Don't Fear the Repack, Still!

Continuing to work my way through the box. Alphabetically, that means that I wrap it up with Gypsy Queen and Heritage.

Hey! I actually pulled a hit out of the pack. Brett Anderson of Oakland. No sticker here! The autograph is incomprehensible once you reach the Anderson, but it is still an auto. The best thing about this card is that it inspired me to start following his Twitter account, and it is quite an amusing one.

The three framed cards consisted of two Yankees (Ruth & Sabathia) and this one. When you'[re in doubt as to who the winner is, pick the one that isn't a Yankee. Although the Gibson card would be a tough hand to beat regardless of the competiton.

And even more Cardinals love with this great Stan Musial. A binder worthy beauty.

A nice variety of minis as well. Regular back, black parallel and a Gypsy back for the Walker. Trust me. It's there.

The base cards didn't really blow me away. But there was so much to love about the others, I'm willing to overlook it. When in doubt, pick the Canadian guy.

I guess the current events made this my favourite card of the Heritage set. I'm not Catholic, but my father's side of the family is pretty much entirely from Milan, so this is interesting for that reason. As for the baseball portion. No Mets. No Jays. So, I'll offer this one as my favourite:

Very spring training! Beats out the rather beard-intensive Brian Wilson card.

Even if I didn't pull the hits, it was still a lot of fun to bust this blaster worth of 2012 stuff for the variety I pulled. Especially since I rarely see anything Gypsy Queen related on the shelves anywhere in town.

Don't Fear the Repack!

I shouldn't have made a shopping trip last week when I had the urge to bust come packs. It resulted in leaving the stores with several repack products. I've shown those off last weekend. Now, on to the costliest of the bunch:

Once opened, the contents were as follows:

3 packs Gypsy Queen
2 packs Archives
2 packs Heritage
4 packs Bowman

1 insert pack of 3 Gypsy Queen framed gold
1 insert pack of 3 Bowman Purple

So, no promised A&G. But there's still enough for me to have some fun busting the recent stuff. There's a little too much for me to post in 1 verbose attack, so I'll split into 2, and head through it alphabetically.

That's a very yellow insert card.  But since 1981 is one of my favourite designs, I'll gladly add a reprint of a Pops card into my binders.

I'm surprised I didn't have this one in the Strawberry portions of my binder. I'll add this base card gladly. Thanks, repack box!

The other highlight of the Archives was this SP. Pretty blah packs overall, with Darryl being the only legend card in the bunch. Off to the Bowmans.

Yup. Things are already looking up.

I hope these two guys go on and have long careers. Not so much so these cards increase in value, but so these two chaps can get at least one card with a more flattering photograph on it. Charlie looks like they photoshopped a photo of himself on the toilet onto a generic Cardinals base running photo. As for Casey, he looks like a human Pez Dispenser. I'm hoping these photos were used as a rib. That's the only excuse for that photo selection.

King Felix! This was the only shiny card I pulled from the packs. Definitely a good enough player to pull a Silver Ice of.

And a numbered orange parallel /250 as well.

Those are nice, but the best Bowman card actually came out of the little purple insert pack.

The most hyped prospect as the 2013 season approaches. Nice! Far better than I expected to find in the repack, especially since this was the card visible through the front of the cellophane wrap. Maybe there is a repack searcher out there looking for a job as a result. I wasn't surprised that it was going for a pretty penny at COMC, but I was surprised that it was going for even more than the Harper.

I'll get to the Heritage & Gypsy Queens tomorrow. Then I have my Fairfield repack stuff to get through, then some Raptors from the Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club to get through. Hopefully, no more packages swing by until Monday or Tuesday.

'night!

Trying this whole "Target" thing

So, Target stores have finally arrived in Ontario. The first few opened up a couple of weeks back, but they were a little too distant for me to consider making a trek to in order to check out the card aisle. Some more stores opened on Tuesday. I didn't really want to head out there the first day to snoop. But, things were easier on me later, so I went out.

In comparison to the Wal-Mart card aisle, it is definitely better. Not in comparison to any LCS, but it did have a nice variety of stuff. Lots of hockey stuff, naturally, but also a gnice selection of baseball. They even had football and basketball blasters - something I've never seen at Walmart, or, for the latter, even at my local shops. Lots of repack fun too, and the stuff works out on a per card basis as cheaper than the stuff I find even at the Dollar stores. Much of the repacks were of the envelope containing a relic/auto card and 3/4 packs. No baseball there, though. Just hockey, and, surprisingly, football.

