Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 7

Meet The Mets, Meet The Mets, Step right up and greet the Mets!

While I did pick up some nice souvenirs that commemorated their last season at Shea, I also picked up a few other cards. A pair of dime box cards that I put aside and forgot about them for yesterday's post. 3 relics at a dollar each, and one at 2.

Here's one of the cards that sat on my most wanted list for a little over a week. A nice moment in the history of the team. But it is typical of my beloved Mets that it does commemorate a loss.

OK. It's got a crease in the top. For a dime, I don't care, and have no qualms putting it in the Mets binder.

And now, the hits.

A dollar for a relic of my favourite of one of my favourite players. Yes! I confess that I'm still looking for one where the relic is obviously cut from a Marlins jersey. I don't quite know why. Completeness? Total hits of Delgado are now at 11. I slowly inch my way towards putting together a "One Piece At A Time" jersey.

OK. His most memorable Mets moment was an error. Still, I think this is my first hit of his.

Here's the stunner of the day. I was certain that I'd had at least one Beltran hit, but a quick look through my binder showed not only no Beltran hits, but not even a numbered card. Welcome, I guess.

And here's someone who I knew I had at least one relic of. But this is my first bat relic of his.

Your Friday Morning "Huh?"

It is gems like this (or insanity like this) that are the primary reason I will never stop loving repacks. The other 99 cards in the repack won't compare, but I'll still post my favourites from that at some point.

Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 6

The dime bins were not too plentiful at the Expo. I came across a grand total of 2. Neither of which could be called bins, but could maybe qualify as 500 count boxes. That doesn't mean I didn't grab some. It's just that I didn't even break the dollar mark in terms of dime bin purchases. At the end of the day, I ended up with 3 hockey dime bin cards, 5 baseball ones, and one that featured none of the above, but still should not have been in a dime bin.

I'll start with hockey. There's two reasons to love the card. Firstly, there's a guy who has a name that is a somewhat mild expletive. Secondly, you have a jersey that just looks cheap. Everything that isn't blue looks like an iron-on you'd get in a comic book. It is my first Golden Seals card with a blue uniform, though, so I'll give it the nod on the basis of the uniform.

Although obviously years apart, Bill Goldsworthy attended the same senior public (junior hgh) school as I did. Unfortunately, he's better known as the first NHLer to die as a result of complications from AIDS.

And to wrap up the hockey portion, here's a new face for my Kitchener Rangers alumni collection. John Baby only had cards this and the following season. He's pictured with the Nordiques there in an obvious airbrushing job, since he never played a game for them. That's two fewer than he played for the North Stars in this season, which does make one wonder why he'd warrant a card the following year.

Off to baseball, and one of two cards from outside the 70s that I pulled from a dime bin. It's a nice moment to be commemorated on cardboard, so why not grab it for a dime?

A pair of 1977 cards of Hall of Famers for a dime? That's a pair of binder additions I'd take any day.

I just thought this was an interesting concept for a card.

And, let's head back a year for a card featuring one of my favourite nicknames in the game. The Mad Hungarian! He doesn't look to mad in this picture, though. Perhaps just the mildly upset Hungarian this time.

And finally, the card that I pulled from a dime box, but definitely should not have been in there:

Huh?

Oh...

An SP.

I just grabbed it because it said SP on it - thinking someone might be building the set. I hadn't made too much effort onto knowing anything about this set, but apparently they fall at 2 per case, and are limited to only 92. So, if anybody out there is a Hoganmaniac for this guy, let me know and I can most certainly be had as a cheap date.

Mailbag goodies!

Envelopes from COMC and Sportlots-land ended up in my mailbox today. Just a trio of small envelopes with a focus on my personal collections with a set completer thrown in for good measure.

However, I'll start with a focus on none of those, and just highlight the three cards that don't really fit into any categories, but were still wants.

Opening up, here's a nice on card autograph of one of the more popular Raptors in team history. He was loved by fans, and I also loved that he was unashamed and very open pro wrestling fan during his time. If there was a taping in the Toronto area, he'd be at ringside for the event. He was also the guest commissioner for the Fan Axxess weekend during Wrestlemania 18, and even got to referee a tag match during the off-season. He does show up in the Panini Monumental Marks this past year, but I would rather have this one than a sticker auto.

I saw this card posted elsewhere - I think at Dime Box - but am not certain. Either way, it's a one-two punch of different photographs.

Zbynek Irgl. Worst Scrabble Hand ever.

When you're ordering a single card from a sportlots delar that charges the same shipping cost for 4 as 1, why not throw in some Alfie?

Here's the card that goes right into the binder, and will finish up my 2013-14 Score hockey set before the puck even drops this season. I thought I had it done at the Expo, but alas, I missed this one. As I pretty much expected.

Off to the 2/14 binder! And two new faces!

Herman Hunter only had a few years in the league, and 1987 was the only year he had a national card. He does have a couple of combo stickers and a Topps UK release. The latter does seem to have the exact same photograph.

And the second one is also the second wrestler and fourth woman to join the binder. She's a second generation wrestler who worked primarily in Mexico and Japan, but did get a short run in TNA in 2009-10. I think that it is Traci Brooks that is catching a face full of boot.

Since there is some debate on the sources on Bernie's birthdate, I only get cards where it either lists it as 2-14, or it isn't listed at all. This one is numbered 6/10 as well. Bonus!

