Wednesday 30 December 2020

2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 41 - Dollarama Duals

I wanted this as my final repack post of 2020. I'm wrapping it up with a "two of each" recap of Dollarama hockey card products. 2 15-card hangers, 2 Surprise Bags, and 2 Premium Packs. 

Up first, the hangers.

2017 MVP - Sergei Bobrovsky (Puzzle back) - The visible card was a parallel. Not a super rare one, but a parallel nonetheless.
2010 UD - Stephen Weiss
1990 Bowman - John Chabot
1996 UD - Jozef Stumpel
1994 Pinnacle - David Shaw - A Kitchener Rangers alum, in fact one of the many NHLers on their '82 Memorial Cup winning team.
2007 UD McDonald's - Shane Doan
2005 ITG Franchises - Ching Johnson - My first Brooklyn Americans card!
1999 Pacific - Vladimir Malakhov
1996 Topps - Clayton Beddoes - I'd never heard of him prior to finding this card. I kinda like that oddness from repacks.
1991 OPC - Rick Meagher
1997 Score Team Collection - Frederik Modin - The silver logo wasn't familiar to me - this is from a team set.
1994 Score - Ulf Samuelsson
1991 UD - Dmitri Filimonov
1991 Classic - Martin Lapointe
2016 UD - Jason Spezza - Spezza is always a solid way to end a repack.
2019 Allure - Dante Fabbro - We start #2 off with a rookie from a recent release.
2019 UD - Viktor Arvidsson
2017 UD - Nate Schmidt - Celebratory cards are a theme in this repack.
1990 Pro Set - Stan Mikita
1990 Bowman - Geoff Courtnall
1991 Young Superstars - Yves Racine
1991 Pro Set - Patrick Flatley
2005 ITG Franchises - Clark Gillies - Franchises cards are often my highlights of these repacks, as there seems to be one in each.
2001 Prizm McDonald's - Marian Hossa - Sens content!
1990 UD - Jeff Bloemberg
2019 UD - Anthony Cirelli - See what I said about celebratory photos?
1995 Donruss - Keith Tkachuk
1991 Stad. Club - Pierre Turgeon
1994 Classic - Chris Wells
2010 Pinnacle - Evgeni Malkin - A solid photo selection wraps this one.

A solid start to the repack fest. Off to the Surprise Bags.
The contents of #1.
As usual, the 70s/80s pack is all 80s, but any sort of random Whalers or Nordiques experience always elevates these. And there's one!
Not just 1, but 2 members of the 1000pt club in this pack. Seeing Theo Fleury's plummet into conspiracy theory madness on his social media feed is depressing.
Random Nordiques content and Super Mario in the Pro Set pack. Loading up for my next mailer to Night Owl!
Erik Karlsson, and a colourful Calder design highlight the misc. card pack.
What's in #2?
We got a Gretzky here! Surely the discerning Tampa hockey fans of the early 90s won't look too close! 
This time, only 1 member of the 1000-pt club in this pack. But that patriotic Glen Murray card isn't bad!
The 2010s pack generally contain 3 UD base cards. Instead, there's a promotional card replacing one of them.
And the Heroes and Prospects pack. All prospects here, but 4 of the 5 would see the NHL. Sorry, Luke. Vasyunov would be of the victims of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash.
Finally, the Premium Packs. I was planning to make these a Duelling Tavares single post, but I figured I might as well get all of these out of the way with one post.
I definitely can't complain about the cards in the first one, even with those Connor McDavid cards showing up everywhere in repacks. The Great One, and that HoloGrFX was also pretty nice.
A Young Guns card wasn't really expected in this, and Domingue is still around - signing with the Flames. Another rookie card of a player with a good career, a shiny Sakic and that Taylor Hall insert make both of these really good packs filled with keepers.

In all of these, my fave non-PC cards were the Gretzkys, Ching Johnson, Glen Murray, Joel Quenneville, Alexander Vasyunov and the Taylor Hall. Better than a hobby pack or two for the same price.

There you have it for this post, and 2020. New repack adventures await in 2021!

Tuesday 29 December 2020

The Final Sens-ations of 2020

This is not only the final Senators post of the year, but my last trip into my COMC to-be-posted boxes.
Davidsson made his cardboard debut with the Sens in 2019, after arriving to the franchise as part of the Matt Duchene trade with Columbus. He was in Series 2, both as part of the tiresome Portraits insert set and as a Young Gun. I opted for this because it was cheaper. 

