2025 Donruss Value Pack Break - Auto hit!

This pack certainly exceeded my expectations beyond that of "first one in the stack" at Wally World.

The make-up of the pack was interesting. I'm so used to having all the inserts/parallels grouped together in one part of the pack, but here they were scattered into several places.

I've taken to calling Donruss and other Panini releases 'Heroes and Prospects' after the old ITG hockey sets, since they'd feature a mix of retired greats and minor leaguers. The same here, with these as an example of the former.

The backs give the vibe of some early UD releases, with the cards mixing the horizontal and the vertical.

I'll scan everything. Why not? As always, Oakland's stuff is so instantly recognizable that it doesn't matter that there's no logos on their cards. Also instantly recognizable - old Comiskey Park behind Billy Martin. I was surprised to see Deion with the Reds, but then checked and he did spend almost as much time there as with the Braves.  

The first two parallels. The first is an Optic, with the second is a Green Laser.

Now that is definitely unexpected from a retail hanger pack. Not just an auto, but probably one of the top prospect autos in the product. You can't be disappointed getting a hit from a 3rd overall draft pick. Even if it isn't the 1st Bowman version. Still, for me, a Donruss auto is more my collecting speed anyhow.

There's my first Mets card of the pack. Jim Leyland is a nice little surprise to see on the checklist. It doesn't complete the managerial portion of the base set, since there's also a Terry Francona appearance in there. 2/3 of the managers isn't a bad result from a single pack.

Parallel #2 is Mets card #2. That's well above the zero Jays cards within.

I would have thought that making their MLB debuts a couple years back would mean that guys like Wells or Carter wouldn't appear in these sets, but I'll just assume they've got individual contracts with Panini. I can't imagine anybody risking lawsuits over base cards of Austin Wells.

The insert finale. 

The final cards in the pack. This provides me with my only complaint about this pack - the collation. These cards were numbered 170, 180, 190 and 200 in the set.  That and the final 100 Rated Prospects all appear to be slightly SPd.

But if that's the worst I can say...

There you have it!

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 28 - Twice the Baseball

 Today, two of these Waly World repacks.

Both of these very chrome-y double packs.

Repack #1:

A Jays card and shininess is a fun way to start off any pack busting session. I know that the Chrome Anniversary set really didn't lend itself to spectacular photos, but that Edgar Martinez seems especially dull even when graded on that scale.

More shininess here, with one of them being a pretty solid parallel in the Suzuki.

Repack #2:

All base cards here, but that Carter entry would be pretty sweet even if it didn't hit my Mets PC.

If I'm going to open a pack from 2022 and find a Tampa Bay rookie, that's definitely the one you want to see appear in the pack. Also, in a little bit of first pack to last pack synchronicity, both contained a shiny appearance by Jurickson Profar. The former is probably the less common of the two, but the second definitely has the more interesting photograph.

Four perfectly fine packs in two repacks.

There you have it!

2/14 Newness

 Time again to welcome some new faces into the 2/14 collection.

The smaller rosters make basketball a rather sparse part of my collection in terms of variety. Beyond Richard Hamilton and Gheorghe Muresan, there aren't too many players making a lot oof appearances. But, I've got a new candidate in Ian "Captain Jack" Jackson, who takes advantage of the NCAA deals to appear here with the Tar Heels. He didn't declare for the Draft, transferred to St. John's giving me another year of NCAA cards to look forward to.

The only member of the collection to get more than a single card was Urban Podrekar. It doesn't appear the NHL will come calling for him, but I can always hope. Especially since Urban Podrekar is one of the cooler-sounding names in the collection.

Since it was from a somewhat more common minor league set, Steve Goodhart's first appearance is somewhat surprising, even if he didn't reach the bigs. Better late than never for a new face, though.

To end this, I can say anything more about Anthony W. LeVier that can't be said by the write-up on the back of his card. 

And there you have it!

My Newest MST3K auto

Back to the ol' 'To Be Posted' box, and my newest MST3K autograph, heading back to the Comedy Central years.

I know absolutely nothing about The Punisher aside from recognizing the logo. So I'm not sure about anything related to the character. I do know from checking his IMDB that Tony Plana played Ramos in the Season 4 post-apocalyptic riff target 'City Limits'. This one actually had some familiar names among the cast, including Kim Cattrall and James Earl Jones. Their autos are way out of my price range. This, thanks to being part of one of Upper Deck's Marvel sets, was just right.

It joins Brigid Brannagh as the only two Marvel autos in the collection.

There you have it!

Where I Chicken Out

 I thought that I'd buy a hobby box of '24 Heritage High Numbers to work on the base set before getting the rest as singles. The price of said box was a little more than I was willing to pay, and not willing to pay a premium to chase parallels of Paul Skenes. So, for a lot less, I got the 501-700 base set, knowing the SPs aren't as intimidating with this.

