2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 25.1 - Forgotten, not Gone

 Here's the contents of a repack I purchased several years back, yet never got around to posting. It just stayed there, got shifted into a small plastic case, and waited. For this hot summer day, I'm going to finally show off 80 cards over two posts.

The cards weren't the most interesting repack I've busted, based on the first grouping. The most interesting might have been the first visible card, which gets to that status based on the Mike Flanagan memorial patch. 

But here's something that can improve any repack - an appearance of a 1981 Topps entry. Even better - it is from the Update set. Blue Jays appearance as well! 

Wrigley ivy appearing can also make any pack better, whether of  re or wax variety. Also, there's an insert making an appearance. Even if the extent of Aramis' reaching MVP status was making appearances in the lower-end UD MVP set.

Sketchy airbrushing! YES! Even if it was likely a Cleveland cap and they could have left the brim of the cap the same, they still took the time to make the Angels logo bigger than usual. 

Thomas Howard will win the photo war here with this pretty nice horizontal entry. Even if it wasn't his first Bowman entry, a Dylan Cease appearance is a nice ending, and a few years later, a surprising card to find as one of the visible ones.

And there you have it! 40 more next post!

Reverse Reasoning

 Why would I add a New England Patriots card to my collection voluntarily? Given the misery they inflicted on the Bills for about two decades, it would seem strange.

It is all about the story on the back. 

Now if only the photo matched the era mentioned.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 25 - Drugstore Cardboy

 More repacks from Shoppers Drug Mart!

All of which were 06/07 Parkhurst with something visible behind it. I may have completed the set, but that doesn't mean there won't be interesting cards still hiding.

The first pack was probably the dullest for me. But it does show off the nature of the set. While some Hall of Famers can be found in the set, such as '70 inductee Tom Johnson, a lot of it is "I remember that guy!" types.

A dupe already? Sigh. But that's offset by a Kitchener Rangers alum opening things off in Stevens. I can't automatically call it a dupe in that collection by memory, so that's a win! Also, the Grim Reaper appears! There isn't a lot of appearances of the teams that debuted in that era. There's Doug Wilson on the Sharks, and a couple Avalanche appearances that might technically count. And that's about it. But it makes sense for this type of release.

The final one has two North Stars appearances, but sporting different eras of jerseys. Sometimes, collation can result in fun coincidences. Kocur also continues the PIM guy content from the previous pack.

This is a 30 card set. It better be filled with huge names. And it is. There's even a reverse retro jersey in the mix. 

I was kinda curious as to why that Wild/Habs game would warrant its own sticker. It's dated, so I can find our that the Wild won easily that game, 7-1, but there seems nothing out of the ordinary with individual stats. 

That shiny McDavid base sticker looks to be the biggest card of these packs, at least when it comes to going via COMC value. I'd guess that any Bruins/Leafs playoff themed card, even if it isn't that Game 7, is going to be painful for awhile still.

Bit there's a bunch of cards I grabbed at Shoppers. And there you have it!

Gimmick Hometowns

 

Thunder Rosa being announced from The Graveyards of Tijuana? YES!

If I had wrestling on in the background, I'd start paying attention to whatever was happening.

Kris Statlander used to be introduced as from "The Andromeda Galaxy". That would also get me interested.

Long Island, NY? Notsomuch.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 24 - Yin to the Yang

 

I can't post the football one without following it up with the baseball version.

The Ken content is strong early on, even if Mr. Phelps seems surprised that there's a photo being taken of him, despite being asked to pose. We do get some variety in the names starting with K category as there's also a Kevin.

Back-to-back Kevins! A Mets card is nice, but that drawn Travis Fryman is the easy winner here. Even if he looks way too happy to have ended up with mauling distance of the tiger.

And the hit. He never reached the bigs. Quite the step down from the Santana Moss in the football repack.

When Opening Day was a Donruss thing! I do welcome a random minor league appearance. Ericks would reach the majors, but it would be with the Pirates. Diamond Kings are always nice little repack surprises.

These press conference new jersey photos are so much more interesting than the cheesy photoshop specials.

There were a few interesting cards for me in this, but this was probably the least interesting of any of the baseball ones I'd busted so far. 

But there you have it!

Mask Miscellany

 Just a bunch of mask binder additions to start the week.

Some of my faves are ones where the card is that of the non-netminder in the photo. Karel Vejmelka steals the show from Travis Boyd with his throwback logo mask.

The frequently-delayed SP Signature Edition Legends had a few mask cards among the inserts available for around 30 cents thanks to e-pack. Even if the checklist seemed limited mostly to "alive and willing to sign autos". And you can contrast the older paint jobs against the more modern artistry.

And a whole bunch more that were in the box waiting to be shown off.  I'm certain some have been in there over a year. Better late than never! I really should add that entire IN insert set to the collection. The only other one I have is a Mrazek in the 2/14 binders.

There you have it!

Ridiculous Injury Mojo!

Who among us hasn't dislocated a shoulder trying to rip a phone book in half?

Don't you go raising your hand, Steve! 

