Meet the Mets!

Once again, the box from 2*3 Heroes opens, and this time, a selection of the Mets portion of the set gets the scanned and posted treatment.

Stadium Club is always an acceptable pick as to a card to use when starting a post. It looks like a rather bland photo choice, but I do like that it is slightly off-center combined with the side-facing pose.

I admit to having no idea what this was from. Scanning through COMC informed me these were Walmart exclusive decals. Seeing as I've seen a grand total of zero packs/blasters of retail Heritage, it is nice to add something I really couldn't pack pull up here.

The other Mets card in the pack that wasn't a 2*3. This green parallel is also /99.

From a classic cardboard look to a glossy parallel. A fine transition.

Another set makes it debut in my collection.

At least at one point, I probably could have pulled one of these red Target parallels from a blaster of cards purchased on this side of the border. Back when Target Canada was a thing. Although my wallet is probably thankful in the long run.

More sets making their first appearances in my collection.

Start with a Piazza card - end with a Piazza card. Perfect.

Still two more trips into the box to go.

The Joy of a Competed Set (Album)

Not much text today, but completing a set (or in this case, a sticker album) is worthy of a post on its own.

I got a little tired of hoping they'd show up at COMC, or on sportlots so I hit up nhlhockeystickers.com and picked up the needs. I love that the Habs had so many retired numbers at the time they had to use such a tiny font on the sticker. And this is before Emile Bouchard had his #3 retired. And there's also 2/14 baby Hejduk in this with the bonus of having his birthdate listed on the sticker. That's worthy of picking up a second sticker for the collection!

And there you have it!

You Won't Believe What Baby Gerald Looks Like Today!

Fans are stunned!

And Anthony Davis is clearly second place in the unibrow game.

Hockey Miscellany

Back to the 2*3 trade box! Today, the hockey portion of the trade that contained cards that while numerous in spots, wasn't quite enough to sustain a post of its own outside of a one card only one.

There really is no better option for starting a post than an appearance of Stanley.

Two new Rangers alum base cards for that binder. How did I not have that Steven Rice? Jim Sandlak played one game for the Rangers. That doesn't matter. He still counts.

No doubt that these two count for the binder as they're both rocking the Rangers colours on this. I really love that one of the photos features the Remembrance Day alternate uniforms as well.

This grouping isn't Rangers-related, but here's some random CHL cards that were also in there. Savour someone's first attempt at facial hair! Remember that someone skated around with Corpse on the back of their jersey.

Random numbered Artifacts redemptions!

This will end with a handful of Senators cards. That Daigle would have been massive at the time. I checked on COMC expecting it to be there for 99 cents now, but the lowest priced on there (on sale) is $11.05. I was probably as surprised as you are.

Andre Petersson played one game for the Senators. He still counts.

Hobby Pack Sampler

Another trip to the LCS, another chance to grab a couple packs off the shelves.

Since hockey is pretty easy to find in a retail, hobby shop or card show setting, I'll avoid that and grab a couple Panini packs.

6 regular base cards. At least I landed a Mets card in all this. I wouldn't mind the base design so much if it didn't have those lines across the bottom third of the card. The '84 throwbacks look fine.

There are a lot of variations in this year's release. Bad for a team/player collector, but just fine for a pack sampler. Unfortunately, I just dropped a Dodger-y envelope in the direction of Night Owl, so this will have to wait until the next mailer.

And a hit! This will also be set aside for a future arbitrary mailer.

While I'm not crazy about the design, at least I got some cards for the trade box.

The basketball base cards. I guess as is typical for the non-Prizm Select cards is that they scan terrible, but look nice in hand.

As shown here - this Prizm parallel looks nice and bright in the scan. This is the Scope parallel of the #1 draft pick.

Another hit! And this one has an auto to go along with it! It is abbreviated, but all the letters are legible. This auto has an interesting connection with an auto I pulled the last time I did a pack sampler as if the athletics thing doesn't work out, he should be able to fall back on his brains, as he put up an impressive 3.89 GPA at Texas.

Two hits from two packs. No complaints. Back to the mailbag tomorrow!

Another Multi-Post Trade Box Begins

This one should stretch into at least 3 posts worth of content, likely 4, but that does show the variety that this box from Jeff @ 2*3 Heroes contained. Starting off, some cards from one of my favourite recent sets - 15-16 Champ's.

