2017-18 OPC Hobby Box Break - Part 2 of 4

Pack 9:

While I did get a retro parallel in the first group of packs, here's my first base Senators OPC card of the season. Also, although he did get a couple of cards in late releases, this is my first Sens card of Condon.

Pack 10:

David Savard looks so baked on that retro parallel. There's another one of the playing cards as well.

Pack 11:

There's the League Leaders portion of the SP, and this time the retro features a Rangers alum.

Pack 12:

Rangers alum here as well, both in full-size and mini format. Of the retro parallels I landed, Chara's the major name of the bunch.

Pack 13:

Auston Matthews leads the way in this year's set, being in the #1 spot. Another Sens card as well.

Pack 14:

Pretty blah. So, here's another playing card insert.

Pack 15:

A mini! These are about the same size as the minis you'd get in Ginter.

Pack 16:

OK. The floating head design for the retro parallel league leaders.

Halfway there!

2017-18 OPC Hobby Box Break - Part 1 of 4

Commence set build!

But I should show off the bottom of the box as well. Since cards on the box bottom are always a nice thing, even if OPC is the only product that does it.

And my first card 17-18 OPC card is:

Something a little different this year. There's still a border, but some of it is faded for a little bit of full-bleed.

The rest of the first pack. I'll just hit the highlights the rest of the way home. The Williams is one of the retro parallels, falling 1 per pack in the hobby releases. The Flames checklist is part of the SP portion of checklists, rookies and highlights. The SPs are there, but unlike with something like Heritage this past season, fall at a rate of 1 every other pack to make it less intimidating.

As with MVP, no Golden Knights content in this.

Pack 2 shows off the first of the rainbow parallels. These are 1:4, but I really wouldn't mind if these went away. There doesn't seem to be a need for them with there being a separate Platinum release. Since there won't be third jerseys this season, I'll take what I can get from the early releases.

Pack 3 shows what the rookie base design looks like.

Pack 4 shows off another insert set - minis! These are actually the black foil parallels, which are 1 in 21 packs. There's nothing on these to indicate that these are rookies.

Pack 5: Another alternate jersey, a checklist, and another returning insert set with the playing cards. These are 1:8, with the Aces being 1:200.

Pack 6 with another foil card. The retro this time around is one of Season Highlights from the SPd portion.

A regular mini. Another SPd rookie and my first Sens card of the box finally shows up in the 7th one.

And a foil card ends this, but this is one of the black parallels /100. The odds for these aren't given, but in the past these have been two per box.

8 packs down. 24 to go!

2017 Adventures in Repacks - Part 25 - Mid-Week Repacks

Mid-week Dollarama repacks. Why not? The usual $1 hanger and $2 Surprise Bag, and starting with the former.

2015 UD - Michael Hutchinson - A great photo from flagship to start things up.
1990 Bowman - Rob Murray
1993 UD - Chris Gratton

1992 Parkhurst - Bob Beers - SPEAR! SPEAR!
1991 Pro set - Nelson Emerson
1993 Pinnacle -Viacheslav Fetisov
1991 UD - Jarko Varvio

2004 ITG Top Prospects Game - Mike Green - Nice to get a prospect card of a guy who is still around.
2007 Ice - Keith Tkachuk

1990 Score - Cam Neely - Even if junk wax, I love pulling Cam cards.

1993 Ultra - Rob Zamuner - Lightning hot pack! There's the 3rd Tampa card (Gratton).
1991 OPC - Sylvain Cote
1991 OPC - Bob Carpenter

1991 OPC - Wayne Gretzky - Can't complain about any Gretzky showing up, even if it as the last card of a trio from the same set.

1991 7IS - Neil Fewster - Thunder and Lightning in the same repack!
2012 OPC - Braydon Coburn

A couple fun cards here with the Beers, Hutchinson and the Gretzky. No complaints for this $1 outlay.

The Surprise Bag contents:

Goalies up first.

