The Jays Portion

Back to the mailer again, and all of the Blue Jays contained within

Minis! That Tony Fernandez was one of only a couple of cards showing up today that isn't either an insert or parallel. Great for the variety!

And here's the absolute stack worth of those aforementioned inserts/parallels. I still remember that I was originally disappointed by that Mark DeRosa, since he wasn't using a CFL ball in that photo. The Argos will still playing out of the Dome at the time. Booo. There's nice memories as well for seeing the Ed-Wing on his Chrome sepia card. 

Before I head off to the true hits of the package in terms of relics and autos, here's a numbered card. I had absolutely no memory of Patterson. It looks like he never made it above AA, but that's far closer than I'd ever get to a MLB field without  getting arrested for trespassing. 

The best Blue Jays relics are blue Blue Jays relics.

But this one has a sticker blocking part of the swatch. But this is one of those verification stickers, so I can find out which game it is from.

And on that date, Bo went 0-5 with a walk and a run scored in a 12 inning loss. Sometimes not having a sticker might be better, and I can imagine a better result.

Adding a stamp with the team logo on it is a choice - a strange one when a new logo means it doesn't match the hat logo the player is sporting. But it does add a little something to a basic bat relic. 

Thomas Pannone had likely pitched his last innings with the Jays when this card was first released. He'd go on to spend some time in Korea, before returning to this side of the Pacific to spend time in Milwaukee, and is now in the Cubs system. I don't care how short your time is with the Jays, or if you even reached the majors. If it says Toronto on the card, it is a Jays card.

Just a small stack of miscellany left to show off!

Pure 70s

 

Sleazy 'stache. Thick sideburns. Tinted shades. A not-exactly-memorable uniform.

But you also get a nice view of the stands at Old Comiskey.

And the likelihood I'll go all in again next year on Heritage increasing.

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 17 - Surprising

 

Time to return to my "repacks to be posted" collection, which is getting pretty tiny at this point. Time to restock!

And here's the content. All repacks in the repack.

90s pack was pretty much what I expected. So, I look for interesting stuff, like three 1989 UD Dodgers cards in a row. Or a typically busy 90s entry from Select. Or a stand-alone set making an appearance with Davis. Find interesting items anywhere you can!

The 300hr pack takes me out of the junk wax era. It's Palmeiro that is 300HR guy on the dual card. Will Clark fell just short, with 284. Any Joe Carter appearance is welcome, even if this isn't a Blue Jays card.

12 cards? It is a happy lie as there were actually 14. It being all over the place is the greatness of repacks. There's a Pico de Gallo variation, of which if I wanted this card over on COMC, found that this is much cheaper than the regular base card. Tekulve brings some O-Pee-Chee love into this. As expected when Stadium Club is included, it is going to provide the best photo of the bunch. And there is a hint of a 'V' on the nameplate, so you aren't just taking their word that he's the catcher in the photo. Wrigley ivy is a nice way to end this repacked pack.

For most of you, the Rivera will be the best card in the pack. If not, then it would likely be the Chan Ho Park insert. I'm picking the Petry though? Why a junk wax entry?

O-Pee-Chee appearance #2! And unlike the Tekulve, you need to flip the card to discover the Frenchness contained within. 

Finally, the Superstar pack. Burnes might be the least Superstar-ish among this group, but given he's got a Cy Young to his name, and given that all awards to their name, I'd say everybody here qualifies for the advertising.

There you have it!

Mets via Michigan

 Back to the latest TMV mailer, and the Mets portion contained within.

While there was solid content among what was pretty much an entire insert/parallel content of the Mets stuff, this one was easily my favourite. Why?

It was the French variant. Maybe they no longer want to pay for someone to do all these translations over 700+ cards, but I'd rather see these in products than variations that didn't exist at the time, such as the border ones. At least for the years where OPC shared the design with Topps. 

But, yes. Lots and lots of inserts and parallels. The only one here that was not one of those was the Triple Threads card at the very bottom. Even then, maybe the foil was different and it is a bronze parallel or something. Of the others, I'll always love when the local Calvin Ziegler makes an appearance. 

Minis! 

Over to the hit portion of this mailer with a manufactured coin. This card was really heavy - surprisingly so. I could carry this with me and use it as a weapon a pinch. 

Franklyn Kilome's Mets career wasn't exactly the most spectacular - 4 games and an ERA over eleven. But that just makes his cards all the more interesting to me. Such statistics to me just scream 'Mets'. 

