Mailbag: Night Owl

 I realized I'd putting this one, which arrived last week, off for too long when a really massive mailer from Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders showed up this week. After also receiving a 'shipped' notice from COMC the next day, maybe I should show off these before the backlog gets even larger.

It was mainly a baseball one, but there were still a couple of new Bills cards for their binder. Despite the fact he had much more success after moving on to Detroit than he had with the Bills, Joique Bell still hits a nice little sweet spot for me.

Entirely because his name makes me think of MST3K.

Volume-wise, Vlad Jr. was the king of the package. I was certain I'd already landed that Team Future card in a previous group break, but on closer examination, I'd landed the other Jays in this (Manoah, Bichette), but not the Vlad. That's a random way to wrap up a team insert set. I don't think I saw any Fire or Gallery on the shelves up here this year, so any PC cards from those sets are always welcome.

Here's a handful more Jays, with a definite leaning towards parallels here. With the Delgado being an insert, the only true base card here was the Gausman from Chrome. 

Lots of variety in the Mets content. While that 'Big' Nolan Ryan would probably win the battle here most times, I've got to pick the Janikowski as my favourite in this grouping. It is for the simple reason that his only Mets cards will probably be in Update, and that I actually had this one on my COMC watchlist for that reason. Adam Ottavino also made his first Mets card in '22 Update, but I can still hold out hope that he'll make a second appearance.

Vintage!

And the Rusty Staub reminds me of one of my favourite quotes of his:

Timeless! 

I know these are gimmicky, but I don't care. The Pete Alonso portion of my Mets collection is disappointingly small, so something like this feels like a great opening card to that portion of the collection, at least until I add an autograph of his. 

It might have taken me a little longer to get to than I'd like, but there you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 12 - Keep Touching that Stove

 Yet another of those two pack hangers.

The NPB has some potential. Might I land my first Senga card before I get a Mets one? Or one of the 2 2/14 guys in the set?

Nope!

But this pre-Cubbies card of Seiya Suzuki is pretty nice.

And a card of a guy named Zelous. (Although I probably already have one of his 2014 

base cards)

And a "one name is all you need on your card" guy. 

At least it wasn't dull!

For the Select pack:

No hit this time, but at least I got a Mets card with a very Panini friendly photo. 

There you have it!

Commence Set Build! (Maybe?)

 

I haven't decided for sure whether or not I'll be building the OPC set this year (I'll say it is 50/50 right now), but that indecision won't stop be from picking up 4 fat packs from Wally World. 

The base design - pretty much what you expect. Generic photo, basic design. But you really aren't expecting anything else.

The backs, again, are what one would expect. While the 13 season cut-off works nicely for PK Subban's finale, it doesn't work for someone like Corey Perry with 17 seasons and counting.

The retros are super colourful this year, with 4 different design options throughout the 600 card parallel set. They took the small sunbursts you see on the borders and made them 'retro'. I'm kinda looking forward to how these translate to Platinum later this release year.

There's no guarantee of anything beyond base cards and 3 parallels per fat pack, but I still got a couple. The Premier remains a giant waste of space that could be taken up by something that could build a set, but at least they're full-sized this year and easier to store

 

Since I might not be building the base set, I can also focus on cards for the various PCs. There's the expected 2/14 guys in here (Mrazek & Ehlers), but I struck out on those. But 5 Sens cards is definitely above what is expected out of 4 packs. Also - my first Jake Sanderson card. WOO-HOO! 

And a pair of Rangers alum as well. I really should have gone over the checklist to see how close I was to the average. 

Now to try and talk myself out of a couple hobby boxes.

There you have it!

Raptors Mega Post

 

Time to plow my way through yet another Raptors mega-post. There's four team-select group breaks worth of cards in this post - Donruss, Elite, Prizm Draft and Court Kings, and there's some pretty nice cards to come out of all of them. Donruss might have been the least of the lot, but I still got one of those comic cover Net Marvels cards. 

And yes, Scottie was born in August 2001 for a nice little easter egg on the card. I wonder what would happen if I tried to scan that code in the corner.

Here's the base set. Over the 1/2 case, everything seemed pretty evenly distributed for a base set. 

Panini took a look at Topps' overuse of 1987 in their baseball designs, and thought that they can kind of salute the 1987 Donruss baseball design in this set. Dino uniform! 

The Elite break was only 2 boxes, but that was still enough to get me 5 out of the 6 base cards, including one of SPd rookie Christian Koloko.

And I would have been happy with just the base cards, but I also got this green die-cut, numbered to his jersey number parallel. Technically, this is a Status parallel, but "green, die-cut" is more descriptive.

Prizm draft adds some NCAA cards to the mix. 

But the best thing about Siakam NCAA cards is a chance to show off that buff Village People logo that New Mexico State used. 

Here's the final Christian Koloko appearance in the post. Even though it is a collegiate card, I guess the pose is enough to make it look like a Raptors one. This is a rather descriptive parallel, being a Blue Cirrcles variety.

And this set has a very deep checklist. Abu Kigab's time with the Raptors was limited to their summer league team, but that was enough to count it as a Raptors card for the purposes of the break. Do I call it a Raptors card? Of course! Even if I didn't, I could also count it towards my CanCon collection, as he's Canadian (via Sudan). Bonus: This is a gold /10 parallel as well! 

