2018-19 O-Pee-Chee Box Break #1

Just a teaser yesterday - let's finish this box!

Obviously, I'm not showing all the base cards in the box. But I'll still show off a few. Such as the OPC-debut card for Chris Wagner.

And here's a couple Senators cards, with the bonus being that both are honoured members of the 2/14 club. I'll be on the look out for dupes (and I didn't have to look hard) for the set build, as these are for #175 and #18 Gaborik and Pyatt respectively.

SPs are in 2/3 of the packs, so I still got the 16 per box like last year. Easily my favourite this time around is this Scott Foster. The one-game-wonder emergency goalie got a card in this year's release. It looks just like any other rookie card in the set, which really makes it more special than just some random insert.

Other SPs include League Leaders, Highlights and Team Checklists. I like the simplicity of the fronts of the checklists - just perfect for a team collector.

Shiny parallels are gone, replaced with simple silver-bordered ones. I really prefer this to the rainbows, which should really be exclusive to Platinum. The Taylor Hall was actually in yesterday's single pack, but I was just too lazy to scan it.

The gold parallels are box hits. They've got a glossier look in-hand, but really don't approach rainbow level in the slightest.

Retro base parallels. There's the 4 colour schemes used throughout.

HA slightly different design for the SP'd rookies portion of the set. I love the large, classic OPC logo on the front of the team checklists.

Black parallels numbered to /100 seem to fall at a rate of 3 per box. Which means there should be 30 something of the golds. There's a pretty nice one here for my Rangers alum PC with that Jeff Skinner.

Playing cards also return this year.

As do the minis! They're far more Ginter-y than they were last season.

And the big boy:

I had never pulled a patch from an OPC pack until this one. That makes this pretty nice. But, this is also a short printed patch. By SP I mean really SP. This patch, along with a Patrick Roy from this subset, drops at a rate of 1 every 18950 packs. That's about 1 every 800 boxes. BOOM! That should pay for this trip to the LCS. I took a look at ebay this morning, and the only one there was listed at $300 US.

And there's still more to come tomorrow, with some more rare pulls! À demain!

Commence Set Build!

Time to get down with O-Pee-Chee for the 18-19 season!

Bring on the box! As you can see from the bottom of the box, there's fewer packs per hobby box, but more cards per pack as opposed to last year. That's slightly fewer on the whole.

Box bottom cards!

Here's one of the packs. My only beef about this is that the yellow on the design is almost transparent, and it is easy to see the top card.

And it this case, this was my first card of the set. I'd probably like it more with a little full bleed to it, but it isn't bad. The photography is exactly what you'd expect.

Same for the backs. Exactly what you'd expect. I'm guessing all the guys get full stats, especially with no Jagr in this year's set.

The remainder of the regular base.

The SP portion of the set fall in about 2/3 of the pack. That's a decent rookie to knock off the checklist in the first pack.

Finally, the retro parallels. These are 1 or 2 per pack, with the two retro packs being the ones without the SP. The silhouette in the corner does change based on the position of the player.

And the reverse of these. Looking at some of the others, these do get cut off at 13 seasons for lengthier careers.

Now, I must collate my way through the remaining 47 packs in the two boxes.

2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 32.2 - Preparing for hockey, hockey, hockey

Time to bring this one to a close with the other side.

2017 Bowman Chrome - Delvin Perez - First up is a Chrome-y Cardinal.
2012 Topps Chrome - Howie Kendrick
1989 Donruss - Will Clark
1990 Donruss - Terry Kennedy
1989 Topps - Greg Maddux

1991 Stad. Club - Bob Walk - Even though he's no longer blogging, I know where this one will be sent.
1992 Donruss - Gerald Alexander

1998 Topps - Mike Holtz - Rookie Cup!
1992 Bowman - Stan Belinda

1989 Fleer - Howard Johnson - 1st Mets card today.
1991 Donruss - Dave Righetti
2012 Topps - Brian Wilson
2012 Topps - David Hernandez

1990 Bowman - Tony Fernandez - 1st Jays card today, and 1st of the repack.

1992 Ultra - Rafael Palmiero - While not as great as the 1993 Leaf backs, I still like the colours on the '92 Ultras.
1990 Donruss - Tom Gordon
1990 Donruss - Don August
1989 Donruss - Bob Knepper
1988 Fleer - Mark McGwire
1990 Topps - Ricky Horton
1991 Score - Karl Rhodes
1992 Stad. Club - Bruce Hurst
1990 Topps - John Costello

1992 Topps - Dave Martinez - 1st Expos card of this side.
1991 Premier - Bobby Thigpen
1992 Triple Play - Greg Vaughn

2006 Fleer - Johnny Estrada - It is rare, but this is one of those baseball cards destined for the mask binder.
1989 Score - Chris Brown
1990 Topps - Brian DuBois
1992 Score - Tim McIntosh
1989 Topps - Ken Howell
1992 Triple Play - Bill Wegman

1992 Topps - Rene Gonzales - Doubling up on Jays cards in this.
2009 Topps - JohnLackey

1986 Topps - Bob James - The oldest card on this side of the repack.
1996 Fleer - Shawn Estes

1997 Fleer S. I. - Gary Sheffield - Somewhat of a repack oddball when it comes to the sets.

1999 Victory - Tigers - A little bit of history on the reverse.

1989 Fleer Update - Omar Vizquel - Not a rerun. Both sides of the repack contained an Omar Vizquel rookie from 1989 Update.

