Finally done - well, the CNE packs anyway

So here we are with the last pack from last August, and man, lots of basketball stickers to this one.

As usual with these packs, I pick them out because there is one card that I know I will be keeping. Here it was:

Not a new one for me, but at least a dupe I would keep.

Good I got that, because there wasn't that much else to keep...

I do have one other One on One Collectible Card Game card which is in my Leaf collection, but this Sakic is pretty nice too.

So, if you are wondering where the stickers are (besides the one 1983-84 O Pee Chee hockey sticker above)...



Plenty more Euro Upper Deck later 90s stickers which must be of interest to someone out there....yes Billy, I know...already put aside for you - don't worry!

As for more four sport classics cards which have generally dreaded photos. That JJ card is just, well, something I think I could take as a photo on a nice spring day. Too bad I couldn't end these on a better note, but at least I have something magical to share tomorrow!

Hey, another wrestling card - cool!

Another day, the second to last CNE pack for opening today, and another good variety of cards here too.


A number of cards for the collections, but the Kane and Mankind card highlights for me with my interest in starting to collect wrestling cards.

Saying that, the Nolan Ryan cards are not ones I see often, and the same is true with 1997-98 Collector's Choice and 1998-99 Upper Deck hockey.

The other keeper was the reason I picked up the pack...


Plenty of trade cards too though...



I have never been a fan of the Four Sport sets - I separate the cards by sports still.

As for the comic card...The Savage Dragon...never heard of it...

Last cards of interest here has to be the basketball stickers as these are apparently out of a Euro release.

Anyway, keeping it quick today which is likely to be most days for the next month with personal taxes at work taking over 12+ hours a day 6 days a week!

Classic Topps Football

Today, another package of random cards picked up last August at the Canadian National Exhibition.


This was the reason I picked up the pack. I fugred, can't go wrong for less than a buck and at least getting one Leaf for the collection, and a bunch of other stuffs.


I was also able to get a bunch of cards for the collections including a bunch for 1992 Upper Deck baseball cards. Great get with all being high numbered cards, and since I already had about 70% of the set.



I may not be keeping these, but still interesting gets. I had not seen the 1993 Classic Draft basketball cards before. I am sure some find the border colour "ugly", but the hardwood look is a good one for basketball and I approve of it. The cards are also glossy which is a must for a good hardwood floor.

As for the 1983 Topps football, a classic design which O wouldn't mind seeing in a baseball form in Archives or otherwise, but I know that won't happen.

So yeah, not too shabby a day.

Holla if you here me

Going to open one of the CNE packs I picked up way back in August last year and has been sitting near my desk ever since. I picked this one up because from the side, it looked like most the cards were made on newer card stock - so stuff I probably don't have, regardless of what sport that may mean.

Let's start with the expected of some hockey cards...

Quite the nice set variety here. The 90s Pro Set and Score are dupes, but most the rest are new for me. Best of the bunch is the one that will make it into my insert collection - the Power Play Cechmanek.

Basketball

Never seen the set before - but a nice design. The only change I would make is, on the front, lower the Name logo right to the bottom and use the lost white space in the picture. This will be one of the first Lowry cards as a Raptor too which is neat.

Golf

Here we start getting to the lesser sports as far as available card sets are concerned. I don't collect golf, but at least have some knowledge of these players.

MMA

I haven't been one to get into watching or following MMA, so no need for these, but really interesting and coll to see these in hand.

Enduring Freedom

From 2001 Topps, these military cards are interesting, but of no interest to me.

Wrestling

Bog Poppa Pump is your hook up! I consider this mt first wrestling card I am keeping since deciding to hold on to whichever ones I get. I never was into TNA much, always been a WWE guy, even with WCW back in the day.

Makes the pack worthwhile to me by itself, Steiner math would put this pack at about 27 cards, though it is 20, but even at just 20 for the $1 or so, well worth it.

Pack Attack - 1990 Score Baseball

Why am I opening this when I have a complete factory set? Why not!?!?!


Decent design for the set, nice multicolour border use, and the neat little trivia card inserts. Since the set I have is boxed, might still find a couple Jays to keep if nothing else...


Only one Jays card, but this was a hot pack of sorts...





If you were an Astros or KC fan. Quite bunched by teams in this pack, so should be happy I got one Jay.

The landscape card design on the Bo Jackson card is awesome though. I generally dislike landscape, but here is how it can be done right - a full extended swing, nicely placed in the card without graphics getting in the way. I wonder if the Gwynn or Molitor cards would have been better with a similar design, or at least having the shop pulled out a bit further, I find these a bit too close that the action shot loses something.

I expect tomorrow will bring more cards that I will actually add to my collection.

