2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 24 - Yin to the Yang

 

I can't post the football one without following it up with the baseball version.

The Ken content is strong early on, even if Mr. Phelps seems surprised that there's a photo being taken of him, despite being asked to pose. We do get some variety in the names starting with K category as there's also a Kevin.

Back-to-back Kevins! A Mets card is nice, but that drawn Travis Fryman is the easy winner here. Even if he looks way too happy to have ended up with mauling distance of the tiger.

And the hit. He never reached the bigs. Quite the step down from the Santana Moss in the football repack.

When Opening Day was a Donruss thing! I do welcome a random minor league appearance. Ericks would reach the majors, but it would be with the Pirates. Diamond Kings are always nice little repack surprises.

These press conference new jersey photos are so much more interesting than the cheesy photoshop specials.

There were a few interesting cards for me in this, but this was probably the least interesting of any of the baseball ones I'd busted so far. 

But there you have it!

Mask Miscellany

 Just a bunch of mask binder additions to start the week.

Some of my faves are ones where the card is that of the non-netminder in the photo. Karel Vejmelka steals the show from Travis Boyd with his throwback logo mask.

The frequently-delayed SP Signature Edition Legends had a few mask cards among the inserts available for around 30 cents thanks to e-pack. Even if the checklist seemed limited mostly to "alive and willing to sign autos". And you can contrast the older paint jobs against the more modern artistry.

And a whole bunch more that were in the box waiting to be shown off.  I'm certain some have been in there over a year. Better late than never! I really should add that entire IN insert set to the collection. The only other one I have is a Mrazek in the 2/14 binders.

There you have it!

Ridiculous Injury Mojo!

Who among us hasn't dislocated a shoulder trying to rip a phone book in half?

Don't you go raising your hand, Steve! 

At least this card also has some decent penmanship going for it and a nice look at a knuckleball grip.     So there is a little more here than evidence of someone that showed that Chandler, Arizona had a thick phone book in the 90s.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 23 - Back to the Stacks

 That stack of hangers with hits I got about 10 months ago.

And even if this is a dupe, it was the one I was most likely to have pulled off the hanger collection in a retail environment.

There's one of the many, many names on that Browns QB jersey. Unlike with the opener, I'm at least only slightly certain that the Bills is a dupe. And a WLAF card featuring a photo from a scrimmage/practice of an offensive lineman? There's a keeper!

Nothing too much in this grouping, but there is an insert, and a guy for whom announcers probably used his last name for several seasons. 

Now this was an unexpected auto. Santana Moss is probably the most recognizable name I've pulled out of these repacks I've been busting the past while. There is some questionable licensing - note the lack of a helmet logo, but I'm very happy landing this, even if it isn't an addition to one of my team collections.

As fun as those Hall of Fame entries are, I'm happy to see a Drayton Florence appearance on that Total entry. His pick 6 against Tom Brady was one of a handful of memorable moments during the drought years. 

From those years, you take what you get.

And we end with a relevant player as well.

With the Santana auto, the WLAF card and Florence appearing to give me sweet Bills memories, that's a dang good repack!

There you have it!

Hook A Brother Up!

 I'm sending out a request for assistance to any of my stateside trading partners, mainly because I don't want to shell out $25 for sending a single card across the border.

Specifically, my interest is in card #141, the Walt Poddubny entry from the linked dealer. 

It's a 2/14 entry, and probably the only entry so far that represents the city of Edmonton. 

Help!

The Best Thing About Discount Stickers

 

They can partially cover up problematic cover players. If the sticker hides the name, it can be anybody wearing a powder blue uniform and dark blue helmet!

First card out was a Met...New York card. That didn't really set the tone for the pack, as it was their sole appearance.

In fact, they'd get squashed by Toronto 5-1 in terms of appearances in the pack.

That even outnumbered the # of cards where the picture an unexciting one of them standing with all team logos mysteriously facing away from the camera.

But there were still some interesting photos in the pack, such as a turning two photo from Wrigley that also brings a nice cameo appearance trying to break up a double play. At least something different slipped through on a generally pretty bland release.

Naturally, there are exclusive parallels for every possible type of pack Panini puts out. These here are the holo red versions.

These Independence Day parallels aren't exclusives though, and go nicely with any team that has blue as part of its colours, even if they really don't fit with the concept of 'Kings'.

And then there's this guy - again. It's a Vector parallel, and was probably a good pull at the time. Now I can't in good conscience even give his stuff away. 

No sticker can hide this one.

But there you have it!

