2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 57.3: Stadium Club at the Flea Market - Team Bag #2

1 team bag down. 2 more to go.

It was the photo that made me grab this repack from the group. So many cards of King Felix feature an intense pitching photo, so it is nice to see something a little more casual.

Pretty bland cards here, though. But, with a 200 card base set, you can't expect every card to be amazing.

I don't think gcrl will be able to find a clearer version of the Stan Musial patch for that collection.

I certainly thought this was a re-used photograph from flagship, bit it seems like the angle was just very close to the one used there. Still, I'd hope for something a little different for a marquee player.

Is that the old and mercifully demolished  Exhibition Stadium on this Bo Jackson? It might be, but there were a lot of very ugly stadiums in the late 80s.

Not a bad rookie for a repack. And I can use the 'Mookie' label on this post, now.

On the surface, the Votto looks like a bland photo offering, but not only does it fit into my Canadian Content collection, but upon closer inspection, it is also an alternate uniform. A benefit of the clear photos allows one to spot the camoflauge on the uniform.

Not quite as nice as the Zimmermann I posted this morning.

But this one more than makes up for some bland choices in this portion of the repacked cards. It is only too bad at least one card isn't being passed down for Pence to autograph. But what more can you ask from a photo when you can see every seam on the baseball?

Ivy!

And to wrap things up, here's Mattingly.

Not quite as nice as the last team bag, but a couple keepers is all I can ask for.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 57.2: Stadium Club at the Flea Market - Team Bag #1

As I wrote yesterday, in addition to the hockey repack, I also grabbed some team bags that were filled with cards from the recent Stadium Club release. I was originally going to group them as one post, but loved the photo choices so much, I figured each was worthy of their own post.

Of the 6 visible cards spread over the team bags, this was the only Mets card visible. So, I had to grab this one. While it isn't the most spectacular photo choice by far in the set, it is a nice look at how beautiful the full bleed photos are, and how clear they are as well. You can almost see every individual blade of grass.

There are lots of horizontal shots in this set as well, and those also allow the stadium to be featured as part of the card. The ball almost vanishes into the sea of people in the background.

And here's the same theme.

Even older photos really look spectacular in this set.

Nice to see Jeff Bagwell starting to make appearances in these type of sets. It is also great to see the photo chosen is from his early with the team.

It isn't the stadium trying to steal the spotlight here, but the Yankees dugout behind Myers.

We really need more overhead shots for pitchers. Especially where one can see the team logo in the dirt, the rosin bag, and the edge of the grass. Maybe if there were a little more shadow, this could be even better. But that is really picking a nit.

Another great classic photo that really looks like something that could have been snapped earlier this season. I love the shadows off the mesh.

Another great shot where everything pops beautifully. The bat whipping around. The intense focus on the ball. What a beautiful base set this is. Once more base cards start showing up on COMC and I can select specific cards based on their images, I'll probably pick up even more.

These two were probably the most generic photo choices in this particular repack.

Real Red Sox jersey or Photoshop?

And now we are back into the amazing photo choice portion of this repack. I'm guessing this is an opening day photo, and it gives the vibe of the entrances one sees during football games. Or hockey games, as two cards with a similar look to them also made my Top 50 Ottawa Senators cards list, landing at 40 and 39.

And a great way to finish off this repack.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 57.1: Flea Market Repacks

Back to the flea market again on this Thursday morning. I wanted to make a trip there for some farmer's market goodies (pears, jam, pig's tails), and of course, some cards. Mainly, I wanted to get this trip in before Oktoberfest, which makes the market even more crowded and tourist-y. I made a small dent in my OPC wantlist, knocking my total down to 108 (52 base, 56 SPs), but that should be enough to put it within reach of wiping it out at the Expo.

But, I did grab some repacks one. I grabbed my usual 1 relic hit and a bunch of base cards repack. I also grabbed some $1 for 15 ones that I wouldn't expect. 3 of brand new Stadium Club and 1 of the even newer Prizm football.

But, since hockey was my first grab, that's what I'll lead with today.

These were the visible cards:

While I already have that Showcase Brodeur in my mask collection, I didn't have that new Luongo out of Ultra, though. While his first cards did show off his old design post-trade, this shows off the design that was used late in the season.

The rest, I'll group chronologically by set, and end with the hit.

2011 Score Pavel Datsyuk - Just one from this set, but highlight cards are always nice.

2011 Crown Royale - Jarome Iginla, Taylor Hall, Tomas Vokoun, Jamie Benn, Eric Staal, Bernie Parent - Two mask cards for that binder. That Parent is just gorgeous as the black and white photo makes it look even more intimidating.

2011 Titanium - Jose Theodore, Patrick Sharp - More mask content.

2013 Trilogy - Eric Staal, Terry O'Reilly, Marian Hossa, Dale Hawerchuk, Mike Richards, Taylor Hall. It is nice to see Taz starting to appear in more base sets. Richards goes into my Kitchener Rangers alum collection. Appearances of the classic Winnipeg Jets uniform is also a welcome addition.

