2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 31 - Fleas!

 It has been way, way too long since I had the opportunity to head to the St. Jacob's Flea Market for the necessities. Corn on the cob. Blackberry jam. Pork tails. And cards! I grabbed my usual $5 brick while there as well. These are a brick of about 55-ish recent cards, with a hit in the middle. This time, there were also football and baseball to go along with the hockey. While I did get one of the latter, I also got a baseball one.

I'm going to list the contents by year and product.

2012 Bowman Chrome - Shawn Marcum, Ian Kinsler - Not the most exciting way to start with this trip back to 2012, so I'll opt for this one over the Marcum because of the 'turning two' factor.

2016 Topps Holiday - Brandon Belt, Starling Marte, Jeremy Hellickson, Cole Hamels - I'll always enjoy card where the photo syncs nicely with the borders 

2017 Topps - Christian Yelich, Royals Team, Ken Griffey Jr - All-Time All-Stars - Gotta scan a Griffey card!

2017 Topps Chrome - Bruce Maxwell - And here's the hit. Bruce was the first MLBer to kneel during the anthem, and might also have been the first to point a gun at the head of someone delivering food to his home. He's now in the Mets system. Because of course.

2019 Topps - Robinson Cano, Matt Davidson, Albert Pujols, Robert Gsellman, Wilmer Difo, Matt Chapman, Josh Bell, Kolby Allard, Kohl Stewart, Christian Yelich, Cesar Hernandez, JD Martinez, Mookie Betts, Brad Boxberger, Kyle Schwarber, Jacob Nix, Joe Musgrove, Ray Black, Corbin Burnes - 2019 really brought the volume for this, with a bunch of base cards. I didn't bust too much of flagship last year (or this), so I like the Mets contnet, a throwback, a player taking the air, and some nice horizontal cards. I like Boxberger stretching beyond the border.

2019 Heritage High - Justus Sheffield, Francisco Liriano, Skye Bolt - Might as well highlight the guy here who probably hears "Very funny. What is your real name." daily.

2019 Platinum - Javier Baez, Derrick Rodriguez - I busted no platinum at all last year, so I'm just gonna highlight both the shiny cards.

2020 Big League - Clayton Kershaw, Jack Flaherty, Curtis Granderson, Ryan McMahon, Yusei Kikushi, Max Fried - I'm highlighting the back of the card this time, because I don't think I have any cards that mention the Marvin Miller award. A nice farewell card for Cranderson.

2020 Topps - Yandy Diaz, Brett Gardner, James Marvel, Lou Trivino, Danny Duffy, Sam Tuivailala, Rowan Wick, Michael Taylor, Victor Robles, Elvis Andrus, Tony Wolters, Avisail Garcia, Jose Trevino, Tom Murphy, Stephen Strasburg, Willi Castro, Kevin Gausman, Spencer Turnbull, Aaron Judge, Brock Burke, Chris Shaw, Brewers Team, Brian Goodwin

2020 Topps Inserts - Decades - Felix Hernandez, Turkey Red - Chipper Jones

Lots of 2020 too, but the photos weren't as interesting here. So, you get the inserts and another throwback uniform.

And here's some Prizm to end this. The Stanton is a 'white wave' parallel, with Merrifield being a red, white and blue. Joe Palumbo was one of the visible cards, so I'm scanning that as well to make up for the fact I didn't scan the other,  which was the '17 Royals team card.

There you have it! I'll cover the hockey at some point in the near future.

COMC and the 2/14 binder

Back to back posts with nothing but 2/14 content contained within!

As with the PWE barrage from yesterday, there was only one basketball card in the mix. But this does add another relic into the hits portion of the collection. I still want a mask relic.

Here's a first for my collection - my first Operation Desert Shield card! As for the other one...

The bi-lingual greatness of O-Pee-Chee!

The big winner here for baseball was Scott Scudder, who has jumped to 51 total cards with these 4. The 1990 Topps is also an OPC version, bringing twice the French-ness into this group. The UD card is the gold hologram parallel as well. 

My first autograph of Ryan McKenna, a Sky Blue parallel, and a Bowman Heritage Chrome card help push him into the double digits. He was placed on the 40 man roster in the previous off-season, but is still in the minors, such as they are this season.

I have three Garrett Fugate cards in my collection - all autographs. He does have base cards in this Sage release. 
 

Settle down, Beavis.

Start with a hit from a player with red, white and black uniforms. Let's end with the same. Chronology did have a really deep checklist of random retired players and I was pleased to see Sean Hill on the list. I grabbed the 'canes spot in a couple group breaks. While that did allow me to get some Whalers content to send to Shane @ Shoebox Legends, I didn't land a Sean Hill until getting it from COMC.

And there you have it!

PWE Chronicles

 Thanks to Canada Post, this PWE recap post has been waiting for a long time to be posted. About a month ago, Joseph/CrazieJoe let me know that a trio of PWEs were on the way. Two arrived promptly, but with a third expected I opted to wait until they all showed up.

#3 showed up yesterday.

I'd been waiting so long, so this can jump the queue and make its appearance today. The best thing about this is that all 3 were filled with 2/14 content.

The best thing about Kelly Stinnett's cards is if they are dupes I can add them to my Mets collection. But, this is my first acquisition of this card for the 2/14 collection.

There was only a single basketball card among the 3 envelopes, but fortunately it was a need for the collection, and it does feature a great photo from the backboard. 

With all the mid-range football base cards from sets with 100 card base sets and a bunch of inserts that I've already added the inserts of into the collection, they all start to run together at some point. That made me think that I'd already added this David Garrard into my collection. My TCDB audit tells me otherwise. This is my 87th card of Garrard.

But I did know this shiny Justin Miller was new!