There are many great ways to start off a Champs post. A fish card is always one.

While this Matt Puempel is a dupe for my Senators collection, it isn't for my Kitchener Rangers alumni collection. That's a good thing about the most frequent members of the 2015-16 release year. There's always room for dupes.

The most common members of the Champs portion of the box were the gold parallels, with a pile of both gold front and gold back cards on their way to my Champs collection.

The first bunch was the front, these are the gold backs. Trust me.

This ends with a pair of silver parallels /25. I was really happy to see the Subban card in this pairing, since that completes his Champ's rainbow since I have the base, the gold front, the gold back and the autographed version of it. There are no relics of his, so that's the rainbow. I guess I could count the printing plates, but since those were released in the Cup, I won't.

There you go. I'm leaning towards picking up a 10-box case of Champ's on the cheap and trying to put together the 315 card base set with SPs and some of the insert sets. Maybe next month.

Next up - a pack sampler!

Opening Day!

I picked up two boxes of 2018 Opening Day, hoping to get a base set for myself, along with a healthy portion from the insert sets. I did pretty good with that, as I was chasing the Mascot, Before Opening Day and Team Traditions sets, and I'm only about a dozen short of those. But, I'll start with the base set. The set is a mix of cards from Series 1, with a slight look ahead to season 2. There are also some updates.

I did get a complete set out of each of the two boxes. I'm guessing the second set will end up broken up and in the hands of my trade partners. Dupes were at a minimum, but both boxes contained dupes of the Jonathan Villar base card.

Giancarlo Stanton is grouped with the Series 1 portion, but gets himself Photoshopped into Yankees gear.

The first 114 cards in the set seemed to be Series 1 repeats, except for the Stanton. 115 to 138 seem to be players that were in Series 1, but with new photos. Many are horizontal versions.

Harrison Bader and Anthony Ranga get the big upgrades.

Brian Anderson's is interesting, as it looks like a continuation of the photo on his regular base card.

Depressingly, the Series 2 base cards look pretty generic, but there are still some nice horizontal cards to look forward to.

Photoshop specials will also be in Series 2.

Blue parallels were 5 per box, and they do really stand out in
Inserts ahoy! I can't highlight all the inserts, but I'll hit one from each set I landed a card from.

Sure, it is incredibly cheesy, but it is the most Mets thing available for this insert set, especially since you can't really picture disappointment on a card.

Mookie Betts playing ping-pong? I'll highlight this one since it flashes me back to one of my favourite Daniel Alfredsson cards.

Opening Day Stars makes another appearance in the set. These continue to change their appearance as well, as they're incredibly thin this year. They almost feel like stickers, but that's a different insert set (one I didn't land a card from in either box).

Most of the Opening Day Stadium insert set features players standing for the anthem(s) with a full view of the field. So, I'll take the photographic oddball from the bunch and show them off.

Mascots! Sadly, personal fave Hank the Ballpark Pup doesn't appear on the checklist this year. I've already highlighted a Mets card, so here's Gapper! Cincy mascots make 4 appearances in the set, with Gapper joined by Mr. Red, Mr. Redlegs and Rosie Red.

And my first ever hit from Opening Day ends this. These are tough pulls in the set, falling at 1:1772 packs, or one every 2 and a half cases. Even better that the hit comes from one of the teams I collect. And these cards are incredibly thick. There was only one other card in the pack, and it was still very obvious that the pack had a hit in it.

So now you know, pack searchers of the world!

Back to the mailbag tomorrow!

The Best Mets

I'll stay with the mailbag for this post, and show off some Mets from a group break that goes back about 2 1/2 months, and of cards that have been waiting to be posted here since then.

These were the base cards. These were pretty much the three you'd expect from a base set mixed with vets and prospects.

A shiny parallel. Even in hand, they can be a slight challenge to tell the difference. The colours on the bottom are lighter here, so I'll just be content that keeps me from having to flip the card over and look for "Refractor" text.

At least the Atomic Refractors are easy enough to tell apart from the base.

A+ Prospect? That sounds just perfect for making a Met fan overconfident. Just like with the Bills.

One more shiny card with a flashback to 1997.

And my only hit from the case. Still, it is my first auto of PJ Conlon, so I can't complain about adding that to the hit binder.

There you have it. Next up is a short break from the mailbag for some Opening Day celebrations!