2020 Adventures in Repacks: Part 24.1 - Football From The Source

I'm switching to a football repack today.

The first of these I tried earlier this year was pretty good. Let's go again!

Only cards this time in the repack. I'll go chronologically, and end with the Superstars.

The appearance of Mongo in this means this is the second repack in the shipment that I can use the wrestling tag on. Also, if you're not following "what will mongo do next?" on twitter, why aren't you?

The best card in the 90s pack was a new Jim Kelly for the 2/14 collection, but that success won't be repeated with this one. Here, the big winner was this great Curtis Conway card from 1998 Metal Universe. A bear in the background of a Bears card? Perfect!

Kicker mojo! Although a kicker was far more likely to make an appearance on cardboard in the junk wax era than in today's releases.

Even some CFL love!

Here's the rest of the 90s pack. The three Upper Deck cards at the top were in numerical order for the set as well.

I guess I had to wait until 2000 for there to be some 2/14 content in this one. This is my 114th card of Bledsoe. Joe Horn's card mentions his CFL time, so that's a bonus as well. And then there's firearms aficionado Plaxico Burress!

Bills content, an insert, and the always great Chargers unis on the always great Classics design.

Your Superstars! Newton and Jones are, but with only a few games under his belt, Alan Harper really does not.  But it is a rookie card, so there is that.

There you have it! I'm expecting my Score box to arrive tomorrow, so I'll take a break from football repacks for the time being, and return to this when I'm through recapping the box .

One Card Only: I'm Lazy

I busted 3 boxes of Hoops. I collated the base set. After busting 72 packs and sorting them, I'm way too tired to scan a pile of inserts and parallels * 3, so I'm just going through my already scanned cards and showing this:

Antowain Smith against a backdrop of Buffalo. Perfect for lazy ol' me.

Mets in the Mail

Time to wrap up a trade with Too Many Manninghams, and fatten out the Mets content with some cards in a mailer from #supertrader Waiting 'til Next Year.

Only one hit among the group, and it is an autograph of Generation-K alum Paul Wilson. Ah, what coulda been. Has it been long enough that we no longer hate Dallas Green for wrecking those arms?

I will never tire of pulling Action Packed cards from mailers or repacks. Probably, if the embossed cards like this continued well past the early 90's that wouldn't be so.

Must highlight Metal Universe. Even if they scan so poorly as to obscure the background in scans, some of the background choices are a bit out there. Sure, Rey Ordonez straddling a subway is kinda unique, but does it really compare to a bug-eyed Tony Womack diving out of the way of a plane?

I had no idea an all-framed set existed until I opened the WTNY mailer.

The big winner here was the Mike Piazza portion of my binders, adding 5 new cards to their pages, even if he shares the bill with Robin Ventura on one of them.

And to end things, some miscellaneous Mets from the binder, with a slight emphasis on chrome-y, shiny cards.

Thanks for all these goodies. It was nice to finally be caught up on the packages.

And then a package from COMC showed up this morning.

One Card Only: 20/20 Hindsight

In retrospect, placing a picture of Rae Carruth against a backdrop of cars might not be the best idea.

Under $20 at a card show

Another small local card show on the cheap. I'm not including the single pack and few singles of OPC 2015-16 I picked up. Since that's better for a post of its own.

I'm leading with this because not only was this the only hit I picked up, but it was also the only non-hockey card I picked up. It is a small show in Ontario, after all. This one was card #X in a #X for $Y box, so I figured I should at least have one card outside of the hockey additions.

I managed to hit a lot of my PCs.

The mask binders gained 7 new cards, and I became a Tyler Weimann super collector.

6 new cards were welcomed to my 2/14 binders. 3 new Marian Gaboriks.

And 3 new Milan Hejduks. Total # of 2/14 cards is now over the 1080 mark.

Here are the 2 newest Alfredssons for that binder. It is nice to get a triple diamond card from a quarter bin.

And a few general Senators for that collection.

Rounding out the PC additions were these 2 Kitchener Rangers alum.

To wrap up stuff for me, here are some of the cards entering my misc. binder.

Whether it is 1993 Leaf, Metal Universe, or some random insert set, I love cards that use the player's city as part of the design. As usual, these look far better when in hand than scanned.

Horizontal goodies! The Neely is quite thin, and as a consequence thereof, is badly bowed. But that won't keep me from adding it to my small Cam Neely collection. I assume that's the arena behing Nabokov on his card.

And some vertical goodies as well. Fake vintage and real vintage. I love the Tough Times insert. Since I've never pulled one of the red parallels from any repack Victory packs, so I decided a quarter bin was a good a choice as any to grab one. And that Tim Connolly is the shiniest card of the day.

Finally, some cards for others:

Such as a collector of Wolverines alum,

or Whalers collectors.

There you have it. All that's left is one dozen OPC cards for tomorrow's post.

Sunday Insanity

The fun of 1998 Metal means you see a card featuring a giant (in more ways than one) player running all over the floor of the NYSE, and think nothing is wrong.

This Way to the PWE

I'm not feeling the verbosity tonight, so here are the highlights from a PWE sent by Mark @ This Way to the Clubhouse, in return for various Mets, Bills and Gabriels.

Starting off with a nice shiny card. As I've said, since I'm not busting much Heritage this year, so I'll gladly accept any Blue Jays/Mets via trade. The regular Jose Bautista is a short-print this year, as expected, so this Chrome /999 is even nicer, as I've become somewhat of a Joey Bats completist.

Neat cartoon on the back as well!

