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!

Great Googly Moogly

 

Nice manupatch card. But who are the Sfeihc?

Raptors Mega-Post

Coming off a historic performance that featured a 31-0 run on Sunday, it is the perfect time to show off a bunch of Raptors content, whether it was packed into a pair of PWEs from Kerry @  Cards on Cards, or part of my latest COMC incoming shipment.

John Wallace was the only card that I couldn't group with anything else from the PWEs, so it was the opener.

While it is probably true for anybody on the championship team, Fred VanVleet is among the upper tier of 18-19 Raptors that will be forever loved in Toronto.

Time to start into the portion of posts where the scans include current members of the team. I was surprised to still see Gary Trent Jr included in last year's team set, since he signed away just a couple weeks after the draft and Mogbo's joining the team.

Mosaic's entries were probably the least comment-worthy in the bunch. At least the design sort of goes with the uniform design/colors.

Panini's portion of the envelope closes with some cards from Haunted Hoops. Immanuel Quickley's entry provides one of the better views of last season's City Edition jerseys you'll find, and considering its salute to Vince Carter, it was the best of the Raptors' version of those.

Of course there were parallels! Why wouldn't there be! But we do get to see the purple jerseys as well. 

With these, and following my pack/blaster break of 25/26 Topps basketball, I've completed this year's team set. With the blurred background, Scottie's photo almost has a 3-D quality for his base card. It may not have the quality of  OG Anunoby's entry this year, but it is really good. 

With these Holiday editions, the 2025 rookie portion of my collection continues to expand. 

Finally, a few inserts. Like with Archives/Heritage, the 1980 throwbacks allow me to realize how the cards for the team would have looked had the team existed at the time. Red jerseys, as well as the purple ones are really garish on the Power Players backdrop. While Topps might have had few photo options for CMB, surely they could have found something a little more understated for Scottie.

So, thanks for all these Raptors additions to my collection, Kerry. I'm reloading for another envelope heading your way.

I'll throw in some COMC shipment Raptors as well. There's an encore performance of that Ingram jersey hold photo.

As well as another nice photo of that City Edition jersey.

Here's two new faces in the collection. Jamison Battle making a licensed appearance easily wins this grouping, although Mitchell did make a licensed appearance in the photo on this year's Topps checklist card, alongside a couple sticker-dump autos.

Speaking of an auto, here's one! Alijah Martin was a second round pick in the most recent draft, and has been used sparingly by the big club, but has done really well in his time with the Raptors 905 in the G-League. And that's precisely what you like to see out of a second rounder. 

There you have it!

He Was MST3K People

 The newest addition to my "Autographs of the MSTed" collection.

Bob Herron! He was in two MSTed movies (possibly three) albeit in uncredited roles. He was in episode 108 - The Slime People as one of the titular Slime People, where he also did stunts. Bob was also in episode 803 - the Mole People, as one of the Mole People. Since footage of The Mole People was used in The Wild Wild World of Batwoman (ep 515), he might have been shown in that as well. The Mole People was also that episode where Robert Smith made a guest appearance alongside Pearl during a host segment, so that's the second auto connected to that episode.

He's my first autograph out of the first official season of the show. I now only need an autograph from season 3 of the show to get one from each season, with an actor that performed a voice-over in an English dub from Season 2 sitting in my COMC inventory right now. 

Bob worked up until 2011 doing stuntwork, an IMDB lists him as doubling for people like Andy Griffith, Ernest Borgnine and Tom Bosley. He passed in 2021.

There you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 7 - Sportscards from the Giant Tiger

 Giant Tiger is a discount store in Canada, and in a recent trip there, I noticed these on the shelves:

They're just like the ones that I'd found either direct from the company, and at 7-11 stores as well. Gotta try a couple!

This was definitely the least interesting of the two, but I'll get to the other one later. While I didn't find a card within worthy of the snap holder, it still allowed another one to move from a top loader and the ability to use the top loader for a future outgoing mail.

As expected, the HOFer is an early 90s base entry. Karlsson has got to be a shoo-in for this repack to eventually contain a second Hall of Famer.

The Canadian pack was the best of the bunch, even if 12-13 was the most recent card of the three. The Grant Fuhr has a high-end feel to it even if Parkhurst Champions was more lower-middle range. And while Eric Nystrom in 2015 truly had the best glove card ever, Louie DeBrusk's entry in the genre is pretty nice as well.

