2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 13 - The Calm Before the Storm

Before things get a little busy around the blog, I might as well clear off two more Dollarama repacks. One $1 hanger and a Surprise bag. Which is pretty much the usual for me.

I'll start with the $1.

2017 UD - Matthew Dumba - Multi-image cards can be found in the regular ud base set this year, after returning to the Canvas portion last year.
1990 Bowman - Patrick Flatley
1996 Pinnacle - Alexei Zhamnov
1992 Pinnacle - Rob Pearson
1991 Pro Set - Paul Ysebaert

1991 Score - Wayne Gretzky - Even from the junk wax era, a Gretzky appearance is always welcome.

2000 BAP Memorabilia - John Madden - Of course I landed a Wolverines alum for a future TMM mailer. Why wouldn't I?

2000 BAP Signature - André Savage - An obscure Bruin sporting the Gentle Ben unis. That's worthy of a scan.
2012 Rookie Anthology - George Parros

1994 Parkhurst - Nathan Lafayette
1995 Stad. Club - Russ Courtnall
1991 Score - Trevor Linden - 3 straight Canucks! Repack collation can have such quirks.
1990 UD - Janne Ojanen

1991 7IS - Brent Watson - Those early Guelph Storm uniforms were something else...
2015 UD - Sean Monahan

Will there be a card worthy of the snap holder? Likely not, but I'll still dig into these.

Not one, but two HOFers in the HOF pack. Even better, that's a new Al MacInnis for the Rangers alumni collection. We're late in the season now, as there's the second UD card from one of this year's releases in this post.

#3 is in the 2010s pack. Great photo choice on it as well.

Even the miscellaneous pack wasn't too bad. 3 of the cards not being from the junk wax era was 3 more than I expected. And even the JW stuff wasn't too bad. It may lack the poofiness of Jagr, but that's a nice mullet nonetheless that Todd is sporting.

There you have it!

And, as for the storm I referenced in the title...

this should be a fun one.

2, 3 and Part 4.

Going through the box of cards from Jeff & 2*3 Heroes continues with some items destined for the mask binder. In terms of volume, this was the most significant portion of the mailing. At 50ish cards worth, I did opt to whittle it down to a far more manageable showing off of my faves.

I probably showed off this card when I was building the OPC set. Now that is committing to the whole throwback uniform deal. I just wish that OPC would have also gone all-in and used the classic logo on the card.

Doug Favell was the first goaltender to have his mask fully-painted. It was a complete orange paint job originally, supposedly as a Halloween prank.

The OPC Retros the past few years have provided really nice close-ups of the artwork, such as here with Jonathan Bernier.

This isn't the best photo, but an appearance of the alternate masks that make appearances during outdoor games are always worth scanning and posting.

Back-to-back cards featuring the Flyers vs. the Rangers! While this rookie rivalry may have subsided with Talbot's move to Edmonton, this might be the only card in this subset where not only are both players still in the league, but they are both playing significant roles with their current teams. The combination of Adam Henrique and Carl Hagelin is probably the only other contender.

And the other hit for the mask binder is also a relevant player today, albeit as a backup in New Jersey.

And there you have the highlights of the mask portion of the box. Just some 2/14 stuff to go, likely later this week.

2018 Adventures in Repacks - Part 12 - Cubism

Another trip to Walmart, another one of these repack cubes. The first one wasn't half bad, and landed me some nice cards, including a great Landeskog for the PC. What will this one yield?

To start off, the pack contents were the same - those being 1 pack each of 16-17 S1, 15-16 S2, 07-08 Ultra and 4 packs of 12-13 Score.

Naturally, the contents that comprised the 65 cards were different. This time, more than half the cards were 2012-13 Score. Although he's struggled lately, the best in this group was a rookie that is still relevant.

Second in terms of volume was a bunch of 2014-15 Black Diamond. A better variety there in terms of binder candidates, including a Sens card, a Rangers alum and two people you wouldn't expect in a 2014 release.

Also there, some 12-13 UD. I've posted this several times in the past, and it is still one of my favourite Alfie cards based on photo choice alone.

Finally, these parallels may be the most interesting part of the repack. I can't remember at all which packs these came from in the first place. Blasters? Tins? Either way, these were unexpected. The Pacioretty is already set aside for a future TMM mailer.

As before, I'll chronologically go through the packs. I can't really complain when I land both a Sens card and a parallel of HOFer among 5 cards.