When Joseph was breaking a box of 04-05 Pacific, I noticed this card come up and immediately put my claim in for it. This is a somewhat rare-ish red foil parallel. I've already got the regular base card, and just need the blue /250 to complete the small rainbow.

And here's a sampling of the rest of the hockey in this. The Svoboda is a card that I was certain was already in the binders, but again, the TCDB check showed otherwise. There was also a 1991 Score of Dave Lowry that also fell into that category, but I decided I like the horizontal Score card better for scanning purposes. The Milan Hejduk content in this extends his leading numbers in the collection to 220 cards.

There you have it! If you didn't get enough 2/14 stuff in  this, I'll summarize the 2/14 stuff in my COMC shipment next time.

Retail Sampler: Diamond Kings

The last of my retail breaks following an inability to find any Series 2 at Walmart locations.

The only option at the store was a single hanger box. I guess that's as good as anything.

And the first card out is Dom DiMaggio.Even if the image does get over-used in Panini releases, it is nice to get a name that doesn't get overused by Topps.

The DiMaggio was followed up by 9 more base cards. They may not have a license, but I can't imagine finding cards of Shoeless Joe in a Topps release at any point in the near future. Your typical Diamond Kings mix of legends and current players. Only Schilling and Foxx are Topps semi-regulars in this mix.

Here's the box-promised red parallel. While it doesn't really go with a Tony Gwynn card, it is still a pretty nice looking entry.

The side of the box also promises a blue parallel. And here that is.

This, however, was certainly not promised by the box. In fact, I assumed that there was no chance there would be a hit in the only box remaining on the hangers, with them having been carefully weighed by some sneaky searcher. But, when I open the box and looked at the cello wrapper inside, it was obvious one card was thicker than the rest, coming it at almost 6 cards worth. I guess if it is going to contain a patch, it should be. He's kinda constrained by the sticker, but he does have a nice looking autograph.

This insert portion of the pack ends with a T206 inspired DK206 insert. 

A few more base cards. Nice to get a new Bo Bichette for the Jays PC.

The box ends with a pair of All-Time Diamond Kings, bringing the vibe from the 92/93 releases. Sandberg was a DK in 1993, and I would have been amused had these reused that image, albeit with the logos out. 

Shoeless Joe, Bo Bichette and an auto/patch? That's a great retail break, even if it obviously wasn't the norm.

There you have it!

Throwbacks!

Another trip into my COMC to-be-posted box, and some throwback jersey appearances across several sports.

Even minor league teams can break out the throwbacks, and with there being a lot fewer issues for them, there are a lot fewer chances for them to appear on cards. But here is Zach Nastasiuk sporting an Owen Sound Platers jersey in an OHL game. He was drafted by the Wings, but has yet to see a game in the NHL.

Until they go for the reverse of this with the blue-on-green design, this will have to be my choice for an appearance of the 70s Hawks throwbacks.

If you didn't have any major league team to throw back to at the time, you can always use the minor league team of the same name.

I guess St. Louis can use Browns jerseys if they want a different team, but given those can also be tied elsewhere, so the Stars from the Negro Leagues it is. And you get both the white and grey unis as well. Bonus!

There you have it! Repacks up next!

Mailbag: Baseball

Here's the baseball content from the bubblers!

This is the oddest of the bunch, a card from one of Kerry's Free Card Fridays. I just thought it would go nicely with the Northern Lights card out of 15-16 Champ's.

And I can place it in Principal Skinner's kitchen and he'd be none the wiser.

I've never seen Utz on this side of the border (or even heard of the company), so this food-issue DeGrom is a nice add to my Mets binders.

There were a lot more Mets stuff here (a theme for both envelopes, and both the Mets and Jays) but here's a scanner bed worth of them. I really should have replaced that McNeil with the Donruss "Polar Bear" variant. Thankfully for the Mets PC, that one was far more common than the Topps one.

For some reason, these Vlad Jr inserts were Target exclusives. I say "For some reason", since wouldn't these be a better exclusive for Walmart, which actually exists in Canada?

And here's your Jays sampler. The Ed-wing!

As with the Cards on Cards mailer, I'm starting the recap of the TMV envelope with the oddball. Does this Larry Walker go into my Expos PC? Or my Cancon PC? Or did I hose things up completely by not including it in my hockey recap?
Either way, we've got a pair of Hall of Famers meeting on this card.

It might not be a Diamond Kings card, but this Bonilla is close enough.

 

Here's a numbered salute to the '86 squad. Hernandez is great and all, but I might have used Series MVP Ray Knight instead. That's still a minor beef for a great card.

The TMV Mets Sampler.

And the Jays Sampler.

With a bonus of some swatches and slivers to go along with it.

That only leaves football! Next post!

Mailbag: One! Two! Three Complete Sets! Ah Ah Ah!

The mailbag finally re-opens after waiting for a trio of mailers to arrive.

Courtesy of a mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams, here's the final card from 2018 Optic.

From the same mailer, here's the final 8 cards from last year's Score football. That's been replaced on the wantlist with the only 2 cards I didn't get in my hobby box, retail or LCS build from this year's release.

The final set builder damage to my wantlist is this, although I'd already checked this one off when Dennis told me it would be in a future mailer.

In fact, with cards currently in my COMC inventory, I've finally finished the base set of Rookie Anthology.

That's 92 rookie/auto/relics out of 249 in hand/COMC, the Filip Forsberg that was actually /125 in hand, a redemption that never got fulfilled (JT Miller), 1 redemption that may or may not come through (Jonas Brodin), and another one:

that also may or may not come through (even though these did go live at one point). I saw a group break and bought the Blues slot specifically to chase this redemption, and BAM it came through. Whether it does or not, I'm still calling this set as complete as it can be.

Whew. It was worth the wait for this.