At least this card also has some decent penmanship going for it and a nice look at a knuckleball grip.     So there is a little more here than evidence of someone that showed that Chandler, Arizona had a thick phone book in the 90s.

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 23 - Back to the Stacks

 That stack of hangers with hits I got about 10 months ago.

And even if this is a dupe, it was the one I was most likely to have pulled off the hanger collection in a retail environment.

There's one of the many, many names on that Browns QB jersey. Unlike with the opener, I'm at least only slightly certain that the Bills is a dupe. And a WLAF card featuring a photo from a scrimmage/practice of an offensive lineman? There's a keeper!

Nothing too much in this grouping, but there is an insert, and a guy for whom announcers probably used his last name for several seasons. 

Now this was an unexpected auto. Santana Moss is probably the most recognizable name I've pulled out of these repacks I've been busting the past while. There is some questionable licensing - note the lack of a helmet logo, but I'm very happy landing this, even if it isn't an addition to one of my team collections.

As fun as those Hall of Fame entries are, I'm happy to see a Drayton Florence appearance on that Total entry. His pick 6 against Tom Brady was one of a handful of memorable moments during the drought years. 

From those years, you take what you get.

And we end with a relevant player as well.

With the Santana auto, the WLAF card and Florence appearing to give me sweet Bills memories, that's a dang good repack!

There you have it!

Hook A Brother Up!

 I'm sending out a request for assistance to any of my stateside trading partners, mainly because I don't want to shell out $25 for sending a single card across the border.

Specifically, my interest is in card #141, the Walt Poddubny entry from the linked dealer. 

It's a 2/14 entry, and probably the only entry so far that represents the city of Edmonton. 

Help!

The Best Thing About Discount Stickers

 

They can partially cover up problematic cover players. If the sticker hides the name, it can be anybody wearing a powder blue uniform and dark blue helmet!

First card out was a Met...New York card. That didn't really set the tone for the pack, as it was their sole appearance.

In fact, they'd get squashed by Toronto 5-1 in terms of appearances in the pack.

That even outnumbered the # of cards where the picture an unexciting one of them standing with all team logos mysteriously facing away from the camera.

But there were still some interesting photos in the pack, such as a turning two photo from Wrigley that also brings a nice cameo appearance trying to break up a double play. At least something different slipped through on a generally pretty bland release.

Naturally, there are exclusive parallels for every possible type of pack Panini puts out. These here are the holo red versions.

These Independence Day parallels aren't exclusives though, and go nicely with any team that has blue as part of its colours, even if they really don't fit with the concept of 'Kings'.

And then there's this guy - again. It's a Vector parallel, and was probably a good pull at the time. Now I can't in good conscience even give his stuff away. 

No sticker can hide this one.

But there you have it!

2/14 Baseball

 I'm back to the 2/14 binders today.

While I generally don't do reruns with this, I figured an update for one of the members of the collection made it worth showing this a second. Karson Ligon will get a chance to join Gabriel Moreno and Tyler Clippard as Blue Jays in the collection as a ninth round pick in the recent draft. That's probably low enough to keep him out of Bowman, but I can still have hope that he'll show up in something.

Now the actual newness. This card was inspired by a repack where the included hit was the Yusmeiro Petit version of this Beam Team card. When I looked to see what other players were featured in the set,  I saw that 2/14er Callix Crabbe was one of the featured players, and that his auto wasn't too expensive. So, here's his version.

When I showed off a bunch of Gabriel Moreno content about a month back, I whiffed on including this one. Here it is now.

Continuing the Goodwin Champions/UD unlicensed content - here's Brooks Lee making the move into double digits with these entries. 

Even my first auto of his! Inexpensive autos at COMC are a nice benefit of the e-packs when you aren't chasing after megastars. The same held true for the more recent e-pack multi-sport releases, which featured 2/14er Caroline Marks, whose auto is sitting in my inventory.

Minor league base cards are the best base cards. 

There's my second buyback card in the collection, and of course they count as a separate entry from the original. This one is the first I have with that particular stamp on it, as the other one being a Rediscover Topps entry of Scott Scudder. The '75 is an OPC entry, and that joins the regular Topps card and the mini to complete that rainbow.

I still have one more new player to show off, but I'll do that whenever I make my next 2/14 post with all the other new faces.

There you have it!

2025 Adventures in Repacks - Part 22 - Just Some Hockey

 Just 2 Dollarama repacks today.

The contents of #1 will include some protection for my next mailer.

A very solid start with the 5-card pack providing a couple of big names with Nash and Neely. 

The goalie pack gives me a rare chance to say something nice about the 21-22 flagship release - it allows for one to sorta see both sides of the goalie mask on some of them.

But no such chance here with this entry. 

The sleeves here also help with shipments when I send a box of cards vs. a bubbler. They work as padding in the ends of the box.

The misc 5 card pack wasn't anywhere near as interesting this time around. 

It's 21-22. I doubt I'll ever be interested enough to go back to scan things again if I messed up the orientation. 

Timmy's card! There's the winner from this pair of repacks. It was nice to see something outside of flagship show up in the 2020s pack. Twice!

There you have it!