2022 Adventures in Repacks Part 2.1 - A Week of Surprises

 I'm finally through all the repacks I had prior to a trade that included repacks arrived.  Now, I can dig into those! And for this and the following 3 posts, I'm covering some of the Surprise Bags that were in there.

Baseball is first! 

Here's the content of this one. Do you see those sleeves in the upper corner. There were 8 Surprise Bags in the trade box. Of those, 6 of them  had the 100 sleeves as part of the contents. Which means if you get a mailer from me - expect every card sleeved. 

For those horrible at counting, there were 14 cards in the 12 card pack. That's a really nice Glavine photo, perfectly using the horizontal medium. Aaron Sele brings the questionable licensing mojo. Tristan Pompey is the Canadian content in here, as he continues to work his way up the minor leagues. Brian Anderson's card photo is so boring, it might as well be a manager's card. A bunt card like Wilson's is a perfectly fine finale.

Like with the hockey packs, the 70s/80s pack contains only the latter, but at least there were a couple that were not 1989s. Al Bumbry looks pretty stylin' with his warm-up jacket.

The hit would actually be a pretty cool card for a Royals collector, even if black isn't really a colour I'd associate with the club. It is the Teahen content that's the most interesting to me, since he's represented Canada at a World Baseball Classic, which totally counts this card towards the CanCon mini-collection.

That Draft Picks card featuring Josh Hamilton would have been a pretty nice pull back when he was a big deal, and now it is repack content. His cardmate never reached the bigs, the only one in this grouping never to do so.

And there you have it!

A 2/14 Weekend

 Off to my COMC to-be-posted box, and a pile of familiar faces in the 2/14 collection.

I'm not the biggest fan of slabbed cards out there, and Len Gabrielson really doesn't seem to be the type of player where you would get wealthy forging autos of, but here's a nice card of his with a simple ballpoint autograph. But it does become my second 1965 Topps of his, complete with an enhancement.

The baseball was pretty sparse on the whole, but at least I've got a new food issue, and one of Yermin's first cards.

While Jordan isn't sporting the #12 he did in this game, this card, from a set that saluted every game Jordan played, does salute that game. His jersey swap isn't mentioned. There's a few more in this release that cover other games played on 2/14. Of course, those qualify as well for the collection and I have a few of those on the way from COMC.

WNBA content! This isn't Candice Wiggins' collection debut with the collection, as I have an autograph of hers, so it is kinda nice to add some regular cards. The Liberty card isn't numbered, but it was limited to a print run of 500.

This card actually completes the Larry Seiple portion of the collection. He's had 12 cards over his career, and this one was the final one to complete the collection. I have a 13th, like with the Gabrielson posted above, it is a certified auto.

Shininess! 

Steve McNair was the only multiple entry into the football portion of the set. A /250 Contenders Championship Ticket joins a solid design out of 2004 Pristine.

Let's throw in a relic! Although he's pictured with the Bills, this is a Dallas Cowboys card, meaning that I don't have to think twice about which collection this ends up in.

3 Sean Hills. 3 different teams. The Pinnacle card is an expansion draft card.

Here's one of a handful of cards in my collection, not just the 2/14 one, where it is obvious exactly which part of the jersey the swatch comes from. 

With a trio of auto/patch/relics on their way into the PC, I continue to strengthen my lead over at TCDB in terms of Matt O'Connor cards, with these putting my total at 26, a 19 card lead over second place. 

And what better way to end this than a 1/1 Senators plate? That's Tom Pyatt who has his name hidden by the lack of colours at the bottom.

There you  have it!

A Pair of Platinums

 

I was far more likely to wait until they hit e-packs, and grab some of my PC cards on COMC for cheap. But the urge to bust some wax was greater.

And it worked out quite nicely - first card out of the first pack was the only 2/14 baby in the base set. The perfect way to start!

A pair of rookies, both in insert and base card form. 

And some shininess as well! This a Blue Surge parallel, which are Walmart Exclusives. They look pretty nice here, and it is even nicer because the blue goes with the team colours. 

Two more base cards, and one of the retro parallels. They sorta match the regular design of the retros out of regular OPC, but just add the RC logo instead of the Marquee Rookies design. 

And yes, I know I need to clean my scanner glass.

And it isn't the base card this time that hits the ol' PC, but this time it is a shiny parallel bound for the PC binders, with this nice new John Gibson bound for my Kitchener Rangers alum binder. 

Any time two packs result in two PC cards, that's a solid break! There you have it!

