Wednesday 31 August 2022
2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 28 - Baseball Hanger
Tuesday 30 August 2022
Uniform Hunting
One of the things I enjoy doing at COMC is looking for uniforms that didn't make appearances on cards during their time of actual use. Usually, that means home NBA or NHL uniforms, since cards from the 70s and 80s used to originate from games in Washington.
That was my rationale for grabbing a Darcy Rota autograph earlier this year.
And that was also my rationale for this:
Since there are not a lot of pictures of those home white lightning bolt jerseys available on cardboard in original, non-throwback form, I had to settle for an autographed one. Benson isn't a huge name, despite being a #1 draft pick, so the price was reasonable.And the photo on the back includes the lightning bolt on the shorts. Even better!Sunday 28 August 2022
2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 27 - Sunday Surprises
The last two Surprise Bags that I've had sitting in my to-be-posted box for ages. Time to restock!
Here's the first one!I'd comment that I'd be surprised about finding a Paramount card in this, seeing as this really is not a set you see a lot of in repacks. But then I'd just have to go back to my last post, where I found one that made its way into my Kitchener Rangers alum collection.Saturday 27 August 2022
Rangers Round-up
Another bunch of Kitchener Rangers alum courtesy of my latest COMC shipment.
Most of it was stuff from e-packs, either picked up on that site, or cheaply on COMC. This is one of two exceptions, as those weren't a thing yet in the 2012-13 season. Sadly for Clarkson, Eastern Conference Champions was as bragging as his attire could get, as it would be the Kings getting the Stanley Cup that season.Thursday 25 August 2022
Always time for Chronicles
I recently busted some 2022 Draft Chronicles, so why not follow that up with some of the NFL variety.
The draft product promised Playbook & Playoff. Here, I get Pinnacle.
This might be the most true base cards I've ever pulled from a single pack of Chronicles, across any sport. But, at least there was a Bills card in the mix, and any new Josh Allen is a nice little addition. Regular Chronicles tends to follow up the paper cards with chrome/prizm-ish cards. Here, you get matte cards. While it looks really nice on the Gridiron Kings card, not as much so with the Luminance. But I do like getting a card of a guy named Gainwell - a great name for any offensive player on a football team.Wednesday 24 August 2022
2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 26 - Another hanger
Hanging around the 7/11 was this hanger. This means that there were two hangers there that had a James Neal card as the opener. But we have different teams and different sets (this one is regular SP), so we still have the variety of the repack.I would have gone for the Patrick Kane as the opener, as those Superstars cards were somewhat SPd in that release. We also get the olbigatory 1990 Bowman stuff. Some would be wowed by the Brett Hull base card, but I'm more wowed by the amazing mall hair behind Craig Simpson. And your hit! Pretty nice how this is dated in several places to coming from the Skills Competition, even though the he's sporting a jersey with only a couple stripes of red on it in the photo from the event.
Monday 22 August 2022
Extending the Senators
The finale of the 21-22 NHL season's flagship releases dropped last Wednesday. Mind you, there are plenty of releases of mid-range products still to go, including Artifacts, which usually hits the market in October of that release year.
But that gave me a chance to get into a group break to wrap up the season.
They only warranted 4 base cards among the regular cards. Formenton is the only one here I've had cards of previously in an Ottawa uniform. This was an interesting case, as all the Young Guns within were missing the foil "Young Guns" logo. That included the two Senators as part of the checklist. As I write this, there's only one such card up on ebay (probably from this same break), so I'm guessing cards with this 'feature' are pretty rare over this print run. This does likely mean that I'll wait for e-packs, and pick up some cheap replacements.The foil did show up on the clear cut parallel, though.And here's one more Sokolov appearance, in canvas form. Even though I already have a couple CHL cards of him, this is a solid start to his portion of the team PC.Like last year, a bunch of other sets also make an appearance in the set, to give it a slight Rookie Anthology vibe. First up, here's some 06-07 retros. Last year had 05-06s. 1999 also gets retro'ed with these SPX cards.Numbered card 1!Saturday 20 August 2022
The Newest 2/14 faces
Even if it only means looking through the lists at TCDB, I always like finding new candidates for the 2/14 binder. And after last time, I now do a basic google search on them to see if they have some rather nasty skeletons in their closet.
Stefan Andersson only looks like a serial killer in his photo. There's no evidence he actually is one. Fortunately for him, he does have a less insulting option available if he want to show proof of his pro hockey career. That one, alas, wasn't available at COMC.A Medal of Honor winner! Certainly that can't be problematic..."pursuit of hostile Apache Indians"... I have no way of knowing either way, but that definitely doesn't sound as noble with just those words through 2022 eyes as it may have at the time. Fortunately, there's a lot more to his career than just that. I particularly liked learning that he received a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture when he was 73 years old. That just makes him seem like a cool older guy, almost worthy of a card merely for that accomplishment. Soccer sticker! Annotsara is the second lady to join the soccer portion of the collection, alongside Erica Skroski. If the design worked so well for 1977 NFL, why not recycle it across the pond for a 1978 release, albeit with the slight alteration on the position?I can say with reasonable confidence that there has never been a time where I've made an effort to find out if a 7th round draft of the Arizona Cardinals makes the team. But now I have. But even if he does, I still doubt that Panini will release cards of a late round Offensive Line guy. But, Hayes did have a couple cards in the e-pack USA Football release, so I was able to go back to 2017 to get these cards. And these are, at least for now, I have copies of the only 2 Marquis Hayes cards there are,