Trade w/ Shoebox Legends - Part 1

So, I shipped a few 2013 Topps inserts stateside for Shoebox Legends. It started as that, but I then decided to include a small box full of all the Whalers cards I could find as well. In a moment of strangeness, the box was to small to send through basic mail - I needed to send it for about $20.00 with tracking. I ended up taping an income tax form to the side of it to increase the length of it to send it for a more reasonable cost.

Enough complaining about Canada Post's quirks. On with the cards!

This was definitely one I wanted to pick up. I'd complain about the photoshopping, but since Mark will be chasing history this season, it does fit that he is listed and pictured as a Blue Jay for the card.

I swapped a CttC card, I might as well get one in return. I really like  how the colours work with the classic blue Phillies road uniform. An even switch for me.

Although I'm not chasing the minis subset, they're always welcome in my keeper cases. Fielder's is definitely not the most flattering photo of his.

But there were some other things in there aside from just the 2013 stuff.

A quarter of Diamond Kings. I'll always remember Castino as the player who shared the '79 Rookie of the Year trophy. Sadly, the back of the card mentions him as a possible future MVP candidate, but he'd actually be out of the game by the end of the season due to a back injury. Righetti seems rather puffy in his, but I do like Hal's.

Some recent Blue Jays were part of the package:

You'd think they would have at least put some French on the back of the Blue Jays OPC card for old time's sake. Casey Janssen drops off my needed Jays list for the alphabetical project. I'm surprised he wasn't in there already, but I guess the other cards are either in sets, or I missed them in the binders.

A few Jays from the 90s were in there as well. A nice shiny card of a Canadian kid who waved the maple leaf proudly during the '93 victory parade.

It wasn't just baseball, there were a few interesting hockey cards as well. A /999 for my Daniel Alfredsson binder was in the envelope, as was a trio of cards for my birthday binder:

I realize I'm probably the only person on the planet that actively seeks cards of both Ilya Zubov and Boris Valabik. Heck, I pulled a rack pack of 08-09 Ultra from a hanger just because a Rookie Sensations insert of the latter was visible in the back.

The Hejduk insert is actually interesting for what is on the back.

A comparison of the player's stats against those of the legendary Rocket Richard. It is interesting in comparison against the chase theme of this year's Topps flagship.

There were also a team bag's worth of 70's Blue Jays cards in there as well. I'll get to those later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the goodies!

Masked Mondays - Week #10

Masked Mondays hits double digits! And I've got a binder worth of goodies that says it will continue well on into double digits.

I have no idea why you would feature you own team's logo being attacked on your mask. Maybe that's why he didn't last. But you would have to admit that the "Lach Net Monster" is a truly great nickname. I'm guessing that's what the creature on the mask is supposed to be. Either that, or it is from a heavy metal album I'd never head of (which, for me, would be pretty much all of them).

It is somewhat surprising that the best mask photo I could find on a card for Valiquette is from a lower end set.

Wrapping this week's mask collection with the most recent addition to the hit pages at the front of the binder. It's a nice shot of the front of the mask, and is also numbered to /99. Ryan's masks really haven't changed that much over the past few years in terms of the design. Maybe some new paint for a slight change in the colouring, but that's about it. And that eye looks quite intimidating when put up against the Sabres colours.

Depressing cards

I came across this morning while doing some updating to my zistle trade list:

Less than a season later, seeing the back of this card would really be a real downer.

Re-pack weekend continues!

Let's continue on with the Surprise Box portion of the cards:

Box 1:

You really couldn't convince me that there's $5 book value in there. Still, I can enjoy the randomness of this rookie grouping, which consists of 4 guys not currently playing in the NHL. Only Yann is even playing in North America, as best as I could determine. Still, the Wozniewski card is a nice one for Sens-loving me, since his name seems to pop up consistently on lists as one of the worst Leafs skaters in recent times.

I've got to do better than players better known for bad performances. What's next?

I actually got two of these in the box.

Definitely very 1981-82 intensive for the next 8 cards. Still, the team leaders cards have some good players pictured on them in the Middleton and McDonald, and I can't hate Lanny McDonald cards, even if they are dupes.

2010 packs of 4 is something fairly new to the boxes. The Toews card is by far my favourite of this whole box. A great photo of a star player - wrapped up and crashing the net.

Did I get $2.00 of book value from the first box? Can't say I care either way. There's certainly $2 worth of enjoyment from this, though.

