The Night Owl Repack Extravaganza - Part 3 of 5

 And here come another 50 cards!

It really doesn't matter which team it is for, any card with a mascot on it is automatically a wonderful card. I don't think I have any Tim Hamulack content in my Mets collections, so despite it being a traded card, I'm going to count it in the Mets binder. And since he doesn't seem to have any cards where he's  listed as a Met, there it will stay. As always, my binders, my rules. 

While we have Mets content and Jays content in this little group, I have to give the nod here to Max Venable preparing for a bunt, and looking rather intense while doing so.

Completely random baseball departure!

Sure, there's a 2/14 here with the Clippard, but since that is a dupe, I'll like that Sambito Mets card as my favourite in this fivesome instead. It is a traded card after all. He'd go back-to-back in Traded sets, showing up on the Red Sox next year. A rather unfortunate switch for Joe's jewelry case.

Do I dare to scratch off those predictors on the Clemens? 

I really like the variety here. We've got the first numbered card of the break, with a golden Bartolo Colon /2020, and it joins the Mets binder along with a Swell Ed Charles entry. Now there is someone who is actually listed as a Met that I know I don't have too many cards of. We get some casual Friday attire from Josh Towers, and while that Tony Batista is nice and foily, any card that doesn't feature his unique batting stance seems wrong. Wil Myers provides 80s Diamond Kings-esque garishness.

There's another completely random Bills card! Vintage, too! YES! I find it somewhat odd that I'm going to have more Javier Baez cards in my Mets collection based on his brief stint with the team than some guys from the 80s and 90s who spent years with the team. 

When I'd get these huge 250 card repacks online, there would usually end up being a hit or two in the bunch. I like how that continued here with this completely random Luis Castillo appearance. Corey Koskie also adds some Canadian content to the mix to hit another one of my PCs.

I always enjoy the randomness of finder a card of a special teams player when doing a football break. The thrill isn't as  much when it is the punter's wife getting a card. That's the wife of Rohn Stark. James Paxton makes it go back-to-back with a Canadian MLBer in the scan.

There's the finale for this post. And it is another one with fun variety. Diamond King! Mini! Food issue! Alternate uniform! And Duke Snider! That's exactly what I want from a repack!

There you have it!

Birthday Girl

My little girl Mischief turns 2 today. 2 years of my Airedale friend on this planet! And yes, she continues  to live up to her name. 

A couple of days ago, I was wondering what a birthday binder would look like if I set one up for Mischief. A quick trip through the birthday list at TCDB helped me put together a sample starting page. 

Since I basically limited it to opening page with names I could easily find a card of, Howie Kendrick, Tom Gorzelanny, Dan Boyle, Brock Lesnar and Paul Silas were among the names left out. But there's a lot of overlap in there with some of my PCs. Senators, Bills, Jays and Canadians in the NBA all make appearances. 

But there was one card that would count towards both my 2/14 collection, and Mischief's (as of yet) non-existent 7/12 collection.

Lois Maxwell is in my 2/14 collection, and the next actress to play Moneypenny, Caroline Bliss is a 7/12 baby.

For now, it stays in the former.

There you have it!

Packs from the Dollar Store

I happened to be at a mall with a Dollar Tree as opposed to a Dollarama. They didn't have repacks there, but they did have packs. I could choose between these, and some Hoops and UD Series 1. With the latter being boring this year, and the Hoops pretty much assembled, I chose one each of the remainder. They do promise a yellow parallel in each though.

This might be the first Donruss football I've busted from this season. At least with a Rater Rookie, and an Eagle for another mailer to Cards on Cards, it wasn't too bad.

I wasn't expecting any sort of parallel in these, but I did get this 'helmet off' photo variation. While this doesn't scream 'Baltimore' as much as Josh Allen's screams 'Buffalo' it is something a little different, and the mask is pure 2020 photography.

That's actually a pretty good player to land the parallel of. 2 years, 2*All-Pro, 2*Pro Bowler, and already over the 3000 yards receiving mark. An appropriate way to wrap up what was both a Vikings and a purple team colours hot pack.

I've busted a jumbo pack of 2021 basketball, so this wasn't as new to me as the football. Nothing too interesting in this bunch, but at least there was an alternate jersey in the grouping.

