2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 26 - Part 4

Here's what's left.

1 2007-08 Ultra Rack Pack
1 2008-09 UD Series 2
1 2010-11 Score
1 2011-12 Score
1 2011-12 UD Series 1

The # of cards in each pack dictates I'll need to list the rack pack and scan the highlights, while scanning the whole packs of the rest. So, let's wrap up this repack box.

Rostislav Klesla

Milan Hejduk - WOO-HOO! A 2-14 guy! Card #701 for the binder.

Mike Comrie - TMM card.
Sam Gagner
Shane Doan

Mike Modano - One thing I noticed as I worked through the pack is that the bottom of all the cards featured the ice surface, as opposed to the boards, the bench, or anything else. It means the colours work really nicely with the full bleed photos.
Daymond Langkow

Joe Sakic - Gold Medallion Parallel

Daniel Alfredsson - A dupe Alfie is still a new Alfie for the collection. If it doesn't go in the Alfredsson binder, it can go in the Sens one.
Gilbert Brule
Markus Naslund
JP Dumont

Mike Cammalleri - Another TMM card.
Brad Richards
Alexander Radulov

Ryan Stone - Rookie Sensations - He played parts of a couple seasons in the NHL, before heading to Europe. Wikipedia says he played for the awesomely-named Hamburg Freezers.
Guillaume Latendresse

Vesa Toskala - Great mask. Also great at letting in really weak goals.

Andrej Meszaros - Another Sen!
Jiri Tlusty

Sergei Fedorov - He spent a season and a half there, but I still completely blank on his time as a Capital.
Ed Jovanoski
Chris Kunitz

Jack Hillen - Hey! A rookie from 08 that still spent time in the league in 2013-14. That's something, considering the batting average these can have.
Mike Green
Pierre-Marc Bouchard
Michal Rozsival
Tomas Plekanec
Dan Cleary
Alexander Steen

Alexander Ovechkin - On horizontal cards, the shaded border looks even better.

Now, to the packs where I can scan every card.

I didn't really think Score this season had spectacular photo choices, but the Green does give a nice pic of the chaos that can take place in the crease.

The Roloson is a dupe for my mask binder, but the Ward isn't. It's a glossy parallel as well.

Here's some UD. The easy highlight here is the Young Gun of Valabik. He's a 2/14 baby, and also a Kitchener Rangers alum. I have a card for the former, but not the latter. So, this is a nice addition to the latter collection, despite his lack of NHL success.

And here we have the last pack. A great variety here. Celebration shots. Retro uniforms. Masks. And darned if that Miikka from the Heritage Classic isn't a beautiful card. In terms of photography, probably my favourite photo in the whole box.

Whew.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 26 - Part 3

Continuing to work my way through the 20 packs (actually 21) and a hit repack, here's 6 more packs. 5 from 08-09 OPC, and 1 from the following year.

A nice start with this pack. The Luongo card for the mask binder is nice, but that retro Hull is spectacular. While I don't like the set enough to go all out like Shoebox Legends did to complete the set, I do plan to hunt for specific cards from the retired portion of the set. My favourite is the Scotty Bowman, which I already have, but the Lanny McDonald will very likely be the next card on my top 10 list.

A shiny Senator! WOO-HOO! Although not the parallel, the Savard is still a nice addition to my msic binders.

I'd actually picked up a pair of Erik Ersberg cards from various sources for the mask binder, but those were other cards. This one actually features the other side of his mask than what is shown on the others, so that's kinda of a completed rainbow.

OPC really doesn't have eye-popping base photos, but I do kinga like the Lundin card where he's turning up ice with someone in pursuit. And there's another retired player on the retro card, and it is of someone who it is somewhat surprising to see as part of a 30+ card subset. Great sleazy mustache as well. That photo just screams out 70's.

Another Senator. The retro parallels of the rookies don't really come anywhere close to as spectacular as their retiree counterparts.

And here's the only other pack of OPC in there. More shiny!

