2019 Adventures in Repacks - Part 6 - Another Hanger

Just another Sunday, and another 80 cards hanger pack at the Dollarama.

It is less effort to scan every card than list every card while scanning selected cards, so today is one of the lazy days. A trio of base cards from mid-level sets open this one. Contrast the rather minimalist design of the Werenski with the obnoxious mid 90's design on the Stevens.

Lundstrom was a third round pick of the Coyotes, but never played on this side of the Atlantic. Barely into double-digits and there's back-to-back dupes. That is not good. But that gets offset nicely with the Drury.

Since the Drury can also count as a baseball card.

That's Evgeny Davydov on the Central Red Army card, with a photo obviously taken at the Met Center with its memorable coloured seats. He'd play for a few seasons in the NHL with stops in Winnipeg, Florida and Ottawa.

There is this side's obligatory 1990 Bowman appearance. Paille gets a nice photo selection with the perfect use of a horizonal photo.

The 1986 Neal Broten is the oldest of the cards in the repack, which contrasts with the baseball ones that usually have at least a couple cards from the early 1980s contained within. The celebratory Patrick Sharp card with visible on the back.

Looks like they're using base cards from 2017 SPA to drive the product, as both sides had one of their cards visible on front. That Brett Hull was pretty iconic at the time for a base card. The big winner here is the Johnny Bucyk from Showcase, with him being a somewhat unexpected for an appearance of a legend in a modern base set. Mikkel's future team is looking on from the credit-card ad along the rink board.

There's another classic photo from the junk wax era with the Tom Barrasso appearance, photographed during that year's Stanley Cup finals. And the Sens finally show up!

A good repack for retired content out of Showcase, as there is a second one in the repack. There's some intense concentration going on with the Langkow photo. Plus, a couple of mask binder cards make this an interesting mix.

Bring on the 1990 Bowman from this half of the repack. That 1990 Score Paul Coffey is a contender for the Kitchener Rangers alum card I've come across most frequently in repacks.

And we're at the end.  The Generation Next is the only insert in the whole thing, with it being bound for Ann Arbor in a future mailer.

There you have it!

Mailbag: Ordered Mets

As I continue working my way through the mailbag, next up are some Mets cards via 3 PWE's from Tom @ The Angels in Order. Two of them arrived the same day, and the third arrived a week later. I'm not sure which postal service to blame for that. Either way, here are the highlights:

I enjoyed the Perspectives inserts that were in 2016 flagship, but had no idea that they made their 2017 appearance in Topps Bunt. So, almost 2 years later, these are my first cards from that insert set. I like the photos, but this lacked the design to make it as memorable as the 2016s.

Shininess! Only one of these guys (Wheeler) is still a Met. I'm gonna miss Wilmer Flores. I didn't even catch that Ike Davis retired this off-season until I googled it.

These aren't quite as shiny as the previous but there's still a nice gloss to these two.

The shininess might come to an end, but not the quality, with this 3 pack out of 2005 Flair.

And those are the highlights! Thanks for all these great cards, and I'm still setting aside Angels and Patriots for future mailers!

Mailbag: A Dimwitted Mailer

A few weeks back, Samuel over at the Daily Dimwit posted a wantlist for base cards of the various sets in Panini's rather voluminous Chronicles release.  I've busted several boxes of the product, and helped out. And these were some of the cards sent my way in return.

I rarely highlight set builders when I do these, but feel that Hank Aaron definitely deserves to be spotlighted, especially since it is in the #1 spot of Archives. And it is a Hank Aaron card, after all.

Lots of Mets and Jays among the other cards in the rest of the mailer. I accidentally deleted the scan(s) of the Mets cards, but had at least preserved one of the pages that I'd put some of the cards in.

I didn't delete the Jays portion of my scans, fortunately, so you can see a nice (mostly) shiny variety of cards here. I really love the contrast of contemporary shininess with the sepia on the Stroman.

Here's some more Jays from some higher end sets.

And there you have it! This is just one of four mailers that have shown up recently, including a massive farewell envelope from Wes that should stretch over several posts. More Mets in the mail next time!

Sens-ational Additions

I did a true-crime themed post yesterday. I need to cleanse my palate. So, here's a bunch of Sens cards.

And yes, I consider cards featuring the original run of the Ottawa Senators to count towards the collection. While adding an actual card from the 1930s probably won't be happening, recent cards of the old team are perfect fits.

The best thing about Compendium as an e-pack product is that it allows from COMC to have inexpensive cards to be added to the collection featuring short-term team members. Both Kostka and Thompson only spent part of one season in Ottawa, but still had easily-available cards.

Marian Gaborik has yet to play a game for the Sens this season, but he still gets a card in Parkhurst. This is another product with e-pack possibilities, meaning inexpensive cards at COMC. Even better, this is Gaborik card #186 for the 2/14 collection.

And even more e-pack stuff, with these game-dated moments cards. These two players both made their rookie debuts with the Sens this season, and both of these were their first cards in the collection. These are much like Topps Now in that they're only available for a limited time, but their print-run(s) aren't released.

Of course, there's going to be an Alfredsson card or 3 in a group of Sens cards.

This makes back-to-back posts featuring someone who is deceased, as the late Ray Emery makes an appearance on this Sign of the Times card from 2010-2011 SP Authentic.

