2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 10 - Let's Try Again

 The first time I tried one of those two-pack hangers from Wally World worked out pretty well, as I got a nice little St. Louis auto that was perfect to send to Portland at some point. What about the second time?

I switch from a Blue Jay on the Update packaging to Mets content. 

No, I didn't hose things up and scan the same cards twice. I got 4 dupes in the same pack. At least this pack wasn't picked up by a set builder.

But at least that Mike Trout insert was nice. Even if I could go several years without seeing a 1987 flashback card again.

And the Select was assembled just like the pack last time. A retail base, a scope parallel, a hit, and an insert. While the shade of the card might not be exactly Cubs blue, it is close enough to make it a good card. And it might only be a plain white swatch, but it is pretty large.

While the Williams is probably my favourite keeper card from the two repacks, the overall enjoyment level in this was really reduced by the run of dupes.

There you have it!

The Perils to Signing Sticker Autographs

While it may end up on a card of you as a top rookie...

It might also end up on the card saluting somebody else hitting a historic home run off of you. 

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 9 - A Hanger With a Hit

 3 straight basketball posts? Why not? It is my blog, after all.

And here's what I'm opening up today. We've got a nice full-bleed photo to lead.

Here's the first batch of cards. The Mike Bibby is almost a new card for the Vancouver Grizzlies collection, but, alas, he's listed with Sacramento. There were a lot of 1991 Skybox in this, but at least for a junk wax era release, there were some interesting cards. 

Small School Sensation salutes the players that have very uncommon, at least in the sporting world, alma maters on their cards. Now, I would have preferred to see the players wearing the attire of their schools, but maybe there were licensing issues. Sedale is still the only NBAer in history with WV Tech on their resume. 

And that Dell Curry isn't an award-winner card, it is just from a subset saluting 6th men in general. Curry would win the award a few years later, though.

Not only is it a 1991 Skybox hot repack, but also a Dell Curry one. 

Here's the hit! I find this one pretty interesting, as not only does it feature one player that is considered a bust, but both of them seem to find themselves on those types of list. That's enough to make this far more interesting than a photo-shoot worn relic of some 2nd rounder with only a handful of games to their name.  

Looks like Dell Curry wasn't the only player to make more than 1 appearance in this repack. Brad Daugherty joins him with 1.5 cards. Starks is kind of a two-sport card, with the Spectrum rafters and its collection of Flyers championship banners. The Jeff Sanders is interesting too, as it creates one of my favourite features from the early Stadium Club cards.

Namely, the rookie card on the back being the same as the card itself. 

And the finale. As usual, the regular Prizm card scans horribly.

A couple interesting cards from the junk wax era, and a hit that I (if not most other people) would consider interesting. That's exactly what I like from a repack experience. 

This Card Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along

 

A great name, and a great look at the uniform of the ABA's Virginia Squires! What more could one ask for from a card?

Better centering, perhaps?

A Hanger Pack of 22-23 Hoops

 

Time for a relaxing break of some sweet, sweet retail.

While Raptors content is moot after a group break landed me a team set several times over, pulling one  is even better.

Here's a couple cards that will be outward bound in mailers to a couple of alumni collectors. 

Maybe I should have waited until this year to build a set, since the Tribute portion this year wasn't SPd to the rate of 1-per-hobby box like last year. 

The rookie portion did include a Bennedict Mathurin for my Canadians in the NBA mini-collection. So I'm calling this a successful break!

Here's a couple of my favourite photos. There's a great action shot, and I love ones that show the entire court behind the featured player. And rebounding is an underrated theme for a photo on a basketball card.

Parallels! That Mitchell is one of the Teal Explosions that the pack hyped up. In an interesting collation quirk, I also got the base cards of both these players back-to-back.

And a couple of inserts. I can connect that Grffin card to the Raptors - he's the son of Raptors Assistant Coach (and perpetual head coaching candidate after a job opens up) Adrian Griffin. 

Why So Long?

 This is another card that I probably should have ordered when it went live as a Topps Now card, but I waited.

And I probably ended up paying about the same for it at COMC than I would have with shipping had I ordered through Topps in the first place. So, whether it was worth the 5+ years delay is up to you, dear reader.

Trade Stack - Finally, some Hockey

Card #12 finally sees a hockey card added to the stack.  

It joins these 11:

If you have one of the cards on any of my wantlists, I'll trade the contents of the stack to you, in return for a single card (or sticker) from those lists. I'll throw cards onto the stack at intervals of my choosing (whenever I feel like it).

Want them all?

1. You make a comment on the most recent post of the trade stack staking your claim, and say what you're sending. (That's this one!)

2. You send me an e-mail providing your address.

3. I reply, giving you my address.

4. We each drop a PWE in the mail containing the promised card(s).

5. You're shipping to Canada, so remember that!

Game Used

 

With a plain one-colour swatch, you really are required to trust the disclaimer on the card that this particular item was used in an actual game.