Pack Attack = 1988 Topps Baseball

This week I am cleaning up a few unopened packs that I have had for a while. Figured I'd end March this way - a bit of spring cleaning if you will.



Most collectors know the package and the cards. I say most only because some collectors these days would have been born after this since it was 30 years ago, and may only be interested in collecting more current sets. Honestly, even then, they probably have seen plenty of this stuff.

This is one of those sets I am not yet actively looking to complete, but figure will happen some day since, if nothing else, I enjoy repacks which are usually full of these. As it is, I have about 30% of the set.

Best card of the pack...

Works out well, because this is the second copy, so I have it when the set build does get under way.

The keepers of the 15 cards....


Ended up slightly better than expected as having 30% of the set, I expected about 4 dupes and ended up with only three. Not a ton of star power, but the Cubs leaders card is pretty nice.

There were also these, which are up for anyone who wants them or needs them...


This was definitely a pack that I have opened, but not one that I am likely to remember in the long run. It is a nice reminder of the set that should be getting a little more love from Topps this year, on the 30 year anniversary.

Pack Attack - Break of yesterday packs

So today is in some ways part two from yesterday.5 of the packs to open today as a couple of them were able to fit into the unopened packs collection. Will opening these redeem the purchase? Only one way to find out...

Pack 1 - 2008-09 O Pee Chee

I actually need 5 of the 6, so that is slightly redeeming. No Leafs though....

Pack 2 - 2009-10 O Pee Chee

Okay, this pack gets a thumbs up for the Canadian Heroes insert if nothing else (only one dupe here also).

Pack 3 - 2015-16 Upper Deck MVP

Although I did pick up some of the Leaf cards through Listia I believe, this is the first pack I have opened. Fine enough, with Tavares being the star of the pack.

At least, all five were new for me. Not that this is a set I ever plan on collecting, but still.

Pack 4 - 2016-17 Parkhurst


First pack of this as well. All new cards for me, again no Leafs, but I do like the Red parallel.

Lastly....
Pack 6 - 2010-11 Donruss Hobby Pack


As much as I like some of the photos, and all of these cards were new for my collection - again - no Leafs and again - not much there to make me happy to have bought the box.

Well - hopefully worth sharing here if nothing else.

Well, this upcoming week, I'll go through opening some more things to clear a bit of the backlog before getting back to the Santa Lot.

Blog Bat Around and a not so good idea

First - typing in general. It busy season and spell check, etc be darned, my typing is worse, so forgive me my errors for the next month or so.

It's a blog topic hopping around out there, so here are my two cents regarding my collection and what I am trying to do with it right now.

As far as cards go, I am still collecting in a simple (ish) hierarchy
1) Toronto Blue Jays and Leafs - any - take top priority
2) Baseball and hockey inserts/parallels
3) Baseball and hockey error cards of any kind
4) Cards for sets I am working on

In addition to this, is collecting |Magic The Gathering Artifact cards and baseball/hockey/Magic unopened packs. As far as trading go, I don't really have much activity on these, so it is more what I collect outside of the trading realm and add to the collection.

As far as collection goals on a whole:
1) Reducing my trade cards
I am in the midst this year of trying to reduce the number of trade cards I have for cards I collect above. I am also all for trading basketball and football for any baseball or hockey cards I don't have, let alone cards that fit the list above. I call this my 2018 goal.

2) Reduce the "keep" collection
Right now, if I don't have it, I keep one when it comes to hockey and baseball. I need to look at if I really want to do this. It's great to have goals, but I can't collect every set so in 2019, I think I am going to go through my general hockey and baseball "keep" collection cards and set some sort of limit (say 50%), and any set I am not there on from a completion stand point, push those cards to traders and build on the goals above.

Definitely a 2019 goal.

So - that's it in a nutshell, at least where I am at today. But interests always change and who knows what I will find of interest in a couple months.

Anywho - you know when curiosity gets the better of you? You know when you realize this, and still go through with allowing your curiosity to win out? I can guarantee before we get to this, that is exactly what happen with this one.

I have seen these hockey mystery boxes at Walmart for a while:


I held out on getting one, then looked up a couple videos and saw some more recent packs were included, so I figured, if I can get a couple newer packs for the unopened pack collection, I could justify the buy to myself.

You may be asking - "so why don't you just buy the packs themselves since you can probably do it for cheaper." You and your crazy logic....

So what is supposed to be included is:
- 6 packs
- 1 mystery pack (I don't understand why it isn't just 7 packs since they do not tell you what the other 6 packs are going to be, and they are not consistent based on what I saw before buying)
- 1 bonus item
- 1 auto or relic card

From the videos I saw, the packs were pretty decent with new Parkhurst, newer Artifacts and such products represented in the 6 packs. I am going to guess my luck will not be as fortunate, it never is with these...