It is going to be autographs with a rookie-theme the rest of the way home. Alex Formenton started the year in Ottawa, but was returned to the London Knights of the OHL. He was injured in the tryouts for Canada's World Junior team, and hasn't seen the ice since December.

Morgan Klimchuk started the year with the Flames, getting rookie cards in O-Pee-Chee and Series 1. He was then traded to Toronto, and then to Ottawa. He's only played 1 NHL game, as a Flame, but has been active with the Belleville Senators. This card of him with the Regina Pats still counts. Nice penmanship as well.

As does a Swift Current Broncos card of Max Lajoie. Ottawa may be ghastly bad this season, but at least there is optimism with their rookie class this year consisting of him, Drake Batherson and Brady Tkachuk.

Speaking of Brady Tkachuk, here's his hit debut into my Senators collection and his second appearance in my post. Brady was a first-round pick of the Sens in the past draft, as they deferred sending their 1st overall pick to the Avalanche until the upcoming draft in order to add Tkachuk. At least he's worked out well enough that it won't end up being a Tom Kurvers situation.

And that's a bunch of Ottawa Senators cards!

Forensic Files

I may have watched an episode or three of the show. The DVR may have a few episodes recorded for watching when I'm not really up to much else.

Just one or two episodes. With another 116 or so on deck.

You know the addiction might be getting a little much when you pick up this card...

...for the sole reason that her murder was featured on the show.

I may have a screw loose. At least I'm not hunting down Aaron Hernandez cards.

Series One!

Sure, you've already seen other people's first packs of Series 2, but you haven't seen mine yet.

Pack 1:

My first 2019 card is...

Cody Allen - You have to start somewhere. The card isn't miscut, I just hosed up the scan and wasn't inspired enough to rescan.
Scooter Gennett
Enyel de los Santos

Logan Morrison - A really nice horizontal photo.
Alex Colome

Chance Adams (foil) - My first parallel of the year.

Ryan O'Hearn (84) - And my first insert
Jedd Gyoroko
Rhys Hoskins
Mike Clevinger
Adam Ottavino
Yasiel Puig
Anthony Rendon

Franmil Reyes - Ending with a Future Stars base card

Pack 2:

Michael Kopech
Chad Bettis
Pedro Strop

Seth Lugo - My first Mets card of the year!
Always Sonny....Checklist
Kevin Gausman

Equipment Evolution

League Leaders - Max Scherzer /50 - My second parallel of the year! These father's day powder blues are 1:191 packs.
Chase Anderson

Gregory Polanco - A nice throwback uniform for the final scan of this post.
Matt Duffy
Jorge Polanco
Kyle Seager
Khris Davis

And that's it. It is not the most memorable bunch of cards, but still a couple keepers in there.

A Box For The Big Game

This seems like a perfect day to do a football box break. Let's bust one of my favourite products.

It may have been a sticker dump, but there were some interesting photos in this, and autograph possibilities.

The first card out of the pack is an example of one of those great photography cards.

The base set is a mix of retired and current players, and it is the former that provided my favourite of the photographs in this celebratory Jerry Rice card.

As for cards featuring teams that will be busy later today. One card. Just one Rams or Patriots card in the entire box. Malcolm is still with the Rams, and backed up Todd Gurley until an injury ended his season in December.

This was the only numbered base parallel in the box, another nice celebratory photo on a card /25.

Each of the 4 packs contain one Adrenaline Rush or All Access insert. The Sammy Watkins insert in the final pack was my first Bills card of the break. And while I do love Bills appearances in these, my favourite has to be the dancing card of Victor Cruz.

And your autographs. With one of them being a Bills hit, despite no longer being with the team, this is automatically a great box of cards. Ebron is still in the league as well, but he's moved on as well and is now with the Colts. The other two are out of the league, with Hill, much like me not even having a wikipedia entry.

And that's the box! Next up, I'll be late to the party as always, but I'll have a pack or two of '19 S1 with me.

2019 Adventures in Repacks - Part 5 - Basketball Cards from the Dollar Store?

For many a year, hockey cards were the only sportscards available at the Dollarama. About a year and a half ago, baseball cards made their return. Just this week, I spotted these on the racks there. Of course, I had to sample them. I grabbed the first two available. And since these are new, I'm scanning everything.

Repack #1:

I'm a big fan of the draft day photos with the player wearing the cap of his new team, as opposed to the bland non-action shots from the rookie photo shoots more often used by companies. And there's a Vancouver Grizzlies card as well! Even better, with it being a card from when the franchise existed, it isn't Reeves or Abdur-Rahim, who tend to be the only Vancouver representatives in modern sets.

I'm guessing that Larry Johnson was probably a pretty desired card when it was first released. Now, it is repack fodder. With an appearance in this repack of the old Charlotte Hornets, the Sonics, the Nets and the Grizzlies, 5 of the cards featured teams that relocated.

And for those that are horrible at math, there were only 14 cards in this pack as opposed to the promised 15.

Pack 2 starts off with an insert. I've pulled an Allen auto/relic previously, and he's an interesting guy. The card of the late Jerome Kersey shows that Upper Deck utilized great photography across all their releases.

Not a single 1990 Hoops card in either repack? Wow! And again, for those of you that are horrible at math, this repack also didn't have 15 cards in it, but 17. At least it balanced out in the end with there being a total of 31 cards.

There you have it! Can football cards be far behind?