The best thing about the low price on this card was not only could I pick up one for myself (although Ebbett never played a game for Ottawa, only one season with their minor league team in Binghamton) but also pick up a second one to send off to Ann Arbor in a future mailer. 

Just another miscellaneous numbered rookie card. Nick looks to have finally stuck with the team after several seasons between the minors and the big club. 

And let's throw some Alfredssons in as well. These move my total cards of his to 518, and of cards listed as 'Major Releases' over at TCDB, I've got 364 out of 416. When you count what I've got on the way, that reaches 378. I really should add the final 38 to my Want List. Maybe that will be my new year's resolution. Not to get the remaining 38, just to add them to the list.

There you have it!

Monday 28 December 2020

Boxing Day Boxes - Part 3

 

Let's go quite a few years back for the final box. 10 packs in this, and I'll try to highlight a card from each.

Pack 1:

These are what the base cards look like. Fairly typical foil-y background, but I really like the upper portion with the feel of a well-used rink.

The backs are pretty nice as well - rare to see something colourful from a mid-range product.

This is also a base card in the set, but it is part of the numbered portion of the base set, so it is worthy of scanning.

Pack 2:

Here's hit #1. This is a "claim to fame" parallel of Fabric of the Game, where a notable stat for the player is used as a die-cut for the window. Despite only being a one colour swatch, these are fairly low-numbered, limited to 25. Still a nice card for the hit version of the mask binder.

Pack 3.

My first base parallel - this mirror red is /199.

Pack 4:

Under the numbering scheme for this set, this is also a parallel of the base set. More accurately, this is a Mirror Gold Materials Prime parallel, and like the Pavelec, is also /25. At least there's more than one colour to this swatch.

Pack 5:

One more parallel, and here's one for the ol' Rangers alumni PC. This Mirror Blue parallel is /99.

Pack 6:

Only base in this pack, so here's another mask binder card.

Pack 7:
Here's the autograph. Since Panini still accepts expired redemptions, this might still turn into a Lance Bouma autograph. However, it was probably more likely to result in a card in the long run to instead just pay $1.25 to throw it into my COMC cart.

Pack 8:
At least this box was pretty nice to the mask binder.

Pack 9:
Your final hit from the box is this very basic Fabric of the Game swatch. Mark was still active in the league as of last season, playing a handful of games with Winnipeg. I couldn't have told you that on a bet.

Pack 10:

One more mask binder card from the final pack. It isn't as great as his eventual Springsteen themed mask he'd go with late in his career, but it still counts.

And there you have it! Not exactly the best box in term of book value, but it did add some content to my PCs, so I can't be entirely upset.

Sunday 27 December 2020

Boxing Day Boxes - Part 2

 

I'm definitely stepping up to a higher rent district with this box.

The base cards in Volume 2 are, except for the slightly darker border, exactly like the ones in Volume 1. Only this is expanded to include current ones.
Usually in the breaks, the second card is the big one in the box, and it certainly was this time. If you can't pull a beautiful keeper card for yourself, you might as well pull one for a regular trade partner, and this one will be very much appreciated when I get my next mailer together to head to Ann Arbor. There is a lot going for this card - on-card with a gold pen, a three-colour patch, and a red frame really make this card a winner. This is a Group B auto, which fall 1 in every 62 packs/boxes, much like the Gaborik I landed for my PC not that long ago
Sorry, Brooks. You can't follow that up. I guess this counts as retired player content as he hung up his skates before the 19-20 season, but he couldn't have been included in the 18-19 release as he wasn't retired by then and the more I try to plot this out the more my head hurts.
Last up is a Time Capsules card, aka a rip card. There's a mini hiding in the back of these.
Fortunately, these open quite easy. What came out of this one?
Hey, another autograph! This was an update card from last year's release, and is numbered to only 15 copies. 

With a former Jet, an old-school Jet, and the son of a former old-school Jet, there was definitely a Winnipeg feel to this box. 

One more card to show off though, and this is as appropriate a place as any...
to show off another card that is certainly bound for including in the penmanship collection. The only way this could be better is if the down-stroke on the 't' continued to form the '1' in his number.

There you have it!