So my packs...

Happy with the Parkhurst, meh on the rest. I would have liked something newer and more Artifact related as the other packs are roughly dollar-a-pack ones. I will have to double check, but I think the Parkhurst and maybe the MVP will be good and new for my unopened collection.

The bonus pack...

Happy it is a hobby pack, and if I am going to get a duplicate pack as I think I have a hobby version, still okay, as opening this one should be good.

As for the guaranteed relic/auto...

About what I would expect from these boxes. Again, standard and call it maybe a dollar card. Not an overly long career, but a few seasons in Philly followed by single seasons in Tampa Bay and San Jose before being out of the NHL around 2012.

As for the bonus item - I think the box was feeling a bit bad for me...as I go two...

Oversized box toppers. Nice enough in being still wrapped and in package, though I don't need two. Good news though, with trading away as many cards as I am trying to this year, I can easily use one in a box as a topper - just as it was meant to be. There are a couple on COMC with prices around $8 which seems high to me, but makes me feel slightly better.

Well - definitely not worth the $30 paid for the box, but maybe there will be something good in the packs I will be opening. Have to wait until tomorrow to see what was in those, and if they redeemed this purchase.

A one two punch

Today's Santa Lot is much like opening two packs of cards. Why? Well, twenty cards, and we are only covering two sets. Unfortunately, only one of which I really care about.

Highlights:

This part is easy as the only highlight is getting a couple more cards for 2007-08 Upper Deck Ice. Also just noticed one is our friend from generic game used cards Sergei Samsonov. I don't have many game used relic cards, but I do have a couple of Sergei.

The rest
Traders:


Here are a few examples of small quality control issues on Ultra foil printing. Some of these cards, the overlay was off just a bit - you can see this for example on the Nene card. We have seen a couple where the foil wasn't put on at all, but these are much more likely as far as imperfections go.

A quick one today overall...but it does get to the 11,000 card mark. A quick judge at what is left, and I will guess we will end around 12,500 cards from the lot. So that would be another few months to go....

Through 11100 cards:

Specific Accomplishments:

- Complete 2003-04 SP Authentic Basketball (90 card pure base)

- Complete 2005 Upper Deck Classics (100 card pure base)

- 3 Complete 2007-08 UD McDonald's Hockey Checklist Subsets (6 cards)

- 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Hockey #30 Bobby Orr (All-Star)

- 2004-05 Upper Deck Legends Classics Platinum #64 Marcel Dionne Platinum 06/10

- 2007-08 Topps Base (x 4) and 1957-58 Variations Basketball  #112 Kevin Durant (Rookie)

- 2009-10 Topps #321 Stephen Curry (Rookie)

	Hockey	Baseball	Basketball	Football	Austin Powers	Other
Toronto	178	25
Inserts / Var Kept	357	61
Error	17	3
Keep	2182	342
Doubles/Sell	1881	257	1791	3111	309	42
Doubles Inserts / Var	146	4	177	217

Sticking it out

Highlight:

Well, an error card is still something for my collection. The late 80s and early 90s were good for many errors in the sets (none more so than Pro Set). Nice to get newer error cards, but these "classics" are so plentiful, I have many still to get.

Lowlights:

Then there are the other "error" cards of 1990-91 O Pee Chee. The error was having gum in the packages that, in many cases, ruined a card or two in each package. These are good evidence of it.

The rest
Keepers:

The 2008 Donruss cards are alright, but there could be more picture on the front - just a bit much on the white space.

Traders:

If I am going to get a baseball dupe, how can you be upset with the Wiz?

Through 11080 cards:

Specific Accomplishments:

- Complete 2003-04 SP Authentic Basketball (90 card pure base)

- Complete 2005 Upper Deck Classics (100 card pure base)

- 3 Complete 2007-08 UD McDonald's Hockey Checklist Subsets (6 cards)

- 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Hockey #30 Bobby Orr (All-Star)

- 2004-05 Upper Deck Legends Classics Platinum #64 Marcel Dionne Platinum 06/10

- 2007-08 Topps Base (x 4) and 1957-58 Variations Basketball  #112 Kevin Durant (Rookie)

- 2009-10 Topps #321 Stephen Curry (Rookie)

	Hockey	Baseball	Basketball	Football	Austin Powers	Other
Toronto	178	25
Inserts / Var Kept	357	61
Error	17	3
Keep	2180	342
Doubles/Sell	1877	257	1777	3111	309	42
Doubles Inserts / Var	146	4	177	217