So, 5 more packs to go. One rack pack of Fleer Ultra along with some Score and Upper Deck flagship.

Another Argyle Trade

A great package arriving from Greg @ P,tSiA today makes it worthy of a two post day. And it makes me want to keep my eyes peeled for a nice Ducks hit or two at the Expo on Friday, hitting a lot of my PCs.

I'll lead with the big gun addition to my Senators collection. A gorgeous dual prime relic from Panini Prime. 2 and 3 colour swatches combined on a gorgeous card. The back of the card provides an interesting contrast of these 2.

Specifically the contrast in PIM. Patrick has added to him PIM stat a bit, but his 63 still trails Chris' 2216. For the math impaired among us, that's a lot of time in the sin bin.

Other PC additions? How about another one of two-sport star Marquise Goodwin. Long jump and football seem like they'd work well together.

I didn't get any of these parallels in my Bowman purchases, so these are nice additions to my team collection. The Texas flag looks particularly sharp in this format.

And here are my first two cards from 2008 TRISTAR Prospects Plus in any of my collections. Small as it is, I love the Brooklyn Cyclones logo on the Davis.

The subset is called Dress Code. The relic is obviously from a bat. I don't even want to know when he wore it.

Greg's package hit all 4 major sports. Since he's a UCLA fan, I was surprised to see this card in the package. While Collison is the better player here, I was far more interested in the top half of the card. Josh Shipp may not have reached the NBA, but he's a 2/14 baby. I added an auto of his as my first card of his in the 2/14 binder, and now, here's an insert. That's my 699th card in the binder.

And this mini is #700 for the binder. Quite the milestone! Thanks for putting me at this level, Greg! My goal is to have 800 by year end, and I don't think that is going to be much of a challenge.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 26 - Part 2

Day 2 of this massive repack box break. Time to work my way through the Collector's Choice portion of it. 3 6 card packs and a rack pack. Since I want to go through at least 5 packs a day, I'll also throw in something a little more upscale - a retail pack of Artifacts.

I'll start with the rack pack. At 36, too many cards to scan everything, but I'll hit the personal highlights.

2009-10 Collector's Choice

Sam Gagner
Brad Richards

Derek Roy - The first keeper card is a Rangers alum. WOO-HOO!

Bobby Ryan - I loved all the celebration photos in this year's sets. I love them here. Even though this one is pretty subdued.

Carey Price - Carey looks way too casual at the puck flies towards him. I hope this was from the warm-ups.
Tomas Fleishmann
Marc Savard
Martin Brodeur

Benn Ferriero - He's bounced up and down from the NHL to the AHL, primarily the latter. Still, 5 seasons of that is pretty good for a 7th rounder.

Carey Price - Stickums - Stickers rule!
Ryan Getzlaf
JP Dumont
Pierre-Marc Bouchard
Wojtek Wolski
Nicklas Lidstrom
Mike Green
Patrice Bergeron
Jarome Iginla

Mike Komisarek - I know someone who'd want this.
Nathan Horton
Bryan Little

Mike Foligno - The only Sens card in this portion of the break. And it is an interesting photo of the Foligno working to screen the goalie.

Rick Nash - I love this photo. An intense look on Nash's face as he worked his way up the ice, with a great framing of the pursuing opposition as well as a defenseman in front of him. Who says low-end sets only have bland pictures?
Derick Brassard
Henrik Lundqvist
Kyle Wellwood

Steven Zalewski - It's a parallel of a rookie. Unfortuntely for rookie collectors, he only has 10 NHL games to his credit. For me though, I like coming across cards of guys without a lot of cards to their name.

Rick PiPietro - Another great photo for the mask binder.
Keith Ballard
Rod Brind'Amour
Tomas Kaberle
Sheldon Souray
Jonathan Toews
Daniel Briere
Jordan Staal

Marian Gaborik - And the last card is a 2/14 guy! Great pack!

Now that I'm down to smaller packs, let's scan them all!

