A rare A&G pack break for me

I took my lunch break to make my weekly trip over to the card store for a few packs of OPC hockey (Nicest card today - a retro Tyler Seguin, a rare time when the most valuable card in the set is also my favourite of the pack(s)). I saw some A&G and decided to splurge on a pack.

Let's see:

#12 - Bryce Harper - Nationals
#41 - Clayton Kershaw - Dodgers
#73 - Jordan Zimmerman - Nationals
#113 - Meadowlark Lemon - Globetrotters(!)
#125 - Ben Revere - Twins
#165 - Alex Avila - Tigers
#327 - Jon Lester (mini) - Red Sox
WIN12 - Minni Minoso - White Sox

The Harper is the reason I always try to have a hard toploader in my desk - just in case I come across a keeper (which I thought would be the Seguin). Those Lemon and Minoso cards are really sweet as well and definitely candidates for the ol' permanent binder as well.

I've been too hockey-centric as of late, so back to some good old baseball cards, and a rather unfortunate one today. Much like the Tom Kurvers one I posted a couple days back, this is another one that makes one wonder why they chose such an unflattering shot on a player's card. Unlike the Kurvers, at least is an interesting action shot, set beautifully against the ivy of Wrigley Field.

Unfortunately, it appears he hasn't even come close to making the catch, with a very visible baseball dropping down for extra bases.

Two out of three ain't bad

Occasionally, I'll do a big time splurge and shell out a few bucks for the packs of the new stuff. Rarely do I bother to make even the minutest effort to finish the set. But it can be refreshing to rip open a new pack. I can judge how much I'll enjoy a pack my the first card I see.

New O-Pee-Chee? Kyle Turris rocking the Senators heritage jersey? WIN!
New Score? Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, also in a heritage jersey? YES!
New Topps football? An airbrushed/photochopped Tim Tebow? Ugh. And that was before this weekend's Bills/Jets game.

A hologram card - Yay! Wait a sec...

I can't believe I actually found a hologram in one of those dollar packs. Sure, it is of Peter Ahola, who spent the rest of his career bouncing around the minors and Europe. But it is a hologram, and the total common box quality of the player would make me more excited than finding a Lidstrom or Hasek, also who were all Euro-Rookies.

Same player - Two great photos

Dollar store packs usually have two cards facing out on each side, making it quite easy to scan through them for an interesting picture or two. Facing out usually are the most important players in the pack, although I often find hidden gems in the middle. These two immediately grabbed my eye, and I couldn't resist them for these photographs alone. The fact that one of them had a Cam Neely card I didn't have on the opposite side was just a bonus.

Curtis Glencross might not be a household name, but the man sure can produce a great card. In this case, back-to-back ones from the same company. The latter of the two has incredibly well done depth with the pucks he's knocking on to the ice at the Joe Louis arena. The former might be too red for some, but considering the team, I don't mind it at all. If he was still with the Blue Jackets at the time, I'd be less enthused.

Plus, looking at some of his other cards over at COMC, the action shot on his 11-12 Pinnacle one is also pretty sweet. I'll have to start checking the singles boxes to see if he threepeat with a great card this year.

Stuff I will Always Buy - Great Catch #1

I don't care if the guy isn't on one of my favourite teams. Have a picture like this visible in the front of the (re)package and I will always be shelling over my loonie + HST.

Stuff lie this makes me hope that memorable grabs from the likes of Mike Trout and Rajai Davis get immortalized on cardboard in 2013.

Collect-a-books!

This posting will cover a card that did not originate in any sort of dollar store, to the best of my knowledge. This is something that I pulled out of a geocache out in Nose Hill Park in Calgary, Alberta. While searching for caches on the morning of the 2009 Grey Cup "Illegal substitution, too many men on the field, Saskatchewan. It's a ten yard penalty, we'll repeat first down". Anyhow, in 4 different containers, I came across some 1991 Collect-A-Books, which I had never heard of prior to this. Needless to say, I swapped cards into the cache and picked up all 4 of them. They were Lenny Dykstra, Ben McDonald, Doug Drabek and Thurman Munson. All of which will probably end up scanned and shown here at some point. I think this was the first of the 4 I found that beautiful fall morning in Calgary.

When I put them beside a standard card, they are just a smidgen smaller (maybe a millimeter or 3) and the same width.

This card is just plain wrong. Finding a Tony Batista card that does not show his incredibly wacky batting stance is like having poutine with Velveeta on it. Blasphemy!

The Good With The Bad - The Bad

Unfortunately, mixed in with the Diamond King & Nellie Fox package was this less-than-pleasant find.

Coming across cards from the 80s and 90s, I often wonder what happened to the players. This one, though, I didn't need to head off to wikipedia for a look. This is one I remembered easily. Not because I recall seeing Mel Hall Transport trucks in and around Southern Ontario. This one I recall because I remembered the sportscast where he was convicted of raping an underage girl and getting sentenced to 45 years in jail. If he gets parole, maybe he'll see this post in 20 years or so.

The Good With The Bad - The Good

I recently grabbed one batch of 20 baseball cards, with the only one visible in the pack being an Action Packed Nellie Fox and what appeared to be a bunch of 1989 Donruss behind it. However as a Criminal Minds fan, I had to pick it up just for the Fox card. That's most certainly going to appear here soon, but what I found flipping through the Donruss cards made me happy.

Not one, not two, but three Diamond Kings back-to-back-to-back in it. I didn't care who they were of, getting that neat run in the pack made the set more than worth it. One being a HOFer, even moreso. Are they worth much? Monetarily, no. But a fun find that brought back great memories of finding even 1 DK in a pack made it great.