More Forgotten Packs

 

There wasn't just football cards in that tin! There were a few other packs as well! Today, a 2-sport combo post.

I guess you could still have players without NHL experience in those sets back in 1999-2000. But both Sivek and the other player featured in this post did reach the NHL. While the photo looks pretty basic at first, there's a couple nice things there. Sivak is posing with a World Juniors gold medal, but I'm not sure if it is his, or Milan Kraft's, since he was the player cropped out of the photo, only for Sivak to be cropped on Kraft's card.

It is a good pack for guys having their trades to Buffalo acknowledged (Gilmour and Gratton), and for guys who played for Los Angeles that I have absolutely no memory of at all until I pulled their cards. I'm not sure what to make of that type of consistency. The castle wall design for the lower stripe on the Quebec Remparts jersey might be the best way that has ever been done on a hockey sweater.

Not a prospect to be found among the cards in the Hot Prospects pack. But any pack that provides me with a new Daniel Alfredsson card can't be all that bad! Good star power on the whole as well, but than can be expected when the unnumbered base set is 100 cards. 

Since I really don't want to break it down and do only one post for a single hobby pack, I'm doing it here. Blue Jays content and a couple nice horizontal photos in the first part...

Along with a Mets card, and insert and a sneaky parallel in the second half. How sneaky? 

You have to turn it over to see it. I can say with almost certainty that I didn't notice it the first time through, only to discover that I had this parallel when I rediscovered these packs. They were 1:65 at the time, so not too bad odds for only one pack purchased!

There you have it! I'll try to show off a pack or two I originally opened this calendar year next post. 

Forgotten Packs

 

I'm not sure how long I've had these packs open and ready to post. I just happened to open up a tin of UD hockey that I'd been using for storage a couple days back, and these were in there. Before this reaches (at least) the 3 year mark, let's dig in!

Donruss wasn't the most interesting of the packs, and, as with all of the releases, had rather bland photo choices. I did like this one, for having something different than the 'player running towards the camera' theme.

Quintez Cephus' name sounds like a character from an In Living Color sketch. 

Nice veteran content though. Again, one of my favourite things about the release is that they make sure the logo on the card matches the era of the photo.

Interestingly, all four of the blue parallels sorta match with the team colours. 

My favourite photo overall from the three packs comes from the Panini pack - a shot of the defender with the ball.

Dear God, Peterman got a base card in his second season. First Bills card from these packs, though.

For some reason, the rookies in this set have a matte finish to them. 

Here's those two Bronze Knight parallels the packaging promised. A good pack on the whole for someone that collected defensive players, at least when it comes to the cards I've highlighted.

You even get one more with the insert.

Absolute brings the foil-y cards to the mix. I do like working the team colours, name and logo into the background versus a very generic white background. So at least this has that.

Only two rookies in this pack, both Tampa and both defensive players. I swear that I didn't realize that I'd scanned so many defenders while I was going through the packs and picking out what to scan.

Inserts.

And the blue parallels. That's the final Bills card of the break.

A couple nice cards in there, but there was definitely a reason I put these packs into a tin and completely forgot about them until a few days back. 

Box Break: 2021 CFL SP Game Used

 It has been more than a few months since I last busted a box of any type, blaster, hobby, whatever. So this ends that string.

Really nice to see the three-down game get a higher end release. Even though The Cup is right there for the taking as well. 

You get 5 packs in this with 3 cards each. Each has one base Fabrics hit, one base auto, and a premium hit which is either a patch, an auto/relic or a numbered auto. And unlike with SP Game Used hockey, you're getting actual game used swatches in each. No 'event worn' or banners here.

Pack 1:

This was probably the blandest of the 5 packs, but it is still pretty nice thanks to getting a very appropriate double-blue swatch on the Argos patch. At 39, Hughes' career has probably drawn to a close, but he's certainly going to be enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in the future. He even did a pretty cool thing with his autos, drawing a Superman-ish shield with the 'C' in the middle.

Pack 2:

The one thing that disappointed me about the break was the lack of variety among the teams with the collation. The exact same teams as you see in the first pack. In fact, 4 of the teams in the 9 team league would not make an appearance in the box. That's good if you hit, not so much if you don't.

Pack 3:

Here's a pack that was more for other people than for I. That Vernon Adams has been set aside for a future mailer to Oregon for a collector of Ducks alum. The Tevaun Smith has already been sent away for content for the Bills binder. Poor Tanner Green. I'll still hold on to your card, unless a Concordia/Elks collector comes calling.

Pack 4:

Really? All the same team, and two of the same player in the same pack? But I do look at this one the bright side. I'd pulled a Willie Jefferson auto previously, but swapped it for Ti-Cats content, so this is a perfectly acceptable replacement. Andrew Harris was shipped out in return for Ti-Cats content as well. That's making the best out of rather questionable collation.

Pack 5:

It took until the final card in the final pack, but I did manage to pull a Tiger-Cats card from this. Even better - it was one of the 'Premium' hits. Masoli's time with the team was very pleasant, but an unfortunate injury combined with sharing time with Dane Evans spelled the end of the line for him here. But this card does bring back nice memories of some good, albeit championship-less years here. 