I didn't think that these cheap-o packs would extend their parallels through the rookie portion of the set, but I guess I was wrong. While this isn't the Thunder draft pick that was the chase card for the team, it is still a first round pick. And combining this with the Jefferson, it looks like things worked out pretty well for these two packs, at least when it came to the one-per parallels.

There you have it!

Building

I really should check one of these days to see how many autographs of Hall of Famers are in the hockey collection. Whatever the number now, it will go up by '1' when Daniel Alfredsson is inducted this fall. 

But of  those HOF autos, I'm guessing that this is my first one of a 'Builder'.

Despite being a photo from his playing career, Emile Francis is in the HOF in the Builders category. He'd be a longtime coach and general manager for the Rangers and Blues, and was also a Whalers GM. And he added a nickname to his auto, which is always a bonus, especially with limited sticker space. Francis would pass away earlier this year at age 95, but he was still alive when I added this card to my COMC inventory about a year and a half ago.

Nothing like promptness in my posting!

There you have it! 

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 21.4 - Forgotten, but not Gone

 Just some smaller packs left.

Not too much noteworthy among the base cards in the Bowman Chrome pack, but that insert is pretty nice. It is actually from an insert set that stretched across multiple Bowman products, and the set title is quite the mouthful. "Blue Sapphire 1st Bowman Card Reprint Refractor". With a title like that, it better be a nice looking one.

The first pack of Update hit a lot of my PCs

A card for the Mets collection, or even more specifically the David Wright collection.

Three cards for the Blue Jays collection (and that red parallel couldn't be a better one to go alongside that photo).

And even a pair of card for my Canadians in MLB collection. Even if all the 6 cards about are likely to be dupes, it is still nice to find such a PC friendly pack.

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Even this really great photo was in there.

As for the second pack, it was a Shelby Miller hot pack, and that is about all that was interesting about it. 

And then there was the bonus item.

It definitely was a pretty unique item. A super thin (almost like a piece of film) Proof parallel from Pacific. They weren't afraid to get a little odd with their releases, and this certainly counts as such. And it feels like something worthy of being called a bonus.

There you have it! 

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 21.3 - Forgotten, but not Gone

The packs in this repack were a pair of 2013 Updates, a 2012 Series 2 Jumbo and a 2013 Bowman Chrome. I'll go with the volume and do Jumbo pack today, and hit the rest tomorrow.

Assuming that I organized things correctly, this would have been the first card out of the jumbo pack. Either that, or I wasn't very good at putting these things together at the time.

Canadian content!

It is a dupe, but I must highlight 2/14 content.

There weren't any Mets among the 35ish cards, but I did get a couple of  Blue Jays. They were still photoshopping the jerseys for the logo change for this, and they probably should have paid the 10-year old they were using more if that Kelly Johnson was any indication.

Here's some fairly Panini-friendly images. I wonder if they would have to edit out the YS on the sign in front of Evan. 

The photo battle here foes to a pair of horizontal issues. That's a mighty chaotic play-at-the-plate, and photos where the player is not touching the ground in any way always comes off as unique.

Were there inserts? Of course there were inserts! Even long-expired ones from contests count. I did end up with a die-cut Steve Carlton from those, so at least that did turn into something at one point. 

There you have it!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 21.2 - Forgotten, but not Gone

 25 more cards!

With all respect to the Shin Soo Choo card from yesterday, it really isn't going to touch the amazingness of a moment of impact with a pitcher at the plate. Getting a Griffey and Marichal appearance in there as well also contributes to a very solid start. Who says you can't have interesting junk wax era stuff?

In terms of people I wouldn't think I'd pull baseball cards of, Colin Powell would certainly count as one. That isn't alone in 1991 providing some interesting cards, as we get a bare-headed player on the basepaths, and the Wrigley ivy as well. 

The 90s get left behind, and it is an interesting card that gives us the first taste of the 2000s with Jeff Conine getting interviewed during his second stint with the Marlins. But there's still nice star power as we say goodbye with a couple HOFers.

