2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 8

Although the Dollarama I was at didn't have any pages, they still had cards, and I couldn't resist grabbing one to go along with my greeting cards, chocolate bars, and DVD cases.

2013 Upper Deck Ryan Smyth - That's a pretty quick turnaround from release to repack appearance. It's a nice looking card, though, and there are a couple of autograph signing cards in this set. Mikko Koivu's is another, and I think it is the better of these two.
1993 Score Canadian Paul Cavallini

1993 Leaf Gino Odjick - Pull a 1993 Leaf and don't highlight their backs? Surely you jest.

2007 Heroes & Prospects Joe Sakic/Kyle Moir - I've got another (half) Sakic to send off to $30AWH when I get around to another PWE.
1992 Upper Deck Trent Klatt - I'm not sure why, but Klatt is/was one of my favourite last names in hockey.
1990 Pro Set Stan Smyl
1994 Upper Deck Bryan Smolinski

1990 Upper Deck Randy Velischek - You can take one look and realize that this was the Met Center. If you can ignore a rather creepy looking player in the foreground.
1996 Leaf Theo Fleury
1993 Score Canadian Vladimir Vujtek
2009 UD Victory Mikko Koivu

1992 Ultra John Tucker - Another Tucker card for my Kitchener Rangers alumni collection.

1998 Upper Deck Gold Reserve Pavel Bure - Probably the best pull of the pack, easily. A nice gold parallel of a Hall of Famer.
1990 Bowman Esa Tikkanen
2011 Upper Deck Ed Jovanoski

A great photo on the Smyth, a trade card, a Rangers alum, the Vancouver skyline and a gold parallel. That's pretty darn good for $1.

Just 1 Pack - Of 2013 Topps Magic Football

The Dollarama was disappointingly out of pages, so I had to hit the LCS instead. Since I can't walk out of there with just pages, I opted to add a pack of Topps Magic to my purchase. Since it's always fun to bust a pack of something you really aren't planning to build. Just a sampler, so to speak.

At least the packaging is kinda trippy.

And the first card:

Interesting choice. Howie does show up sometimes in recent sets, but he doesn't show up everywhere, so it doesn't feel like you're getting someone who you've got many cards of.

Deion, on the other hands, approaches overkill status. 

I guess this is the pack hit, a really nice insert of Denard Robinson. Very much like Magic's sister set of Gypsy Queen, this is a framed card. My only complaint is that they might have gone a smidgen overboard on the border.

The card is already put aside for Dennis @ Too Many Manninghams.

This is as good a time as any to show the backs. They're appropriate for the design of the set, and I do love the fact that there are trivia on all of the base backs. No stats are a bit of a downer, though.

Minis! MINIS! MINIIIIS!

And the rest. With these being released so late in the year, I'd at least hope the Boldin isn't photoshopped.

A decent enough pack, and at least I know someone will be happy to see one of the cards I pulled.

Welcoming two new faces to the Sens binder

It is always nice to welcome some new names into a team collection. The Senators had 3 candidates with a reasonable chance to make their debut in mid-late season sets. I'll probably have to wait until the later sets for rookie cards of Cody Ceci. But since Bobby Ryan and Clarke McArthur were there at season's start, I figured I'd gets cards of them sooner rather than later.

Bobby had a  base card in Dominion as well as the Boxing Day set. However, I felt it more fiscally prudent to wait until something else came out. Sure enough, he was in Titanium, and I figured this was as good a time as any. As for McArthur, he was a definitely a surprise to see in a set with a small # of base cards per team. I figured he'd be in UD S2, but not in a 100 card set.

In retrospect though, I should have waited or at least opted for the retail version.. They don't seem to be as much of a magnet for fingerprints/dust//everything.

But I am only using a sample size of 1, so I might be off.

Custom Coolness (aka Trade Stack claim from Nachos Grande)

I recently claimed a small trade stack from Nachos Grande. I really wanted a neat looking gold parallel of Jays CF alum Devon White. However, a custom card turned out to be the highlight of the package.

Since I saw the front first, my first reaction was "How did I not know about this awesome card?" Then I flipped it over:

"That doesn't look like a legit Ginter back. Whew. It's not a legit card" I cared about the lack of legitimacy of the card for appoximately not one second. It's a great addition to my collection, although I'm not sure if I should put it with my Blue Jays cards or my hockey cards. Or just slap it in a top loader with my generic box of awesome cards.

