The Other Half

Before the cards, a quick share of sadness with the Jays situation. I mean, the season has definitely not gone the way I would have hoped, and with the recent trades and dismantling of things outside of the core handful of players (so far), I am not sure what to expect in the next couple years. Not going to be much to cheer for the rest of this year, and the tooling may be something that pays off in a couple years (or more). Time will tell, but it feels a bit like after the good Batista/Efwin years again which isn't a great feeling.

As for the cards...will this half be better than yesterday? Probably not...but let's see!

Well, definitely a good start with another artifact keeper as well as a land keeper. When I bought these, the Throne of Eldraine set was well into the 2020 set commons being shoved into these in droves.

Eldrazi cards fit with my collecting, so another pick up, and I feel like there has been a lot of green pulled between yesterday and today.

Well, another Eyekite isn't needed, but here it is.

Boo to the basic lands - not use to seeing three in a single repack. Definitely the lesser half today but as solid a repack as can be expected.

On the lower half of the list, which is to be expected as most of the cards go right to trade fodder, but not a bad bunch of cards overall.

Looking For Magic

I still have a few of these packs which I got directly from Presstine, but which use to be in Dollarama store up to a few years ago.

If lucky, you get a dime value rare, a hand full of uncommon and no lands on each side. Let's split this up and take a look at half today.

That Barbed Sextant is actually a great pick up as it is new to my collection. Well, I have the card from other releases, but this one is from the Coldsnap constructed decks that could be bought back in 2006.

Well - definitely don't need any Eyekites as I already had 10+ for trade, but another here regardless. Might just pull some of the Magic cards for padding in trades.

A second artifact pick up is nice too.

Definitely a good half with another nice pick up with the Mana Geode.

Definitely didn't need another Prinal Clay, but still two more keepers here.

Another couple keepers and I can live with getting a basic land. I gather this will end up being the better half of the two, but we can see tomorrow if that is the case.

Thank You Deer!

Back to back days of sharing trades - this one with thirstydeer, a TCDB member who lives in Milton, Ontario, which is only about half an hour away. If we do a bigger trade, I could see trying to meet in person to get it done, but this one we kept by mail. 

The single baseball card was the last of the 4 Blue Jays cards in the 1993 Post Canadian Limited series. These wonderful little pop up cards were in Post cereals back in the day. One I definitely remember popping out of my cereal boxes as a kid and ones I liked even then.

Getting into the hockey cards, I am getting more and more into trades with base cards which are of the not so base sets. Whether more "premium" sets in the 90s or Pacific sets which I don't recall seeing at all as a kid, or even Fleer Greats of the Game, these were not "in the wild" back as a kid collecting, and something that I wouildn't have seen because, as a kid, I wasn't going to card shops that sold sports card singles or had much outside of flagship products.

As a kid going to 401games in the 1990s, when it was actually located at 401 Yonge Street, it was still really a convenience store that happened to sell a lot of gaming cards like Pokemon and Magic - it wasn't near what it grew into today of being a sports card, gaming and board game location, etc.

I still have a few cards left in most of these team sets to work on, and no surprise it is becoming more and more clear these will usually come down to rookie cards, whether of any value or not.

The Luca Score card isn't a dupe but rather a pick up of the regular and glossy versions of the card.

Upshall sticks out as being not a Leaf, but it's an error card as it is Jason Garrison pictured on the front.

We end with a single Tim Hortons Legends base set helper moving the base completion up to 92 of 100. Maybe I should focus on finishing that set this summer...I really need a bit more focus on completion to close out some sets.

Trade With Junior79

 Today, a quick trade share with TCDB member Junior79 who get me over the half way mark on an oversized team set.

1993-94 Fleer PowerPlay cards are as wide as regular cards, but a bit taller in height so of course don't fit the standard sleeving or page products. Will have to ponder how to store the team set once I get there, but for mow, they slip around in 4-pocket pages.

My fave of the bunch today is Potvin who ranks among my favorite Leafs. A good looking card, and a decent use of the extra space in framing the pictures.

An appreciated trade for a few cards that were a bit bigger than usual.

I Guess We Beat The Odds...

 Last pack from the box and we have a big card to talk about...

Dang - that's a solid pull. Trying to figure out how likely the hit is from looking at boxes and pulls online and I'm going to say about one a case for the jersey/auto combo cards, so one in 100 packs give or take is pretty darn nice. Carson is 21 years old, at the Double A level in the Tampa Bay organization, but has not yet made the bigs. Your guy and could get there depending on the next couple of years, but not expecting this to be a major breakout star at all - still, a beautiful card and amazing little pull.

