feature some cards picked up at Shoppers. Could I call this another Adventures in Repacks session? Probably! But because I can see the packs contained within, I won't. But these are said packs. I don't think I've ever busted any 2003 Pacific.
The content was pretty basic, but I did get myself a new Sens card in the group. Also, I don't think I could have told you Shawn McEachern was the Thrashers' captain at one point. It is kinda hard to tell from the scan, but the Langenbrunner is a blue foil parallel.
It is a lot easier to tell when you turn the card over, as the others aren't /250.
With a 15 card set in packs consisting of 5 each of current stars, rookies and legends, you know you're getting some pretty solid star power in one of the National Hockey Card Day packs. And this pack certainly provided that, even though the set on the whole could have used some variety in teams represented. Why not stick Messier on the Rangers or Canucks if there's already an Oiler in the set? Or Sittler on Philly?
But even with that minor little nit to pick, there you have it!
Since there was an interesting along-the-boards horizontal picture as the opener, I'll give it a solo scan.
Given how dull the base set photography is this year in flagship, I'll savour the interesting cards from previous years when I come across them. And an outdoor photo with a unique uniform certainly is interesting. While there are a couple HOFers here, the rest aren't anywhere near as unique.
The hit shows up early. Matt bounced between the AHL and the NHL for about a decade, spending time with Tampa and New Jersey with 59 games of NHL service. At least he wasn't a one-and-done player, so I'm happy enough with this hit.
Tyler Wright's card is just magnificent. Perfectly framed with the stretch, and the puck still being part of the photo. Drew (not the wrestler) MacIntyre is a mask binder certainty, and it has the bonus of combining with the minor league jersey. Meanwhile, Tommy Albelin looks absolutely terrified.
There's some solid Chicago star power here, with the very obvious Toews, and the not-so-obvious Bobby Hull. The latter is pictured with the minor league St. Catherines Teepees. While it might seem like they're named after the tent, they were actually named after the initials of a company the team owner had.
And the finale is a Kitchener Rangers alum - on a card I thought I had, but apparently not, at least in that binder.
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