2010 Attax - Roy Halladay - Steal the code! You have my permission!

And there you have it! Not bad at all for $3 with the pair of Vizquels. Definitely an actual hockey post tomorrow, whether repack or the new OPC. The likelihood of some 18-19 OPC showing up tomorrow is directly connected to my coherence level when the LCS opens.

2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 32.1 - Preparing for hockey, hockey, hockey

2017-18 O-Pee-Chee drops this week. I just ordered a second 12-box case of 13-14 Rookie Anthology. And there is another of those 16 pack Walmart repacks that I have yet to post. So that should mean a lot of hockey post this month. So, perfect time for a baseball post, and one of those 80 card Dollarama hanger packs.

2011 Elite - Curtis Granderson - Too early a release for me to try and convince myself that this is a Mets card. Those aren't lightning bolts - that's my filthy scanner.
1991 Donruss - Jack Howell

1992 UD - Chris Nabholz

1989 Topps Update - Mike Devereaux
1990 Topps - Don Zimmer

1989 Fleer Update - Omar Vizquel - Now this is unexpected for a repack. A rookie card of a potential HOFer, out of an update set. Looks pretty good in terms of condition as well.

1991 Score - Rondell White - Expo #2.

1981 Donruss - Barry Foote - The oldest of the cards in the repack. Barry looks exactly like I'd expect someone who was a catcher for the Cubs in the early 80s to look like.
1992 Score - Norm Charlton
1984 Fleer - Bobby Mitchell
1988 Topps - Chuck Crim
1991 Stad. Club - Eric Yelding
2008 UD - Tim Lincecum

2001 Tradition - Aaron Boone - Random Heritage-ish card!
1988 Topps - Bill Wilkinson

1995 Col. Choice Silver Sig. - Gary Gaetti - A parallel as well! This has been an interesting repack.
1992 Triple Play - John Smiley
1991 Donruss - Alex Cole
1990 Donruss - Frank White
1991 Topps - Dave Rohde
1990 Topps - Mike Dunne
1989 UD - Pedro Guerrero

1993 Leaf - Robin Ventura - Gotta show the back of 1993 Leaf card!
1989 Fleer - Tim Belcher

1983 Topps - Astros Leaders - The second oldest card in the repack.
2012 Topps - John Jaso
2012 Topps - Jesus Guzman
1990 Score - Greg Gohr
1999 Topps - Mark Loretta

1994 Triple Play - David Nied - More 90s Triple Play in repacks! And far fewer appearances of 2010's TP.
1992 Bowman - Scott Servais
1990 Bowman - Kirk Gibson
1990 Leaf - Mike Lavalliere
1991 Leaf - Jack Armstrong
1991 Topps - Sid Bream
1990 Topps - Mike Bielecki
1995 Score - Ron Darling

1992 Topps - Daryl Boston
2013 Topps - Kirk Nieuwenhuis - It took almost until the end, but there's some Mets content!
2012 Topps - Huston Street

2018 Optic Box Break

I really busted this about 4 weeks back, and I've been sitting on these scans, too lazy to post. Let's get this done. The box is a lie, by the way, as I got one of the hot boxes containing 5 autographs.

But before I get to those, here's the not exactly SPd variations from the box. While it isn't necessary for MLB-level cards, I really wish Panini would use 'Bronx' and 'Queens' more often on their prospect releases. Bellinger was a photo variant.

I'm not scanning the unnumbered Prizm paralllels, but these were my numbered cards. Bellinger was /299, Harper was an ebay 1/1 ish 1/149, and Cano was the lowest numbered of the bunch, coming in at /25.

Auto time!

The only sticker autograph of the 5 was the lowest numbered of the group, being another /25 card. This one will be on its way to Condition Sensitive by months end, since a Sacramento Kings redemption I'm waiting on showed up on the most recent Panini list.

Brian Anderson is a mainstay of Panini releases this year. He's putting up respectable rookie numbers, but is doing so in Marlins anonymity.

Granite has spent this season in the minors. It's still a hit, so no complaints from me.

While this is a shiny Prizm auto, it is unnumbered. Sherfy definitely has the most hieroglyphic autograph of this bunch.

The on-card autos end with the second numbered one of the box, this one being /75. I really with they'd kept the 1984 motif throughout the set, but they're still nice in these small doses.

There you have it!

Mailbag: Cards on Cards Part 2

There were a lot of Mets in the recent package from Kerry @ Cards on Cards. I was planning to go through all of them today, but the scanning was just too much. Especially with O-Pee-Chee hockey dropping this week, and the scanning overload that will likely go with it, I figured I'd just break the Mets cards up into themes, and post them slowly and surely as the mood hits me. Today, Heritage!

I believe my Heritage purchases from this year may have consisted of a pack or two from the LCS. So, even a single card from this year's release is bund to be a new card for the ol' team collection.

The big surprise in this grouping of 2016 Heritage is that I didn't already have the card of Calgary-born Jim Henderson in either my Mets PC or in my CanCon PC. I'm slacking, but this mailer at least added it to one of the two. Probably the former. Bonus - Mr. Met!

A few 2015 Mets.

And some 2017 Heritage. I'm leading this portion with the Josh Smoker because, huh huh, huh huh Smoker. (Simmer down, Beavis)

The kitchen floor in my childhood home has a similar pattern to this background. Heritage!

This grouping of Heritage will end with one of those infernal SPs from '17. That was not the best year for Heritage, with practically all of the major names as high number short-prints.

And that's the Heritage portion of the mailer. Lots more to come. Minor Leaguers! Stadium Club! Ginter!