And that's still 4 more MLB games than Meyer has played in so far. He was still in the system as of last season, making it to AAA Syracuse. He tried to catch on with Tampa this past spring training, but that didn't work out. Still, it is a Mets auto! 

Noah needs little introduction as a very solid part of the rotation for several years. His career does appear to have come to an end, but there will always be the memories. Maybe I should better remember them by getting the card at a proper angle.

And that's the third post covering the most recent mailer. There you have it!

Always Room for Chronicles

 

One pack of their most recent baseball under that title, and one deeply discounted basketball pack from several years ago.

The opening cards had been in the packs too long - you know that when even the scan can't hide it. The bottom two were not miscut - I just cropped the scan too much. Sharpe is probably my favourite among the paper base cards in this - Luminance nicely created the old school dark arena vibe where only the court is highlighted in the arena.

Only one bronze parallel - shown in the slight colour to the foil at the bottom. 

Only two foil cards in the pack, but one is the shiny holo parallel. Even if they're not as super-rare like they are in actual Gala, those base cards here are still pretty nice looking.

WOO-HOO! Only one Playbook card per pack, and it lands me a new Scottie Barnes for the Raptors PC.  And of course, his FSU cards count towards that binder. Why wouldn't they?

I guess they thought since I got the Bronze parallel of that Josh Christopher earlier, they thought I could use the regular base card as well. Yay?

Any new Barnes makes it a thumbs up pack!

Here's the baseball, starting with a bunch of paper base cards. I like the oddness of seeing Pat Gillick getting base cards last season in Prizm. While his photo is super agreeable to being used in unlicensed products, they used in all releases. Surely one more had to be available, right? That Musial has such a nice photo with Luminance providing yet another great entry. 

And since Classics kept their factoid on the back for this portion of the Chronicles set, I'm showing that off as well. With his cards debuting in 1990, Eric was a junk wax mainstay. Even with that, if you went to COMC, you'd still have more options for Elijah cards vs. Eric's.

The rest of the paper portion. Luminance also rocks for the minor leaguer cards portion of the set.

And here's the foil cards. I'd pulled that McGwire before, and sent that off to Cards on Cards. Is it a sign? I doubt it, but much like with the Edwin Nunez yesterday, I'm holding on to it. Just in case. Brady House is a red wave parallel, coming in at /299. Not super rare, but still nice coming out of a retail rip.

Both were fun, solid packs. What else could I ask for?

There you have it!

2024 Adventures in Repacks - Part 16 - Coming Across a Gem

 

The Wally World had a couple new repacks show up lately - these and a similar football one. The latter advertised more packs, but I assumed they'd be Sage and similar packs with questionable licensing. So, I opted for this.

The three packs were 2023 Series 1, 2022 Prizm Draft, and 2021 Chrome NPB. 

I'll lead with the oldest product. And it isn't too bad. I get a name that's familiar to collectors on this side of the Pacific with Leonys Martin. And I get a numbered card too - an aqua /199. Perfectly fine start.

This is my first pack of Prizm Draft, and hey - a great way to introduce itself is to provide an auto. This is the second time I've pulled an Edwin Nunez auto from a pack I picked up at in a Walmart repack. I found a home for the first one, but maybe landing a second is a sign that I should keep this one. Also, these may have been the most bowed cards I've pulled straight from a pack since early 2010s Topps Chrome. And not even straight across the middle - these were bowed on a diagonal from corner to corner. 

Series 1 has been shown off so often from last year across blogs that I don't really need to go beyond "I liked the photo on this base card" for these. And here are the ones that at least interested me. 

The pack was of the retail variety, so that means Stars of MLB were in there. Both Chrome and regular. It still sounds so generic.

Shininess! Not just for the Prizm and Chrome packs!

This pack had a lot of inserts/parallels, and the final card hits both. It comes from the All Aces insert set, and Castillo lucked out by having the most appropriate of the 4 suits as his background. These /299 are black parallels, and pretty tough pulls in the retail environment.

1 in 5,552! That is assuming I read this correctly. 

And I haven't even shown off the graded card.

Actually a relevant player! Even if not so much so this season. I watched some youtube breaks and saw several appearances of TJ Freidl, Otto Lopez and Luke Williams. Even if it isn't a PC card, it is nice to get a card and remember the player for something other than just having a card or two of them.

There you have it!