Ending with a personal favourite of mine - Court Kings!

I always thought that the Kings sets were more along the lines of saluting painting as opposed to music, but art is art.

Here's the only swatch of the post. At least this is so far along in his career, the disclaimer about the swatch being from an actual game is pretty believable.

Unlike with Kigab, there's little doubt here that this was a Raptors card. Harper was undrafted, but signed with Toronto soon afterwards. He's spend more time with the G-League 905 than the parent club this season, but that doesn't matter much to me as a team collector. This will be his first appearance in my binders as well, and having a player debut with a hit is always fun. And in a way, I'm happier getting his card than a Koloko auto, since those will be more commonplace than Harper's.

There you have it!

Omens

 

I'm not too sure what to make of a basketball card which includes that said player gave up the sport in order to pursue a career in a completely different one. I just hope that it worked out for the guy.

Repack Inspired

 It wasn't that long ago when I busted a repack that had a bunch of 1991 Skybox cards in it, itos. That inspired me to look at the rest of the subset, and then add the card of the small school in question that had the least collegiate cards of the player in question.

There were only a handful that had post-career collegiate cards. There were several options for Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman, but it seemed that the best option that ticked both available and uncommon was:

Terry Porter of the Wisconsin Stevens-Point Pointers!

And you have full (NCAA) stats on the back. I guess a logo might have been too much to ask for. But if you want to collect your alma mater and it is UW-SP, Porter is your only option.

There you have it!

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 11 - Another Hanger with a Hit

 

This one isn't the usual 'straight from the source' repack. This one was from the 7-11. Meaning I pulled this off the rack based on the alternate jersey photo on the card. How will the "interesting card on top" method work out this time?

Based on the first 8 cards - not so well. The most interesting thing is Ron Tugnutt's "i just got traded" gear. 

The next 7 are a little more interesting - we've got a Stadium Club, even if it is a rather dull Patrick Stefan appearance. And there's also some horizontal fun. 

And the hit. Oh boy. I couldn't even tell you without looking if he was still in the league at this point. After looking, it seems he's played 2 games with Edmonton this season, and many more in the AHL. On the bright side, at least this card wasn't one of the hits in an actual box of SP Game Used. 

Your finale. At least there's a couple interesting photos here with a couple of celebratory ones. The Dave Ellett comes from an era where there really weren't too many of those on cards, and Arturi is celebrating a goal with his teammates nicely framed on the bench behind him. If it weren't for the hit, there would be back-to-back Whalers content too.

A few nice base cards, but boy, did the "interesting photo on front" help me here. 

Chroncling Wrestlemania Weekend with a Blaster

 Like I'm going to pass on a wrestling release of one of my favourite products. This is probably the closest I'll ever come to busting a wrestling repack.

Your box! As I start typing this up on the Friday, only Lashley does not appear to have a match scheduled for Saturday or Sunday.

Pack 1:

And the packs are typical Chronicles, with a whole bunch of designs on display. The Brooke and Woods are the base design, which make up the first 100 cards of the base set. There's one bronze parallel per pack, and in this case JBL appears on that. Sharp-eyed readers will look at the card and note that it was from the bullrope match against Eddy Guerrero, Appropriately, the Legacy portion is all retired legends. Inappropriately, Origins is not only a portion for young talent.

Pack 2:

That's a lot of base designs. JYD is the parallel here. I'm not too sure if Illusions is my favourite design of the set, but it certainly does make it close to the top. I don't even care that they re-used the photo - it just looks so great. Maybe with a different photo or a duller wrestler on the card, I wouldn't feel that way. I love the Luminance look too, and the photo of Bayley is great for the look, but I just imagine this would look off on display in binder form as the only horizontal design in the set.

Pack 3:

We've got some sharp-dressed men (and a woman) in this group. While the Vader card probably does not really qualify as sharp, that look will always be one of the more memorable ones in wrestling history. Contrast that with Greg Valentine and his robe. Great looking, but not as intimidating. Valentine's face was intimidating enough, though. Poor Sonya Deville tries, but she can only land in third. Ivy Nile was the bronze parallel, based on the foil.

Pack 4:

Pretty much the blandest of the packs. Maybe it is because of the photo being dull, but the repeated photo on the Black (bronze parallel) doesn't work as well as on Illusions. And could they have chosen a duller photo for Edge's card? He's got better ones, but this really just feels like they used a randomizer to pick it. Sonya in the suit makes sense. Edge doesn't. 

Pack 5:

Collation makes this one interesting, as I find it interesting to get tag team partners in the same pack. Even if they're not technically the same set, since Otis is the bronze parallel. Again, the Legacy cards provide legends content, even if it really feels constraining with the giant border on a wrestler as wild as Ultimate Warrior. 

Pack 6:

How can I complain about landing a card of Terry Funk? While that's great, and the horizontal medium is just perfect for the photo on the Nakamura, the Bianca Belair is my favourite here. It has nothing to do with her greatness, or that it is the bronze parallel of this pack.

It is how the back of the card does such a great job at avoiding using the word 'Mets'. 

And no, this does not count as a Mets card for their binders. 

There you have it!

Something Lacking

 

But my collection is lacking no more as I was sure to add the card of a bowler that goes by the name of Guppy Troup.

Even if that photo lacks Guppy's sartorial splendour.