2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 32.1 - Cubism

 

Time for another repack cube directly from the source. While in the past I'd break these down into 4 stacks worth of cards, I'm doing them as five this time since it seems perfect for a series of posts I'm starting on a Monday.

2012 Prestige - Mo Williams - Here's the starter and first visible card.

2001 Maximum - Michael Olowokandi

2018 Prizm - Jalen Brunson - Jalen was 2018's "Rookie, Right Team, Wrong Player" representative. A perfectly fine player, but not Luka.

1989 Hoops - Rick Mahorn

1993 UD - Popeye Jones - Popeye is now officially one of my "Fun player to pull a card of, no matter what release" players.

1992 Ultra - Tony Bennett

1994 Stadium Club - Tony Smith

1994 Choice - Tom Gugliotta

1990 Fleer - Alvin Robertson

2012 Hoops - Lionel Hollins

1996 Skybox - Walter McCarty

1990 Fleer - Rik Smits

1993 UD - Corey Williams

1994 Ultra - Michael Williams

1992 Topps - Gary Grant

1991 Fleer - Tree Rollins

2009 Press Pass Fusion Gold /50 - James Worthy - This will be the lowest numbered card in the cube. Nice that it is of a HOFer too.

1991 Skybox - Tony Brown

1999 Focus - Doug Christie

2009 Panini - Jarrett Jack - Back to back Raptors, and both were needs!

1993 Fleer - Scott Skiles

1998 Hoops - Michael Finley

1992 Ultra - Don McLean

1994 Choice - Vinny Del Negro

1993 UD - Bill Laimbeer - At his derpy photographic best!

1992 UD - Doug Overton

1993 Fleer - Jerome Kersey

2016 Complete Silver - Arron Afflalo - Another parallel, albeit unnumbered this time. 

2013 Prestige - Phil Pressey

2016 Prizm - Jose Calderon

2013 Pinnacle - Timofey Mozgov

1992 Stad. Club - Gerald Glass

1993 Topps - Mark Aguirre

1990 Skybox - Bill Wennington

2018 Hoops - Anthony Davis

1990 Fleer - Charles Shackleford

1991 Fleer - Xavier McDaniel

1992 Topps - Fat Lever

1993 Hoops - Fred Carter - How did I not already have this 2/14 card?  I had the 5th anniversary parallel, but not this. But I now have my 5th Fred Carter card.

1996 Hoops - Bob Hill

1995 Hoops - Muggsy Bogues - Bogues has been a part of that "always a fun pull" club for awhile.

1997 Fleer - Rex Chapman

1991 Fleer - John Paxson

2018 Hoops - Al Horford

1989 Hoops - Dan Majerle

1991 Hoops - Kevin Edwards

2009 Topps - Matt Harpring

2000 Heritage - Kendall Gill - Heritage really can't go back 49 years like baseball, so here's a '71 flashback.

2000 Legacy - Sean Elliott - Just a nice design for a base card.

2002 Topps - Tim Thomas

2006 UD - Earl Boykins

1999 Ultimate Victory - Antoine Walker

2003 Bazooka - Jerry Stackhouse

1993 Classic - Derek Chandler

1991 Skybox - Lionel Simmons

1991 Skybox - John Starks

1997 Finest - Brevin Knight - Do I dare to peel?

1993 Stad. Club - Shawn Bradley - Coming off the draft, this would have been a notable card at release.

1992 Skybox - Marlon Maxey

1990 Fleer - Glen Rice - 1 group down. 4 to go!

Another Raptors Post

 Any excuse to return to my recent COMC mailer, and a small bunch of Raptors cards.

Opening up, here's a card from their first season. John Salley seems way too pleased to be a member of an expansion team.

I pulled a card from this set out of one of my recent repack adventures. I figured I liked it enough to add a Raptors card out of it to my collection. 

Court Kings is always a "when in doubt, add one to the shipment" decision. 

McCaw might not be a Raptor here, but I did want one of his autographs for my Ring Recipients collection. He probably won't get one in Toronto colours, so this will have to do unless Panini does a sticker dump.

A one-colour swatch, but it is Chris h, so it is a nice little addition to the binder, since he will be the first HOFer in team history that you think of for their time in Toronto.