Here's the Devon White card in question. I'd completely lapsed on his time with the Diamondbacks. Even with the gold background via the parallel, this would still qualify as a Tatooine card (tm: GCRL).

As would this. Despite my love of White from his time with the Jays, this one is an easy winner of the photo wars.

Thanks for the goodies, and especially the custom Gretzky!

Wrapping up the latest COMC order

I thought I would have done this by now, but something I originally planned to split into 3 posts became 4 after the good news about Andre Reed hit. Hey, I rather doubt anybody will enter the HOF as a Buffalo Bill for about 20 years. I can celebrate that.

Anyhow, here are the 4 card that are left.

This card of former Met Brian Bannister is due to a story I recalled hearing while listening to a Mets game. It concerned Brian's autograph, and that since his father had such excellent penmanship, he wanted to have the same when signing his auto. I don't think his is quite as pristine as Floyd's, but it is definitely a unique one, and better than just seeing two barely legible initials.

A pair of basketball cards? Sure! It was all about adding a pair of interesting logos from the past into my misc. basketball album.

And when you have $1.0-something left in your account, look for a hit for your favourite team to wrap up the order. In this case, it was either this or an Andrea Bargnani jersey relic. I think I made the right choice.

Another assault on my 2/14 binder courtesy of COMC

I had 3 goals concerning my 2/14 binder over this year:

1) 5 new names
2) 600 by 2/14
3) 800 by 12/31

I had already added WNBAer Kara Lawson to the binder, knocking it down to 4. But this COMC purchase took #1 off the list, as this one envelope contained 5 new names for the binder. It also bumped my total cards up to 608, and I still haven't worked in all the not-quite dime bin cards of Gaborik and Hejduk from last month's card show.

I'll start with all the new faces:

Coming off the big game, I guess I should lead with the newest football card. You've got a 1 in 4 chance of picking the 2/14 baby out of this group. If you bet on Lucuis Sanford, you're the lucky winner and I suggest a trip to Vegas. Despite leading the team in sacks, Sanford doesn't have a solo card in this set. Or any set for that manner, aside from local ones. Sanford is the 4th person featured on a Bills card in the binder, joining Jim Kelly, Drew Bledsoe and Lonnie Johnson. Out of 39 total, that's a good percentage. Especially when I have no Blue Jays or Raptors.

When the autographed parallel isn't much costlier than the base, opt for the auto. I haven't seen too many sticker autos where the sticker is placed diagonally on the card. Josh never made the NBA, although he did spend some summer league time with the Bulls. He's spent the past several years playing in Turkey.

Up next, a trio of golfers. All of these were discovered courtesy of a simple google search on "PGA" and "Born: February 14". Sadly, Bob isn't the former Mets announcer, but I can still tie him to the Great White North. He has 5 PGA wins, and the last was at the Canadian Open in 1986. Larry Penley is somewhat of a legend, at least when it comes to Clemson Golf. Take a read of his biography.

Here's two more 60's card of Len Gabrielson. They're my 3rd and 4th cards for the collection, and that's past the halfway mark for completing his solo Topps collection.

I received a Gridiron King of Drew Bledsoe in a recent trade. It was time to complete the 2/14 rainbow by adding these 2 cards. Or so I thought. Patrick Ramsey is also part of this set. 175 card set, and 4 2/14 binder members. That's a very healthy percentage.

And to wrap things up, a new hit of David Garrard. It's a plain white relic. Pretty bland, but Panini managed to make this interesting.

This relic is dated to a specific game. Interesting. Alas, the Jags didn't complete the comeback, and fell 34-24 on that day.

Total of cards in the binder now: 608.

Just 1 Pack - Of Topps 2014 S1 Jumbo

So far, so good. Just one pack of the shiny new product. Mind you, since I didn't find anything at my local Targets or Wally World, I'll probably bust a second pack of something just to get a retail parallel or 3. Hence, the title specifies S1 Jumbo.

