2016 Adventures in Repacks: Part 11 - Procrastination Special!

I've had three good-sized trade packages show up over the past week or so. The responsible blogging thing would be to post them. However, I also went to the Dollarama, so that means I have repacks to post as well. I picked up one 15 card hanger pack, along with 1 Surprise bag (2008 Victory pack, along with Goalie, Rookie and Superstar repacks). I figured I'd do something different this time and highlight my top 10 cards from this repack grabs.

1994 Classic - Jason Zent - Chronologically, this card would be first among my faves. But it also would be my favourite overall. Jason appeared in 25 or so games with the Senators, but never would never get a card from a major company. So, these minor league cards offer my only chances to add him to my Every Senator collection. And it was hiding within a repack.

1994 Score - Bob Errey - Hideous design, but a nice photo of #9, Mike Ricci catching an elbow

1996 Metal Universe - Petr Sykora - Another example of Fleer's very 90s designs in the the mid 90s.

1999 Upper Deck - John Madden - Not for me, but I figure someone who can never have Too Many Manninghams would like it. This was the promised rookie card in that pack.

2002 UD Honor Roll - Felix Potvin -  Mask binder card!

2006 Parkhurst - Richard Brodeur - Not a mask binder card, but a great flying V jersey photo.

2007 UD - Kari Lehtonen - This is a mask binder card, though!

2008 Victory - Henrik Zetterberg - While the pack didn't yield any needs for my set build, it did yield this new insert. Which will probably tempt me into building the insert portion of the set as well. Since I'm an idiot. 15 cards in hand out of a 50 card insert set. Makes sense,  right?

2008 Ice - Cam Ward - Yat another mask binder card!

2010 UPD - Alex Kovalev - Start with a card for the Senators collection. End with a card for the Senators collection. And this is probably the best photo choice of the repacks as well. Nick Foligno's reaction to the goal enhances this even more. Given this is from Series 2 in 2010, the photo is of an unassisted (and eventual-game winning) goal on 10-28-2010.

And there's another repack adventure in the books. Finally, I can catch up on some more trade packages.

A Whole Bunch of 2/14 Additions!

As I push myself past the 1300 card plateau for the collection.

Since I do have events as a part of my collection (Statehood for Arizona and Oregon, the Michael Jordan wearing #12 card), this card fits in perfectly. In fact, since youtube came into being on 2/14/2005, it could be considered the youngest member of the collection. With apologies to Ryan McKenna.

And since you really can't mention youtube without linking to a video, here's a fan learning the hard way that trying to remove a luchador's mask is a major league no-no.

Muy mal indeed.

And that is the perfect segue into the next card.

Nice as this card of Hamada is, the back of it is even better.

A wrestling family. How I wish this was the card front instead. This is my 5th card of her, as she leads the misc. portion of my collection.

But, it is still only by 1 card, as it Edinson Cavani stayed one back with this addition.

When it came to the main team sports, hockey was surprisingly last among the 4 of them. A nice blue relic on a card of Marian Gaborik joins the hits portion of the collection, followed by my second card of Marc Beaucage. All I need now his German League card to finish his cardboard chronology. At least according to zistle.

Basketball is second on the additions list. The Elevation card will go alongside a 1/1 plate I received in trade from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams. There is definitely an interesting contrast in the two P&P cards. It doesn't show as well in the scan, but the Byron Mullens has the cracked ice feel to it. He becomes the third member of the basketball portion with double digit cards, joining Hamilton and Muresan.

That's supposed to be Jim Kelly in the upper left. As Shotgun Kelly. Because a binder filled with people you share a birthday with isn't strange enough as is. My first hit of Roy Barker is next. That's also his only hit, as best I can tell. Tim Toone isn't irrelevant to my football collection, as I my second card of 2010's Mr. Irrelevant. There's a pair of Alshons on the bottom (how did I not have that base Score card?), followed by some Heritage football. Alshon and Steve are tied for second place in football with 38 cards each, trailing Kelly by 18.

And baseball to end it. Daniel Garibay's 4th and final base card enters the collection. I've also got some real and faux vintage with the completion of Tom Borland's two-card Topps run, although there still is a 1960 Leaf card to chase. Bruce Crabbe joins youtube among the newcomers in this post to my collection. What are the odds I'd have two players named Crabbe (Callix) in my baseball collection?

And there you have my move to 1,301 2/14 cards. I want to keep a reasonable goal of 1,500 by the end of the year.

Opening Day!

Time for the new stuff! I'll probably bust a box of this if I find one at the Expo in a few weeks. But, if I have to limit myself to these three packs, I'll still be pretty happy with it.

Pack #1:

Jacob DeGrom - Starting with a Mets card as my first of the product is always a good thing.

Roberto Osuna - And the only way it could be better is to have it followed up with a Blue Jays card.
Jacoby Ellsbury

Miguel Cabrera - This is an Opening Day Edition parallel. Not numbered, they fall at a rate of 1:7 packs.

Derek Norris - Superstar Celebrations - A Met. A Blue Jay. A 2/14 card.  What a great pack! This is also a definite contender for the Derek Norris representation when I do my best 2/14 cards from the past year of releases in 11 months. Although having seen his base card in Opening Day/Series 2, it will be a close competition.
Yasmani Grandal
Tom Murphy

Pack #2:

Ian Kinsler - Not a PC card, but still a nice photo that works nicely both horizontally and with the smoky corners.
Mookie Betts

Dinger - MASCOT CARD!

