A 2/14 White Whale!

I'd hinted at this about a month back when Shane @ Shoebox Legends posted an autograph of Gump Worsley. But, I have finally added to my 2/14 collection a certified autograph that I didn't think would be possible at an inexpensive price.

However, thanks to a slightly soft corner, I was able to throw this into my COMC inventory for about half the usual cost of one of his autographs.

BAM!

Geoffrion is easily the best hockey player among 2/14 birthdays, with all respect to the Hejduks and Gaboriks of the collection. This autograph comes from the same 01-02 Parkhurst set that Shane's auto came from. Like that one, it isn't numbered on cards, but it seems to be limited to 60 copies.

This joins a relic as my second hit of Geoffrion in the collection, and my 10th card overall. He's shown up in recent Leaf releases, but it appears to have been 10 years since he's made an appearance in a licensed product.

There you have it!

Mailbag: Wes' Grand Finale - Post #3

Back to the mailbox, and wrapping up the teams I requested.

I'd requested the Expos in it, since there were some older products. I got this one card out of that. Paul Ottavinia was a third round pick of Montreal, but never made the majors. Still a new card for the collection, though!

But there were a few other Mets cards in the package. 4 of these cards, Wilson, Piazza, Wilson and Murphy are numbered. The lowest of this group is the Murphy, which is a Black Static Refractor Parallel /35.

The final requested team was the Senators. There were a trio of cards from them as well.

Conacher was considered a chase card when 2013 products were released, but that changed as the season progressed and he didn't really live up to the hype. So much so that he was traded part way through the season.

This my second autograph of Radek Bonk, who, if not the expected superstar, did have a long career on this side of the Atlantic. And who wouldn't want an auto of some guy named Bonk?

With no ink, and no numbering on the card, on paper this is a surprising as a big card. The Clear Cut cards fall at a rate of about 1 per 3 hobby boxes, with an even spread over 250 cards. That's similar to the /100 exclusives, and they're chase cards for the elite players. While Brown has yet to prove himself, he's yet another one of the youngsters that is sure to get time next season, with all the veterans shipped out over the past week.

And there you have it!

One Card Only: You see your Gypsy

I was hoping to have recapped my box of Series 2 of the MST3K release by now, but my box break was short one card for the Kickstarter-promised complete set, so I sent out for a replacement. While I wait for that to show up, here's one of the bonus cards that were included.

Cheating is bad. Richard Basehart is good.

Another Series 2 Box Break

How does one come off the natural high of pulling a Gordie Howe auto? Take a day off from posting, and then post the highlights of the other box I got that day.

I finished off the base 251-450 set with this box, so here's the rest:

The clear cut parallels are 1:90 packs, so about one every 4 boxes. I definitely beat the odds here going to 2 for 2 with these.

Your contingent of Young Guns. I guess Robert Thomas is the biggest name in this group of 6 at this point.

The Portraits inserts remain as dull as always. At least my mask binder will welcome that Montembeault. His AHL time was in Springfield, so he went for a Simpsons theme with his mask. You can see Nelson Muntz on the side of his mask.

At least the Portraits section resulted in the only numbered card of the box. They're still bland.

I never knew that I needed a card featuring Brad Marchand piggybacking David Pastrnak on the Great Wall of China until I pulled this card.

I've actually done pretty well in terms of knocking off "at least I don't need to buy it" OPC cards out of  the Update portion of the set, removing both Tkachuk and Petterson with these boxes.

Your retro parallels. Finally I get some Sens content to show off!

The silver parallels are probably the least necessary portion of OPC this year, but at least this is a decent one.

And there you have it. I'll probably take a break from 4 straight hockey posts with something else tomorrow.

Playbook Box Break (and one of my best pulls EVER)

This is definitely a feast-or-famine product, with there being only 3 cards contained within. There's a base card, a booklet with an auto and/or relic, and an additional regular auto or relic.

I like the base card design with all the colour, but I'm not a fan of the player. He'll always be the guy who called a player on a team he ran the word my pasty white self dare not say.

The big card in the box wasn't the booklet card, although it was of a future HOFer.

There's a septet of relics contained within as well.

And the big one,

HO. LEE. WOW!

An on-card autograph of the late, great, Gordie Howe!

I don't think I got as crazy about seeing an autograph appear from one of my packs since when I pulled a Jamal Murray almost 2.5 years ago. Damn, that's just gorgeous. Straight to the magnetic for this, and I can really see myself getting this certain keeper encased for the ages. Even the design is beautiful, with it being colourful, but not obnoxiously so.

Heck, let's see the back as well.

Wow. That's a box break to remember. One of my best pulls? I'll say it is the best, but reserve the right to search my memory and find a better one.

2019 Adventures in Repacks - Part 7.2 - Another Hanger

40 more cards!

2016 Showcase - Jack Eichel - There was a lot of gold in this design. If there's
such a thing as too much, this is certainly it.