A shame that we didn't get a single Jay, but a minor point when we get a fantastic pull that beats the odds.

Not a surprise we end up with this box on top given the single hit and not a whole lot of cards - definitely where the box should be at this point, and definitely my pull of the year so far from the new products.

Not So Essential

 In no way am I becoming a fan of the Panini Chronicles baseball cards, but I am at least begrudgingly accepting that there is some interest in them. I could see liking some of the insert designs and looking to collect them as sets since most are managable in size.

The Essence cards - nah, they don't do it for me. The Crusade design is pretty nice though. The parallels and needing 10 or so for each is excessive, but that's par for the course these days.

We keep heavy on the rookie cards of course, but nothing Toronto has come up yet in this blaster which is a shame. I did look at a few YouTube videos of blaster box breaks to get a sense of what is out there is a given box, and we seem pretty par for the course so far. Still a bit surprised that we don't have any real base cards yet.

A bit disappointing on how little stat backs there are on any of the sets. At least we have something on the Spectra card, but it is the oddball from the set for it. Torres has had a subpar 2024 compared to his prior years, but that's true of a number of players this year (Toronto - I'm looking at pretty much most of the roster on that one unfortunately).

Get Your Ticket

Today we have another pack of 2022 Panini Chronicles baseball cards, and spoiler - still no base cards.

Design wise, again, it feels like a number of different sets pushed into a single product, but I do like the Season Ticket design. Not sure I would be drawn to collecting a full set of it, but when the ticket information is different on each card and means something- that's cool.

Joe Ryan continues to pitch for Minnesota,  Mazeika wasn't able to stay at the MLB level given a batting average of .190 over parts of seasons in 2021 and 2022.

Rodolfo is another player who struggled to stay at the MLB level with a low average - under .220, while Ryan Vilade lasted 7 games.

Just feels like Panini is pushing out all these sets in one release of "maybe" Rookies- like Bowman on steroids.

Still - at least these are all "inserts" for keeps.

Torturous

 I generally do not like Panini sets and today, we get to start to explore why that is. Don't get me wrong, I know there are many out there that like them, and that's great - glad you do, and enjoy it. It's just not my cup of tea and let's see why.

This was a Dave & Adam's pick up back when I last went there (and when they screwed me on pricing a blaster box which they ran through as a hobby box - a $40USD difference that they did not make up for.....yes, a bit bitter be me). I picked it up for under $10 USD which seems to be a decent price compared to what they go for now - up to a whopping $13-$15USD in most cases.

First, tis is a 50 card base set, but as there are a few parallel and insert sets, the base set feels more like an insert set. Just to put it in perspective, there are 400 insert sets listed on TCDB and 10 parallels. Again, this is a 50 card base set - will be interesting to see how many I get given it's 4 cards a pack.

I pulled one pack aside for the collection, and now have to figure out how to score these cards because the pack odds are nowhere to be seen. I think any "base" insert and the groove cards per the box will be like a base card, double for any non-SN parallel of an insert, and I'll have to figure out something for the SN cards.

Yes, there are 5 packs in the box, and not all created equal. I can tell you right off the bat, one is a fatty and he is going to be coming up last. Better not be a decoy!

So, this is what I mean. If you like variety - great because these look like four different cards from four completely different products. It just gives me a headache. I mean, I love getting a pack of 10 cards, 8 or 9 are base and make a nice looking set, and one or two are special and different.

If every single card is special and different, you lose what makes anything special and different. I guess these are all inserts of one kind or another, so are "keepers" - but as for scoring how good these are....*sigh*

Oh - and on the Titan card, the "line" across at shoulder height - I have seen a few times on cards. I gather it is a printing issue with the effect as it acts like a "dead" zone with no effect through that line. Would you consider this an error card with the foiling?

Okay - so Joe Ryan looks to be "building blocks"...Alonso looks like a standard Clearly Donruss card...Revolution Groove for Hunter....and....Ruby Wave Crusade card of Gil.

The backs are all very different - but the same as well since we have no stat lines on any of them. Well, the Crusade card is serial numbered to 199 which is cool though, so nice there.

Whether I like the product or not, I have a feeling it is going to score well as, even if there is no Jays content, these are all inserts and hard to not have a SN card without some points on odds - so say every 12 packs is reasonable. I have a feeling this box is going to do well and though I won't like to admit it - I'm going to like a bunch of the cards (but still don't like the lack of a "set").