2013 Artifacts - Mike Cammalleri, Wayne Gretzky, Paul Coffey - Campbell Conference memories with a classic All-Star jersey bound for my Rangers alumni collection. The Cammalleri is aside for TMM, and Gretzky is always a good pull - it doesn't matter the set it comes from.

2013 Fleer Retro - Ed Belfour - Classic headgear.

2013 Fleer Showcase - Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Bure, Larry Robinson, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan Miller, Mikke Koivu, John Tavares, Alex Ovechkin, Steve Yzerman, Carl Hagelin, Zdeno Chara, Anze Kopitar, Steven Stamkos, Tuuka Rask, Peter Forsberg, Simon Gagne. Whew. That's a big bunch of base cards from a single set. Two mask cards in the bunch, Look at the Malkin all-star card. Then look at the Coffey. It isn't even a contest as to which is better. There's another Rangers alum lurking there in Larry Robinson. Hagelin is aside for TMM, and why not round things out with Chara?

2013 Between the Pipes - Tom Barrasso, Cristobal Huet, Bernie Parent, Frankie Palazzese - The expected mask stuff from BTP, but that Parent is really disappointing compared with his Crown Royale photo.

2014 O-Pee-Chee - David Moss, Ryan Murphy, Teemu Selanne, Ron Hainsey, Erik Karlsson - Nothing needed for my set here, but still some nice stuff to get dupes of. The Karlsson is the only Ottawa Senator card in the repack. There's Teemu's final O-Pee-Chee base card, although hopefully he'll be a Marquee Legend in the future. Ryan Murphy is yet another Rangers alum, and David Moss is another card set aside for TMM.

2014 Retro - Jordan Eberle - And one more Retro to wrap things up.

Finally the hit:

And it is the always entertaining situation where the jersey swatch couldn't possibly come from the same team that the guy is pictured on.

More repacks tomorrow with Stadium Club photography goodness and shiny Prizm!

COMC Challenge Cards Part 54 - Oddball birthplaces - Basketball Edition

And now, the final portion of my COMC run for some oddball birthplaces with the basketball portion of the set. Seems like a good followup to the Jan Vesely auto I posted this morning.

My only rule for this, was that there were only 1 or 2 people born in the country with a card. Also, I couldn't have any cards of them. So, that excludes some folks like Pero Antic (Macedonia), Alaa Abdelnaby (Egypt), and Garth Joseph (Dominica, who only had one card and is in my Raptors collection) among a couple others.

And now, a chronological world tour!

Estonia!

The Grenadines!

Finland!

Mali!

Ireland!

Japan!

Uruguay!

Gabon!

Taiwan!

And Iran!

Now that is a diverse collection of countries spanning 4 continents and a unique mini collection to start.

The Manning Turnaround - Part 1

About a month or two back, I picked up a Peyton Manning autograph /5 in a group break at mojobreak.com. I sold it, and got a pretty penny for it. Like any sane person, I turned this into some more cards. I also caught up on some VOD releases at Rifftrax, but that's not really for this post.

I do have some more goodies that I'm waiting for, but I'll content myself with posting these for now.

This wasn't from a group break, but from ebay. I decided that with this money sitting in my Paypal account, it was finally time to add a 1/1 to my Senators team collection. Based on cost, and the time I spent building the set, I opted for this yellow plate of Eric Gryba out of Score. I admit that I expected this plate to show far more usage than it does, given the print run of the set.

Staying with hockey, I jumped into a random case break of National Treasures as well. The randomizer ended up on the Blackhawks, which resulted in a pair of cards coming my way. If I was considering starting a PC of Stan Mikita, this would have been an excellent start to it. The swatch card is limited to 21, and although this card does only have 1 colour to it, the swatch has the feel of something that would come from the logo. A nice keeper there.

The plate though, isn't a keeper. It might not be a perfect 2*3 rectangle, but I can think of someone that won't complain about dimension if it arrived in an envelope.

Just because they were available and cheap, I picked up the Washington Wizards in a basketball mixer. Not too many cards came my way, but still a pair of hits arrived. The only base heavy product was Contenders, and that brought this quartet of cards into my collection.

The backs are the highlight for me, reminded me of the City Lights inserts in 10-11 Pinnacle, with trivia about the city on the back. It is something different.

Here's hit #1. There was a Bradley Beal rookie autograph in this, and I'll admit that was the card I was hoping for. But, this is a nice consolation prize. It is certainly an interesting signature, even if the last name isn't the most legible. I did include a bunch of basketball cards for my "oddball birthplaces" collection. Being 1 of 3 born in the Czech Republic, Jan would qualify. Even though in all 3 cases, it was still Czechoslovakia at the time.

I guess this would be the better of the two hits, even though it is a plain white swatch, coming from the basketball version of National Treasures. Nice design as well - I really like how the background behind Wall is coloured in the team colour.

More goodies to show off when the mail carrier delivers more of the goodies!