4 packs of cards that a collector will rarely see

It's a nightly ritual.  Head home from work, pull in the driveway, get out of the car and head straight to the mailbox.  We've been in this house just over 2 years now, and I don't think that my wife has ever checked the mail since we moved in.

That's because she knows the joy I get when I open the box and pull out an unexpected bubble mailer or PWE.   It's an incredible feeling because you know that someone out there has taken the time to put this together with you in mind.  

I received one such envelope early this week (or maybe the end of last week, it's been a few days) from Kenny who always manages to put together great packages for me.

This one was creative.  As protection, he re-used 4 pack wrappers.   So, I'm counting these as opening 4 packs of cards.   Just because I can....

Let's have some fun and go pack by pack, shall we?

Pack 1

This pack he'd been saving for a while, as it's a Prizm Perennial Draft Picks wrapper from 2014.  It contained 4 base cards (not like the 5 on the pack).

Hey!  Rowdy Tellez and Vladdy Jr., right off the get go!!  Tellez made quite the splash with his September call up; he's hitting .385 with 8 doubles and 2 homers in 40 plate appearances.  Guerrero Jr. just may make the Jays out of camp next year after tearing up the minors this year, hitting .381 over 4 different levels of minor league pitching (2 of those levels were just for a cup of coffee).

In this pack as well was a different sort of insert...minis!

A little crooked on the bottom row, but I wasn't going to bother fussing with the scan.  These are stickers from 3 different Panini products, and they bring back memories of the old Panini sticker books from the 80's, trying to fill those up as kids. 


Pack 2

 A little more recent, this pack is a series 2 wrapper from 2018 Topps.   It was close to 12 cards.

Another Rowdy Tellez card!  Adeiny Hechavarria has already been traded 4 times since his 2012 RC was released (Miami, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, New York).  I believe the Joe Young is a buyback card, as it has a stamp on the front (70th).  I wasn't aware that Joe was Canadian born (Ft. McMurray, AB) and spent 6 years in the Jays system, reaching as high as AA.

I'll have to check, but I'm betting most of the pack may be doubles.

Nothing wrong with the inserts though, 3 cards from the 2017-18 OPC set.  Pretty sure that I need them all so these are great for me!


Pack 3

 I'd lay money I don't have that Kenny ripped quite a few of these packs this year.  My pack beat what's listed on the wrapper, as it was bursting with 14 cards inside.

Mostly recent cards in this Blue Jays lot.  I'm pretty sure that I need the Biagini Heritage for that set build, and most of the others will likely be needed for team sets. 

By the time Heritage came out in 2010, Roy was already wearing the red "P" Philadelphia Phillies logo, but I imagine that that photo was taken from the 2009 ASG, which was Roy's 6th and final appearance as a Jay.  The other 3 cards are likely doubles, even the Daniel Norris.

Not a bad insert in this pack though, a P.K. Subban Canvas card.  I'm a sucker for these cards, and this one is no slouch.  There are quite a few copies of this card on COMC (136 to be exact), so there's no expectation of short supply at all.


Pack 4

The final pack is one that I've ripped a few times, a 2017-18 Upper Deck series 1 pack.  The pack says 8 cards, I pulled nearly double that.

Some Bowman for you, a couple of copies of Josh Donaldson who has moved on, and a couple of versions of Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s card from 2017.  I have a feeling Lourdes will be a regular member of the Jays in 2019, as his rookie season was a good one, hitting .284 with 9 homers in 61 games.

Zack Erwin is a member of the Oakland organization, so not sure how he made it in this pack.  Jon Harris does belong though; the Jays actually drafted him 2x.  He split 2018 between AA & AAA, having a couple of decent starts when he was promoted to AAA Buffalo for a week just before the July 4th holiday.

There are some nice cards on this scan, but the only 2 that I believe I need are the Topps Total cards of Hentgen and Woodward.  Maybe this Wednesday when I have the day off I'll go through all of these to see what I truly need.

Kenny, what a great idea that I'm going to have to steal off of you!!  Thank you for the cards, they are truly appreciated.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Card show: vintage represented

Not only did I find a boat load of cards in the nickel boxes, but when I hit the vintage box down at the other end of the same dealer's table, I found quite a few cards worth grabbing.

I showed this card off on Twitter back on the day I bought it.  Can't get much better than a well loved '67 T Ernie Banks card for a buck.  Soft corners, one crease right through Ernie's neck, another one just below his signature.  No matter, I love the card.

These were also $1 apiece, both in pretty good shape considering their age. 