2013 Score Gold - Niklas Backstrom - So much so that an actual gold card seems less obnoxious.
2015 UD - Martin Jones

1991 UD - Viacheslav Fetisov
1991 UD - Mario Doyon
1991 UD - Jamie Macoun
1991 UD - Curtis Leschysyn - 4 in a row again! - 410 through 413

1991 Parkhurst - Paul Coffey - A Kitchener Rangers alum.
1991 Pro Set - Craig Coxe
1994 Parkhurst - Pat Falloon

1995 Topps Stadium Club Members Only - Just as ugly on the second day. Even if it is a favourite player.
1994-95 SP - Jeff Mitchell
1990 Score - Troy Murray
1992 Parkhurst - Rob Zamuner
1994 Donruss - Mike Richter

1995 Parkhurst - Drew Bannister - Player #1 on this side I'd never heard of.
1991 OPC - Bob Cimetta
2007 ITG Going for Gold - Darren Helm

2003 Victory - Marian Gaborik - Although a dupe, I should highlight an appearance of a 2/14 guy.
2000 MVP - Tim Connolly

2004 UD - Scott Hannan - If not for the referee in the background, I'd think this perfect photo came from a team practice. Just an excellent looking card.
990 Bowman - Paul MacLean
1990 Bowman - Steve Smith
1990 Bowman - Kirk McLean

1997 Score - Vladimir Vorobiev - Player #2 I'd never heard of.
1990 UD - Mark Johnson

1995 Parkhurst - Chris Marinucci - #3
1992 Topps - Todd Elik

1999 SPA - Trevor Letowski - Somewhat of a higher end feel to this card, even with way too much white space.
1991 Stad. Club - Derek King

1993 Premier - Another 2/14 guy and another dupe.
1991 Parkhurst - Sergei Nemchinov
1994 Donruss - Andrei Kovalenko
1990 Topps - Gerard Gallant
1993 Parkhurst - Matthew Barnaby
1993 UD - Kirk Maltby
1993 Parkhurst - Brad May
2017 UD - Kevin Bieka
2016 UD - Drew Stafford

2015 UD - Anton Stralman - Ending on a nice photo.

And there you have it! A perfectly acceptable hanger pack of 80 cards.

2019 Adventures in Repacks - Part 7.1 - Another Hanger

Another 80 card hanger from the Dollarama. Since I did a 'scan everything' post last time, this time I'll be doing a list everything post this time, with selected cards scanned.

2018 Artifacts - Richard Rakell - 2018 releases are already showing up in repack products.

2013 Score Gold - Peter Mueller - And a parallel!

2017 UD - Jaden Schwartz - Intense! What a great photo, and I'm surprised I didn't have this card already.
1991 Pro Set - Alexander Godynyuk
1995 Parkhurst - Bruce Driver

1992 Stad. Club - Rich and Ron Sutter - Cards with any combination of Sutters on it are always keepers.
1991 Score - Steve Kasper
1991 OPC - Pat Jablonski

1997 Donruss - Alexandre Daigle - Sens content!
1992 Topps - Greg Hawgood

1991 Pinnacle - Jim Kyte - A 'Sidelines' card that salutes Kyte's work with the hearing-impaired.
1991 Stad. Club - Thomas Steen
1993 Parkhurst - Keith Tkachuk
1991 Topps - Wayne McBean
1991 Stad. Club - Randy Burridge
1990 Bowman - Joe Reekie
1990 Bowman - Grant Fuhr
1990 Bowman - Mike Liut

2005 Parkhurst - Josef Melichar - Despite almost 350 NHL games, this is the only card on this side that featured a player I'd never heard of.

2004 SPA - Zigmund Palffy - Do I really need an excuse to showcase a Zigmund card?
2007 ITG Going for Gold - Brad Marchand

2009 ITG 1972 Year in Hockey - Wayne Carleton - Not a Sens card, obviously, but a great design saluted by ITG here
2000 ITG - Scott Walker
1991 OPC - Mats Sundin
1992 Parkhurst - Mike Ridley
1992 UD - Sergei Klimovich

1991 UD - Dave Snuggerud - Player most likely to be drunk in his card photo.
1990 Score - Adrian Plavsic
1994 Parkhurst - Igor Larionov

1995 Topps Stadium Club Members Only - Mark Messier - Mid 90's garishness! It wasn't just Fleer!
1994 UD - Rick Tocchet
1991 Parkhurst - Denis Savard
1990 Pro Set - Bernie Nicholls

1991 UD - Joel Savage
1991 UD - Adrian Plavsic
1991 UD - Jergus Baca
1991 UD - Greg Adams - This group of 4 was in numerical order from the base set. 423 through 426. Interesting collation.
2016 uD - Oliver Ekman Larsson
2010 UD - Chris Butler

2017 UD - Ales Hemsky - Ending on a memorable photo.

40 more cards next time!

Mailbag: Wes' Grand Finale - Post #2

I'll do one more day of these and then do something re-pack related. Today, the Raptors portion of the mailer.

Starting off, here's a beautiful shot from the backboard. While I can't be surprised to see a former dunk contest winner getting that photo on his card, it would have been so incredible to have the dunk he made that went through Kenneth Faried immortalized on cardboard.

More rookie cards should look like this instead of the generic empty gym photo shoots.

A pair of jersey swatches starts off the brief hit portion of this post. Cory Joseph didn't spend too long in Toronto, but it is always nice to see Canadians hit the floor with the Raptors.

Speaking of floor...

here's a piece of one! There were actually 5 cards in this Northern Flights subset, and all featured Vince Carter. This is #3 in the set, and #2 in my collection, alongside #5.

Finally, since it is easier to put them here than to make a second post, here's a bunch more Raptors from various case breaks. The Optic cards all feature new photos compared to what was on the regular Donruss issues, and the red of Jonas is /99.

There you have it!