In Which I Become a White Sox Collector

 Not officially, mind you. But I was looking through my COMC to-be-posted box, and noticed there seemed to be a lot of White Sox content in there. And that's not counting the Yermin Mercedes additions to the 2/14 collection.

The 2004 release, with its additional silhouette, made for some unique looks for some cards. Aaron Rowand's entry was no exception.

When I think baseball weather, I think "cold enough to require a team logo scarf". And a positively dewy Bartolo Colon.

It might not be a Bo Breaker, but this is still pretty nice.

Heritage is always welcome, especially 2024, and especially if it includes the famous photo of Gossage rocking the shorts. Gossage is also the one of these two most likely to throw another pitch during a MLB game. 

From the casual look to just plain casual.

Say what you will about replays and ABS becoming part of the equation in MLB games, it will prevent images like this from making appearances on cards. The sacrifices we make for accuracy.

All the way back to early Stadium Club for the finale, and Wilson Alvarez saluting his no-hitter. Although you'd have to turn the card over for proof.

See! There it is! Along with more Alex Fernandez shenanigans. And the illegibility of '24 Heritage backs that made for an easy decision to go 18-per with the binder pages.

There you have it!

Rangers Round-Up

 Just a bunch of Kitchener Rangers alum acquired cheaply at COMC thanks to e-packs.

I'm leading with this Mandelbrot Fractal parallel, for the sole reason that this was the only one in this post that didn't have a logical type pairing. The white border used on this Credentials release makes this one of the tamer versions of these parallels.

Young Guns Renewed might have given us some of UD's most garish inserts in recent memory, but at least it sorta also gives one a chance at acquiring Young Guns card of stars for a fraction of the cost of the real ones. 

This was a screw-up on my part regarding the first of these Skinners. I had already acquired that one, and forgot about it. By the time I realized that, I'd already dropped a package on the way to Night Owl. At least I've got an interesting Sabres history-ish insert to start off the next mailer.

Much like with Nikolaj Ehlers over in my 2/14 collection, John Gibson is someone who all my NHL level cards of his are with a single team, and there still haven't been any printed yet with him on his new club.

Here's a pair of silver parallels out of the online-only Ultra release. 

And finally, a couple flagship parallels that are also exclusively online. Smith is the regular silver parallel,  while Faksa is the speckled version. The background makes it harder to tell the difference between the two in the scan, but it does have that quality in hand.

There you have it!

Chronicling

 

Just one pack (out of several) of Chronicles I've had for too long without showing off the contents of.

Here's the opener. I don't mind repeating images that much, but at use different ones on the same side of the card.

Here's the opening run of base cards. That's Moussa Diabate on the Pinnacle card. I'm not sure why they used a design in the base set that was basically the same design as the regular base design in the same release. As always, the Luminance really looks nice with the dark arena spotlighting the player. 

The foil cards. The Banchero is a nice card, I just wish it scanned better.

And the Teal Parallels. That's Christian Braun that was on this particular unreadable card.

Finally, the two Classics entries, which were exclusives.

And since the back included a Did-You-Know factoid, I'll include the backs too. I recall during the Raptors championship run hearing about francophone players speaking French on the court, so Mathurin's language skills might be helpful for his team. 

A fairly average Chronicles pack, with the release's usual rookie-focused checklist.

There you have it!

2/14 Hockey

My 2/14 to-be-posted box has grown greatly thanks to a couple COMC shipments, and a sportlots shipment arriving. It is time to start emptying it and to start it, here's the hockey content.

I'm starting off with the non-NHL portion, and the only AHL entry. We're back to 2003 for this Norm Milley, but I'm more amused with the reminder that Anaheim once had their top affiliate located in nearby Cincinnati.

Josh Pillar might be the only person in the collection where I think "At least there's no auto attached" when I acquire one of his cards. Still, I have three "autos" of his in the collection.

I should have doubled up on my Louis-Francois Belanger content when I did my recent "new faces" post, but I have an excuse. It wasn't because it is a shared card - I just was careless and forgot about this one.

This printing plate ends the CHL stuff. This Cyan appearance of Cameron from 21-22 marked his return to the product for the first time since his rookie season, and joins an Exclusives as my second numbered card of his. I remedied my lack of stuff outside of that rookie year by adding a second 21-22 plate to my COMC inventory.

The NHL portion starts with a card I thought I'd already added to the collection. I probably had one, then sent it off to Dennis @ TMV thinking it was a collection dupe.