101 Chris Nelson - And my first card of 2014 is - a throwback! Nice start!
53 Clay Bucholz
307 Jake Peavy
290 Chad Bettis

100 Bryce Harper - It's always nice to knock out one of the '00' cards from a pack.
166 Dustin Pedroia

148 Chris Sale - Another throwback appearance.

155 Daniel Murphy - And my first Mets card of 2014 is a really nice one in terms of photo choice. A Met rounding the bases after a home run with the giant apple in the background. It is a nice flashback to Angel Pagan's 2012 flagship.
133 Xander Bogaerts
136 Will Middlebrooks

186 Clayton Richard - It's not a throwback, but I still love appearances of alternate uniforms.
305 Steve Cishek
236 Joel Peralta

256 Abraham Almonte - Looks like GCRL will have a new patch to look for in 2014. It is an HY patch for team owner Hiroshi Yamauchi.
146 World Series Game 4
233 AL ERA Leaders

250 Miguel Cabrera - Just a beautiful use of a horizontal card.
270 Gregor Blanco
255 Billy Butler
233 Rafael Soriano
237 NL BA Leaders

151 Bruce Chen  - And my first insert of 2014. At least it is of an interesting player.

FN-11 Zack Wheeler - I'm guessing this is the subset on par with the Golden/Chase/whatever of previous years. At least I pulled a Met.

UC-22 Matt Cain - And here's one more insert. The best thing I'll say about is that it isn't centered as badly as I cropped it.

CR-7 Rookie Class Rings - Babe Ruth - WHOA! This was definitely a surprise. A Babe Ruth card with him on the Red Sox. Babe might be a mainstay of Topps' high-end and retro sets, but those are primarily Yankees cards by a wide margin. Since rookies are the theme this year, the Babe Ruth card will have to be a Sox card. Looking through the set, there's also the appearance of Randy Johnson as an Expo, which is probably the one I'll chase. If someone pulled that one and would rather have this one, I'm all ears.

And back to the base cards...

316 Mike Minor
79 Garrett Jones
197 Onelki Garcia

327 Pablo Sandoval - A filthy jersey? This might be my favourite photo so far.
214 James Shields
18 Jurickson Profar
76 Mike Aviles
121 Franklin Gutierrez
278 Tommy Medica
85 Matt Joyce

222 Vernon Wells - Alas, I must give the nod for the best photo in the pack to a Yankee card. At least he's a former Blue Jay. And that's about as close as I came to pulling any Blue Jay in this pack.

266 Zack Wheeler - Another appearance of Wheeler.

72 Michael Young - I wish Michael had seen this card with an unflattering expression on it before retirement. Surely his potential 2015 entry couldn't be any worse.
71 Anthony Rizzo
25 Chia-Jen Lo
163 Matt Shoemaker
32 Raymond Fuentes
83 Jonathan Schoop

Welcome to Canton, Andre Reed!

And it's about time.

I was going to highlight this beautiful /99 relic I picked up from COMC as part of the MacKinnon turnaround sometime next week, but after the reading the good news, this seemed like a far better time. Only $1.75 for a great addition to my Bills collection, and it's not only a Bills relic, but a Hall of Famer relic as well.

Trade w/ Fuji #2

After the not-quite-monthly local card show, I sent a small package of goodies from there off to Fuji. The return package showed up early this past week, so let's check things out.

Let's start off with a nice relic of Al MacInnis. It's definitely an odd colour for a Blues hit, but it will still make another great addition to my collection of Kitchener Rangers alum. Have I mentioned I was there when he popped 5 goals in a single game, still a record for CHL defensemen? I have? Never mind then...

.
Staying with hockey, here's a nice hit for my Senators collection. One of the more risque sounding names in NHL history - Ron Tugnutt. He he. Tugnutt. Tugnutt. Settle down Beavis!

The look on his face screams "OK. Don't sign it Roberto Hernandez. Don't sign it Roberto Hernandez."

And to wrap things up, a nice auto for my slowly developing Expo collection. Brad Fullmer sure wasn't afraid to use a whole bunch of the allotted space for his signature. The good thing is that it does make for a rather legible autograph, working perfectly with the design.

Then again, you have cards like this where the palette is huge, but someone would rather conserve space and ink. I like to think that's why I've heard of Brad Fullmer, but not of this guy.

Thanks for the goodies! I'll have to bring your Enforcers wantlist with me to the Expo in May.