So much cheaper. As in about 1/4 of what I'd pay for the hobby box.

There were a small pile of players I was surprised to see here and not in the main release. I could also have included Kenley Jansen or Jake Cronenworth in this list as well. You'd swear it was Upper Deck flagship holding off on Young Guns so there's some reason to get Extended.

My fave pictures in the 200. One generally doesn't get Heritage for the photography, but there was still a nice selection of alternate uniforms, patches, angles and Panini-friendly catcher shots.

I'll end with a very Canadian moment preserved as a 'fact on the back'.

25 SPs left to go! And really only Addison Barger seems to be any sort of a challenge.

Laziness

 I'm not up to writing a bunch of text today, so I'm taking the easy way out. I'm pulling the Conlon cards out of my 'to be posted' box, scanning both sides, and just letting you read the interesting content on the reverse of the card.

There you have it!

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 27 - Time for Hockey

 Yup. Still catching up on repacks, although this pair has only in been in my possession for about a month compared to the years that baseball one was around for.

All cardboard content in repack #1.

Nothing too interesting in the first scanner bed worth of Parkhurst - although David Bruce is a Kitchener Rangers alum to at least add something to a PC, potentially.

But the last ones provide a lot more interest. A big name in Roy, and an interesting photo. That's Corey Millen in the background celebrating a Kings goal, not the Bruins player in the front. Find interesting stuff where you can!

The rookie in that particular repack generally turns out to be some forgotten guy from the 90s that only played a handful of games. Here. it's a guy who is still in the league and from one of the more out there sets there was. He was traded to the Flyers as part of the Joel Farabee deal this past season. Raanta has had nice base cards in the past, and here's another one of them.

A player doing silly stuff with the stick and puck and having it make its way to the base card will always improve a grouping of cards. Outside of that, not that much of note in this group.

Hall of Fame content and a later card from the decade slipping in there is enough to make things at least somewhat more noteworthy than the usual.

The contents of the second repack. More shipping supplies in this one - and a superstar.

And Draisaitl definitely counts as a superstar. More Metal Universe, although the background is less odd here than with the appearance in the first pack. The defunct team mojo drifts down into the minors with the Belleville Bulls showing up. Belleville is now home to the Senators AHL affiliate.

Again, the 90s pack isn't that bad. A memorable overhead photo and a Rangers alum - even though the Coffey was a dupe.

Timmies card in the finale! And I guess that would be a second repack in the repack that would qualify as having a superstar included. 

All I ask for is svme keepers from these, and I got some!

There you have it!

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 26.2 - Forgotten, not Gone

 And the other side!

With the Ozzie Smith insert opening things, this one is already has a good potential to be more interesting than the other half. It's been way too long, but I'll water that was the reason I picked this particular repack from the pegs. Also interesting - two '87 All-Star cards. That's Mark Gubicza that had his name cut off by my incompetent cropping.

Goudey Eddie Murray? There's a nice little surprise in here. Also, a colour matching border from 1990 Topps! I wish that had happened more often with the design. 

The prospects in '93 Bowman got somewhat shiny silver borders, but I don't think they were short-printed any more than the regular base cards. Or none of the players that received the silvery treatment were worthy of inflated prices nowadays. Given the era - probably the latter.

There have been two players named Jesus Sanchez to reach the majors. Both played for the Marlins. Sports can be odd like that. Yay to the minor league card, but boo to them hiding the Madison Muskies logo on the back. 

Enjoy it as it should be enjoyed.

And the finale. I like spotting photos that would be perfect for usage in modern Panini releases. Good work for Jonah Bayliss on his qualification. Aaron Harang was the last card, giving a flashback to some very unfortunate facial hair of the near past.

A perfectly fine repack - not sure why it took me years to get to it.

There you have it.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 26.1 - Forgotten, not Gone

 Here's the contents of a repack I purchased several years back, yet never got around to posting. It just stayed there, got shifted into a small plastic case, and waited. For this hot summer day, I'm going to finally show off 80 cards over two posts.

The cards weren't the most interesting repack I've busted, based on the first grouping. The most interesting might have been the first visible card, which gets to that status based on the Mike Flanagan memorial patch. 

But here's something that can improve any repack - an appearance of a 1981 Topps entry. Even better - it is from the Update set. Blue Jays appearance as well! 

Wrigley ivy appearing can also make any pack better, whether of  re or wax variety. Also, there's an insert making an appearance. Even if the extent of Aramis' reaching MVP status was making appearances in the lower-end UD MVP set.

Sketchy airbrushing! YES! Even if it was likely a Cleveland cap and they could have left the brim of the cap the same, they still took the time to make the Angels logo bigger than usual. 

Thomas Howard will win the photo war here with this pretty nice horizontal entry. Even if it wasn't his first Bowman entry, a Dylan Cease appearance is a nice ending, and a few years later, a surprising card to find as one of the visible ones.

And there you have it! 40 more next post!