A Historic Line

 

I generally don't do the game-dated moments thing with UD's e-packs, but finally decided to pull the trigger and get this card featuring something that never happened for the first time about 9 months ago - the first time a team started an all-black starting forward line. I actually ended up getting one of the gold parallels to go with the base one, which are limited to /100 (unserialed) copies as opposed to the regular /499 versions of this.

It was also Daniel Walcott's only NHL game so far, and he still hasn't received any other NHL cards. But what a cardboard NHL debut!

Here's the reverse of the card, giving a little more detail on the event.

There you have it!

Annual 2/14 post

Another year, another 2/14 post where I do a Top 10 countdown of some of the additions to my birthday collection from the past year. The rules for inclusion are:

1) The card must have hit the market, in some form, over the past year.

2) It must be in hand.

3) Only one appearance per person.

And we're off:

#10

I'm just throwing this in here because I like the jersey design. I'm just going to hope that there's some sort of Enrique Hernandez thing going on with the guy's name and move on from this.

#9 

The former #1 pick's card totals in 2021 consisted solely of this appearance in NCAA Immaculate. But at least he got a nice big swatch out of it, and in this case, a perfect 'ruby' parallel to go along with it.

#8 

It is always nice to pack-pull a card for the 2/14 collection - especially when the total packs of Platinum I've opened from this release totals 2. 

#7

Kicker card! Bills card! That's terrific Bass!

#6

The miscellaneous portion of my collection is pretty bare when it comes to hits/numbered cards, so they're another thing I welcome to the collection gladly. While cards that merely feature Okoye don't 

count for the collection, cards featuring Danai in the role do. And it strengthens her lead in the 'misc' numbers portion.

#5

The best thing about his cards is that if dupes end up in my hand, I can add him to my Canadians in the NBA collection, or send them to an Oregon collector. Unfortunately for Eugene, he suffered an injury in the G-League and was waived by Dallas.

#4

You just knew I'd have to have a Jim Kelly card on this list.

#3

Another card that would also apply to my team collection, with this being the latest candidate for Blue Jays catcher of the future. The photo is one of those that goes just perfectly with the design this year, as Moreno tries to avoid the bars. This will also be one of the last Lansing Lugnuts cards to go into my team collection, as the team ceased to be a Jays affiliate and is now associated with Oakland. 

#2

Another double hit! Ryan MacInnis is both a 2/14 baby, and a Kitchener Rangers alum. He's also the son of another alum, Hall-of-Famer Al MacInnis. This ends up as the oldest card in this countdown, as 19-20 Clear Cut didn't drop until March of 2021. With all sorts of releases pushed back in hockey for this season (OPC, which usually comes out in early fall releases next week), so there will be some more base cards of 21-22 hockey in next year's countdown. 

#1.

I knew this would be hitting the #1 spot in my Top 10 when I first saw it. Firstly, it comes out of my favourite recent release - Chronicles, and also one of my favourite of the multitude of sets contained within - Classics. Yermin also became a new member of the collection in 2021-22, as he made his major league debut after many years in the minors.

But the bonus that guaranteed this the top spot:

It gets acknowledged via the factoid on the back! Yes! 

And there you have it!

Method to my Madness

Yesterday, one of the cards that came out of the repacked pack was one that featured the famous shuffler himself, Ickey Woods.

Which makes it a perfect time to show off 1 of his autographs!

2022 Adventures in Repacks Part 5 - Perfect for this Weekend

 

The perfect weekend for a football repack, namely another one of those Surprise Bags in the box o'repacks. And with the usual clockwise-from-upper-left that I do, it will be HOFers that I start with.

I guess I can't complain about this grouping, especially when there is nary a junk wax era card among the three. Randy Gregory, who is lurking on the back of the Passing the Torch card, is not a HOFer, so only 2.5/3 are HOFers. Faulk is nicely garish.

An opening group featuring someone in football Halls of Fame on both sides of the border. Can I consider that card of Mongo to be a card worthy of my wrestling collection? Yes, yes I can. Mareno Philyaw will likely be the best name in this repack.

This was a very solid pack. The first three cards out were those three horizontal ones, and interestingly enough two of them were the same player. Tim Green's card really doesn't have the charm of one of those Cal Ripken giant cell phone cards. That card Ickey shuffling is a classic, and the final card is of a still relevant person, albeit not as a player, with Ron Rivera. Couldn't ask for more from this!