2008-09 Pack #1

Colby Armstrong
Sidney Crosby
Nathan Oystrick
Scott Gomez
Kari Lehtonen
Markus Naslund

An Atlanta Thrashers hot pack. With bonus Crosby. Nathan was another 7th round pick to make the bigs, but he has spent the past few seasons in Europe.

Pack #2:

Carey Price
David Booth
Dustin Brown
Milan Lucic
Mike Cammalleri
Eric Staal

A mask binder certainty. A card on its way to TMM by this time next week. And a pretty decent player to get a parallel of. Not bad at all.

Pack #3:

Alexander Frolov
Pascal Leclaire
Detroit Red Wings - 3 Stars
Buffalo Sabres - 3 Stars
Patrick Sharp
Mats Sundin

For me, the highlight was 1/3 of a card featuring Derek Roy. I guess that's better than nothing for the PC.

And some retail Artifacts.

Roberto Luongo
Drew Doughty
Patrick Marleau
Dion Phaneuf - Gold
Dustin Penner

And that's why I limit myself to only 1 or 2 retail packs of Artifacts a year. Even though I really like this year's design.

5 more packs down. Next time, a bunch of O-Pee-Chee.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 26 - Part 1

I knew I wouldn't be able to resist. I knew I would have to pick up one of those 20 hockey pack and a hit repacks. And I did. Although nothing spectacular came out, I did get a nice variety of sets covered.

1 2007-08 Ultra Rack Pack
1 2007-08 UD Victory
5 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee
3 2008-09 UD Victory
1 2008-09 UD Series 2
3 2008-09 Collector's Choice
1 2009-10 O-Pee Chee
1 2009-10 Collector's Choice Rack Pack
1 2010-11 UD Victory
1 2010-11 Artifacts Retail
1 2010-11 Score
1 2011-12 Score
1 2011-12 UD Series 1

That's 13 different sets in it, and there were actually 21 different packs, albeit nothing too high end. I can probably get 4 posts out of this box prior to the expo.

So, to start. I'll cover the Victory packs. And the hit.

Not too bad. It is a colour I don't have in my hits album. And it is of a guy who is still in the league. And it a former Senator. Always nice.

And now, on to the packs.

2007 Victory

Stephen Weiss
Thomas Vanek
Brad Boyes
Anze Kopitar
Eric Staal - EA Sports Face Off
Daniel Briere - Stars on Ice

Two inserts in one pack of 6? The set builder in me really doesn't like those odds. Especially when one seems to exist only to promote another product. And doesn't something about that Kopitar look a little blurry?

2008 Victory #1

Pascal Leclaire
Alex Kovalev
Paul Kariya
Scott Niedermayer
Travis Zajac
Robbie Earl

Despite several seasons there, I still can't think of a member of the Blues. Or anything but a member of the Ducks, to be more accuarate. Robbie Earl only spent another half season in the NHL, and has been playing in Switzerland the past few years.

2008 Victory #2

Brian Campbell
Mike Ribiero
Brendan Shanahan
Michael Peca
Ryam Smyth
Henrik Lundqvist - Game Breakers

I've said in the past that the Sharks colours work really nicely with this set design. The Leclaire in the earlier pack was a dupe, so Lundqvist is the first mask binder card in this repack box break.

2008 Victory #3

Marc-Andre Fleury
Tim Thomas
Jason Spezza
Eric Cole
Ryan Kesler
Dan LaCosta

I'm not sure which card of the first 3 I have more dupes of. Probably the Spezza. LaCosta plaed in 4 total NHL games, before heading off to play Canadian University hockey in New Brunswick. He played last season in Cardiff.

2010 Victory

Joe Pavelski
Duncan Kieth
Mike Cammalleri - Game Breakers
Anze Kopiter
Nikolai Kulemin
Ryan Getzlaf

At least I know someone that will give that Cammallleri a good home.

Not the most spectacular start, but things have to get better.