2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 38 - Dollarama Trios

 

A three pack of repacks today, as I feel like scanning a lot of cards!

I'll go left-to-right through them, starting with what was behind the McLeod. Both of the 12 card repacks actually held 13 cards, so YAY! That's a very, very nice start as well, as that French variation of Scott Stevens is new to my Kitchener Rangers alum collection. A PC need is always a nice little surprise in a junk wax grouping.

That PC hit is nice, but getting a completely obscure card is even better. So, my favourite in the first repack is that Esbjors card. A quick trip to COMC showed me that this is from 1995 Leaf Elit Set. That even overshadows a Satan appearance!

It ends on a 2/14 guy, but it is a dupe, so this becomes the lesser of the two PC finds.

Behind Skjei, it becomes likely that there were a lot of Lumme cards around repack HQ. We get a classic airbrush special, as a Jets uniform becomes a logo-less Penguins one. Despite the presence of 1990 Bowman, it gets dwarfed by the 1990 Score content in these 4-1. Even if it occasionally meant there were some hideous sets, I still miss SPX as a mid-level set with lots of base cards. 

Another Kitchener alum with David Shaw continuing the Ranger ways. 

Best photo among the hanger repacks easily goes to this face-off photo. Always nice and intense. 

Only 3 items in the bag, but we'll see what it contains.

I hope they didn't mean a current superstar in that pack, since Neely is the biggest name in this portion, and it really isn't close. Yandle was a perfectly fine player, but, no. 

All three of these would qualify for the mask binder, but only the Talbot isn't a dupe. 

And the Score pack was also incredibly dull. I'm just showing off Mikko Makela's card because his name is fun to say out loud. 

I should have just picked up another hanger pack.

But there you have it!

2022 Select Draft Picks Pack Break

 

I'm always up for a  retail break!

The retail version has a slightly different look to it than the regular hobby version, opting for a blue border as opposed to the traditional silver. I like it a little more than the regular, even if it does nothing when it comes to not making my scanner look filthy.

Of course, there are loud inserts. I think these are exclusive to the retail version as well. 

Are there inserts? Of course! These look the most like a card you'd find from the hobby set. The Unstoppable looks like it might be one of those tie-dye parallels, but this is the base design. 

More base card close the pack. Of course, that Diggs card counts as a Bills card. As it should. Of course, I pull a Hutchinson card after mailing out a package to Ann Arbor. Which I always seem to do. At least I have something to start my first mailer of 2023. 

There you have it!

Special Cards

 As in Special Teams cards.

I always love coming across cards of kickers and punters in modern sets, especially since they are pretty much forgotten about on most checklists. So, here's a couple autographs with a bit of a historical feel to them. 

As in the only kicker ever to be voted MVP. Sure, it was part of the strike-shortened 1982 season, but when it comes to wanting oddness in your collection, doesn't that make it even greater? And you even get a  Joe Theismann cameo as the holder. And, depending on how juvenile you are, you can have a slight chuckle when you see a jersey #69 in the background. Nice!

A kicker auto deserves a punter auto to go with it. And a Hall of Famer as well. I ordered this a while back, long before Ray's recent passing. It may be more of a printed auto than a written one, but it is still nicely legible, and certainly counts towards my penmanship collection. And he's also certainly the least shameful Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles alum auto that I have. 

There you have it!

Bank Error in Your Favour

 

With all the 2012-13 Score hockey I busted to build the set, I'm somewhat surprised that I never managed to pull one of the Black Ice parallels. So, when I happened to catch this grouped with the regular base cards at COMC I figured now was as good a time as any to make sure at least one ends up  in my possession.

And here you have that one!

Welcome, Kennedy Burke!

It may have taken until her 4th season and her third team, but I can finally add my 4th WNBA player to my 2/14 collection with this Kennedy Burke.

Fortunately, I was able to find a seller on this side of the border, so I didn't have to shell out $20+ to get one shipped. And being Prizm, there will likely be piles of parallels to add, likely enough to quickly push into the WNBA lead in my collection (Kara Lawson, 4) with little effort once they start landing at COMC.

I might as well scan the back as well. 

There you have it!

Chronicles Baseball Box Break #1 - Packs 4 through 6

 The next 3!

The first bunch of base cards. While I wouldn't expect Whit to be updated on the Jays, there are still Marcus Simien cards with him on the Blue Jays in this release. You'll see those when I do the Toronto post. Other than that, there's another Spencer bound for Ann Arbor shortly.

This  shiny card provides the only parallel in this pack.

Pack 5:

I can finally show off the first Mets card I got from this, with their former catcher making an appearance on that Panini-friendly photo of Patrick Mazeika. I guess 2 cards out of the 8 makes it an Angels...Los Angeles hot pack.

Speaking of that 8th card, here it is! It isn't that common outside of Stadium Club that you get an interesting photo to go with an autograph, but you get that here with a nice post-pitch shot. Not the best looking auto, but at least he added his number to the sticker!

Pack 6:

Your last bunch of base cards. Lopez is the first Blue Jays card, and I lucked out in getting a Wander Franco that I didn't land in that group break random I posted over the weekend. Strider provides another respectable rookie appearance.

My final numbered card. This one is a red parallel. I'm torn between "I really wish it would have been more obvious than just some red foil on the set name" and "If that had a red foil background, it would be so obnoxiously loud".