First up, a Chrome variation. And now, a photo variation out of Update. This glove kiss squashes the generic pitching photo on the base card with ease.

Back-to-back days with 1998 Metal cards. AWESOME!

And a trio of Larry Birds for my Celtics collection. The easy winner in this one is the middle card, which features the style of jacket worn by many of the greatest enhancement talent on WWF, AWA and NWA television every weekend. Ah memories. Thinking that Tony Leone and Mario Mancini actually had a chance.

So, there's a trade recap. Thanks for these goodies, and I'll continue to keep my eyes peeled for hovkey Gabriels.

COMC Challenge Cards Part 98: Bills! Bills! Bills!

And now, time to show off the Bills that showed up as part of the most recent shipment from COMC. There were also set builders in this bunch that are already in the appropriate box/binder that I won't bore you with. You've seen one EJ Manuel Prime retail parallel, you've seen 'em all.

Let's open with a pair of autographs. While these aren't the most spectacular penmanship examples, these complete the foursome of rookies that had hits. While I haven't added a Sammy Watkins auto yet, a relic will suffice until prices reach a saner level. But, these two will join Cyril Richardson and finish off the year. Their 2015 draft wasn't that sexy in terms of likely rookie cards, but I guess Karlos Williams (5th round) will be my chase player of the season based on a couple early releases. Nick O'Leary (6th), Dezmin Lewis (7th) and Ronald Darby (2nd round, but a defensive player) also show up.

And what better way to follow up my look ahead to 2015 releases than with a flashback to 1998 with Thurman Thomas with Niagara Falls in the background.

And the more recent salute to that Metal set with a Southern California landscape. At least that since the Bills seem to be off the "move to L.A." plans for the time being, this card won't be prophetic.

And those are the 4 new Bills for the binder.

Trading with a Junkie

Great trade packages come to those who wait. I dropped the Junior Junkie a package filled with T.J.'s (Oshie, Galliardi, Hensick) in a post Expo haze this past November, along with other misc. goodies. It was worth the wait for the return package, which rolled in a couple weeks back. Ever the punctual one, I'm just getting to it today.

What to lead with? So many possible choices, so I'll go in order with how I renamed the files after cropping - making this card from Topps laser named carter.jpg up first. It is a rather unique look for cards, I'll say that much, but the home plate on the bottom makes it a real pain to try and put it into a binder page. But, as usual, I'm picking nits.

I hate to repeat myself, but I must. I'm not building the Heritage set this year, and have purchased my last pack of the stuff. So send me your Mets!

Carter. Dekker. That means that Delgados are up next. The scene that the Metal Universe card has chosen to represent Toronto on the background are snow-capped mountain peaks. Which, of course, are prevalent in southern Ontario. But I still cannot question the insanity of the set under any circumstance.

Still stuck in the Ds for the next card - Duncan. As in Jeff Duncan.  I remember absolutely nothing about his run with the Mets, but he's now the head coach at Kent State.

Dae-Sung Koo I also recall. Mainly for the moments in this video, but still. It's hard to tell in the scan, but this green parallel is /25.

Masterpieces will be returning with an all painted hockey set this month. In the meantime, and in between time, this Vlad Guerrero card can get me ready for the release. In which I'll at least get my PC guys.

These 4 cards were just grouped together and named 'shinymets.jpg'. A perfect description, even though the X-Fractors aren't really as shiny as my file name would indicate.

And when you go alphabetically, it is only appropriate to end with a Vlad Guerrero card. And a bonus of it being a Diamond King and an Expo.

Thanks for these goodies, JJ! Maybe I'll have better luck finding a T.J. Oshie hit this time around!

Envelope Catch-Up: Sportlots, Underdogs and Collections

Time to take a lazy Sunday to catch up on the mail that has shown up in the past week in smaller envelopes.

Starting with a Sportlots Four-Pack.

The blame for this one rests entirely on the '93 Topps Blog. Recently, that blog reached the point in which the checklist cards were replaced in the gold parallel sets by some 26th man types. I was curious as to who the players were that were honoured. And then I found out that 2/14 baby Keith Brown was one of them! WOO-HOO! That's an easy decision in terms of a collection addition. With this, the only big league card of Brown in need is his Glossy 1989 Fleer.

And 1 2/14 baby dropping on the way into my collection deserves another. Here's a new Damaso Marte for my collection. With this, I'm only 2 base cards away from completing this collection. The only ones still out there are his 2005 Showdown and 2003 40-Man.

Much like with the Brown, the blame for this one is on some other blog. I can't remember which, but I just love the casual look of this card. And the mysterious drink known as Rangers-Aid.

Again, this was featured on another blog, and it became a must have for my football collection. The Bus! And it looks like he's exiting a bus! Perfection!

4 sportlots cards out of the way. Now to some small trade envelopes. First up, highlights of a small envelope from the Underdog.

Since I'm not building Heritage this year, I'll welcome any Mets from that set. Including this Granderson.

And since David Wright just got upgraded from Mets binder status to a binder of his own, any David Wright cards will be welcome additions. I've got his base card, but not his Opening Day card from '13.

And there were more cards destined for my Mets binder as well. Thanks for these, and I hope you liked the Chargers and Ducks I sent your way!

Finally, I sent some set builders and Hornets off to Cardboard Collections, and this was part of the return.

More 2-14 content! If I can count cast cards where only one person on the card is a 2/14 baby, I can certainly count the David Garrard appearance on this Jaguars-themed insert.

And some random Bills as well. I'm picking the shiniest of the bunch to show off.

And there you have it. And now, back to binge-watching Homeland.