May I See Your Credentials? - Part 2

Pack 5:

A bit of variety to start off this pack with a McDavid base card and an insert of his.

Here's one of this set's chase card. This is a thick metal card that weighed down the pack and was obviously contained within this pack. Good for pack searchers. This one is the gold parallel, which are the only parallels in this Steel Wheels insert set.

Pack 6:

This was the only regular Senators base card in the box, and the 50-card portion of the set.

While my acetate card in the first part of the box was a redemption, I did get a base parallel. Take off the bar code and the NSH/D/57 out, and add a signature and that is probably what the Adam Fox card will look like.

Pack 7:

Just another parallel of note in this pack. The red foil doesn't scan well on black, but this is /99.

Pack 8:

And the final numbered card.

I did mention the more generic science-y backs of the Rookie Science cards, so here's one of them to wrap up this box.

Great design throughout, and I'm happy I busted some of this. Please don't let this be a one-and-done product for UD. It is sorta similar in format to SPA, but the colour throughout the set makes it a little nicer, even if the auto content is a little lower.

May I See Your Credentials? - Part 1

I've been looking forward to this release since Upper Deck announced it. It brings one of my favourite motifs, the ticket-themed design, back into hockey for the first time since Contenders was a thing. Here are the highlights from the first four packs:

Pack 1:

Here's the base design. While I'm never a fan of eliminating the background, replacing it with a team logo is always a solid plan.

The backs? Exactly what I expected.

The first insert of the box is a rookie science insert. Definite science-y with the design here.

The back write-up is kinda science-y. Some are directly related to the player featured. Some are more generic, and I definitely prefer the former.

Looks like I'll be waiting a bit to see the autograph in the box.

Pack 2:

And here's your ticket motif, dated to the player's debut. These are easily the most Contenders-ish cards in this, and are considered and numbered as part of the base set.

Pack 3:

Another insert.

Since this is tied to a specific game, I wish they'd use the ticket design here as well. There are first, second and third star card, with all of them falling at the same frequency levels.

And two more tickets. And there's my first Sens card from the box. The /999 are the most common of the bunch. You'll see some lower numbered tickets in tomorrow's post.

Pack 4:

My first base parallel of the break. Can't complain about who they player is either.

The other 'rookie science' cards from the remaining packs were more generic than player-specific, so I'll scan this one to wrap up the box.

Even with the caveman-ish photo on the back.

And there you have it! Packs 5 through 8 go tomorrow!

E-Packing

I guess catching up on the cards that I either acquired through e-packs, or cheaply because it was low-priced on COMC, is appropriate for days like this.

I'm leading with the low-priced card because, as the more grammatically inclined might have gathered from the opening sentence, there was only one. It is a very red Jeff Skinner card for my Kitchener Rangers alumni collection. I am really glad he is sporting the road whites in this photo so it doesn't look like one of the red Aurums from this year's Artifacts.

A couple AHL packs landed a second Rangers alum in former Ottawa Senator Matt Puempel.

Both 2018 and 2019 gets representation in the CFL portion of the mailer. My fave here is easily the Paredes, because it both features a kicker, and because the colour of the parallel matches the team colours. While it also does so with the Messam, there's a hint of green with it being a 'traded' card.

Not only a low-numbered patch, but one for my favourite team! WOO-HOO!

And an auto as well! Kristen is currently a sideline reporter and host for NBA broadcasts, so I might as well file this with the basketball hits. My binders. My rules.

And there you have it - cards I didn't even have to leave the house to acquire!

One Card Only: Famous Flyers

I'm not feeling that verbose today, so here's a beauty for the mask binder. It features the late Ray Emery's Tuskegee Airmen mask. I wanted a nicer look at the mask after seeing it in 13-14 Select, and this ITG release certainly does that.

A Box for the Weekend

Most of the times when I do a break of a 13-14 product, it is Rookie Anthology. Let's mix it up with another Panini release from that year. 4 packs, and I'm hitting the highlights of each.