On to #2:

Why do I always come across cards of Michigan alum just days after sending a care package in the direction of Too Many Manninghams? Journeyman types like Perrin are always welcome in the binders.

It's Pierre Larouche on the 1980 Topps card. The Ramage is the only keeper in this group. I'm a sucker for the 80s Blues uniforms.

I'm not sure if the Superstar is Sakic or Lidstrom. Still, all but the Martin will end up in binders, so that's a winning 80% hit rate.

Again, a Michigan alum pops up. I'll have to save that until after the Expo. I can't keep sending Wolverines cards that way or I'll have mail carriers getting hunchbacked on both sides of the border.

The first box definitely wins in terms of cards that will make their way into binders. Still, I definitely got my $4.00 worth from the boxes.

It is a re-pack weekend!

A trip out to the big box store side of town included a trip into the Walmart and the Dollarama, which of course also included a trip to the card areas of the store. So, among the actual reasons for the trip, I also picked up a pair of surprise boxes, a 35 for $3.00 baseball hanger pack from Walmart, and one of those Best of 2012 boxes. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the goodies from these purchases. The latter landed me an autograph (albeit an unspectacular one) and a very nice parallel. I'll get to the surprise box fun tomorrow and the Best of 2012 stuff on Sunday and into the week. For now, I'll post some of the 35 pulled from the hanger pack.

This was the only card visible in the pack. I still don't know why I picked this one of the hanger specifically. I'm not an Aurilia or Giants fan. Still, if you can't enjoy the cards in a repack, you aren't trying very hard.

The rest of the cards lined up like this:

1988 Donruss - 3
1988 Topps - 2
1990 Donruss - 2
2006 Fleer - 13
2006 Topps Update - 7
2007 Yankees Team Set - 7

That's about 27 fewer cards from the junk wax era that I was expecting. Yet, I was still able to enjoy some of those as well.

Such as this fashion don't.

Or a Mets card I don't think I've got in the binder yet (but probably do).

All the Update cards were of the All-Star variety. None of them were marquee names, but that is to be expected. It still does lead to the "He was an All-Star?" moment with some of the players, such as with Mark Redman. I could have done the same by posting the Gary Matthews Jr card that was in there.

As I was going through the pack, I did notice that there were a lot of 2007 Yankees cards coming up in a row. Curiousity got the best of me and I flipped that cards over to see the NYY Yankees # on the back, indicating they were glommed from a team set. That's something you really don't find much of in repack land.

While my favourite picture among them was the first Pettitte Yankees card, I'll have to vote for a guy who'll be making his way north of the border in Blue Jays garb this year.

The bulk of the rest was the Fleer. Speaking of guys who'll be debuting with the Jays this year:

While it is probably pure dime or quarter bin stuff locally, this is a nice addition to the binders.

As is a sliding Met. But my favourite card in the repack is one that will be making its way to the land of dime boxes very soon. I'd already sent a small package his way earlier in the week - only to notice a card I knew I had an extra of make an appearance on the dime box dozen. I vowed not to send it out unless I found another one I knew would be liked. I think this great Ben Sheets card fits the bill:

Catching up faster this time

Last time, it took me almost a month to recap some of my favourite cards picked up at the monthly show. This time, I'm doing so within the week. Progress!

Several of the hockey hits I grabbed are already on their way to stateside collectors, or will be soon. One was already posted on the past masked Mondays, another probably will be posed this upcoming Monday. But there still were a few I kept. As well as some random baseball stuff.

It sounds ghoulish, but since Pavol's death in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash year, I had wanted to acquire a relic card of his. It was nice to add one, and a rather colourful one at that for only a toonie.

For $5, this was my big purchase of the day. It's numbered to /150, but it is really nice to get a great swatch from my favourite NHLer. There's a really thick stitch on the two-colour prime portion. The best thing about living in Leafs-land is that when your favourite team is one of their primary rivals, their cards hit the inverse of the hometown premium.

Look at the size of that swatch! It's #2 out of 100 as well.

And off to some of the interesting baseball stuff.

A nice obscure, vintage Met card. This was Ron's only solo card from his career. I'm really looking forward to when this design shows up in the Heritage format. Speaking of Heritage, I'm not overly fond with this year's design. But, I will pick up a pack of it just for the heck of it.

Too bland for my tastes, but at least I did pull a SP with the Max Scherzer. And 9 cards are the perfect size for a page.