The Chandler Stephenson is from 23-24 Metal Universe if you're looking to blame a set for being horrible to scan. Martin Brodeur still wasn't cemented into net in New Jersey yet in the 92-93, which explains why Craig Billington made the ASG that year in Devils' gear. And it is an Erik Karlsson hot repack! Even if it is the still lamentable 21-22 release year.

I finally saw a Sens representation in the final repacked pack. A couple nice photos accompany it as well. 

Slightly below average on the whole, especially with the most interesting cards confined to a single portion. 

But there you have it!

2//14 Newness

 With one of two packages I'd been expecting from COMC arriving, I'll start showing off the new names in the 2/14 collection, since all of the new names for the binders were contained in this one.

The die-cut nature of this is puzzling, since I have zero clue what the shape it is supposed to represent. I wouldn't want to wear a jacket shaped like that, and it doesn't seem to be shaped like any letter you'd associate with Anthony Hill, the Texas Longhorns, or even Upper Deck. But it does allow Anthony Hill Jr to enter my collection. He's definitely the guy I'll be watching for collection purposes during the draft, as he's tabbed as a late first rounder or early second rounder. An autograph of his from Bowman is already sitting in my inventory awaiting another shipment.

NCAA addition #2. Brayson (or Bray, as he is on some cards) Hubbard does appear to be returning to the Tide for his senior year, so I won't have to worry about NFL cards for him. Yet. A blue parallel seems odd for a parallel of a set that literally had 'Crimson' in its name, but this was all that was available.

The biggest name in the class of '25, at least in terms of volume, is Bhaysul Tuten. He was a 4th rounder out of Virginia Tech, and even if RB has become somewhat of a less glamourous position over the past many years, he still got a bunch of cards. Even if he didn't get the Rookie Premiere invite and instead had training camp photos on many of his rookie cards. And hey, since V-Tech is tbe closest I have to a NCAA rooting interest (due to Bruce Smith fandom), it's a bonus niceness.

If I wanted to add Jay Higgins to my collection this year, I had to do so with an autographed version, as he had no cards that weren't autographed. Nothing. But that does seem to be the norm when companies don't want to waste a spot in a limited base set for someone that went undrafted and might not make the team that they were listed. But the Iowa product did make the Ravens roster, and appeared in 11 games for them.

Also, he has an interesting signature. While he does abbreviate it, the Jay Higg portion is legible,and that's always a plus.

24-25 Upper Deck CHL provides the two final newcomers to the collection. While Belanger is the better overall prospect of the two, I have to give the nod to Bleicher based on the great Owen Sound Attack logo (even though it will trail Sudbury's as my OHL favourite logo).

There youo have it!

Odd Men Out

 I'm opening up the mailbag today, and will be doing Part 1 of 2 recapping a recent PWE pair from Kerry @ Cards on Cards. Most of the content was Raptors-related, but there were a few outside of that category. So, anything non-Raptors in those envelopes gets shown off today.

I always include random St. Louis Blues cards in my mailers sent westward. So this time, the favour was returned with 5 needs for my Sens collection. I was legit surprised that I didn't have either of those MVPs in the top row.

Jamal Murray always seems to show up in these as well. 

And the hometown gets a shout-out on the back of the card as well, and surprisingly the alma mater isn't mentioned. As for the points record, SGA has had a 55 point game this season in order to make it a tie for that record.

Even though it wasn't part of the envelopes, following a Jamal Murray show-off does seem like the perfect place to show off a second Kitchener resident's debut in my collection. He'll need 159 cards to tie Jamal Murray's numbers in my PC.

There you have it!

Up Tempo

 Since there looks like there is going to be a season this season, I can commence acquiring cards of the Toronto Tempo. While I'll have to wait until free agency and the expansion draft, I can still start with one team member who is known.

Their coach!

And since the Miami Sol had a pretty nice logo, let's show that off too. Hopefully, the Tempo last longer than that team. 

There you have it!

With Apologies to Cards on Cards

 But I am going to keep this Justin Herbert item.

Seeing as you have to peel the stickers/stamps, sending the Justin Herbert portion, and only that portion would be a challenge.

And Billy Buffalo's collection debut needed to stay as is! I have cards of the Raptor, Spartacat, Mr. Met, Mrs. Met and Ace, so it is nice to finally get football some binder representation.

There you have it!

The Big Finale

 

With the addition of this card, I've now completed the 2022 Heritage, 2022 Heritage High Numbers and 2022 Heritage Minor League set. Nothing better as a set builder than putting the final card into the binder.

Only about 4 years or so after starting it. 

And worth every second of the wait!