Nolan Arenado - A very Rockies insert portion to this pack.
Robbie Ray

Kolten Wong - A rather out of control slide.
Mike Foltynewicz

Pack #3:

Jose Bautista - Bat flip! 'nuff said!

Steven Matz - And to invert the first pack, it is followed with a Mets card. I think I prefer this pairing to the first.
Kyle Seager

Albert Pujols - Striking Distance - An insert set saluting players that are closing in on milestones.
Hector Santigo
Matt Adams
Chris Tillman

I have no complaints about this product, although my sunny view might be influenced by hitting some nice PC cards. Maybe if I pick up a box from the Expo and it doesn't produce a complete base set, I'll be more hostile.

Coming Off-Hiatus for Super Trading Mets

Time to put the hobby boxes away and get back to basics with a Mets-filled trade envelope.

There was lots of O-Pee-Chee in the envelope.All 2009, so that meant I couldn't learn French with the cards. But I could still add this beautiful card with Shea in the background.

And more of the O-Pee-Chee. I guess I'm the type of trader that first looked to see if Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams needed that Putz before adding it to my binders. I don't have a whole lot of Tim Redding cards in the binder, so that might be my favourite of this batch.

The big winners players wise was being able to add 4 Carlos Gomez cards to my collection. Almost a two-time Met. Almost. Although Cespedes was a pretty fine consolation prize.

Although the O-Pee-Chee were not bilingual, I could pick up some Spanish from this quartet of Mike Piazza cards. He and Gomez tied for the most new cards by player.

No Mets uniform, but all of these are still Mets cards. All of these guys except Suarez are in the Mets system somewhere. And it is always nice to add some more Conforto to my collection.

And is there any better way to wrap up a trade post than with some oddballs of varying degrees of licensing?

Thanks for these goodies! I'll try to hunt down some Brewers cards at the Expo. There has been someone there with 70s O-Pee-Chee in the past!

A Week of Hobby Boxes - Day 5- 2014-15 Totally Certified Basketball

And a pretty fun week draws to a close, with the best card from the week.

Pack #1:

Not too bad of a start. A really nice looking card of the Mailman /299, a parallel /279, and another card with Nerlens Noel rocking the summer league jerseys. But, nice as this was, it really didn't measure up to the hit.

BOOM! One of my most desired autographs falls into my hands. I never would really work up the courage to shell out for what a Larry Bird autograph would go for, so to pull one from a pack is just amazing. I thought I was nuts when I dropped $70 of COMC credit on a Jim Kelly. Although this is a sticker-graph, I really don't care now that one of my 'fantasy' card additions is off the list. There are slightly more than a Select Few of these, as it is numbered to 25.

At this point, the rest of the box became practically irrelevant.

Pack #2:

Just base cards.

And just a plain white swatch. I'd pretty much have needed a 1/1 patch for this not to be a downer from the first pack. I do like the Clear Cloth design, though.

Pack 3:

A little better with the non-hit portion of this. I can't really get too upset to land a numbered parallel of Curry. His card is /149, while the shinier die-cut Harris card is /74.

The hit. Obviously not a Mavericks swatch, but with it going to JayBarkerFan at some point in the future, I don't think he'll care.

Pack #4:

Not too bad for the base to wrap it up. A good rookie base card in Payton, a nice parallel with Jefferson and a big name with Davis.

Considering one can't expect a Lebron auto from a Panini product, pulling a relic of him is pretty nice. It still is dwarfed by the Bird auto.

Quite the way to wrap up this series of boxes, no? And it was this, the least expensive of all 5 of them that produced the best card of them all. This should hold my box busting ways for a bit, although I might see if I can get some cheap wax at the Expo in three weeks.

Tomorrow, something more my speed in terms of purchasing with cash vs credit, a repack or a trade post.

A Week of Hobby Boxes - Day 4 - 2014 75th Anniversary Hall of Fame

And another hobby box gets posted. And my second straight one where I don't get what was advertised, but it was in my favour. I got the promised 12 cards, but didn't get the Elite card that I was supposed to. But I got 3 autos instead of the promised 2. I'd make that trade-off every time.

Starting with the base cards, and a parallel. I love seeing the visible suit-clad fans at the game in the Grimes photo. Stuff like that makes you forgive the logo removal.

More shiny cards with these two. The Crusade design works perfectly with the hat logo on the banner. Clemente is an unnumbered base card, while the purple parallel Robinson is /50. I'm surprised he's listed as a Red as opposed to Baltimore.

While I didn't get an Elite card, I did get an Elite Dominator.

And finally, the shininess goes away as I get to the Diamond Kings. More parallels as well. It was advertised that I'd get 4 cards #'d to 75 or less. I got 6 of them when you figure these Diamond Kings into it.

And onto the autographs!

Sure, he's wearing Brewers pinstripes here, but this a Blue Jays card. It will go in my Blue Jays binder.

And it mentions his World Series MVP win on the back. Do I need another reason to add it to my Jays collection?

Following that, how about a sure-fire addition to my penmanship collection? How can someone in his 90's have such a nice signature, while so many today are indecipherable?

And the extra auto! Sadly, for me, this is my second autograph of Billy Williams, having pulled one from 2013 Cooperstown. Same photo on both cards as well. Fortunately for Waiting Til Next Year, this one will be heading his Super Trading way shortly. I don't have too many more Cubs to fill up the package, but he might not care.

Edit: Card is on the way!

While this provided me with the fewest # of cards, both of the hits dropped into my PCs and I got a really nice card for someone else. While the Molitor might seem like it would be the best card from the break, there's still one more autograph to show off, and it was from the box of 2014-15 Totally Certified that I'll post tomorrow.