I was able to control my urges, and only bought a couple things.

First, I picked up something that I thought only existed in fables and song. A 100 card Fairfield repack. I'll get to that later once I bust it. I also grabbed a couple 2013 Topps flagship. Sure I've got the set, but I wanted a chance to finally pull one of those mystical red bordered cards. The pack even stated that they contained such cards.

The base did include a Jose Reyes, so now I've got one for the set and one for my Jays alphabetical project. No complaining there.

As for red parallels not a one.

What inserts did I get?

I'm always happy to pull and auto card. Even if it is a dupe of the autograph I pulled from my jumbo box break. Seriously, check out the side bar for a link to my Topps 2013 trade stuff and you'll see it. At least it is obvious that Justice didn't pull a Devante Smith-Pelly with his stickers.

The other?

At least I've got another bonus Reds card for when Nachos Grande gets a nice trade stack up.

Latest additions to the 2/14 binder

Some more packages came in over the past couple weeks, so to fill up my varied binders/collections. I'll get to them all eventually, but today my focus is on the birthday binder.

On 2/14, I lamented that aside from some cards of Jim Kelly, Drew Bledsoe, Steve McNair and David Garrard, the binder was really lacking in football cards. Mind you, that is a pretty decent quarterbacking foursome, but variety is the spice of life, so most of my additions were to fill those spaces in the binder.

I'll open with the oldest card I picked up, and now the second oldest in the binder.

Way before my time, but still a great design. The only complaint is that the back of the card doesn't include his birthdate, although he didn't have any cards that included that.

I wasn't about to drop money on the original. The ones for a reasonable price weren't in the best shape, and even then were costlier than this one.

A card for a punter? Who would consider such a thing today. Back when Brian Moorman was the only worthwhile thing about the Bills, I looked for a card of his, and there is only 1 solo card (with variants) of his. For Larry, I had 7 different to choose from. Since was the closest thing to an action shot, I opted for it.

Wikipedia points out that Morris was the Bucs' leading receiver in their 1976 season. They don't mention the Bucs' record that season.

I guess I could have picked up a card of him in NFL gear, but how can I turn down a card of a guy in a Horned Frogs uniform? Despite the fact he's still active, he only has cards from the 2009 season. Because you need rookie cards of every draft pick. It's like how Jeff Dellenbach is the #1 player in terms of games played, but he doesn't even crack double digits in terms of available cards. Who'd make a card for an offensive lineman? But I guess the plethora of drafted cards does make it easier to get at least one card of a specific player.

Such as this Bears draft pick from this past season.

Or this guy who bounced around the league, and now appears to be a scout in the Raiders system.

Yet another QB with a 2-14 birthdate.  It is out of /99, and I only paid $1.55 for it. There were cheaper relics as well, but I opted for this one since it had his birthdate on the back.

A former #1 draft pick, and one of the bigger busts to come out of that category, thanks to the injury bug. Still, this is the first brown-coloured relic in my binders.

That it for football, off to basketball. A whopping 2 new cards for that one.

I blame basketball reference for my taking so long to add one of his cards. They had as Wali Jones, and that reflected no results at COMC, and only 1 result on sportlots (where he is named Wali on the card). Since none of the sellers there had anything else I wanted in order to combine shipping, I held off. Finally I cross referenced one card with the other to learn about Wally Jones. And the rest, is binder stuff.

Another relic card for the front of the binder. Another /99 card. Another $1.55. At least he's still in the league. But it is in Charlotte, so nobody notices.

Continuing with the hits, here's my third autograph for the binder, joining Milan Hejduk and Callix Crabbe:

And finally, the whopping 1 hockey card I added.

Marko only managed to play 3 more NHL games than I have, necessitating a move overseas to pick up one of his cards. Much like with Lewis, there is no birthdate on the back, so you'd have to take my word for it if you came across his card in the binder.

Now that is the most eclectic grouping of cards that I might ever post.

Trade w/ Shoebox Legends - Part 2

Part 2 of working through the trade. Tonight, some of a pile of 70s Blue Jays cards. While I'm looking for at least 1 card of every Jay, I've yet to set an upper limit on how many I'm going to use once I start putting the binder together.

