Pack Attack - 2015 Topps Baseball

Last pack before December...



Nice pickup with the Zimmerman card - like the photo work here.



Not sure what is more distracting with the DJ card - Gordon taking up the foreground, or the bright purple Colorado colour of the border.




Lonnie's card is another good one for the photo.




Enjoy Ender giving the high five as he slides into base.

Lastly...

One of the many...many....many......many insert sets. Kind of middling in content, but solid for the player. Really though the card is making point of the Astros being 15 games under .500 in 2005 and coming back strong to make the playoffs.

Three days, three packs...and no Jays...oh well, should be plenty of them starting tomorrow.

Pack Attack - 2014 Topps Update

Since we opened 2015 Update yesterday, let's take a look at 2104 Update today and all 8 cards that come in this pack.


Okay, so I seem to have more of these cards than I would have thought, about 20%.  That being said, there are way too many variations and sparkle variations, and sabremetric variations to this set. I guess just having a simple base set is too difficult. Needless to say, I didn't need this one.


Unfortunately two for two on the duplicates...


Finally a new card for me...



An error card as the back states trade with White Sox instead of Diamondbacks...

Nothing too exciting in this pack so far and...


An alright gold parallel. At least one to keep.

Definitely a "meh" kind of pack today, but can't win them all.

Pack Attack - 2015 Topps Update and a set completing trade

I don't believe I have opened a pack of this before, so new to me in that way.


A bunch of base cards with Tyler standing out as the best photo of the bunch.


A couple more rookie base cards before we get to the couple inserts.


I think this is the rainbow foil parallel which is more based on process of elimination than anything else. It isn't serial numbered, and of the remaining sets, rainbow foil makes most sense - in the light when tilting it, do get the rainbow effect, so good enough for me.


Last of the pack is the gold parallel, serial numbered to 2015. I actually don't mind this as a SN parallel as I think this design does alright with the gold colour (unlike 2017 which I don't like the gold parallel to).

Not nearly as good a pack as yesterday, but still pretty solid.

The big "happy" for today comes from a trade I did with fellow Canadian - and fellow Ontario-an?...Ontario-nite?....Ontari-an?.....guy from the same province as me Drowzee_Insomniac over at TCDB. He offered up about 100 cards, I set back about the same, but since it was going to not cost much more, I threw in another 100 cards off his want list, and another 200 he didn't have and that were my traders, as I was happy to cut down a bit. Frankly I need to trade away at the rate of 50 to 1 or something to get back a bit of space. I am trying to not have the boxes overrun too much.

Anyway, the trade was mostly 1990-91 Pro Set needs and Leafs, but let's take a look through it all, shall we?

So starting with 1990-91 Pro Set, these cards were mostly missing from the complete set, with some dupes for the error binder:





These get me close enough, I have added the "what is missing still" to my most wanted - let's finish this sucker off.

Plenty of Leafs content and from many sets that I don't have much if anything from.


This was actually sent by PWE separate from the box because it is an inch too long. I actually have a pack of this Power Play set in my unopened pack collection, but this is the first single card I've seen. Not too bad in hand and uses the side well.



Well, these at least are sets I've seen, but still generally needed.


Then we move into a number of In The Game and O Pee Chee sets that I have little of. Though I may never be a big fan of In The Game in general, but I cannot argue with the cards and getting some Leaf greats.


Definitely seen lots of the set, but not this many Leafs.


More  2010-11 O Pee Chee with an excellent Mahovlich.


More In The Game, and more Potvin. His mask is one of my favourites, likely because he was the face of the Leafs net during years I was young and really into watching every game.


I do like the concept of these cards are looking by the decade - definitely gave a good reason and show for the variety of cards.


Some of the shots look (or are) identical like Potvin here.


Some recent year Upper Deck Leafs...


I really liked the 2014-15 O Pee Chee design when this set first came out, now it might have taken a while to get some of the cards into my collection, but thrilled to have them now - expecially the Sundin square.


Some nice photos here - even though Dion is not my favourite Leaf, but that is one awesome hockey shot.

Lastly, I did get one set completed out of these cards...

Yup, with these I have the 1991-92 Ultimate Original Six 100 card set done.

Big thanks for the trade - hope you can get some sleep Drowzee. :)

2 Years down, but more to go and a nice pull

A small "yay me" for being here for two years officially. I had done a few posts before 2016 ahead of really going all out starting January 1, 2016. I like to have something up every day to share and have been doing that since the Jan 1 date (over 700 posts now...).

So, I thought why not open a pack of something a little different today, and maybe a few more packs this week before getting to the Toronto box come December 1st. By a little different for mean, I mean, something more recent. We will tackle some recent year Topps packs for the next few days which I hope you join me for. I figure there won't be much of these cards come December - those will likely be 80s and 90s goodness.

So today....


So let's see what we end up with...


Kyle apparently has a dislike for losing based on the back of this card...

At first I thought this may be a purposeful misprint, but on close inspection, and seeing backs that are perfectly fine online - looks like just a small misprint on the ink. Still - I'll take it for adding to my error binder regardless. Honestly, didn't expect I would be adding a card to that collection from the pack.


Definite star (all-star the last couple years)

\
Any time I see a card of his, all I can think is "I'm coo coo for cocoa puffs"


Just after leaving Toronto (just missing out on a Jay card...)



Decent thought for the card, but being a Jays fan, not a subject I am specifically thrilled with...would have rather the Jays win the division....


I should say that I do like the use of the base design, no surprise there though.

Last card out of the pack made me believe that the pack knew I was hoping it would be a special one for this occasion...

Wow. Clubhouse Collection packs fall one per 64 packs, so not the longest of odds, but getting Mike would make that a lot longer. Speechless on getting this, just lucky to have pulled this in general, let alone today.

Great pack on a great day, and thank you for everyone out there for following the blog, for initiating conversation, for any trades I have been able to do with you, and for being part of the great community!