Looks like the QBs are going to end it. So close to 2/14, but that McNair is a dupe for that collection. But, that is Jack Kemp on that Pro Line Profiles card, so although it took until the final group, a Bills card finally showed up. 

Pretty solid repack experience!

Hoops Box Break

The box price was a little costlier than usual, but it still seemed a step down from the insane costs that had been seen lately.

While I usually note the first card out, since I'd already gone through a Raptors group break and shown off the results, instead I'll show off card #1 in the set - and it is a wonderful start for me with it being local guy Jamal Murray. Perfect start to the set.

One of my favourite elements from other sports can be seen in this release with an appearance of cardboard fans in here as well. 

One frequent theme in the base cards this time was alternate uniforms.

Another theme - backboard cam!

And those weren't just limited to dunk photos.

While I didn't land rookie cards of either Mobley or Cunningham, there were still a few solid names, along with another Scottie Barnes.

And while these weren't the biggest names available, guys named Thor and Bones are the best names in the rookie class.

The rookies fall at a rate of one-per-pack. The final 20 cards of the set, 251-270 are a shiny Tribute that fall one-per-box. I guess I'm fortunate that these consist of stars as opposed to rookies, so acquiring these final 19 don't seem as intimidating.

I showed off one of the unnumbered purple parallels with my Raptors post, so here's some numbered ones. The Jalen Johnson is a 75th Anniversary parallel, Embiid is a silver parallel and Curry is a green. Not a bad line-up of these base parallels. Johnson was drafted 20th overall, and he was one of three Jalens to be drafted in the first round. 

Off to the inserts, and while I didn't get his base card, the #1 draft pick did make an appearance among the We Got Next inserts.

And my Canadians-in-the-NBA collection gets a parallel, with this holo of Josh Primo. He and the Raptors Dalano Banton were the only two Canadians in the draft.

I'm not going to cover all of the inserts and parallels I landed in the box, since they're one-per-pack in a 24 pack box. Zero Gravity is definitely one of the more psychedelic ones. 

Prime Twine is certainly the punniest. Nauseatingly so.

Legends of the Ball is slightly less punny, and does provide another appearance of a Hall of Famer.

When the Raptors made their run to the Championship, I tried to get as many of the cards from this set as I could. No such chase cards for me with this year's release, but at least they struck gold in the lottery. 

Speaking of runs to the title, here's a SP that salutes the Bucks' victory. 

The City Edition seems to have become an annual thing after the debut of the jerseys. 

And there's parallels of this as well. These look to be the gold holo parallels, and are numbered /10. That's as low at the parallels went in this box.

Maybe the autographs dropping from the usual 2 to just 1 is the reason for the reduction in price. But that's OK - I'm pretty happy with this one.  Thomas was a first rounder of the Nets, and he might have one the more legible signatures in the 2021 class, so there's also that.

And there you have a rather scan-intensive box recap, and check out my set-builder wantlist, linked ast the side.
 

Muckdogs Mojo

The only thing better than a card with a great minor league logo on it is a second one.

Especially when it is on the cap of their mascot. This Muckdog's name is Homer, so that's the perfect result for this minor league game card.

The Final 2021 Chronicles Hobby Box - Part 2

 Your final 3 packs:

Pack 4:

More Magnitude in this pack, and with a photo that likely required very little, if any photoshopping.

And another one of my favourite designs in the release - Gold Standard.

4 packs - 4 hits. Not too bad an autograph as well, as he had a solid rookie year with the Reds, even if it was somewhat anonymously thanks to his teammate Jonathan India's award-winning rookie season.

Lots of red on the uniforms in the rest of the pack.

Pack 5:

And Pack #5 is another strange one. Not in the sense of there being the wrong number of cards in the pack, but among the make-up of the pack. Namely, that if you busted a mid-range, you'd think that the lowest numbered card within would be this /10 gold parallel of Anthony Rizzo. 

But instead it ends up being this cyan printing plate featuring Aaron Judge. This also hits one of my 2021 sweet spots, with a lot of the fans behind Judge being of the cardboard variety. I like this, but is available for trade for something similar in a Jay or Met. 

And the remainder of the pack. 2 numbered cards would be enough for this one. Pete Alonso brings some Mets love into the second half of the box.

Pack 6:

Finally, some Jays content! At least it is from one of the premium sets that is part of Chronicles.

A good pack for Angels stars.

And the finale. Appropriate that I wrap this up with some more Magnitude.

How can I complain about anything with a 1/1? And it was still a pretty nice box even without that.