A Rifftrax Auto

While I do have a nice start on acquiring autographs of people out of MST3K'd movies, I'm also willing to add someone from a movie featured on Rifftrax.

Emerson Boozer is obviously far better known for his time with the Jets, but his one non-football credit on IMDB is a Blaxploitation film called Velvet Smooth. It is about a female detective fighting a crime lord on the behest of another crime lord. While it isn't good, it does feature the best briefcase fight in cinematic history. The movie is just a blast even without the commentary. '

So why not add an auto from the movie? It will suffice until Rollergator or the Ice Cream Bunny starts signing.

The Logical Conclusion

 

This Jamaal Charles is certainly one of my favourite football card photos ever. If not for my Buffalo Bills bias placing this Bruce Smith entry in the number one spot, this could take the top place. Weather and intensity! Marvelous! 

And the only suitable way to salute the photo is to add one of the plates used in the creation thereof into my collection.

I'm not sure how the other colours in this plate rainbow look, but the Magenta nicely highlights the rain against the red on Charles' uniform, making it a good contender for the best one on the rainbow.

And the back. OK, it is the Chrome Mini version as opposed to the regular base or its regular chrome, but it still helped create a card with such an amazing photo on it.

There you have it! 

TCDB Secret Santa from karsal

 My first mailer of the year goes back to last year, and the Secret Santa over at TCDB organized by vroomed. 

I'm about 40 cards short of completing the 2020 Gallery set, with 35 of those being SPs. Completing it is probably a  pipe dream, but it couldn't hurt to have all those needs on the buckstorecards wantlist over there. And it didn't hurt, as 3 of those cards fell off the wantlist. 

And what else was in there?

Some of my beloved repacks!

What was behind the Correa?

Looks like I can say I've pulled a 1989 Traded Griffey out of a repack. While I know the design was used throughout the set, the blurry design on the side of the Lofton really does a nice job of emphasizing his speed. Jim Negrych looks like he's holding the bat for the first time in his life. Not the most flattering pose.

Mets content! Also, this becomes a  Benito Santiago hot pack on the basis of that OPC entry. Even though it doesn't go all over the card like Contenders, I still like the Authentix design.  The Chipper Jones also brings some Mike Piazza content for a play at the plate.

Here's the hit! And a piece of something that may or may not have resulted in actual hits. 

Jupiter Hammerheads content! Any minor league content is always a  pleasant surprise. Chad never reached the bigs, and was last heard of when he got a 100 game banned substance suspension in 2015.

A chrome-y ending to the first repack. For those that have been counting along, that's 22 total cards in the 21 card pack.

Starting the second one, here's an All-Star game photo out of Update.

Stadium Club! More Authentix! And my inability to remember "Oh, that's a horizontal card" when scanning the cards. 

Diamond Kings! Collegiate goodies! Heritage! O-Pee-Chee! Boomer! Lots of fun with this group of 8.

And your hit! Meyers never reached the bigs, but he's Canadian, so this hit becomes a new card in that PC. On-card auto too!

As it draws to a close, there's a celebratory circling of the bases, and a card out of the Angels team set. Which I'll assume was just a case of someone pulling out the Ohtani and Trout entries for reselling, and not caring what happened with the others.

Not the most spectacular ending, but every repack has to end with someone. 

And there you have it! Thanks so much for all the goodies. It was fun busting some cards on 12/25, especially when they were of the repacked variety!

2022 Adventures in Repacks Part 1 - The Debut for 2022

 Starting off the year with a basketball Surprise Bag with these contents:

What will be the most worthy of toploading? 

The 12-card pack starts with a collegiate entry. Brown bounced around for a few seasons with 4 teams. Olynyk can join my CanCon collection with his traded entry. There's current-Raptor (Technically, I guess) Dragic. A pair of Antoine Carr appearances make it a hot pack for him, and we end with a  pair of alternate jerseys, both from the featured player and his opponent.

Some shininess in here, but pretty a pretty generic grouping.

The 3-card grouping becomes 4, but it is kinda appropriate, as Kemp's 15000 pt club membership comes via just a few hundred. Typical mid 90s Fleer look for that card. The Robinson cameo on his card makes a really nice action photo even better. 

The 2000s pack is a little more interesting than its next decade version. The logos on the Ovation cards are slightly embossed for the feel from the Action Packed card. I am not sure why Wallace's teammate is blurry. I know a lot of people, myself included, complain about re-used photos on cards. But Cory Hightower might be one person that wouldn't have a problem with the same photo on the front being used on the back. 

Since...

DERP!

That's enough to make this card the most worthy of a toploader.

There you have it!