2/14 Baseball

 I'm back to the 2/14 binders today.

While I generally don't do reruns with this, I figured an update for one of the members of the collection made it worth showing this a second. Karson Ligon will get a chance to join Gabriel Moreno and Tyler Clippard as Blue Jays in the collection as a ninth round pick in the recent draft. That's probably low enough to keep him out of Bowman, but I can still have hope that he'll show up in something.

Now the actual newness. This card was inspired by a repack where the included hit was the Yusmeiro Petit version of this Beam Team card. When I looked to see what other players were featured in the set,  I saw that 2/14er Callix Crabbe was one of the featured players, and that his auto wasn't too expensive. So, here's his version.

When I showed off a bunch of Gabriel Moreno content about a month back, I whiffed on including this one. Here it is now.

Continuing the Goodwin Champions/UD unlicensed content - here's Brooks Lee making the move into double digits with these entries. 

Even my first auto of his! Inexpensive autos at COMC are a nice benefit of the e-packs when you aren't chasing after megastars. The same held true for the more recent e-pack multi-sport releases, which featured 2/14er Caroline Marks, whose auto is sitting in my inventory.

Minor league base cards are the best base cards. 

There's my second buyback card in the collection, and of course they count as a separate entry from the original. This one is the first I have with that particular stamp on it, as the other one being a Rediscover Topps entry of Scott Scudder. The '75 is an OPC entry, and that joins the regular Topps card and the mini to complete that rainbow.

I still have one more new player to show off, but I'll do that whenever I make my next 2/14 post with all the other new faces.

There you have it!

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 22 - Just Some Hockey

 Just 2 Dollarama repacks today.

The contents of #1 will include some protection for my next mailer.

A very solid start with the 5-card pack providing a couple of big names with Nash and Neely. 

The goalie pack gives me a rare chance to say something nice about the 21-22 flagship release - it allows for one to sorta see both sides of the goalie mask on some of them.

But no such chance here with this entry. 

The sleeves here also help with shipments when I send a box of cards vs. a bubbler. They work as padding in the ends of the box.

The misc 5 card pack wasn't anywhere near as interesting this time around. 

It's 21-22. I doubt I'll ever be interested enough to go back to scan things again if I messed up the orientation. 

Timmy's card! There's the winner from this pair of repacks. It was nice to see something outside of flagship show up in the 2020s pack. Twice!

There you have it!

Series 2!

 And a pack from Walmart.

This one, to be exact, which will probably be my only pack break of this, unless they show up in repacks.

Not tat much variety in the first grouping, but we do get some City Connect and some home run trots in there. It seems Smith's is a walk off against the Giants, and it is always nice to trace a card photo to a specific game. 

Breaking up the vertical orientation with the second grouping. That Falter uses that format nicely, but there's very little else noteworthy in this scan.

Things are a little more interesting in this one. Kutter Crawford offers up a salute to Jay Baller's '88 entry. He might not be a Met any longer, but there's my first and only Mets content in there. I love how they extend the photo outside to show the stretch to make the catch. Taylor Walls' entry is a holofoil parallel, which seems to underrate the loudness of it.

When I busted my S1 pack, I landed both the base and the retro of Andrew McCutchen in that pack. At least here the two Kumar Rocker are from different games. Mateo's flying headgear makes for my favourite photo in the pack, and I'm getting a Blue Jays finale.

I'm probably one-and-done with this, so there you have it!

5 Years of Mischief

 

My little girl turns 5 today! Time to show off the new additions to the 7/12 slider box.

It isn't quite Ozzie Smith, but this might be the most interesting photo in this small collection. 

My only pack-pulled 7/12 baby was this DaRon Bland, which I got from a value pack of Prestige. I didn't even know he was a 7/12er until looking it up in advance of Mischief's big day.

I may have pack-pulled this one as well, but had to get a second after learning Wells would count towards the collection. Like I needed an excuse to add some '24 Heritage.

If you thought the only minor league content in the collection would be that Joe Hamilton, then guess again. Savour the barber shop pole greatness of the 67's!

More CHL content, this time with an incredible team name. They dropped the Screaming part of the name several seasons back, and as a result became far less incredible.

Chronicles! YES!

Fact on the back! Another YES!

I'll end with the only new hit in the collection. And I get both the auto and the swatch as well.

I'm actually amazed at my ability to keep this collection a reasonable size. It is still perfectly contained within the same slidr box I've been using for the past few years.

And there you have it!

Late night edit:

I didn't realize I had one more 7/12er lurking around until I checked baseball reference.