The Luzinski and WS Game 7 cards were both a dollar apiece, but the other '72s were 5/$1.  I'm barely over 10% of the '72 set in hand, but picking up a few cards here and there lately has been fun.  I have some more coming in a trade I just completed on the TCDB website, so the crawl to 100 cards for this set continues.

The Tommy John and Tony Perez cards were $1 apiece, not bad.  All the others were in the 5/$1 box, which provided no complaints from me.  With this small haul, the '69 set is a little more than 20% complete. 

Lastly, I was able to knock out 40 cards from the '76 Topps want list, including the 27 you see in the scans above.  Three of the players in those scans would end up as Blue Jays within the next couple of seasons, 2 of them as part of the original Blue Jays team in 1977. 

I'm down to 140 cards left to complete the '76 set, with Dennis Eckersley being the rookie card that will cost me the most.   There are quite a few star cards to pick up as well, including a few All Time Great cards such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb that will cost a few dollars. 

When said and done, it was a pretty good haul for me, at just $35 total.  For me, the best part was putting some good dents into the 76 Topps baseball and 83-84 OPC hockey want lists.  I hope to get as lucky again at next months show.

I'm sure you knew John Mayberry was a Blue Jay (I'd mentioned him in a post last week), but give yourself a gold star if you were able to name Dave Lemanczyk and Hector Torres as the 2 players that were part of the original '77 Jays squad.  Lemanczyk was one of two double digit win pitchers for the Jays (13), while Torres played just 91 games for the Jays, hitting .241

Thanks for reading, Robert 

Nickel box finds at the card show

The monthly card show was last weekend and I was quite lucky to find a dealer that had several nickel boxes of cards, including hockey!

Yep, that's right, several boxes of cards that were priced at just 5 cents.

I found a chair, sat down and started digging.

Over 20 82, 83 and 84 Topps cards.  No slouches either for the most part, mostly names that everyone will know.

Gypsy Queen framed border cards, and a trio of Bowman gold parallels.   Trade fodder for team collectors at a nickel apiece is not bad at all.

Another gold border GQ card, a quartet of Larry Fitzgerald cards and 4 Blue Jays that I didn't have.  The Roberto Alomar fold outs card was something that I had never seen before.  The photo on the inside would have been great for a regular card...

I don't know about other hockey collectors out there, but I have really enjoyed the Upper Deck UD Canvas cards over the past few seasons.  Seeing these in the nickel box was fantastic for me, I took all of them that he had.  Even the dupe of Patrick Maroon in the first scan.

What initially enticed me to sit down was seeing these cards.   I have very few of the 81-82 OPC cards (bottom row), and I was hoping to find a bunch.  Alas, there were only 2 in there.  The 84-85 OPC cards on the top were all that he had as well.  But I did find a bunch of these...

I dug out 72(!) of the 1983-84 OPC cards that I needed, bringing my want list down to a paltry 40 cards to go.   I really  had no thoughts of finishing this set by the end of the year, but now that the set is down to a manageable number of cards, chances are I have this done before 2019 rolls around.  I do need a couple of Gretzky cards as part of the 40, but I know that shopping around will enable me to find the cards at reasonable prices.

I wound up pulling 175 cards out of the nickel boxes, including a dozen Joe Sakic's, 1 Mats Sundin and 1 Felix Potvin card...

Now there may very well be several dupes on the Joe Sakic cards, but I wasn't going to take the chance with the cards only costing a nickel apiece.

All this, was just the first hour at this table.   Next up are the 5 for $1 cards that I dug through for another half hour....

Thanks for reading, Robert

Putting them up and knocking them down

During the extended labor day weekend I enjoyed, I decided to add to my want lists on the site.  I put up 50 common cards I needed for my Mats Sundin and Keith Tkachuk PCs.  I already had a decent size list up for Joe Sakic as well.  

No sooner did I have the list up and I received a trade offer from user Detfan6897.  Edward grabbed a handful of parallels/inserts of his Detroit players, and I received a handsome sum in return.

A trio of older Sakic cards, including the 94-95 Collectors Choice you crash the game silver bonus card.  

4 Keith Tkachuk cards, with the 97-98 Upper Deck card in the lower left corner being an added bonus.

Finally there's 8 Mats Sundin cards, most of them as you can see featuring him in his early days with the Nordiques.  The Sundin collection has really picked up some steam, as I have over 150 of his cards now. 

I've had some good luck so far with the Trading Card Database site; this is one of 9 trades I've completed since April.  I just proposed another trade today, and the best part of all this is that I'm getting inserts and doubles out of the house to people that want them.

I'll be adding some more cards to the want lists in the near future, as the quest to build sets and player collections continues.

Thanks for reading, Robert