The cards were mostly Topps, but there were a few O-Pee-Chee cards in the bunch. I know some complain about the thinner stock, but if given the choice for a binder I'd usually choose the OPC due to the brighter backs. I'm leading off with the hero of the first Jays game. A sad end to Doug's life, though. Depression can be a nasty opponent.

Strangely, I've got a couple of cards of Woods where he is listed as Al Woods. Variety!

A rookie card of a long-time Jays pitcher. And I think this is the only card where Clancy is clean-shaven. Another great addition to the binder.

Another card of the first Canadian to play for the Jays.

And another one of Jesse's incredible 'fro. Sadly, another member of the original Jays that has passed on.

Since I don't want to wrap this up with something depressing, here's Dave Lemanczyk rocking a definite fashion don't. A jacket underneath a jersey? Much like with two types of plaid, I'm sure Tom Servo's reaction to it would be "Boy, I'm a naked robot, Mike, and even I know that's a fashion no-no."

Trade w/ Shoebox Legends - Part 1

So, I shipped a few 2013 Topps inserts stateside for Shoebox Legends. It started as that, but I then decided to include a small box full of all the Whalers cards I could find as well. In a moment of strangeness, the box was to small to send through basic mail - I needed to send it for about $20.00 with tracking. I ended up taping an income tax form to the side of it to increase the length of it to send it for a more reasonable cost.

Enough complaining about Canada Post's quirks. On with the cards!

This was definitely one I wanted to pick up. I'd complain about the photoshopping, but since Mark will be chasing history this season, it does fit that he is listed and pictured as a Blue Jay for the card.

I swapped a CttC card, I might as well get one in return. I really like  how the colours work with the classic blue Phillies road uniform. An even switch for me.

Although I'm not chasing the minis subset, they're always welcome in my keeper cases. Fielder's is definitely not the most flattering photo of his.

But there were some other things in there aside from just the 2013 stuff.

A quarter of Diamond Kings. I'll always remember Castino as the player who shared the '79 Rookie of the Year trophy. Sadly, the back of the card mentions him as a possible future MVP candidate, but he'd actually be out of the game by the end of the season due to a back injury. Righetti seems rather puffy in his, but I do like Hal's.

Some recent Blue Jays were part of the package:

You'd think they would have at least put some French on the back of the Blue Jays OPC card for old time's sake. Casey Janssen drops off my needed Jays list for the alphabetical project. I'm surprised he wasn't in there already, but I guess the other cards are either in sets, or I missed them in the binders.

A few Jays from the 90s were in there as well. A nice shiny card of a Canadian kid who waved the maple leaf proudly during the '93 victory parade.

It wasn't just baseball, there were a few interesting hockey cards as well. A /999 for my Daniel Alfredsson binder was in the envelope, as was a trio of cards for my birthday binder:

I realize I'm probably the only person on the planet that actively seeks cards of both Ilya Zubov and Boris Valabik. Heck, I pulled a rack pack of 08-09 Ultra from a hanger just because a Rookie Sensations insert of the latter was visible in the back.

The Hejduk insert is actually interesting for what is on the back.

A comparison of the player's stats against those of the legendary Rocket Richard. It is interesting in comparison against the chase theme of this year's Topps flagship.

There were also a team bag's worth of 70's Blue Jays cards in there as well. I'll get to those later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the goodies!

Masked Mondays - Week #10

Masked Mondays hits double digits! And I've got a binder worth of goodies that says it will continue well on into double digits.

I have no idea why you would feature you own team's logo being attacked on your mask. Maybe that's why he didn't last. But you would have to admit that the "Lach Net Monster" is a truly great nickname. I'm guessing that's what the creature on the mask is supposed to be. Either that, or it is from a heavy metal album I'd never head of (which, for me, would be pretty much all of them).

It is somewhat surprising that the best mask photo I could find on a card for Valiquette is from a lower end set.

Wrapping this week's mask collection with the most recent addition to the hit pages at the front of the binder. It's a nice shot of the front of the mask, and is also numbered to /99. Ryan's masks really haven't changed that much over the past few years in terms of the design. Maybe some new paint for a slight change in the colouring, but that's about it. And that eye looks quite intimidating when put up against the Sabres colours.

Depressing cards

I came across this morning while doing some updating to my zistle trade list:

Less than a season later, seeing the back of this card would really be a real downer.