Expo Post 5: A Rangers Recap

 Today, it is a bunch of Kitchener Rangers alum from their NHL careers.

A surprising name for the volume king this time - Steve Eminger and a trio of Pacific cards. Two are numbered, with the Crown Royale being /2299 and the Calder to a less bulky /825. He'd play 17 games for the Capitals in 02-03, before heading back to the Rangers to help them to their second Memorial Cup.

Set volume goes to O-Pee-Chee with this small stack of alumni. Even though I wasn't crazy about the uniform in their original appearance, I do kinda like seeing the throwbacks here on Jeff Skinner. The card would have been even better had the logo matched what was used in the photo.

This years S2 also makes multiple appearances. I really should have bought a second Gibson for the mask binder.

I gotta have a Timmies appearance in here. In this case, the trend set was MacInnis having a consistent 100mph slap shot. 

Another card that salutes MacInnis' shot skills.

Random base card that was surprisingly a collection need! Clarkson was another member of that Memorial Cup winning team in 2003. 

Yet another member of that 2003 team. Richards is the only player to have won a Memorial Cup, Calder Cup, Stanley Cup and an Olympic Gold medal.

Another card I thought I already hat. Nope, it's new!

From the last year before the flagship sets weren't available on e-pack. Meaning that it was before inserts in the 25 cent bin were both cheaper and easier to find than the e-pack versions. 

Of course there were parallels that were going to make their way into the binder. Why wouldn't there be? The Scott Stevens is a thick card parallel out of Stadium Club, actually called a Silver Decoy. If you're going to try to trick pack searchers, you might as well make a card out of it instead of a bland white slab. Kadri's Flames entry is the only numbered version here, being a rainbow /350.

Of course, inserts have parallels. This one is the orange version, even if it looks a murky yellow.

There you have it!

Time Out for a Polar Bear

When a mailer arrived yesterday with Mets goodies for a group break, I knew I had to take a brief break from the Expo recap to show off a card.

Because this is worthy of an immediate appearance here. Aside from a 1/1, I can't imagine a better example of a 'chase card' in the product. This becomes not only my first Red Real One Autograph in any collection, but also my first Alonso autograph. Alonso was also the only Mets autograph in the product, so I lucked out even more with this being a hit in one of the boxes.

Such a card also deserves to have its reverse shown off as well.

It wasn't just that card - this box topper also deserved to make an appearance. Unlike with the base card, at least Yogi was affiliated with the Mets in 1975. Although I don't seem to think of it was as a catcher that year.

I won't show off everything else - I figure that they've already made appearances. With Lindor's 4 RBI performance yesterday, I figured he was also worthy of an appearance. 

Still, there was this:

And there you have it!

Expo Post 4: Actual Sens Cardboard

 OK. Yesterday wasn't a card, but I thought it was nice enough to deserve a post of its own. Today, some of my actual Sens acquisitions.

And I can go back-to-back with posts where the first image is an Andrew Hammond appearance. Even if this one dates to his AHL days at their affiliate's former days in Binghamton. 

"Rookie Commence" as an insert set name still sounds like Engrish. These were inserted into Series 1 tin packs, and in 2018, and the Commence cards were never used again afterwards.

Best photo from the Sens portion is easily this one from this year's flagship. When you're chasing base cards as opposed to Young Guns, you tend to notice interesting ones like this. I love the concentration on his face, still focused on the puck even if his stick is the only thing touching the ice.

If you prefer some shininess with your umlauted names, here's one. This in an orange parallel, which were retail exclusives.

More shininess!

The set I picked up the most singles I picked up, whether for myself or for mailers to others, was this year's OPC. It having the deep 600 card checklist and being all available in a single series made it easy to stock up for myself and others. You'll be seeing more from this set in a couple future Expo posts too.

Patrick Lalime's back on the blog! And so is his front!

I had to get at least one Alfredsson card out of my trip down to the show. While this is a dupe in his solo collection, it isn't one for my team collection. So it is still new somewhere.

There you have it!

Expo Post 3: The Hamburglar

 

Just a quick break from the cardboard to show off an autographed 8*10 of Andrew Hammond I picked up. That's all. Back to cards next post.

Expo Post 2: Heritage!