And it looks like I'll be waiting for the final auto. This would have been a little nicer in hand a couple weeks back, but I'll still be very happy when I can finally add this card to my Blue Jays collection. Looking at some of the other live cards, this should come through as a really nice silver inked on-card autograph. Alas, that is one box, and one break, where the best card is a redemption, but with both of these, they should be worth the wait.

There you have it!

I'll put  my Chronicles posts aside for a bit, but there's still lots more to come!

Chronicles Baseball Box Break #1 - Packs 1 through 3

 The Chronicles continues to be chronicled. I'm switching away from group breaks to a personal box for the next two posts. But there's still more from the former to come. It is my favourite release of the year, after all.

Pack 1! As usual, every card has a different design/set. The Josh Bell is actually a holo parallel from Spectra, and that specific parallel was a dupe from the Nationals random that I showed off earlier. Obsidians, and an acetate card fell one per pack. 

And since Classics included a factoid on the back, I'm gonna show that off too.

Definitely an Edward Cabrera hot pack, as he appeared on the lowest numbered card of this box, and any of the breaks I was in period. Even if the colours really don't go with the Marlins, that's still a really sharp card.

If I'm going to get a plain ol' one colour relic, it might as well be of Ohtani.

Pack 2

Maybe it is how much they flash me back to the early Skybox releases, but Recon might be my favourite set within the set. Torkelson will be set aside for an Ann Arbor mailer. And there's my second Ohtani of the box. 

It isn't numbered, but here's the second Holo parallel of the box.

And there's the second hit. And WOW, is that a ghastly signature. I wasn't the biggest fan of the Lucius Fox signature I posted earlier, but at least he would add a line after each of his initials. But at least now I've got an autograph of a guy who is probably better known for losing the ball in the lights and the casual reaction to it, thereby allowing Raimel Tapia to pick up an inside-the-park Grand Slam.

Pack 3:

Back-to-back-to-back Durans in this post. Other that a Trout appearance and a second Torkelson for the mailer, that's about it noteworthy about the third and final pack today.

But there are 2 more autographs to come in the next packs. 

There you have it!

Chronicling the Rays

 Another team from a date with the Randomizer! And there is some real potential with this slot, as it landed on Tampa. That means I am chasing some Wander Franco stuff.

Most teams seem to have a nice mix of veterans and rookies in their team list. Tampa was definitely an exception here. This Brandon Lowe from Spectra was the only one that didn't have the RC logo on it.

As you can see here with this Josh Lowe. I really like the Luminance card, although the helmet flying off his head, mid-air, had me thinking there was some sort of ghastly smudge on my scanner that I needed to clean off. No - just a  perfect photo, with the shading making that portion of the picture seem a little off. That's a picture that would work nicely as-is on a flagship Topps card.

The fewest # of rookie cards I got of a player were 2, these of Vidal Brujan. Obsidian was the most commonly seen set in hobby boxes, at a rate of one-per-pack. 

The most appearances goes to Shane Baz. With that silver-y Phoenix parallel in the bottom corner, he also provided the only base parallel from this break.

But when you landed Tampa in a random, you're wanting to see lots of Wander Franco cards show up. And lots of Wander certainly did.

Just one behind  Baz in terms of cards.

But hey! There's a tie! Technically. Hopefully. Eventually. I'll certainly be awaiting this one. The other Diamond Tickets in this are numbered to 15, and wonderfully obnoxious. Apparently somebody on ebay thinks this is worth $2500. Good luck, buddy! Good luck.

There you have it!

Chronicling the Nationals

 Let's switch sports and start diving through the piles of Chronicles I hinted at last post. I was in some group breaks, both random and pick-your-team. I busted a couple hobby boxes. So there's plenty of available content. First up, cards from one of the randoms, where the randomizer landed on the Nats.

It is a Panini product, so I'll open with a card that is perfect for the product, one that allows for an acceptable baseball photo, with a minimum of logo removal required.

There are some dated elements as well, as Josh Bell can be found in the set with Washington.

But Juan Soto was the Nationals' king in this set, in terms of volume. With Recon in the middle, the sets seen here, clockwise from the top left are Phoenix, Obsidian, Certified, Zenith, Clearly Donruss, base, Magnitude and Titan. While landing all these cards of a major name is nice, the volume really shows the level of re-used photos in this. I doubt too many people are going to fill up a scanner bed worth of cards of the same player to highlight it.

As expected, there are lots of parallels. And nothing beats a  parallel that perfectly matches the team colours. 

If matching colours aren't your thing, how about gaudiness? This is a 'Meta' parallel. In this set, they aren't numbered. But Meta parallels in other sets are /25. Maybe the numbering scheme is  just hiding somewhere among the background like a Magic Eye puzzle.

I'll get to the Blue Jays stuff in a future post, but for now, here's some cards from an alumni. He went to Washington in  the trade that brought Brad Hand to Toronto. They even opted for a photo where the catcher isn't wearing logo-covering equipment, in a somewhat odd choice. 

Riley Adams also provided one of the lowest numbered cards of the bunch, with this being a holo foil parallel. The only thing that changes is the foil on the bottom, so if this had been numbered on the back, it would have been a challenge to notice it when busting the packs. 

Lucius Fox definitely has the coolest name in the bunch.

Even if his autograph isn't the best. But, at least penmanship-wise, he won't have the worst of the group.

One last player to get to. You do have to compare the leg positioning and how much of the jersey is visible, but at least these are all different photos. Although I wouldn't be surprised if all the red jersey shots are from the same pitch.

A little patch to go with your autograph? Sure thing! Spectra was one of only a couple sets represented in this that provided on-card autographs. Bonus!

There you have it!