Checking Out McDs

Back to a different stack of packs from local collector Jeff Scott who gifted me with a bunch of stuff including these 90s McDonalds hockey packs. 

I have unopened packs for my collection, so will be able to Crack these, starting today. What a not so spooky surprise.

Today we will look at the 1991-92 packs. I have a complete base set but need a couple holograms for the insert set.

I don't need Wayne, but if you are going to get a duplicate, that one works.

Luc shows up in the first two packs and Patrick is another holo I don't need.

Three packs and three Luc's but at least I needed the hologram!

Well, we end with the last holo I needed and now have the six card complete holo insert set...YAY!

It makes up for the lack of Leaf content but maybe we are just saving it for the McD packs up tomorrow!

Enjoy a spooktacular Halloween!

A Couple Trades To Share

 A bit of a trade round up as I have a couple trades which came in by PWE recently.

jkrasner92 sent a few Jays game cards my way...

I never even heard about Showdown until collecting again starting in and around 2015. It wasn't something I heard back when the game releases first started, or any time during the run in the 00s. An interesting idea for a game, but I get how it didn't catch on. 

The second trade is with imthegrinch who didn't actually send cards, but dog tags.

Big Show and Jake are from the 2015 release, the rest from 2012. Cool in general, but the way the Ziggler memorabilia is done in the tag is fantastic. I really like it. I don't go out of my way for these, but they are pretty neat.

As always, appreciate the trades!

Most Wanted

I don't have a chance to add to my blog about game results because I am not getting these set that late at night (usually I prep early evening for the next morning), so apologies for being behind and not adding thoughts about the World Series as it happens.

That said, glad the Jays bounced back well in game 4 and guarantee a return to Toronto for at least game six, if not also a game 7. I guess you could really consider those game 7 and 8 given how long game 3 went. Regardless of the outcome, the Jays have had a great run and even though at times, like the extra innings of game 3, they have looked ill equipped compared to the Dodgers, there is something to be said for the grit and determination they have shown in hanging in and taking the game to the Dodgers at times.

I was surprised how many seemed to write the Jays off in 5 or 6 games to the Dodgers, and it might still happen in 6, but with how the games have gone thus far, the Jays have earned a lot of respect from fans, and Vladdy has gone a long way to further endear himself to Toronto. Won't be excuses but for both teams, the injuries and just how hurt some guys are, like Bo and Springer, will be interesting to see once all is said and done.

Regardless - this series has been a great one thus far for any baseball fan.

Last pack of 2021 Topps Big League as the hobby box had all of 5 packs, but at least it is 10 cards a pack instead of the more typical 4-6 these days.

Solid cards here with Varsho, Snell, Braun, Molina. No keepers here, but nice name power.

The Wanted inserts are nicely done. I do get a chuckle out of the "last seen" as it stands out when the player is no longer there. Home Run Robbery - yeah, can see that being the reason for being wanted.

A bit flat of a box as far as the cards are concerned, but the Ohtani figure recouping the cost - I can't be mad at this one.

Jays Content

Before we get to the content related to the title, base cards of others first.

Some Rays and Nats, but I'd take Mookie from the bunch, but winners from the pack are...

A shame Nate didn't make it with Toronto. He was given a number of opportunities, but wasn't able to make it stick in T.O. unfortunately.

First Art insert and we get a good looking Vladdy to boot. Not the most exciting insert set, but for art purpose, really great.

To go with the couple Rays base cards, we get another with an orange parallel. Not as good as the Jays cards, but three keepers in this pack gets two thumbs up.

Back For More

Next pack of 2021 Topps Big League Baseball, let's check out the card backs...

I am very impressed with the backs of these cards. Full stats, nice write ups, great job using team colours to accent the backs, no complaints at all.

The leaders, maybe could have listed the top 10, but small complaints.

A similar pack as far as the inserts go. Not a complaint, just an observation. Tatis is a nice pick up.

First Pack

Well, first up, I was able to quickly sell the Ohtani figure on Kijiji (like Facebook marketplace) and got triple what I paid for this box, so really, it's like all the cards are free, so we win right off the bat.

Still, first pack up today, and I don't plan to collect this set so we are looking at inserts, parallels, Jays and error cards, if any.

The design is pretty basic. I don't mind it, and the team colouring helps for sure. I might put the stat for each player on the leader card front but that's a small grumble.

The keepers...

Mookie sure can jump - all the way to outerspace! Fine design, though it leaves him a bit floaty against the background.

The orange parallels are one per pack. Not my favourite colour to use, but they do stick out so are easy to spot.

A fine first pack...with four more to go.

2021 Topps Big League Baseball

 It took me a while to remember where this box came from, but it was a July 2023 purchase from Dave and Adam's on my trip that year to the US (not sure when the next will be). I can tell you it rung up for $14.77 USD so let's call it $20 CDN or so.