While it might not be the best in terms of value, I don't think Ill find better penmanship.

And to wrap it up, my first hit of Petr Mrazek, who has debuted in this year's NHL releases. That's also a pretty good pair that he shares the card with as well.

Sports Fan Expo goodies Part 5

And after some repack fun, back to the Expo, and 9 new cards for the 2/14 binder.

400+ cards in the album, and I've finally added my first mini! And it is nice and shiny as well. I was certain that my first mini would probably be something from Ginter, but this one showed up in a binder that I just happened to take a look through. 50 cents later, it's all mine!

Sure, the original NFL rookie card of Kelly isn't that costly. But I still couldn't pass on the only card of his that I saw that day.

A dollar to add another hit of Steve McNair to the binder? Yes, please! Although I really do want to add a purple Ravens swatch to my collection, I won't leave an inexpensive hit for my PC on the table.

Can you believe that Marian Gaborik's lead in terms of overall cards slipped to only 2 over Milan Hejduk. These 4 should give him some breathing room.

I've taken up a 1 for me, 1 for you when I hunt down Wolverines alumni for Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams. The latest Eric Nystrom find goes to me. A nice bright relic with a hint of two colours on it.

And the final new card for the binder is another hit. A framed relic that is quite tiny. The card portion of it is smaller than any of my framed Ginter relics. The back of the card, with its whole 'Congrats' spiel, might be some of the smallest text I've even encountered on a card. It's comparable to stuff on a late career card of a veteran where they're trying to fit all the career stats on.

Holy eye-strain, Batman!

Total current cards in binder - 433

Repack-o-rama! Day 5!

Time to wrap up my anniversary of blogging with the last repack of the long weekend. Unfortunately, the weekend ends on a very depressing note. The farmer's market portion of the flea market I sometimes hit for cards on Saturdays burned to the ground overnight. It's going to be strange and depressing going there and not grabbing apple fritters or pig tails to go with some baseball cards. Especially the latter.

I highlighted those yesterday. Today, it is the cards from a basketball repack.

Highlighting 1990 Fleer off the top? When you end up with both the main set and the update from the same year in the same repack, that's a little bit of repack perfection. Amazingly, there was also only one other 90 Fleer in the pack.

Staying with the volume theme, it wasn't 1990 Hoops that lead the way in terms of volume, it was this grouping of 1992 Upper Decks.

Even better, these were the Italian version of the cards. While my basketball loyalties are below baseball, hockey and 3-down football, the strange variety of cards I find in these repacks may make them my favourite ones to bust. That's despite the fact I can only sorta read the Italian portion of the backs of the cards. I only remember enough Italian from my younger days to get slapped senseless in Milano.

Where else would I find WNBA cards?

Of course, the newest card for my 2/14 will pretty much always be my favourite in any repack. A new Tyus Edney card, on my favourite team prior to the Raptors arrival.

I didn't pull a single Raptors card in this repack, but this was a nice-enough pair of Celtics to make up for that.

Although no Raptors came my way, I did grab a pair of their expansion cousins. Kenny Gattison has easily the worst photo in the repack.

These were my promised 5 rookies. I've pulled 9 of those Topps Rookie subset cards from repack. I highly doubt I'll find the Kevin Durant one, though. I've also pulled the green parallel of that Okafor in a previous repack as well. So much for variety with these.

I think this one is my favourite from the pack. I love the Metal cards when the background is somewhat associated with the city in question. I've got an Edgar Martinez with the space needle in the background, why not do the same with a basketball card from the same city?

Parallels? Whether gold or die-cut, there were those as well!

And finally, a six pack of cards put away for a Wolverines fan. This might mean that hockey cards won't be the most numerous in the next care package.

Repack-o-rama! Day 4!

Continuing on a holiday weekend worth of repack fun, today I'll head off to the local flea market, where I picked up 5 packs of 15 2013 Ginter cards for $1 each.

The best thing about them? All baseball. No models. No fantasy draft gurus. Nothing of that nature. Although I did hunt down the Monty Hall relics, and will probably buy the single of Mike Richter, so I'm still somewhat guilty in that regards.

When I had the Mets in My Cardboard Habit's group break, I didn't end up with a complete team set of the Mets, although grabbing a no-number Ginter back mini or Troy Tulowitzki from my randomed team was a nice condolence. These repacks only contained 3 Mets, but 2 of them were ones I needed to complete the non-SP set. I'll give the nod to Ike Davis because of the picture, although

a classic posed card of David Wright is nothing to get upset about. I just need the Tejeda & Marcum SPs to finish the team set.

I really wasn't expecting to pull the Puig rookie from these. Or the Machado. But, this is still a pretty nice one, and pretty much unexpected. It might not be the best of the rookie class in this year's A&G, but it is certainly among the better ones.

I think this one might be might be my favourite photo of the bunch. They make an average player look completely intense and bad-ass.

I can think of someone that would be interested in this particular bat barrel card.

Surprisingly, I even ended up with a quartet of short prints from these repacks. I really like the Kruk card, since he's not one of the retired guys who shows up ad nauseum in modern sets.

Speaking of retired guys, here's some more of them! And the only Yankee in the bunch isn't one of the usual suspects.

Not bad for $5.00 at all.