Interesting repack collation with a pair of guys named Kari. I'm far more interested in the new appearance of the Kill Bill themed Lehtonen. Jimmy's still rocking Blackhawks mask colours on the Sharks card.

And there's the back of the Leaf. Because I must.

2 1000pt guys in the same pack. Neat!

Most interesting card in the misc. pack was the Rucchin. A "now with Rangers" card updating his status without going to the classic OPC "now with" look. Maybe a photoshop job. Maybe not.

And the pakc of Victory. A Cogliano for the trade pile is nice, and I always like how the Sharks colours look on a card with the usual white back of UD.

And there you go. Nothing too spectacular, but enough to make this still a fun bust.

Time to start another set build tomorrow!

Card of Glass

Some group break goodies from a case break of Spectra where I grabbed the Raptors.

A base card. Since Serge re-upped with the Raptors this off-season, cards of his with the team won't be as scarce as I thought when the trade was originally made.

Of course, I had to land a Pascal Siakam auto from the mix. I swear I have more copies of his auto in my possession than his agent.

That's it for the Spectra. But there's more. This break originated from the rookie photo shoot in New York, where many of the early card photos (and player-used swatches) originate from. There were a few mid-range boxes opened by the draftees, and the hits from those were given away by random draw. I landed this.

Or, as per the other side of the card, this:

A case hit. WOO-HOO! While these were available with the release of the set, they obviously couldn't be placed in packs. So, as per an ebay auction, I'm waiting on one of these:

Not certain if I'll keep it or not when it arrives, but I'm still looking forward to having this in hand.

One Card Only: Happy Labour Day!

Now get out there and labour!

Even if the extent of your labour is sketchy airbrushing.

Bills! Bills! Bills!

Time to clean out the mailbag, with part 1 of an envelope from Night Owl that has been gathering dust for way too long. There's baseball stuff that will coming in a later post, but as the title shows, this is a Bills post.

Starting off, my fave photo of the bunch. It seems like a generic game photo, but check out the eyes! He's just looking the reception into his hands. Given that looks to be a perfect pass, and he's ready to catch it, I give this reception about a 60 percent chance of taking place. Because it is the Bills.

I had the glossy version and now I have the regular one. Early 00's rainbow!

From the mid 90's oddness collection, there's this Andre Reed out of Excalibut. While it seems normal here, you flip it over to learn that the card is actually of Sir Andre Reed.

When the embossed Action Packed card is by far the most normal of the two Andre Reed cards, that's an interesting mix.

Two Andre Reeds, now here's a second Antowain Smith. Shiny!

And to continue the theme of twos, here's two more Jim Kelly cards for the 2/14 collection. Jim now extends the lead for that binder to 6 over Steve McNair.

And what better way to end any post than vintage? And you have a bonus of a completely bad-ass looking buffalo staring you down.

Thanks for all these goodies! I'll get to the baseball stuff in a future post.

I'll Bust Any Dollar Store Packs

I was in a non-Dollarama dollar store a couple days back, and saw some packs of these:

Honus Bonus Fantasy Baseball.

I just assumed there would be 8 repacked junk wax era cards (sorry, game cards) with a 1:1000000 chance at a reprint of a Honus Wagner card.

First card out. Guess I was wrong. These are original cards, obviously unlicensed. I'd probably have gone for a black and white background with the player in colour, but I guess this leaves less to photoshop away.

The back shows the game element. I can't be arsed to scratch the back, let alone submit them to a site.

The rest of them. The Davis is a silver parallel, of which no odds are stated anywhere on the pack as to their rate. The colours look to change throughout the set, I'm assuming based on numbering, since I landed Philadelphia cards in both red and green.

On the upside, I did land a couple PC cards with a new 2/14 Derek Norris and a new CanCon Joey Votto.

And I do like that the back does distinguish between the Chicago teams on the back of the cards. I wish Panini would do that, especially with their prospect themed releases.

Ending on a positive about these cards, but this is still an easy one-and-done.