You've Got Your Chase Cards

And now, I've landed one of mine.
 

A Page of Jim Kelly

 

1995 Pinnacle Club Collection was a strange set. It was limited to the stars at the time, mostly QBs, and the 261 card set had only 29 players in it, with each player getting 9 consecutive cards, but some teams making no appearance at all.

But that does make for a convenient and easy page for the Jim Kelly portion of my 2/14 collection. His fellow 2/14 baby Drew Bledsoe also gets the 9 card treatment her for a future chase.

But if a single card is more your thing - here you are!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 19 - Dollarama Duals

One of each from the Dollarama! 
 

Here's a better look at the opening card. Back when you might find an interesting photo in flagship's base set. Series 2 dropped earlier today, and it looks just as dull as Series 1.

That David Shaw is, surprisingly, a new addition to the Kitchener Rangers alum collection, as he was a part of the team that won the Memorial Cup in 1982. That's always a nice surprise in a run of junk wax stuff.

Vasicek is an interesting photo, and you get a nice look at the DK (announcer Dan Kelly) memorial patch on Brind'amour, so at least this is a little more memorable than the first batch.

But here's the big winner here - the visible card on the back. You get both a mask binder card and an interesting alternate jersey. The main logo and colours throw back to the early years of the team, but then they overdo it with the background, which gives the vibe of the late 90s Tampa Bay alternates. They should have quit while they were ahead.

Here's the Surprise Bag contents. I'll never complain about finding those Swedish packs in these.

Some nice 90s photos in the 5-card pack with Malik and Bassen. That's a  perfectly-cropped face-off picture!

I haven't heard of any of thse players, but it is fun to see uniforms that you don't see much of, if at all, outside of these cards. Even if they look like billboards.

Walt was both a 2/14 baby and a Rangers alum, but I've got that card in both those collections. Other than that, really bland with Leetch being the HOFer. 

Junk wax Jets end the post in the Canadian team pack. 

But let's get a look at the Manitoba Legislature building behind Phil before I officially end this.

There you have it!

Donruss Sampler

 One good retail sampler deserves another.

Especially with the local Wally World not having any Series 2 yet. The packaging is the extent of the Wander Franco I'll find with this pack break.

Here's my opener. As seems to be the norm for Donruss, there's a lot of border in this, but at least there is some presence of the team colours.

Your first batch of base cards. Exactly what one would expect from this photographically, with shots used that minimize the need to wipe team logos. Blyleven is a pleasant surprise to find a card of in this set.

Other than the close-cropping on the Hoskins, nothing really stands out in this group as notable.

Some Mets content finally, with Pete Alonso getting the 1988 retro treatment. The Diamond Kings do have the appropriate garishness you'd expect. That is Kyle Schwarber on the Waltham variation. He's not from Waltham, Mass. Somebody felt that he should have been from Waltham, Mass, and the nickname stuck. 

I like this stat line parallel /71 (his total career stolen bases) more anyhow. 

Here's those red foil parallels that the pack promises. While the pack didn't provide Wander Franco content, Marsh isn't too bad of a guy to get the Rated Rookie parallel of. That Vladdy is bound for this binder. While I'd rather have a Montreal card of his, this is still pretty nice, since the red works with the Anaheim colours as well And the purple looks nice too with the red. 

And there's the Vector parallel, which is actually a parallel of an insert. Yet more future content for a Watertown-bound Dodgers mailer, which is especially vital since Repack #14 arrived earlier today here.

There you have it! 

Bowman Sampler

 

Hey! Retail Bowman! And that's about all I can afford at this point. 

But at least there wasn't a bad player to get as my first card out of the product, even if few people are interested in veteran base cards in this.

And here's the rest of them. A Trout base is still a Trout card, so that's kinda nice. And the Robert is a more interesting photo that you'd generally find in Bowman among many 

Here's my prospects. At least there's a Blue Jay in this grouping, and with Gabriel Moreno called up to the big club, Martinez now becomes the prospect in the system that I'm most excited about seeing with the team. 

Insert #1. Gunnar Henderson sounds like a made-up name used in some police procedural where there's a murder involving a  baseball team.

And this looks like a 1993 insert.

A Mets card! And it is another top prospect for the team. I have no idea who the other players are, but at least there's another card for a future Watertown mailer.

Pretty average pack on the whole, but at least I got a couple team collection cards. 

Irony

 

Of all the players for there to be a police-issued card of.

The only  way this could be even more inappropriate in retrospect was for there to be a tip involving 'potions' on the back.

OSKEE WEE WEE!

 The CFL season kicked off on Thursday night, but I really don't consider it to have started until the Tiger-Cats have played their first game. Which is tonight in Regina. So, here's a bunch of epack CFL cards that have shown up over the past few months.

Most of the cards are out of 2019 releases, but here's a blue parallel from 2018. These ones are e-pack exclusives, and here we see Simoni Lawrence, who has been a defensive beast for Hamilton for the past several seasons. He's been the East's top defensive player for 3 seasons since arriving in 2014.

Here's a 2019 team set of those blue parallels, which, while not as inexpensive as some of the hockey entries that flood COMC, were reasonably priced enough that I can put this team set together. 

Some red parallels. I think these were all through epacks I either opened or traded for on UD's site.

And a kicker auto! For my team PC as well! What a perfect card This I know was pulled from a personal e-pack. Lirim has been bouncing around NFL practice teams and training camps since this card was released.

Let's end with 2020 stuff. Chronologically, there's no choice, as 2021 still has to hit the market, if it ever will. While this does look like it hits one of my football sweet spots - a defender with the ball - Williams was also a  punt/kick returner for the team, so it is far more likely this photo is from that.

Another hit is a fine way to end a three-down post.

There you have it!

Pandemic Cards

 Nothing says 'This card photo was taken in 2020' like:

masks

and cardboard fans.

Ah, the memories!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 18.4 - Forgotten but not Gone

 

It is a fine start to the finale with 2/14 baby Tyler Clippard. A dupe, but it was nice to see him as one of the visible cards.

I love the 80s jackets sported on those cards. Even though neither one features a team that I cheer for, I'd still wear them until they were threadbare. That's an interesting repack coincidence as well on the bottom, with 3 cards of Joses. All that amazingness almost makes you forget that there is also a play at the plate card in this mix as well. Repack greatness!

There is the second appearance of that '89 Fleer of Filer. Seeing a Mariners cap and a Rated Rookie on a 1989 Donruss had to be a little disappointing at the time when you'd see Erik Hanson and not Griffey. 

Looks like there was a bonus card in this portion. I'll just pretend it was one of the three Mets cards in this bunch. Lilly has a pretty nice 'point of release' photo for a generally bland Bowman release. Appropriately for this particular repack, there's a final gasp of Update sets in this batch, with both of those 1986 Topps being from their traded set.

There you have it!

2022 Adventures in Repacks - Part 18.3 - Forgotten but not Gone

 

As we start off the second portion, we do get the most interesting of the opening cards. The umpire scrambling back into the action is a bonus.

It is the backgrounds that steal the show in the first batch. The out-of-town scoreboards are a flashback to the time when all the interleague games were played on the same day. And Nelson Liriano's return to the Skydome is marked by also posing for photos for his Topps card,

Update to start with Guante. Update to end with Schrom. With a Diamond King/Expo among the meat in the sandwich.

And your last batch. One more 1986 Topps update card, which made it the most common set in the repack. The 1990 Score looks perfect for Oakland cards. But yeah, this hasn't been the most interesting portion of the repack.  

Hopefully the final group of 20 is more interesting. This started good, but went 'blah' fast.