2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 16

All that Heritage needed a binder. And it needed pages. So, it was Dollarama time for both, and of course, I grabbed a Surprise Box on the way through the store.

Time to bust it.

The contents were:

4 card Goalie pack
4 card 2010s pack
5 card Superstar pack
1 pack of 1999-00 UD

My favourite card came out of the Superstar pack (even though its choice was influenced by a pair of dupes), and it wasn't said star.

Yes. It is always fun unflattering photo choce. Glen sure doesn't look to be making some sort of spectacular play. He looks to be in the process of being tripped and falling on his face. Was this the only photo option circulating around 1995 Pinnacle HQ?

The Superstar was Jason Spezza, which despite being a dupe, gets points for being a Sens card. It still falls third in the pack to the Physical Force McCarty.

3 of the 4 goalie pack cards are off to the masks binder. LaBarbera wins this pack with his Pat Tillman mask.

The 2010s pack was easily the blandest. This Hamhuis shot block photo was probably the best of a boring bunch.

Another contender for my favourite card in the repack came from the UD pack, but this one was yet another dupe.

Most interesting was this, mainly because I'm not used to pulling OHL uniforms from packs in this day and age. This card was supposedly a short print, but with only 81 NHL games to his credit, it doesn't really matter.

VftS Charity Group Break Goodies

I decided to get in at the last minute to the break with a random slot and ended up with the Marlins through ye olde randomizer. They arrived today - time to post.

The first box to open was 1997 Stadium Club, with all sorts of cards sticking goodness. But, when this card popped up, I was very happy. I decided to take a look at some of the COMC pictures of the cards, and immediately fell in love with this picture. It's just a beautiful use of the horizontal medium, and if I didn't end up with this card of the former Jay, it certainly would have been in on my wantlist.

I guess one of the Topps photog was determined to get all the shots needed during the Marlins trip to Wrigley.

I didn't get any hits from it, but I guess this would be the closest - a mini of Jose Fernandez from last year's Topps mini set.

With the Marlins, you know you'd get a couple guys who'd spend last year in Toronto. At least one of the two is still north of the Border. The less said about Josh Johnson's time as a Jay, the better.

From the "Fun with collation" files, both the die-cut parallel and the base from Upper Deck 'X'.

Triple Play always looks like it would be a fun set to bust a box of. It is a shame I've never seen any boxes of it north of the border.

While in the chat, I requested that among the cards for the unclaimed, unrandom-ed teams, that I'd get some of the SC Expos added to my envelope. Here they are! Dime Box Nick would love the backs of the two '97s. Pedro is shown at the plate, and Grudzielanek is bunting.

Not bad at all.

2014 Heritage Double Box Breaking - Part 6 of 6

 All good box breaks must come to an end. And this one has.

The promised hit didn't come until the very last pack that I opened. While it isn't a huge name, it is kinda nice that it isn't a plain white relic. In fact, it is a shade of a blue rarely used on current player cards, unless it is a throwback uniform being used. So, I think that gives this one the nod over the Werth relic as my favourite of the two hits.

But, the hit still pales in comparison to another interesting news flashback card.

2 SPs. Both dupes from the first box. In total, I pulled 21 SPs from the two boxes (should have had 16, as per the odds), but 6 were dupes. You win some, you lose some. But, this box was part of the turnaround from the Bradshaw /10, so I'm not too upset. It isn't like I wouldn't have spent the money on something other than cards.

Here's the other shiny card from the box.

No new Mets cards on this side, but at least there was one new Blue Jays card.

This time, I have to give the nod on the most interesting photo to this Bruce Bochy card. It's a standard managerial position, but it stands out from the crowd of shots of the guys just standing around, or sitting on the bench.  It is an odd pick, but I'm somewhat odd in my collections.

So, that's it. I've got more on their way in trades, so I'm now tentatively 4 cards away from the base set, but 51 away from the SPs. My guess is it will be a slow, steady climb to those. But, if I've sent you cards, and you're wondering what to send in return, there are 50+ suggestions posted on the right under "Set Wantlist".

I think I'll be taking the other sets off this year, but if there is a Heritage Minors I'll probably bust a box of that as well. Since it seems like a lot more fun than Heritage High Numbers when it comes to completeness.

2014 Heritage Double Box Breaking - Part 5 of 6

Let's keep moving forward with the second box.

This was a pretty bland 1/3 of a box in terms of base cards. The standout was this beard-riffic Reddick. But, you don't buy Heritage for the photography, so I'm really not going to complain about this. Except for saying that I'll be shocked, nay appalled, if there isn't an Adam Lind card on the mark next year with similar beardiness.

No Blue Jays at all in this third, and the only Met card I needed was this. But, it is definitely one I'm happy to get out of the way and not have to buy or trade for.

SP content. Three of the 4 are dupes, and only the King Felix is one I needed. Josh is already marked for trade, and the others might be out the door soon as well. 1/4 isn't good, but it is still better than I did in the last 1/3 of the box.

Shiny Matt Moore!

Refractor-y Nelson Cruz.

And there goes another 1/3 of the box. I'll see if I can do the final portion of the box tonight, so I can get back to the joy of repacks.

2014 Heritage Double Box Breaking - Part 4 of 6

Time to start the second box of Heritage. On paper, I don't think this was as good as the first in terms of value, but I still got some nice cards and nice trade bait.

This, is not trade bait. It is pure keeper. I was really hoping that at least one of my box toppers would contain Mets content, and this one did. Sure, Miller only spent two years with the Mets during his short career, but it still counts as a Met, and it is close enough for me to consider it a hit.