It isn't certified, but how can anybody turn down a card of a guy named Brooks Pounders? 20 cents for this, and it was the same guy I grabbed a pile of Gary Redus autos from back in January.

20 cents for the last OPC card of Willie McCovey? Not a difficult decision for me. The back has some of the tiniest print ever, but there was still enough room for "Fiche Complete Comme Frappeur dans les Ligues Majeures" on the back.

Plain Gray Trade

PGS claimed an emerald Profar card from my 2013 Topps insert pile. I also sent along some base, as well as a box full of 2012-13 OPC non-SPs that I pulled from a 5-15 cent bin. In return, some nice Jays and Mets.

Let's look through some of the goodies!

This grouping of cards was my favourite of the bunch. A pile of Mets cards from a set I'd never heard of before. I always love adding a new Mookie into the Mets binder. As a bonus, the back of the managerial cards don't have stats from the applicable playing days, but instead there is a short write-up on him. These cards from 1989 were the oldest in the bubble envelope, but there was much greatness to be found among the recent stuff as well.

A nice foil of Tom Seaver. I'm always happy to welcome anything new of him into my collection.

Purple refractor-y goodness of a player who I'll politely describe as error-prone.

And even more colour! The red looks really great with the throwback uniform. That's now the 4th Santana checklist colour I've got (base, emerald, blue and red).

I will not attempt to acquire the rainbow.
I will not attempt to acquire the rainbow.
I will not attempt to acquire the rainbow.
I will not attempt to acquire the rainbow.

There were some new Jays that arrived as well.

A pair of draft picks. What suspension, Marcus?

But there were a pair of names that can be found gracing the Level of Excellence as well.

Thanks for the goodies! Smaller in number than what I sent, but definitely at the equal level in awesomeness! My binders are certainly very happy at the new additions! I'll have to look for the rest of the low number OPC at the Expo in May.

Mailday!

A few goodies came in the mailbox today. A trade package from plain gray swatch, a PWE from the Toddfather and a bubble envelope from Topps. I waited until the last possible hour to decide to get my die-cut golden moments shipped. 1 card, and they shipped in a bubble envelope. With postage at at least twice what I paid for the shipping. No complaints about that.

So, what was the only card I managed to unlock?

Nice. Of course, if someone would has a Joey Bats or a Vlad Guerrero and would rather have this, I'm open to listening. The protective film couldn't have been on too tightly in the first place, as when I removed the card from the hard top loader, it practically came off on its own.

The PGS package is too big to post in combination with another shipment, but it will fit nicely on its own either tomorrow or Thursday. But the Toddfather's PWE goodies will fit nicely. I sent a couple inserts from the 2013 set, as well as a few 2012 set builders.

This was the highlight of the envelope.

This has been on my zistle wantlist for a long while. A great, great photo and it is finally nice to put it into my Jays collection. That's not all that made their way into that, though.

The Williams card is definitely a different photo, but I'm happiest to welcome in the Fausto Solano. Although he never saw the bigs, I'll still be glad to add him into my alphabetical Jays collection. As best I can tell, this issue was his only card.

But there were some cards from the big league issues.

A nice trio of Jays. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for Rockies goodies when I head off to the Expo at the start of May.

Masked Mondays - Week #9

Instead of heading into my binder for cards I already have, I'm going to highlight 3 that joined the binder ranks over the past 24 hours or so.

I'd showed some Rick DiPietro cards on the blog in the past, featuring his rather patriotic American masks. Let's swing to my homeland and highlight a Team Canada mask featuring one of the more important figures in hockey on the distaff side - Manon Rheaume. To make you feel old, Manon turned 41 years old last month. Manon is the only female to make the mask binder, with her Masterpieces card and now this one. However, there are some nice ones out there of Kim St. Pierre, so that might go on my wantlist when another card drops off.

So Ken wasn't really on top of it, coming out with this mask a couple years after Batman Returns. It's still an intimidating thing to see, and it is nice to see a different type of Penguin saluted on the mask.

And why not add an autograph of a former Sento the hit portion of the binder? A classic interpretation of the Sens logo, with the bonus of a nice shot of a minor league logo. Brian has moved on and is now in St. Louis, and he now sports Casey Jones on his mask.

Mercifully not THIS Casey Jones.

Why just airbrush the jersey?

When you can airbrush the whole uniform, all the way down to just above the skates?

Or in this case, contract out the whole enchilada to Mrs. Johnson's grade two class.