It was cheap in relative terms for what it was, as they seem to be going for about twice that price now. I mean, you sit on product long enough, it generally goes up and with me, it's then the internal argument of the fact it's only a $20 cost to me, not the $40 it would be now....so why not open it. It's hard though, as part of me does want to flip it.

One box I am sitting on which I intend to flip at this point is a box of Chilling Reign Pokemon cards. I bought it June 2022 for $120 CDN plus tax, so let's call it $140 CDN. Going price now is about $550-$600. Not a bad return if I can get that, for holding it 3 years.

Odds laid out on the bottom of the box, and the one item inside which is like a card topper would be the SUper7 figure...

Obviously with the bubble spot for the figure, this didn't scan well on my scanner, but I couldn't be bothered trying to take a picture - you can look it up....or get the idea from the above. Here is the back if you are interested in the checklist.

It is a neat thing, and I already have it up for local sale because it doesn't fit my collection. I should be able to get the money for the box back given it's Shohei who seems to be a bit collectible, but it's just the cards I want. That said, if I got Vladdy, I would have kept him.

As for the packs, here is what they look like front and back:

One for the unopened pack collection leaves us with four to open starting tomorrow. At the price point I picked it up, I'd recommend it. Not sure I'd pay the current day prices for the box though - a little steep standing here before opening, given there is only 50 cards for the price. I am probably being picky though as new products seem to go for 50 cents to a dollar a card whereas I am stuck in the 10 cents or less a card mind frame.

The Best and A High Note

 Today, the last of the Brothers' War booster packs, and we get probably the best of the bunch all things considered.

I'm not going to get hung up on the commons and non-keepers, so lets skip all of those...

and get to the good stuff...

The Stasis Coffin is not an expensive rare, but a second copy of a rare for my collection - yay - but the best of the bunch is the foil Springleaf Drum. It's not amazing because of dollar value, but to get a foil stamped version since those are a bit more rare, is fantastic and really, more so reminds me of what the cards in Urza block were like to get and how fantastic the looked and felt.

It's a great end cap to these bunch of great packs which...

So far, take the cake for openings this year. I wouldn't think a Magic opening would get there, but so we have it. Still a bit of time left in the year and more openings to be had, but this will be one of the top few for sure. Gets me excited for the remaining bundle box I have for later!

A Great Crawl

 We continue to successfully crawl through these great packs and awesome pulls for my collection. Again, not use to having this much success with opening product for MTG given my collecting niche, but I'll take it!

Definitely seeing some very similar repeat cards in the commons from the set like the Vanguard which is the third in just four packs. It happens, especially given these are random packs and not necessarily from the same box.

The other cards not keeping are as boring as can be, though the basic mountain looks nice and the "insert" will just go to shipping materials thank you very much.

As for the keepers...

Th Psychosis Crawler is the schematic retro frame which is cool, and the card itself isn't too bad. I wouldn't play it with any of my artifact deck iterations though as I typically do not have many cards in hand, so it wouldn't be much of a creature given the casting cost, though the ability is an interesting way to damage opponents.

Very cool, and one pack left to go!

Half / Half

Third pack out of five today for The Brother's War and as much as I figured we would get a fair number of keepers, I wasn't expect to get to half a pack.

Standard fare for the non-artifact cards, but then...

I mean, we get a keeper on the token, an unexpected land keep, the retro frame artifact card, and FIVE base card artifact keepers as well.

Getting to the point that, I'm probably going to hit the keeper cap of 4 per card on some of the common artifact cards when I get to opening the bundle later on. Not a complaint per se, but just an observation.

I loved playing Millstone back in the 90s when I was playing my artifact deck that wasn't about reducing life total of an opponent, but instead, running them through their deck. With Voltaic Key to get multiple uses a turn, Helm of Obedience to mill and get a creature or two, those were some of the ways I'd run through. It was fun to play, but frustrating to play against.

There In Value

We will get to the cards in a moment - great game 7 in the AL Championship series last night, with the Jays coming through. It was having to do their usual trick of a come back win, but Springer came through when it was needed and it was the biggest Jays homer since Joe Carter. Will be an interesting match up, and the tone being set in game one will be important...time will tell how this one goes but I continue to root for my Jays!

For non-Jays related card-ness....second of the 5 The Brothers' War packs today, and I'm not even going to calculate the value after this one.

The Hoarding Recluse reminds me of an old school Giant Spider. Not quite the same card, but same line of thinking to the card. As for this pack, similar makeup to yesterday's and that is a good thing.

Instead of a token, just a basic land, though it is quite pretty. As for the rare, a bulk rare as it were and not worth much, but that's okay, the value is in the artifact cards again today.

Nice! The Defense Grid is an $8-$10 card, and with the first pack, I have more than made up the cost of the five packs, and we haven't even opened the other three. A win all around on this purchase for sure.

