2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 40: Another candidate for best repack pull

Yup. The repack gods were very good to me once again. In terms of COMC value, it really wasn't quite at the level of the Bradshaw film strip, but since I'm more hockey than football in terms of a collector, it is a closer battle.

Here's the box. The visible pack really wasn't that creased - I just decided after tossing the empty packs that I wanted to scan the box, and this was the visible pack on the other side. On the other side was 10-11 OPC. The non-visible packs were 08 Victory and 09 UD.

But, I'll lead with the bonus item. It seems like just a base card in the scan, but it is an oversized card. Unfortunately, the packaging has kinda dinged a corner or 4, but I'll probably still include when I send a new package out to Fuji, especially since I do want to send that Matt Tennyson auto at some point.

Off to the 50 cards:

As usual, this meant lots of 1990 Bowman and Score. But, there were still some nice cards in among those. II'm not sure if I like the fact that Riendeau is signing astick in this shot, or that he's wearing a garbage bag.

It is hard to dislike it when you get any new cards for the  2-14 collection. Here's a nifty new card of Dave Lowry, with some great contrast in the colours with the design as the blue disappears in the ice. Lucky #13 for cards of his in my collection, moving to 781 overall.

I must post the back of every 1993 Leaf card I come across in a repack. This guy was Diddy before anyone thought of adding P to it.

Highlighting a Pro Set card? When you've got a throwback jersey and a mask binder certainty, why not?

I'm starting to get desperate for anything that isn't from 1990 in this post. So, here's a shiny Ray Bourque from 1996.

And to wrap up a pretty dull collection of 50 cards, here's a French card of a Hartford Whaler that will probably end up PWEd to Shoebox Legends at some point.

OK. Off to the packs. I'll do these in order of how much I liked the contents thereof.

Aside from the Brodeur insert, everything here was a dupe for me. So, I couldn't get excited over a new Alfie or a Kolzig mask.

But I definitely needed this Alfredsson insert card for my collection. The Smith though, is a dupe. It is only a third of the card, but I'll still gladly add it ot my Rangers collection, which is starting to become pretty heavy on the Mike Richards content. And we've also got alternate jersey combining with a great photo on the Daniel Paille. A great step up from the first pack.

Yeah, I ranked this pack after one that hit a pair of PC needs. But, a retro parallel of Gordie Howe will do that. While it was the same photo used on the base card, it works so much better with a retro themed insert.

And for the best pack. We've got a Spezza, and a beautiful card of Varlamov highlighting a pack filled with horizontal shots. How can I not vote this one as my favourite?

Oh. It also contained this.

Pretty much the card you want to see come out when you bust a pack of Series 1 09-10 Upper Deck. Actually, Series 1 does contain a really strong contingent of Young Guns, with appearances from Erik Karlsson, Matt Duchene, Antti Niemi, Evander Kane and James van Riemsdyk. So, busting one of these can get you a pretty nice card. And while I would rather have the Karlsson for my PC, it is nice to pull a keeper.

Interestingly, this pack was obviously rustled by someone on the hunt for a relic. To that anonymous pack searcher, whereever you may be - HA HA!

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 39: Flea Market Repack

I mentioned picking up a different one of these repacks this past weekend at the flea market. It is a usual $5.00 for a brick of recent cards, but there was also a guaranteed relic in one of these. Since these have worked out pretty nicely in the past, let's dig in. These had the usual 50 or so cards in it, mostly from the past year or two. So, I'll limit it to the highlights.

These were the two visible cards. Both Red Wings, but I'm far happier about the new card for my Alfredsson collection. This is now my 8th card of his as a Red Wing.

Other PC additions? My 65th Marian Gaborik card in my 2/14 collection was one of them. My binder needs more die cut content, even if it is a base card.

2 new cards for my Senators collection. Why do so many of the cards featuring Craig Anderson's heritage mask feature the duller side with the logo, instead of the incredible Clint Benedict side?

A pair of Kitchener Rangers alumni were also found in this repack. It is nice to add the new Derek Roy card, since it doesn't seem like he'll have too many as a St. Louis Blue, being off to Nashville for next season.

And here's a page worth of new cards in the mask binder. Despite all the rather detailed masks here, I'm all over the Grant Fuhr as my favourite in the bunch. Just a simple usage of team colours and logo is all he needs. We also have Goaltending Gallimaufry (tm: Card Boarded), as Ben Bishop is still sporting his Ottawa Senators mask in the photo.

As always with recent sets, we get a nice mix of retired stars in with the current crop of players. That Orr is just beautiful, and I'm really surprised to see Andy Moog as part of a modern base set. He's well-known enough, but he just doesn't seem to be the type. Then again, I was pleased to Harold Snepsts as part of this year's Artifacts base, so why would I complain?

Here's a couple cards for my tentative set-build of the base from Anthology. I should probably stop calling a tentative set-build when I'm highlighting base cards from it. 28 more to go!

And finally, my promised hit. I guess this is close enough to a Senator to call it a Senators card. He doesn't seem to have any hits that aren't from his time as a Coyote, so I'll gladly add this to my Senators hit binder.

Not bad for $5!

Masked Mondays: Week 32 - More TMM goodies

I said I'd continue with the trade post on a day that seemed appropriate. Among the pack goodies was a complete subset of Les Gardiens from 2010-11 Donruss. 15 acetate cards sounds good to me.

It isn't too often that I sort cards by language, but that is the most logical way to do this. The first 5 cards in the subset are for the Quebec goaltenders. Sadly, the least of the quality mask shots lead the way in this subset.