If You Like 1987 Topps Baseball...

 You are going to really love the look of this product...

The box may be a bit beat up, but this was a pick up for under $10 from Pastime Sports in British Columbia. Part of the "hey, they have a lot of wrestling cards that I haven't been able to find and the prices are pretty decent" purchase I made a while ago. The package stars kind of cover it with Cena, who even in 2017 was on his way out schedule wise, Goldberg who was in the midst of a small run back with the company, and Bayley who is awesome and has has been for her entire wrestling career....besides, I think she is still a hugger.

Always like to include the odds for those interested, and for myself for seeing how we do scoring wise.

We start with the base set which is very much 1987 Topps baseball. Not necessarily a bad thing as I like the design here. The base cards here put me up to 37 of 100. I have a blaster box (or maybe two - I can't remember) which should help on the base set front as well.

Pretty good star power, I mean, getting Cena, Becky, Austin, Macho and Foley...heck even Backlund...nice!

These packs, like most wrestling packs, have a few different inserts/parallels which take up a good section of the cards, so we have...

Sweet - that blue parallel Carmella is nice. The blue parallels fall every 16 boxes, so nice one there. The bronze parallels just look like a darker wood grain - but okay.

Other inserts include bizarre matches, all-stars and thirty years of Summer Slam being documented. All good topics, I just so happened to have collected a fair number of these inserts through trades on TCDB and some purchases from baseballcardstore.ca. Not sure I would really call Typhoon or Kofi an All-Star for SummerSlam, but not going to nitpick that too heavily.

We end with a bunch of 30 years of SummerSlam inserts which cover some nice memories. I will say that the Ultimate Warrior and Rick Rude feud was pretty solid, though my fave Rude feud will always be him and Jake The Snake Roberts.

As for this box - the Carmella card saved it a bit because I did have a number of the inserts already...

Not too shabby. I am finding:

- Anything below a 2 is not great, which makes sense as there must be lots of dupes or unneeded cards

- Anything between a 2 - 3 is decent - likely alright coverage of the base set, maybe a decent insert or two

- Anything above a 3 means great base card coverage or fantastic inserts, and the higher number, the better

Hockey Cube Packs

 We opened the cube yesterday, and today, let's look at the three packs which I am not keeping unopened - the three 2022-23 Upper Deck MVP hockey packs. Six cards per pack, hopefully we get something solid as the unopened packs are great, but the included cards didn't hit too much.

A solid first pack with the Ice Battles insert which are about every 1.25 packs - so nothing too wow there. We do get a one in four packs short printed base card with the Leaf rookie Kalligren, a nice pull to get a Leaf card.

Sweet that we keep the Leaf goodies going with a Tavares base pick up. Another Ice Battles insert too, so a solid little pack.

Wow - that is a nice pack to end for a Toronto fan. The gold script parallel cards are every 17.5 packs, and getting a Leaf to boot is amazing. Factor in the Ice Battles is also a Leaf card, is also actually the exact same card, and this is a Kerfoot hot pack indeed!

The packs did a great job of making up for the underwhelming 50 card singles and brings the opening to being one of the best so far this year. No complaints there at all - and only two base dupes here as well, so nice little build ahead of whenever I open the box I have for this set.

Walmart Power Hockey Cube

 Here we go with something I actually picked up within the last few months at Walmart.

Gone are the days when you could get a box of 14-16 assorted packs from a given sport for 20 dollars - man, I miss those products, especially wrestling, but here we have the closest thing for these days. I believe the box was $25 or $30 for the cards as mentioned, and I would expect the 50 cards to be nothing special, but let's see.

Part of the "get" from these, are a few packs for my unopened pack collection since I am missing a bunch of the newer stuff. Here we have a keeper with, well, one of each. I needed all of them, so just have a few 2022-23 MVP packs to open, which works as it's a set I will work on.

As for the singles...

Okay, not a super surprise that we get MVP set cards, but I will say, at least they are from the factory set, so not something I would get otherwise.

I do actually like the design front and back of the cards as well, so good marks there, a shame it is the factory set, so not looking to build out this one.

Stars and Leaf content does really well for making this box worthwhile too!

I doubt the three packs I open tomorrow will add greatly to the value of this box, but I will say, the packs and cards - not too shabby all considering, so I will take this outcome so far happily.