Too Many Set Builders

I've got to start recapping one of the bulkier envelopes that showed up recently. A majority of it was devoted to making major dents in the set building wantlist at the side. It goes from whatever number it was down to only 19 (with two of those being a result of incompetence on my part).

Time to dig in!

Starting with one that was also in my Top 10 most wanted for a bit, since it was the final SP needed to wrap up the 2015 GQ set. This isn't just my 350th cart for the set, this was also card #350 in the set numbering. A strange coincidence of set building.

While I did the SP thing with '15, I'm not doing so with this year's release? I'm not sure why, since this year's portion is only 20 cards deep. Maybe I'll just continue to pick up COMC credit and eventually just add the rest.

I thought that these stickers would complete my 1989 album. I was wrong. I didn't include the needed Cubs stickers in the wantlist. So, the album still lacks Andre Dawson and Mitch Webster. Yay to incompetence!

I'd picked up enough of the 2009-10 stickers through repacks that I decided to get the album and give them a proper home. I really like how the headers for the various pages are done with the team logos in the top left position. A nice nod to history as well. The retired 8 for the Senators actually goes back to the original version of the team, and Frank Finnigan.

A sampling of some of the player stickers in there. A mix of shininess, mask binder candidates, a 2-14 baby and some rookies as part of them.

The French version of the 2010 UD Series 1 also got wrapped up. I rarely add Young Guns (or Jeunes Lanceurs), so this is complete enough for me. Plus, that Bolland is a great photo to be among the final additions.

And it ends with a smattering of football, as 2017 Score goes by the wayside as well. Another sampling of the large # of cards among the set completers is shown, covering some of my favourite themes. Bills. Alternate uniforms. Weather. Players not touching the ground. Defensive players with the ball. I'm happy with that mix.

And there you go! There's still more to get to from that envelope, and that will come sometime in the next week or so.

Better Set Building Through Blasters

Time to put a dent in my set build with the first blaster of 2017 O-Pee-Chee of the season.

And here's the box bottom cards.

Pack #1:

I'm only hitting the highlights through this, and a pretty great way to start this. I've got a mask binder card, featuring Peter Budaj's usual Ned Flanders themed mask, and since he is with Tampa Bay, Ned is shown as Thor. Because why not?

Pack 2:

Each pack in the blaster will either have a short-print or a retro parallel. Here, I got one of the former, a Marquee Rookie.

Pack 3:

There's a theme in this pack. Stars goaltenders and Senators.

Pack 4:

When in doubt, scan the Retro parallel. Even better when it is a mask binder certainty of Jimmy Howard. Nice look at the "Mr. I" patch, too, as well as Gordie Howe lurking on the side.

Pack 5:

MINI! And a short-printed rookie.

Pack 6:

A shiny. Brandon Dubinky appears in the easiest game ever of "which road game was this photo taken during?". Plus the knowledge that they use different photos on the box bottom cards than on the regular cards.

Pack 7:

There's one of the better rookies to land. And a second mini! This is the standard mini, which fall 1:7 packs in the blaster. The Brett Burns is one of the SP minis, and those are 1:68 in the blasters.

Pack 8:

My first SP that isn't a rookie - the Hawks team Checklist. And a regular checklist thrown in for good measure.

Pack 9:

A rookie card and a retro parallel as well! Sweet, and of one of the more hyped rookies in the early releases. Ben Bishop is also kinda interesting, as it is a 'traded' card, very much a rarity in hockey releases.

Pack 10:

I hope this isn't Jagr's last OPC base card. But he did go out with a nice mullet-y entry. Connor is also from the SP portion of the set.

Pack 11:

More shininess, but this time in playing card format. These are 1:66 packs for blasters, so along with the Burns mini, I did land a couple of tougher pulls from the retail product. The regular cards are 1:17, and I struck out on those. Which makes sense given the better pulls from the rest of the packs.

Pack 12:

I'll end with another mask binder retro in Kincaid.

There you go! I have no clue when I'll get the wantlist up for this, but I do want to get more than 80 percent of the way through first.

3 Weeks Later (almost)

I posted the first part of a trade envelope from Night Owl Cards back on the 3rd of this month. Maybe I should get to wrapping it up?

The total number of Ginter purchases I've made this year total zero. Therefore, this is my first card from that set this year. I do like the framed motif, and I kinda regret now not getting to the LCS while this was on the shelves there. Or maybe I did, and I just opted for something else. Likely the latter.

And more minis!

And the rest of the Mets. Archives is the only product pictured here that I've seen on the local shelves here. My foray into that consisted of two packs, and while I didn't land any Mets, I did get a Peter Gammons auto instead. So, all these here are welcome additions to my Mets binder.

I've yet to check as to which, if any, of these Takashi Saitos are needed in my 2/14 collection. So, all I can say is my binders will contain either 22, 23, 24 or 25 cards of his when all is said and done. Edit: 2 needs in the bunch - only the 2008 UD base was a dupe.

Sticker! Expos! Powder blue uniform! Ellis Valentine! Flashing back to Archives, I'd love to see Ellis among the Fan Favourites autos in a future release of the product.

More Expos in their 1971 best! Boots Day would be another name that might be fun to see in Archives. If you can have Rusty Kuntz in this season for his name, surely you could add Boots in 2018.

Ending with some set builders. Combining this with an envelope I'll get to shortly will finally put the nail in the coffin of the 2016 base set.

Until I double check and find I accidentally included a foil parallel among the base and then need 1 card to finish the set.

Nickel Box Chronicles - Part 4 - Miscellany

And the rest! Of course, other blogs might also be showing off cards from this in the future.