But things pick up when you get to the English portion of this subset in terms of mask quality. All of these would be certain keepers for the mask binder on their own. Interestingly, Cujo is the only one of the English portion of this subset that isn't American.

Alright! Now I know what Goalies translates to in Finnish!

And Swedish!

And Slovak!

Thanks for this surprise!

COMC Challenge Cards Part 39: Misc vintage

When you still have a couple bucks left on the account at the time, why not plug a year from the 50s into the search engine at COMC, then search by lowest price and grab a few random vintage cards. These cards are all my first ones from their respective years.

First up, a somewhat well-known card through the blogosphere. Some might love this due to the massive unibrow, but I'm equally in love with the classic Orioles logo on the card.

And of course, you've also got fun cartoons on the back of this card, and the factoid of the Noodles nickname.

Working backwards chronologically through these 3 cards, here's a 1955 Bowman card. I love anything with a wood-grain border, especially when they have the TV theme.

And finally, a vintage Washington Senators card from 1954 wraps this little bit of vintage fun up. This is my oldest card for that team, and my 6th vintage one overall (7 if you count a Paul Casanova buyback from a pack of this year's flagship).

Each card isn't exactly mint, but isn't exactly in dire condition either. And neither one set me back more than 55 cents of credit.

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 38.2: 4 basketball packs to go

Let's wrap up the basketball pack repack that I started posting earlier this week. Still left to look through are packs of 09 Adrenalyn, 08 and also 09 First Edition and finally a rack pack of 10 Classics.

First up, an actual hit from the rack pack.

Terrico White isn't the most spectacular pull, but an on-card autograph is still a nice surprise. Unfortunately, Terrico got injured in his first NBA preseason game, and never played a regular season game in the NBA. He's been playing overseas the past few years.

But, in terms of COMC value, this wasn't the most valuable card. This was:

If someone told me that the most valuable card would come from the Adrenalyn pack, I'd laugh. But I could pick up the cheapest Terrico White autos there for the cost of the cheapest Stephen Curry. I'd still rather have the auto, though.

Now, the important things for me in this portion of the repack: The Raptors content.

That's it! It is also a dupe for me. But, considering the lack of Sonny Weems content where he is a Raptor, it is still a nice one to have a dupe of his.

Celtics content?

A little better. Rondo wasn't the only player to make an appearance in both packs of First Edition.

Although this one didn't quite have the same star power.

Best photos? You pretty much have to default it to Upper Deck since they were the only cards with the backgrounds still in the picture. These are nice, though.

And finally, although Too Many Manninghams missed out on the Eric Nystrom I picked up at the flea market today, so hopefully this Jamal Crawford will be a consolation prize. I didn't know Crawford was a Wolverines alum until I read the card back, so I've got someone else to look for hits of

Flea Market Alfie (and more!)

Back to the flea market again this morning. This time I picked up another flea market repack (this one contained a promised relic card to go alongside the brick of recent hockey base). I'll show those off later, since I also grabbed a few new cards for my Alfredsson collection, and one more for the 2/14 collection.

Hologram cards! Hologram cards always rule! Except when it comes to try and get things even when you're scanning them and the cards have round edges on all sides. But seriously, hologram cards are always awesome.

Die-cut cards? Also consistently awesome.

Prizm cards from the Prizm set that never was but then was kinda sorta. Yeah, these are pretty nice to. Even if this is the base and not the shiny.

And finally, among the singles was this new addition to my 2/14 collection. Sorry that I only found one of these, as this would also be a nice bright addition to Too Many Manninghams' collection of hockey hits. Should I find another one of these, it is yours!

So, not a bad haul at all. I'll get to the flea market repack with a relic at a later date.

Another TMM/TMV trade - Part 1

Yup. Another pile of Wolverines/Tigers went Michigan-ward, and the goodie bubble envelope returned this week. Among the stuff was a complete Update set from 2000 Tradition as part of his cleanup giveaway. But, I'll focus more on the cards that I wasn't expecting (along with saving some for a rare masked Monday).

Opening up, a vintage card that dropped off my Top 10 list. as you might have guessed, Dobie Craig is on his way into my 2/14 binder. I also love that the card features a position you haven't seen on football cards in ages - the flanker. This might also be my first card featuring that designation.

The only other 2-14 card in this package was an on-card/manurelic auto of Richard Hamilton. It is nice to finally start to add autos of Richard Hamilton to my collection. This is my second auto of his for my collection, with my third on the way.

And here's someone making his debut in the hits portion of my CanCon collection. Getting both a relic and an autograph on the same card.

And to wrap up the hit portion of this, a beautiful Blue Jays patch from Shannon Stewart. Surprisingly, this thick three colour patch is /300. I won't complain about that since it is a beautiful addition to my Jays collection.

And to wrap this up, goodies for my team collections:

One lonely Raptors card. But, it takes me back to the original uniforms and home games at the Skydome. And one Raptors card is still better than zero.

And these two for my Marlins team collection. OK. It's just two of my favourite players who happened to be Marlins at the time. This is actually my first Piazza Marlins card, kinda surprising for someone like me that likes the odder cards of my favourite players.

Only three Blue Jays base cards in the package.

Here's the Bills content. There's a pair of inserts from 2013 Topps I'd been looking for, as well as a /299 shiny parallel of Chris Gragg.

And to wrap things up for this post, the Mets content. There's another orange parallel in this one, but this is /250 of for Matthew Bowman. But, I'm most excited about the card of Gary Sheffield. Much like with Piazza and the Marlins, this is my first card of his as a Met.

Thanks for part 1 of the trade, Dennis! I've got at least two more posts to come out of the deal as well.