There wasn't much that was interesting about the Score packs, so here are the gold parallels.

The 15-16 S2 pack did land me a rather garish insert.

The most recent pack landed me a hit! The pack in question appears to have originated from a tin, where relics fell at a rate of 1:240 packs. So, while this isn't a super valuable card. at least it proves that the packs in these repacks aren't searched.

There you have it! Back to the trade box yet again tomorrow.

Meet the Mets!

Once again, the box from 2*3 Heroes opens, and this time, a selection of the Mets portion of the set gets the scanned and posted treatment.

Stadium Club is always an acceptable pick as to a card to use when starting a post. It looks like a rather bland photo choice, but I do like that it is slightly off-center combined with the side-facing pose.

I admit to having no idea what this was from. Scanning through COMC informed me these were Walmart exclusive decals. Seeing as I've seen a grand total of zero packs/blasters of retail Heritage, it is nice to add something I really couldn't pack pull up here.

The other Mets card in the pack that wasn't a 2*3. This green parallel is also /99.

From a classic cardboard look to a glossy parallel. A fine transition.

Another set makes it debut in my collection.

At least at one point, I probably could have pulled one of these red Target parallels from a blaster of cards purchased on this side of the border. Back when Target Canada was a thing. Although my wallet is probably thankful in the long run.

More sets making their first appearances in my collection.

Start with a Piazza card - end with a Piazza card. Perfect.

Still two more trips into the box to go.

The Joy of a Competed Set (Album)

Not much text today, but completing a set (or in this case, a sticker album) is worthy of a post on its own.

I got a little tired of hoping they'd show up at COMC, or on sportlots so I hit up nhlhockeystickers.com and picked up the needs. I love that the Habs had so many retired numbers at the time they had to use such a tiny font on the sticker. And this is before Emile Bouchard had his #3 retired. And there's also 2/14 baby Hejduk in this with the bonus of having his birthdate listed on the sticker. That's worthy of picking up a second sticker for the collection!

And there you have it!

You Won't Believe What Baby Gerald Looks Like Today!

Fans are stunned!

And Anthony Davis is clearly second place in the unibrow game.

Hockey Miscellany

Back to the 2*3 trade box! Today, the hockey portion of the trade that contained cards that while numerous in spots, wasn't quite enough to sustain a post of its own outside of a one card only one.

There really is no better option for starting a post than an appearance of Stanley.

Two new Rangers alum base cards for that binder. How did I not have that Steven Rice? Jim Sandlak played one game for the Rangers. That doesn't matter. He still counts.

No doubt that these two count for the binder as they're both rocking the Rangers colours on this. I really love that one of the photos features the Remembrance Day alternate uniforms as well.

This grouping isn't Rangers-related, but here's some random CHL cards that were also in there. Savour someone's first attempt at facial hair! Remember that someone skated around with Corpse on the back of their jersey.

Random numbered Artifacts redemptions!

This will end with a handful of Senators cards. That Daigle would have been massive at the time. I checked on COMC expecting it to be there for 99 cents now, but the lowest priced on there (on sale) is $11.05. I was probably as surprised as you are.

Andre Petersson played one game for the Senators. He still counts.

Hobby Pack Sampler

Another trip to the LCS, another chance to grab a couple packs off the shelves.

Since hockey is pretty easy to find in a retail, hobby shop or card show setting, I'll avoid that and grab a couple Panini packs.

6 regular base cards. At least I landed a Mets card in all this. I wouldn't mind the base design so much if it didn't have those lines across the bottom third of the card. The '84 throwbacks look fine.

There are a lot of variations in this year's release. Bad for a team/player collector, but just fine for a pack sampler. Unfortunately, I just dropped a Dodger-y envelope in the direction of Night Owl, so this will have to wait until the next mailer.

And a hit! This will also be set aside for a future arbitrary mailer.

While I'm not crazy about the design, at least I got some cards for the trade box.

The basketball base cards. I guess as is typical for the non-Prizm Select cards is that they scan terrible, but look nice in hand.

As shown here - this Prizm parallel looks nice and bright in the scan. This is the Scope parallel of the #1 draft pick.

Another hit! And this one has an auto to go along with it! It is abbreviated, but all the letters are legible. This auto has an interesting connection with an auto I pulled the last time I did a pack sampler as if the athletics thing doesn't work out, he should be able to fall back on his brains, as he put up an impressive 3.89 GPA at Texas.

Two hits from two packs. No complaints. Back to the mailbag tomorrow!