Blissful Beginning

 A while ago I came across another Canadian card and board game selling website - www.boardgamebliss.com/ and they were having a sale (okay, it was around Christmas time last year....it takes me a while to get to things, I know). Part of that was cleaning out what appeared to be last stocks of random Magic boosters at a really reasonable sale price. I would have bought more of these given the $3 price tag per pack, but this was all they had left of them...

Brothers' War is one of my favourite sets since there are special artifact card inserts, nice tokens, and the amount of artifacts in the set is among the highest percentages in all of Magic. As a result, there should be a few keepers for me per pack, more than the 1 or maybe 2 in "normal" packs.

There will be a time when I have multiple copies of everything and it won't make sense buying packs for the set anymore, but there's a reason I also have another bundle box of this set stashed for opening at some time.

Anyway, let's take a look at the first pack to see what we got. I should price out the keepers to see if I would have been better buying singles from 401games instead.

Decent enough commons and non-keeper cards in the pack. Still not a fan of the gold bordered multi-colour cards, just don't like them as much, but a small complaint.

Amazing. Each pack has one of the artifact retro border cards, so I get one "hit" for my collection keep, but the borderless Underground River is a surprise. Given the colourless land, it's a keeper and a $5 card itself. Heck, even the token happened to be a keeper too.

A great pack for value as it would cost me about $8.50 to buy these five cards from 401games, so first pack is a success for sure.

Surprise!

 A one and done opening today with a surprise bag from Dollarama. You can tell from the picture, I've had this one for a couple years.

The bags of this colour and price point have been gone for a while, but let's see how much you use to get for $2...

Honestly, that's very light even for these bags back then. Usually there are four items, or maybe a pack to make up for it, but the storage box and two small packs is what we get.

Well, let's see what we get in the six cards...

No Leaf cards, no set's I collect, no error cards...so that's three trade fodder cards.

As good a pack for "vintage" or pre-90s cards you are going to get, and even though nothing here for me, at least there are two cards I know a home for.

An underwhelming opening to be sure, and the score shows it...

I think this might be the first sports card offering to sit at a flat 1 rating...yikes. Okay, have to try something different starting tomorrow....maybe back to a non-sport opening....buy we can still finish better with today's post...how about a trade recap with TCDB member imthegrinch and some wrestling cards...

A few more game cards from a couple of the wrestling releases in the late 90s and early 2000s. Again, never played, but like to collect them now for the action shots if nothing else. Heck, I like the Slam Attax cards even better as it gives an idea of what the wrestlers were viewed as being from a quick stats perspective, and great photos on most of them.

I am told though, that nothing is finer than Scottie Steiner.

Some small set helpers along the way, but the Cesaro is a neat one as it's a card which is, I guess the insert, as it came with one of the WWE dog tag releases which is pretty cool. I actually have more of the dog tags than the cards, but like them all the same.

Appreciate the trade as always, and the wrestling cards are always welcome here!

Ending On A High

 Well, at least the last pack ended up being the best pack, including more base additions for me...

Big E who didn't get to end his career on his own terms unfortunately, and with Xavier yesterday, adds another part of The New Day base cards to my collection. Eve being a legend is a bit of a stretch, but I get it.

Speaking of New Day, the last piece of the trio is Kofi, and here we have a nice bronze parallel which is serial numbered to 99. Doing some match, we can get the essential print run of the product since these fall every 45 packs, there are 99 cards of each 110 single cards which means we have a run of....490,050 packs of cards.

Well, at least there are a few less out there in unopened condition now.

Oh, and since I mentioned Shawn as a bad NWO choice, Bret did beat him to it...definitely wasn't needed.

One duplicate...

Well, the one card definitely saved this box since it was looking like all the duplicates were keeping it from being a successful opening.

Finally!

 Good news - this blaster finally provided some base cards that I needed from this set!

Xavier would be my face of the bunch, though this Liz is the way I remember her, not the WCW version from the mid to late 90s.

The inserts were all keepers too...

Given the inserts for The Rock are every six packs, I am ahead of the game on this blaster with three being pulled (though only two were new for me). Do we need to talk about how little sense Shawn being part of any version of the nWo makes? Hopefully not...though Jake would have been an interesting addition, except he was much better as a loner than being part of any group. Even him being part of Survivor Series teams felt out of place back in the 80s / early 90s.

In case you didn't know - this Road Dogg is the only dupe in the pack.

With the mail finally moving again, I had a couple trades trickle in, one of which I will also share with everyone today - it's with Orry04 who I have traded with a few times before on TCDB.

The Fleer cards are a couple errors and a second copy of the Toronto checklist since I need one for the team set and one for the base set I am slowly working on.

Jack Clark is another error card - an error in the stats, and we have a lone real Jay card with a nice Carolina Blue Prizms Ryu, and another since base card need for the 2021 flagship Topps set.

Nice to get the mail moving a bit again, though I have no idea how long the continued strike action is going to take, or what the mail system will look like once they get to making all the changes where change is absolutely needed.