My main goal on Friday was to bust a box of Heritage, then hit the floor and do some damage to the rest of the set. At the end of the day, I ended up just over a 100 cards short of the main set, about 70 or so SPs and 30 not so SPs. That's a give-or-take as to what the totals look will like when I move them from box to binder pages, but here's the 103 I don't believe I have at this point.

Now let's see what was in that 1 hobby box.

Not really a PC card with the box topper. But at least it is a very solid color match for the chosen border colours. 

My favourite regular base card in the packs will probably go to this entry into the manager's portion of the set. Unlike with some in this set, Sparky did actually manage the Reds in 1975. Is the photo from 1974/5? Maybe. He always seemed to look like that.

Colour sampling! 

And here's the SPs. 

And the inserts. For the first time since 2010, Greinke is considered a New-Age Performer. Good for him!

The white border parallels are one of the examples where the parallels are far blander than the regular base cards. Why even bother?

At least when the colour is toned down to chrome up these parallels, they're also made shiny. And with these numbered chrome parallels falling one-per on the hobby boxes, I guess I'm pretty lucky to get that one card in Mets form. 

One final parallel. These look to fall at a rate of 1 per 7 boxes in hobby. Black borders are hobby exclusive and are about every 4 boxes, and have a print run of 50. The B&W parallels can be found in other products, though. So, about 40 each of these? Whatever. I'd still rather have a 9th short print.

And the hit in all its plain white swatch glory. 

My goal was to do damage to the base set, and that's what happened. 

There you have it!

Expo Post 1: The Quest for 4000

 As I continue my climb to 4000 cards in the 2/14 collection, I figured out I'd add to the binders at the Expo. And here's the damage I did:

The bulk of cards I brought home were out of 2024 Heritage, whether part of the hobby box or in terms of singles to build the set, I was sure to add a couple singles to the pile. Nick Pivetta is part of the set, but he's hiding among the SPs. I'll probably limit myself to his set build card. 

But I did learn that Nolan Schanuel's middle name is Ryan. What more could you ask for a baseball player? Other than him being a pitcher versus a first baseman. Please let him pitch just one inning during a blowout. Please?

Here's a couple more Nolan appearances, moving his current count to 7. This might be my first Big League cards in the binders. 

While Pivetta is a SP in Heritage, he's on a base card in Series 1. With the Green Monster behind him, this is definitely going to be a Top 10 contender when I start my 2025 countdown.

A shared card is still a +1 for the collection.

Although I prefer solo cards.

Even better than a solo relic card - a card that incorporates the player's nickname in the design. Mind you, some of the entries in this set are bland. What good is a Priest card for Priest Holmes? At least McNair gets his nickname added. 

Hockey is always king at the Expo, and it comprises the bulk of my additions. 

Milan Hejduk had a one-card lead over Marian Gaborik for the overall lead in terms of cards in the collection, and he retained the lead 260-259 after these addition. Hejduk's card is a blue parallel, numbered to 850. Gaborik's is a HoloFX insert from 2007.

With 5 variations of his base card out of 2023-24 O-Pee-Chee, Nikolaj Ehlers was the big winner here. The purple version is /49. With Bedard as a chase card in this, I couldn't even find any retail to bust. So I'm content with this.

And here's a few more cards to put me at the 125 mark for his count. 

There you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 12 - The Gap

While I probably would start digging through the Expo goodies today, that involves scanning cards, and I'm just too lazy for that. So, some repacked hangers from Walmart that have already been scanned.

This will be the extent of the 23-24 Artifacts, which is surprising given who is on the packages. But, yeah. This is pretty much what I expected. I don't like how the design cuts off part of the image, even if it is just the stick or part of the leg. But given that everybody buying this was likely chasing Bedard, I don't think too many people bothered with the base.

The other hanger was two packs that have shown up before: 2021 Topps UK and 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversary.

Hey! A Blue Jays card is the first one! That's a nice way to start. Other than that, a couple cards bound for elsewhere, and not much else of note. 

But I did add an insert as well. So, there was that.

But there was something really nice in that pack of Anniversary. As gaudy as that is, it should be a lower numbered parallel.

/50 is a pretty low numbered card to find in some random pack that was part of a cheap-o repack. This is a Gold & Rose Gold 70th Wave Refractor, which fall at a rate of 1:196 packs in this release. Not bad at all!

And there you have it!