And here's the big winner in terms of volume - OG Anunoby. He's yet another late draft pick that has developed nicely for the team. Ujiri truly is a wizard.

And there you have it!

Chronicling New Raptors

With Panini finally realizing that Terence Davis was a pretty good rookie, I opted to get in a break with the new Chronicles release. It is a rookie heavy product, and Davis made a lot of appearances in it.

But first, here's a base card of Kyle Lowry. I kinda hoped they'd use the more newspaperish design of 2020 NCAA Chronicles, but I guess they hadn't used this design yet in basketball.

Much like with Rookie Anthology, they've included some Update cards in this late season release. Some of that includes guys such as Kawhi pictured with their new teams, and some are of rookies like Kendrick Nunn and Davis that were unexpected early standouts.

Even though there are some numbered cards to come, this update Prizm is probably the biggest $$$MEGApUll$$4 card in the mailer. I'm happy to welcome it to my collection. For all intents and purposes, this is a base card, and it still a $50 CDN card.

Here's the first of the numbered card, featuring Davis rocking this year's City jerseys. I'm not going to look too closely to verify that, though.

One of my favourite designs to appear in the Chronicles release(s) is Elements, with its use of two different photos on the front, instead of the standard reusing of the same photo.

But this is the big card for me in this. I've got an autograph of Terence Davis already, even if that is an Ole Miss one. But Chris Boucher is just wrapping up his second full season with the Raptors, and his only card prior to this was appearances in the team set released after last year's championship win. It is somewhat strange that his first pack-pullable card was an auto, but I'm happy to add him to my collection of championship autos.

This card is from Flux, which doesn't appear to have ever been a set. I can imagine a collector of Ducks alum trying to hunt this version down, with the filter used giving the card a very yellow and green look.

There you have it!

Another Raptors Post

Two posts in just over a week with Raptors content? I've got to recap some group break cards at some point.

Some breaks don't go as well as hoped. But the Raptors didn't have too many cards in Court Kings, so I shouldn't be surprised by the fact I got only this one card.

Then there was Obsidian. A little more high end the Court Kings, but there seemed to be more possibilities here. Unlike with Court Kings, at least I got a base card here. It might also be the first product I want an empty box of, since the cover shows Ja sporting a Grizzlies throwback.

With it being a higher end set, and Terence Davis making only sporadic appearances as the rookie content, you've got to be content with veteran content in these release. Here's my first numbered card in the group, a /99 insert of Lowry.

There's only a hint of it in the design, but this is an Orange Etch parallel of the Pitch Black inserts. The orange is a lot more evident in hand than in scan. This particular parallel is /35.

There's some nice low-numbered cards there, but how do you make a break of a higher-end product even better? Throw in an autograph as well. The Raptors had a pair of autographs in the product - one of Siakam and one of Bosh. While Pascal's stuff is hot right now, I've got plenty of his autographs from his rookie season. This is only my second one of Bosh though, and my first one of his after his time in Toronto ended. He'll probably be the first person inducted to the HOF who spent significant time with the club so I'm very happy with this.

And there you have it!

Mailbag: Basketball

The recent incoming mail consisted of two bulky envelopes, and 2 smaller ones. Instead of going through them by sender, I'll do so by sport. The two big ones were from Kerry & Dennis at Cards on Cards and Too Many Verlanders respectively. There was also the group break envelope, which you saw the card contained last post, and an envelope from Upper Deck.

I'll do the hockey next, but here's the hoops.

While there have been a couple players who have made brief stops in Toronto that have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, Bosh will probably be the first that you think of as a Raptor before any other franchise. Criminy, MVP has been consistent in producing busy (ugly) designs.

Most of the content from Cards on Cards was recent stuff, but there were a few "Hey! I remember these guys!" cards.

I didn't see any Winter Hoops blasters on this side of the border, so the cards from this parallel release are welcome.

I would occasionally see Complete, though.

When I first pulled this card, I wondered if Ujiri did TTM autos. Now that I've got an extra, maybe I'll find out.

He might have been one-and-done, but Kawhi cards on the Raptors still command a nice premium on this side of the border.

And I'll always be seeking Siakam cards.

All of the Raptors content in this post came from Kerry's mailer, except this one. I'll guess this is a Wolverines dupe. That theme will continue when I get to the Bills content of the mailer.