Pack 1:

The etching makes the base scan horribly, and the player's name practically vanishes into the foil, Fortunately, the backs are bright and bold, even if the player is immediately recognizable as Martin Brodeur.

The rookies? Aren't. Much. Better. But I will scan a pretty nice one here with this Barkov.

I believe you're guaranteed one of these rookie/relic autos per box. Here's this one. Schultz is still in the league, so I'm happy enough with this.

Pack 2:

Starting with another base card, and an Al Montoya bound for the mask binder.

This is the first of my two parallels. That's Jamie Oleksiak's name hiding on the bottom of the card. He's with Dallas now, but had a short stint with the Penguins in the meantime. Googling his name auto-completes with 'sister', indicating that his Olympic-medal-winning sister Penny might be more well-known.

Howden has been answering the roll call in the KHL the past few years.

Pack 3:

This is definitely the better of the two numbered parallels, being both a better player, and numbered to 25 copies.

That's a nice thick seam of a swatch, and Rakell remains in the league and remains with the Ducks.

Bonus hit! And it is easily the best of the bunch in the box. On-card, and the Social Signatures, which had appearances in several Panini products in 2013, is a concept that I wish would appear in other sports/releases, especially with social media being even more prevalent in 2020.

Pack 4:

Just a plain one-colour swatch to end it, but he's the 5th rookie in the box that is still in the league, making for a pretty good average.

And there you have it!

One Card Only: Black Fri-Ray

The Black Friday promotional release seems like an odd place to find an autograph of a CFL quarterback, and certain HOFer, but I won't complain about it and add it to my collection of CFL hits. I'm not sure why Panini did this, but maybe they were making a go at a CFL license, only to lose out to Upper Deck. This is from 2014, and UD started in 2015, so this is as good a guess as any.

2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 18 - The Dollarama Two-Step

Yesterday's repack adventure wasn't the best. Maybe the Dollarama Two-step of one 15-card hanger and a Surprise Bag will be better.

This was the first of the visible cards. Can't complain about an Iggy to start things off. Although things were pretty blah after that.

But I do like family cards. Here's Jacques and Dan LaPerriere on a card from Classic.

And I've got to scan the back of a '93 Leaf card out of either hockey or baseball. That's about all of note in there. The other visible card was a Mike Cammalleri, which is already set aside for a future mailer.

The Surprise Bag will be an all cardboard affair.

The 90s pack does give a good idea of what the rest of the hanger pack was like.

But the goaltender pack was pretty good with a trio of mask binder cards appearing. I'm sure the Lehtonen Kill Bill card will be a dupe, though.

The Hall of Fame pack was easily the best of the repacked packs. That's my first Hamilton Tigers card in the lower right! It is Gartner that is the HOFer here, not Prodgers.

Arena Version was ITG's way of saying 'not hobby', but that's still a pretty good pack with the late Luc Bourdon starting off, followed by a Willie O'Ree and the awesomely-named, sadly-defunct Lewison MAINEiacs.

A rough start, but this really came on strong near the end. Definitely better than the previous days repack at about 1/5 the cost.

2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 17 - The Repack of Regret

I saw youtube breaks of these. They didn't look good at all. The promised rookie card always was a low end player at best (the biggest name may have been Zach Bogosian). Everything pointed to "Don't!".

Of course, I touch the stove like a fucking idiot.

And here's the rookie card. The magnetic it was in has to be worth more than the card, as Sneep played one more NHL game than I have.

Ouch.

Can these packs save this?

At least one of them had a Sens card.

And a couple mask binder cards.

As for the inserts/Young Guns, these didn't exactly save the day. But at least the Young Guns here have seen significant NHL time over their careers. That's pretty impressive for Nutivaara, considering he was a 7th rounder. I can also pretend that's a severed arm on Rantanen's card.

But yeah, I really should have left this on the shelves.