Bonus! The cards I got in trade!

Some gold from the flagship set!

Some autos, including another star from the good times in the late 10s in Hamilton with Brandon Banks.

And a 'Yes, this totally counts as a Bills card' auto.

There you have it!

Sportlots Miscellany

 I've been doing some set-building through Sportlots lately, and it seems perfect sense to maneuver my way up to the maximum cards for the shipping level with random interesting cards.

Such as this card, which shows how amazing a player Barry Sanders was - continuing to gain yardage while dragging a pair of defenders with him. It is also proof that really great photography in the Collector's Choice line wasn't limited to just the baseball version.

No wonder some players needed oxygen on the sidelines.

The mask binders tend to contain a lot of photos that spotlight the artwork on the sides of the masks as opposed to what is on the top. For someone who had a paint job like Marc Denis sported during some of his time in Columbus, it is a shame that it doesn't make as many perfect appearances as it should. You also get a pose that you really don't see much of on cards - that of a seated, but still effective netminder.

Naturally, one doesn't need to have a goaltender sporting a mask for a photo to be interesting.

I already have Frank Finnigan content in my collection. He was a member of the original team during their first time in the league. His number hangs in the rafters of the arena. It was the Franchises release from ITG that put that card in my collection, and is also that release that provided this card, which is my first card for the one-season only run of the St. Louis Eagles. Nice looking jersey too! 

Naturally, I'm going to add some 2/14 stuff in to the mailers as well. The Leaf/O-Pee-Chee portion of the Dave Dravecky content was sparser than I'd like.

I don't know if this pose from Hughie Jennings is my favourite old-timey image to make an appearance on cards, but it probably should be. 

There you have it! 

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 16.2: Hanging Hoops with a Hit

 And another one!

Here's the first group of cards lurking behind the Smith. It isn't too interesting, but I always like finding Goodwin Champions cards in repacks, since it isn't a specific sport set, but they have been repurposed into that type of sport for these repacks. 

I've posted this in the past, but Eddie Johnson may be the most unfortunately named player in basketball history. While the Contenders design might be more iconic in the ticket format, and that is one of my favourites in general, I do like the smoky design used in this one basketball one. Perhaps it would have been liked more under a different brand.

Foil cards might be the one style where a plain white swatch works. 

One of my favourite things about repacks is when odd coincidences occur. With the Archives set, Topps used photographs from the time period where the design is borrowed. In Willie Anderson's case, that would be 1988. Who sported #34 for the Clippers back in 1988? Reggie Williams. Meaning he made appearances on back-to-back cards in this repack, one as the guy defending the featured player, and then as the featured player.

And the finale.

This one was probably below average, but gets enhanced to memorable status with that strange Williams coincidence.

There you have it.

2023 Adventures in Repacks - Part 16.1: Hanging Hoops with a Hit

One of these today! 

An interesting contrast to something opening up with the foil-y Prizm card, to have some older style cardboard not long after. That Chandler card was the closest he'd get to getting a mainstream release over his career. That alone makes it an interesting card to me. That Donyell Marshall would have turned into something special at the time if he'd managed to get 1250 points in that season. He came about 350 short. Flair brings some classiness to the repack with a higher end item.

This might have been the first time in a long while where the hit in one of these was perfectly in the middle. If the player here looks kinda familiar, concentrate on the last name - he's Blake's brother. I pulled an autograph of the more-famed family member in a Clear Vision box back in 2018, so I've now completed the Griffin brothers run. I should get an AJ Griffin autograph for a father-son combo, since I have an Adrian auto in my 'Won a ring with the Raptors' collection.

More 1981 Topps leaders cards, please! Although I'd be happy with any more 1981s making repack appearances. Other than that, the Edwards is kinda cool for the face mask bringing something different to a photo in an overproduced set. 

Start with a Prizm card. End with a Prizm card. And continually remind me of my need to clean my scanner glass.

There you have it!

 

Mailbag: Jays from Dennis @ too Many Verlanders

 

Back to the bubble mailer again, and the pile of Blue Jays stuff that was in the envelope.

There was too much for one scanner bed, so here's a teasing of some of the base/parallels within. I was almost hoping that the Triple Play game card was scratched.

Oooo! Yuletide-y!

While he probably didn't win the battle in terms of volume, Aaron Hill was at the top when it came to inserts/parallels. That green comes in at /450, the orange /250 and the Opening Day at a somewhat odd /2199. The retro card wasn't numbered, but I was pleasantly surprised that the stats on the reverse of the card do a pretty good mimic of the set they borrowed from. 

I'm torn between "I miss the manu-relic cards with some weight to them that feel like something special" and "I prefer cards that I can easily fit into an album page". Groshans went to the Marlins in the trade that brought Zach Pop back home to play in Ontario.

This one is about as thick as the Groshans, but seems so much more manageable. I'm not sure why.

If you're not the type that considers manufactured patches/medallions/whatnot to be actual hits, here's a couple. I'm not sure what those multi-shaded blue swatches are from, but at least it does bring some variety to both cards in terms of what the piece originates from.

Just some Mets and CanCon to go!