I'll start with a card from a set I had no idea existed until coming across a card from it in the nickel box. This was some sort of Quebec-excluxive set honouring Quebec-born players. Oddballs are always interesting ways to start posts.

Since these were nickel boxes, I felt little guilt about grabbing a bunch of Daniel Alfredsson cards. I needed one of the eight I grabbed. Oh well.

A really cool outdoor game card. I've already got the base card in the non-YG base set, so I might as well add this Stadium Series card to my misc. collection.

Random Perez Diamond King...Ice Masters card!

I've had this Portfolio base card on my wantlist for a bit - and couldn't even find it in the bins at the Expo. Turns out I just had to wait until the nickel bins at the local show.

Another (sub)set I'd had no clue about until seeing it in the bin - a nickel card that saluted the Fox broadcasts of the games. I don't think the more hardcore fans thought that it was a beautiful thing at the time.

Your official DERP-face card.

And a few cards to end it with one of my favourite design options - the team logo in the background.

And that ends the run through the nickel box. Back to the mailbag next time!

Nickel Box Chronicles - Part 3 - The Ranger Roundup

The last of my groupable cards from the nickel box. Some miscellaneous goodies up next. But first, some Rangers alum.

I'm doing this by volume, so unfortunately, that means 2 straight days leading with one of these OPC retros. I'm sorry.

A pair of Boedkers up next in both base and parallel form from last year's MVP.

A big jump in volume for the next group with a scanner full of Jeff Skinners. A nice mix of year's as it goes from 2010 Score all the way up to some fairly recent releases such as Platinum and SPA. I don't have too much in the way of Overtime or Tim Horton's releases, so those are my faves here.

The green might be  the least obnoxious of the retros. If that's such a thing. The Champs card is from the SP portion of the Champs set, so that's a nice little nickel box find. Nice. And the best thing about Landeskog is that I can easily send these to dupes to Mark Kaz, collector of all things Gabriel.

And there you have it!

Nickel Box Chronicles - Part 2 - 2/14 newness

An insomnia special!

Not quite on the level of my masked post yesterday,  but still worthy of a post of its own.

Yes. These are hideously loud. But it was only 5 cents. And I did grab a second one for a future TMM mailer. I do like how the puck was also taken from the original photo for usage on this design. This is my 21st card of Nystrom in the 2/14 binders.

Back to back days with that Artifacts Mrazek card. Unfortunately, he only hits 2 of my PCs so I'll need something new next post. Mrazek moves to 15 cards with this trio.

And the king of the binder with 161 cards continues to pad the lead with these 5 new cards. Pretty much all those Kings cards qualify as "how did I not already have that card?". Except maybe that SPA card.

Sorry. That's 162 Gaboriks! Not a nickel box card, obviously, but a nice colourful design on this relic card.

There you have it!

Nickel Box Chronicles - Part 1 - Masked Monday

Better than a dime box - a nickel box! I found one at a show this past weekend. While some of the cards are already marked to head elsewhere, I did add a few new ones into my varied collections, and I'll be showing them off this week, interspersed with 2 and a half trade envelopes I still need to get to.

The mask binders were the big winners in terms of volume, landing over 100 cards between them. And darned if I'm not going to show them all off here. I know the Lalime technically isn't one, but it is interesting enough to count for the misc binder. And that isn't even the best photo when it includes that Belfour. Fave mask is Antero's Frank Nitti mask.

Nikolai Khabibulin pictured by an advertisement that makes it seem like he'll be hit by a train? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. And it is appropriate that this group of cards ends with Marc-Andre Fleury...

since he was the big winner in terms of volume with 9 cards bound for the binder.

Now, onto the 9 card scans. A nice mix here with a legend in Hextall, a current star with a trio of Pekka Rinnes, a guy I'd completely forgotten about with LeBrecque, and a stint I'd completely forgotten about with Wregget pictured with Calgary.

Upper Deck really with a lot of close-ups of masks in the mid-late 90s on their base cards. No complaints here. I really like the Belfour the best in this group, as I have no memory of him in a black version of his classic design while in Chicago. 

Petr Mrazek will also be making an appearance when I get to the 2/14 portion of this box. I'm unsure why Wade wanted to sport the Gorton's fisherman logo on his mask, since I don't think he ever had to wear it as a jersey. 

Retro designs! Both real and imagined! There's a good reason why Chicago's logo is seen as a profile and not from the front, and Thibault's mask shows the reasons why.

I've posted that Jaks mask before, since I like that he's still wearing the Phoenix Roadrunners design while in a Kings uniform. Fichaud also goes for a minor league look as well since he's still in the Chicoutimi Sagueneens design. My favourite is the Corey Hirsch 'Psycho' house design, and it turns out there may have been a little more behind that than just a movie reference.

Is the loudest card in this group the Tallas jersey, the Smith design or the Pacific of Mike Vernon? Any answer of the three would be acceptable. I already had the Ryan Miller retro look on a Portfolio issue, now I've got more of a close-up as well.

The box did have a nice selection of 1997 base cards.

The Glenn Healy won't count for the binder, but much like the Lalime at the top, the photo was too perfect to pass on. Even cards from the past season could be found in that nickel box, as shown by the quartet of 16-17 UDs. More of those loud 13-14 retros as well. 

The final nine-pack! Brathwaite is a dupe, but I can have one of the only guy that can logically not use Jason as the slasher-movie icon in both my mask and miscellaneous binders. 

And that's it. My scanner needs a rest after that. Something a little smaller tomorrow, maybe from this show, maybe not.