There you have it! Thanks for these, and in advance for all the cards I'll be posting over the next few days.

2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 15.4 - Basketball Cubism

1992 Hoops - Gundars Vetra - Wiki tells me he was the first Latvian to play in the NBA. Cool!
1992 Stad. Club - Rod Strickland
1993 Hoops 5th - Blair Rasmussen
1990 Fleer - John Salley

1994 Finest - Clifford Robinson - Still unpeeled!
2013 Hoops - Trevor Booker
2016 Hoops - Jarrett Jack
2011 Hoops - Sam Young

2016 Donruss - Ivica Zubac - I swear, the font made me wonder "Who the heck was Juica Zubac"?

1990 Fleer - George McCloud - If I have a card of CHIEF yesterday, I might as well complete the Pod People set with a MCCLOUD!
1992 Stad. Club - Tony Bennett

1995 E-XL - Tracy Murray - An original Raptor, and probably the first to have two separate stints with the team.
1990 Hoops - Divac/Marciulionus

1995 Coll. Choice - Antonio Harvey - Again, proof you can have a fun card that features bench players.
1990 Hoops - Bill Wennington
2003 Victory - Mike Bibby
2018 Hoops - Mike Bibby
1994 UD - Charles Oakley
1994 UD - Duane Causwell
1989 Hoops - Will Perdue
1992 Stad. Club - Paul Pressey
1994 Skybox - LaPhonso Ellis/Tom Gugliotta
1999 UD - Chris Crawford
2001 Maximum - Joe Smith

2000 Tradition - Kenny Thomas - Keep the Tradition cards coming! (Actually, this is the last one in this)

2009 Prestige Bonus Shots Orange /300 - Chris Paul - Pretty good player to land a numbered parallel.
1993 Stad. Club - Rumeal Robinson
1989 Hoops - Reggie Theus
1993 Fleer - Ron Harper
1996 Hoops - Jayson Williams
1996 Coll. Choice Spanish - Nick Anderson
1989 Hoops - Charles Oakley
1993 Skybox - John Stockton

1993 Hoops - Steve Smith - Has there ever been a more intense concentration on dribbling?
1990 Fleer - Dana Barros
1992 UD - Tim Perry
1990 Hoops - Willie Anderson
1992 Ultra - Buck Johnson

2018 Hoops - Julius Erving - Gotta scan a Dr. J appearance!
1992 Stad. Club - Mike Sanders

2002 Fleer Platinum Finish /100 - DeShawn Stevenson - With the Hawkins from Day #1 being /99, this wasn't even the lowest numbered card in this.
2015 Prizm - Matthew Dellavedova

1995 Coll. Choice Platinum Player's Club - Rex Walters - The final parallel in this. My scanner remains filthy.
1990 Fleer - Byron Scott
1991 UD - Negele Knight
1992 Stad. Club - Morlon Wiley
1993 Fleer - Kenny Anderson
1992 Fleer - Ledell Eackles
1990 Hoops - Danny Manning
1993 Fleer - Donald Royal
1994 Ultra - Jim McIlvane
1993 Stad. Club - Terry Mills
1994 UD - Bill Curley

1991 UD - Ron Anderson
1993 Hoops - Ron Anderson - If I get back-to-back cards of the same player in any of these, I'm scanning both of 'em. Even if it looks like he's blocking his own teammate on one.

1997 Score Board Rookies - Kobe Bryant - Unlicensed Kobe mojo!
1991 UD - Alvin Robertson
2014 Hoops - Russell Westbrook
1989 Hoops - Phil Jackson

1996 Hoops - Zan Tabak - Another original Raptor!
1990 Fleer - Thurl Bailey
1994 UD - Monty williams
1997 Z-Force - Calbert Cheaney - Trippy!
1994 Hoops - BJ Armstrong
1993 Stad. Club - LaBradford Smith
1991 UD - Kevin Johnson/John Stockton
2016 Donruss - Stanley Johnson

2015 Contenders - Gordon Hayward - Random NCAA card!

2016 Optic - Norman Powell - That's a great way to end this - a Raptors card.

So, there's your repack. And it was probably the best of the 3 for lots of surprises and unexpected cards as I went through this.