The Mets love continued in the inserts, with the only new one being the NAP of Matt Harvey. Sure, he won't play in '14, but it is still good enough for me.

But all, the Mets love meant no fresh Blue Jays cards were among this 8 pack of packs. Still, two more Mets were added to my base set.

The Action parallel was also in this. I would have preferred the base SP for set building, but this might bring a base SP or two in trade.

As for SPs, these were the ones in this side. The bottom two are dupes. The boxes came from two different sources, so I can't complain about the collation.

And someone who I was surprised wasn't a short-print in this set.

As for interesting photos...

there's this Chris Carter. This is only here because I find the fact that "Visito" is written on the donut to be amusing.

For more standard reasons (primarily the one that I love seeing Mr. Redlegs on cards) I give the nod to this card as my favourite photo on this side of the box.

32 packs down. 16 more to go!

Newest 2/14 binder card...

This beautiful Petr Mrazek. The Freezers insert set isn't numbered, but of the box breaks I've seen, they aren't super plentiful. This is also my first one of his that really gives a good view of his Family Guy mask. I'm not a fan of the show, but it is a brilliant design for someone who plays for Detroit's minor league affiliate - the Grand Rapids Griffins.

Set Wantlist

These are the sets I'm currently and actively working on, cards tentatively on the way are crossed out, and I do not want to trade for them. 

2014 Buffalo Bills Prestige Team Set (Blue/Green background)

5 Sammy Watkins

2020 Gallery

151 Miguel Andujar

152 Sandy Koufax

161 Anthony Rendon

162 Yoan Moncada

164 Roberto Clemente

166 Corey Seager

170 Rickey Henderson

171 Frank Thomas

172 Yu Darvish

174 George Brett

175 Ichiro

178 Javier Baez

179 Ty Cobb

180 Mark McGwire

184 Robinson Cano

187 Johnny Bench

189 Nolan Ryan

191 Don Mattingly

194 Stan Musial

195 Stephen Strasburg

2021 Hoops  

252 Shaquille O'Neal TRIB     

254 Anthony Davis TRIB  

255 Allen Iverson TRIB  

256 Karl Malone TRIB  

257 Larry Bird TRIB 

258 John Stockton TRIB  

259 Ja Morant TRIB  

262 Anthony Edwards TRIB  

264 CJ McCollum TRIB  

265 Jamal Murray TRIB

266 Magic Johnson TRIB

267 Rasheed Wallace TRIB

268 Karl-Anthony Towns TRIB

269 Stephen Curry TRIB

270 Dirk Nowitzki TRIB

2022 Skybox Metal Universe 

110 Andrei Svechnikov

125 Cale Makar

152 Shane Wright

2024 Heritage High Numbers

704 Pedro Pagés

711 Leo Rivas

718 Jason Foley

720 Tobias Myers

723 Will Klein

725 Addison Barger

Intense Hockey Action

Not pictured.

2014 Heritage Double Box Breaking - Part 3 of 6

Let's wrap up this final box.

The right side of the box contained the hit. It contained a /565 refractor.

But the best thing it contained was this. Finally, Munenori Kawasaki gets a big league Topps card. He's had WBC cards. He had logo-less Panini cards. But now, he's finally got a big league card with a nice MLB logo on it. WOO-HOO! I pulled a second one in my second box, so I've got one for the set, one for the Jays collection. Perfect.

It's a bland, white swatch. But at least my box hit was a former Toronto Blue Jay. And at least it isn't a beard relic.

Darn, these shiny refractors scan beautifully. Again, it isn't a suitable number for serial numbered insanity, but I'm sure there are enough Rockies fans in blogland that would be interested in shiny CarGo.

SPs. That's 10 in the box that should only have had 8. Pretty good, although Box 2 would give me several dupes from these 10. Oh well, more trade bait!

CanCon! Along with a Rookie trophy as well! Greatness! Much like with the Scott Rice I traded for, it's nice to pull a card of a long-term minor leaguer who finally got his shot in the bigs, especially when it falls into one of your PCs.

Two Mets! For the first time in a long time, Wright isn't a short-print.

For all I know, this could be a photo from the original 1965 set. Gregg sure looks like a 60s shop teacher as opposed to a 21st century baseball player.

The only flashback insert. I'm never a fan of featuring other sports inside sets. Never remind people of something else they could be doing.

The New-Age Performers on this side were Dodger-riffic.

And finally, my favourite photo on this side. Nice, simple intensity.

And there's a box of Heritage. One more to go!

2014 Heritage Double Box Breaking - Part 2 of 6

Box 2. The middle third.

With the buyback out of the way, I've got to go with my favourite photo out of this 1/3 to lead. And it is Aaron Hill leading the way this time around with a photo cropped so close, you can see every millimeter of the bat's engraving. How do you make an extreme close-up work? This is how.

A very close second goes to the dugout shot of Pujols. I just can read Pujols' mind in this photo "Let me at 'em! Let me at 'em!" Of course, said like Scrappy Doo.

Mets content!

And Blue Jays content! Interestingly, all but the Bautista appeared in the exact same pack.

Here's the SP content. 7 SPs out of 16 packs so far. Not bad. That's not counting all the Goldschmidt parallels either.

But, this was my only non-parallel insert in the bunch.

But these were the parallel inserts. Chrome Harper and Rizzo. Both numbered to /999. Neither 17 nor 857 are needed over at $30 a week habit, so they're both trade bait once I get things organized better.

And that's that for another part of the first box.