Your standard shiny insert. You'll see this set again when I do my Kitchener Rangers update.

I really need to go on a Lane Hutson spree at some point. It is odd for my collection that I only have 6 cards of his so far.

As is usual for a hockey 2/14 post, here's a pile of Nikolaj Ehlers entries. But, in a rarity for one of these posts that include a lot of his cards, only the two vertical ones on the bottom are "cheap because of e-pack at COMC" entries. The horizontal one is an insert from Tim Hortons, and the top 6 are from sportlots. 

But as of now at TCDB, he still doesn't have any Carolina Hurricanes cards. Will I have to wait until Extended?

There you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 9 - My Best Repack Loose Card Pull

 While I may have pulled more interesting cards from a repack, and I've found great cards contained within packs that were in repacks (Mike Bossy autograph, Auston Matthews Young Gun), and sometimes they'd promise a hit that was really nice (Sid Abel, Howie Meeker). 

But all this promised was 20 cards.

And this repack set me back a whopping $6 at Walmart. They also had a few "Booster Packs" of Optic, and some that held Absolute packs, but I opted for this since it really would better give the repack experience.

Already a solid start with this as the opener. Two seasons in, he's already one of the reasons 2024 already looks to have a great rookie QB class.

Now this was more along the lines of what I expected from this.

The start of a run of unlicensed cards begins here. Only the Lenzy is base version in this. Robinson is a magenta, Hamilton is a pink and Spiller is a red.

Whoa. 

I was not expecting this from a $6 repack, even if this was unlicensed. I watched a few openings of this, and didn't even see an autograph or numbered card come out of these, let alone an autograph of one of the greatest of all time. Even in terms of a photo for usage, this isn't too bad of a choice to hide the lack of licensing.

And even if it had been a Chiefs or Fighting Irish auto, it still would have been a massive shocker to see. 

It was this point where I regretted not going back and buying every one left on the shelves. Maybe this repack case was meant to be sent to Beckett for reviews.

I actually checked the back of this for the certification, half expecting this to be like one of those Through the Years reprints that Topps used several years back.

But everything in this, and probably the next 6 months or so worth of repacks is gravy after this. 

Back-to-back autos? Sure! I had no idea who Braden Galloway was prior to getting this card. He didn't go to the NFL, and looks to be an influencer now. Which is probably better for the ol' grey matter.

A Sport Kings entry wraps up the unlicensed portion of the repacks. When one of the preceding cards is so magnificent that a mini of a Hall of Famer is super bland, that's you're busting a fun repack.

Not even the licensed stuff resuming with a creep can depress me at this point. Also, Bills content!

And more Bills content! They're both dupes, but I'll shout out Bills appearances any chance I get. Also, Nico Collins content for a future TMV mailer.

Normallly, I'd consider a repack starting and ending with a card from the same release to be the most interesting thing about it.

But...

There you have it!

Settle Down, Beavis

 

Huh. Huh. 69.

Huh. Huh. Number 2. 

May I never, ever mature.

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 8 - Premium Repack Battle

If you have two of the same repacks with the same # of cards, why not compare the two?

These were the two at the front of the pegs at Dollarama, so these will be the ones.

To look at the opening cards, neither one is spectacular. Even if the team is from Jersey, having that written across the front of the actual jersey looks ridiculous. It makes it look the player is so dumb they need to have their stuff labeled for them. But it is against a border heavy insert set that makes the Portraits set look interesting. Boring all around, but I'll give it to the Bratt for not being Honor Roll.

I do love the photo variety from the Canvas insert sets, but it is up against a Senators entry. That will even this one up. And the photo is pretty generic on Josi's anyhow.

Shininess! Brayden Point's card comes from one of the Tim Hortons releases, while On Tour was a set that saluted the specified team's road games throughout the season in question. The bilingualism of the Timmies card is the deciding factor to defeat an interesting concept for a card - dedicated to those whose favourite team isn't the hometown entry.

Neither one really hits a sweet spot of my collection. I guess I'll pick the Keller, since that's less readily available through COMC and e-pack.

The battle is already over, but the rout ends with my picking the Bowen Byram here. It was mainly because the Suzuki was a dupe (there's still 3 I need for the base set of this), but I also find the back write-up interesting.

That's since I rarely see non NHL facts back there. As for Preziuso, after finishing in the CHL, he'd play University hockey with Alberta, and spent last season in Britain.

There you have it!