With this piece of a trapper, you really don't need such a disclaimer.

Kayfabe

 

This seems like a relatively normal looking card, at least in terms of design aesthetics, for a rather freaky lady wrestler. 

But I prefer to embrace the bugfuck craziness of the stats on the back. 1000 Lost Souls indeed. The Black Hills also sound far more interesting than Denver.

There you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 8 - Hanging Packs

 Another one of those two pack hanging repacks from Wally World.

The first one contained a pack of 21 Topps UK and 21 Ginter. Definitely different content this time around. 

I didn't bust too much flagship last year - I went all-in on Heritage. I'm actually looking forward to digging into that pack.

Mets content is a fine start to this. 

Another fun aspect of this pack - alternate uniforms. Since the jersey numbers on the City Connect Giant uniforms were kinda unique, I actually like that the photo shows those off instead of the more generic jersey front.

These nice-looking Royal Blue parallels fell every 1:10 packs in the retail environment. Or about one per blaster, which I'm assuming is where these originated from. I like that these pop nicely, but aren't eye-bleedingly obnoxious.

And there was an insert, too!

Off to the Select!

This pack was all over the place. The Cruz is the base in the retail, continuing somewhat of a trend in Select where the base hobby are different from the base in retail. I guess it makes retail a little more of a draw for hobby-only types. That Mullins is also a retail-exclusive parallel. Then there's an insert, and an actual hit. It is a St. Louis card, so that's going aside for my next mailer to Cards on Cards.

If you can't pull a nice card for your PC, pulling a card for your trade partner is just as enjoyable.

There you have it!

Mailbag: Miscellany

 Not the most voluminous ending to my recap of the TMV mailer, but it has to end on something, and a small number of cards for my player PCs is going to be how it does.

The only Delgado cards where there is no question as to which binder they'll end up in are his Marlins cards. Direct to his binder with no chance of stopping in one of the team collection ones!

Vlad Sr. is lurking in the background of that Weaver co-signers card. That's enough to qualify it for the Vladdy collection. And still, I have some of those odd Moments & Milestones cards to show off. 

Expos Vladdy! 

There you have it, as yet another great TMV mailer ends. And just in time for me to have a new mailer ready to go stateside when I make my next trip to a post office.

Compare and Contrast

 

Let's look an autograph that uses the sticker space nicely. The letters are legible, with nice cursive that you don't have to look at the name printed on the card to learn who the player is, letting the autograph shine. You are disappointed to see it and later realize that he never made it in the NFL. But this still becomes an easy addition to the penmanship binder.

And then there's this.

Rangers Roundup

 Back to the COMC to-be-posted box, and just in time as the OHL regular season winds down, here's some cards of Kitchener Rangers alum

Most of these cards fall under the category of "cheap because of e-packs". Except this one. This one was rather cheap due to a rather short NHL career. The one-and-done Contours set was never available in epack form. 

E-pack posts generally mean there are going to be a lot of parallels from UD flagship releases, so here's 7 of 'em! The silvers are usually <30 cents over at COMC, with the French parallels usually being about 5 cents more. A cheap way to build numbers. 

I missed this one the last time I did a COMC Rangers post - so Ryan Murphy is lucky enough to get a scan all to himself!

Kubalik might only have spent a half-season here, but he's the volume king this time around with these 4 cards joining the silver & French parallels shown above. 

Even a lot of the numbered cards are in the 60-75 cent range. Such as this Golden Burst parallel of John Gibson. 

Even non-star autographs are reasonable, with this also not cracking the $2.00 threshold. Logan Stanley cards are nice for an additional reason - not only did he play for the locals, but he's also from the area. I don't collect hockey cards of people from the area, but if I can cross them over with another PC, let's pile them on! 

There you have it!

Oh! Is the Great Grayson Shillingford going to play Slotback?

 

When I saw this name, I couldn't help but think of a frequent credit riff during the Joel-era of MST3K. And I couldn't resist re-using it here.

There's one thing that is pretty interesting about this card. It was the only one of his career. Period. Not just the only hit - the only card. No base cards. No patch parallels to this. Only this card and its other 799 swatches. 

There can't be too many other players who have had that type of cardboard career.

With that story behind this card, I might as well show off the back as well!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 7.4 - A Hundred Hanger

 The finale!

Another Donruss opener.

A nice start with a great photo on the Todd Heap (solid design too for the insert photo) and an always welcome Special Teams card. 

Another ST card! That Cade McNown is probably about as high-end as the cards in this repack go, and it adds a card of one of a handful of players to do the technicolor yawn on the field. OL mojo too!

4 straight 1990 Pro Set cards. That's repacks for you! But that does kinda get offset with a pair of Platinums.

Not too much of note here in the final portion, but still a perfectly acceptable repack experience on the whole.