This particular portion of the repack ended with a streak of 2011 Topps, and yet another HOFer is a great way to wrap up the non-2011 portion of this. We do have National Hockey Card Day in Canada, but it really needs to expand to other sports and issues. National CFL card day? Yes, please! 

Obviously, the repacker noted that Orel card that opened this up, and decided that it really wasn't enough of a  "moment of impact" card in this, and decided to add in that Ramon Hernandez to spice it up even more. I approve.

That wraps up the repacked cards portion, but I still have a bonus item and 4 packs to get in the next two posts. There you have it!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 21.1 - Forgotten, but not Gone

 About a month ago, I came across a repack that I'd busted a couple years back, but never got around to posting. I just found a few more of those. These date back even further, and by even further, I mean to when Target was still a thing on this side of the border. So, these were busted about 7-8 years ago.

Nothing like a timely break. And I also came across football and basketball ones that qualify as these. But, I'll start with baseball today. This was one that contained 4 packs, a 'mystery item' and 50 random cards. I'll begin with the first half of the 50.

There were no visible cards, as everything was in a small box. But I guess the Choo card would count as opener. While there is a Babe Ruth in there, I have to give the nod to the card featuring somebody named Clinkscales. It is a shame that he never reached the bigs, if for nothing else than the chance of there being jerseys with that name on the back. He's no longer affiliated with Purdue either, but Indiana State.

Not too much here, but I guess the bearded greatness of Ron Robinson is the highlight.

Mesh jerseys were a mistake,  Other than that, nothing much to say about this group.

Mets content! Jays content! And that Garret Anderson Stadium Club entry isn't just a magnificent photo, but the card itself is a Royal Gold parallel. And it also has the thickness of a higher end card. To think that not only was this great card hiding among the junk wax years in a repack, but that it was also hiding from my showing it off.

Here's the final 5 in the first portion. And a card with both bunting and batting cages are a perfectly fine way to end it.

There you have it!

The Night Owl Repack Extravaganza - Part 2 of 5

 Time for another 50!

The previous one ended with some Hometown Heroes - here's a couple more to start off the second part. 

Vintage Mets content! WOO-HOO! That 4-card streak of Pinnacle cards, so soon after the Hometown Heroes  run, concludes what is probably the two longest streaks from the same set in this. Joey would go on to have a few not-so-memorable seasons with Toronto, so I can tie all of these players to my team collections in some way.

I  was actually wondering for a second why Josmil Pinto would have an entry in this year's Heritage set, before realizing that this card was actually from an Archives release. Oops. We should all strive to look as suave as Yamil Benitez does on his card. 

After taking a  break the previous season, it was nice to see Topps return to the tradition from the earlier years of having Shane Mack crawling along the basepaths on his card. And there's a completely random Bills card! Originals was a nice Archives-ish concept from Donruss. I'd say it was a shame that it didn't last, but considering how older designs make appearances in Panini products across their releases, I'd say it did last. 

At least I recognized that Perez as an Archives entry right away, unlike with Pinto. Tim Anderson's alternate uniform is, I think, the last base card from Series 1 that I found in this. Joe Carter's gold parallel out of Hometown Heroes also becomes what I think was the last appearance of that great set in this repack as well.

Shininess! While the Hodges is a very obvious refractor, the Josh Johnson next to it is as well. Brock Stassi sounds like a really great baseball name. 

While I'm reasonably certain that Larry Milbourne card is a 2/14 collection dupe, 1982 Donruss is still a fun design and I'll probably still be keeping it in my miscellaneous collection. Roy Lee Jackson is looking around for a microphone to sing the anthem. 

How can you have a 'bat flip' insert set and not have a Jose Bautista card in it? Shameful checklist construction.

How do you make a Mets card with a great design even better? Make it a food issue card! 

And that's another 50 cards worth.

But darned if I am going to end with a Big League base card and miss out on the chance to show off a 'Did You Know'.

There you have it!

The Alma Mater

 

Unlike stateside collectors, I rarely see my university represented on cards. And Canada Day seems like the perfect day to highlight a University of Waterloo alum that has available cardboard, especially with such a patriotic entry.

They even got the team nickname right!

With all  that red on the first two scans, what's a little more to show off his professional card?

There you have it!