2001 Upper Deck Bionicle Quest For The Masks Booster Pack

I know nothing about these cards.

I picked up this pack because my son once had a couple Lego Bionicles and got the magazine for a while.

Like 15 years ago.

Ah, nostalgia.

The back of the pack says there are 5 Uncommon, 3 Rare, and 1 Ultra Rare card in this pack.

I'm going to assume I am showing them to you in that order.

I suppose some of these mask cards are special.

This one has a Darth Vader element to it.

This is a cool one, even more Darth Vaderish.

Bionicle Goalies Mask.

Ooh, the black one in blue.

For the Bionicle Blue Man Crew.

This little guy just makes me giggle.

Is he supposed to be some evil war lord or something.

He's a cute little guy.

Ok now we're talking.

I see angry.  I see metal.  I see claws. I see volcanic explosion.

This is good.

This graphic is all over the place.

I cant figure out which way to turn this card.

All I see are rocks flying.

???

A shiney foil card.

I'm assuming this is the ultra rare.

But is that a mask or a melted chocolate chip?

Most of the card backs have this same photo.

Which is probably one of the cooler I've ever seen.

Menacing yellow eyes....brrrrr....

Character Building 50 Years of Doctor Who Micro Figures

I've opened several packs of these Doctor Who Micro-Figures [here and here] put out by Character Building but they've out done themselves with this latest set.  It's all 11 Doctors, no side characters, no villains. All Killer, No Filler! [Well, I mean, there is the 8th Doctor but what can you do?].

I picked up one pack for $4.50 from the local British store here in Lawrence called Brits.

Each pack comes with a handy mini-poster/checklist of each figure. My top priority figures would be the 4th Doctor, 10th Doctor, and the 1st Doctor.  Let's see what I pulled.

I pulled the 5th Doctor played by Peter Davidson in the early 80's.  Although I don't remember exactly when I first saw the original Doctor Who series, being born in 1979 I believe it was probably the 5th Doctor during reruns on PBS.

So we can cross off on Doctor from my list and I'll will certainly be back to Brits for another pack soon.

1997-98 Leaf Hockey International Stars

 

 1997-98 is last hockey release from Donruss/Leaf brand. This is USA/Euro edition tag. This 150 card set has "Fractal Matrix" base set insert featuring 60 players along with Universal Ice (parallel of 150 players; numbered to 250), Banner Season (numbered to 3500; die-cut canvas), Pipe Dreams (numbered to 2500), Fire on Ice (numbered to 1000), and Lindros Collection (numbered to 100). Let's rip.

147 - Landon Wilson - front of card feature silver foil with Leaf logo and player name on center bottom of the card, name of the country on the side and team logo on upper right corner. Back of the card has action shot of the player a position he played in the middle and one line stats of the year before and his career.

For Landon Wilson spent his career between major clubs and minors along with playing in Finland and Switzerland. Last played in 2009-10 season.

 

15 - Mike Modano - one best American-born players to play in the league. Currently holds record for most goals and points scored from US-born player along multiple awards and Stanley Cup title. Good shot of Modano getting tripped on the ice.

81 - Mike Grier - raised in family of athletes he chose hockey. Despite picked 219th overall by Blues he made it playing for four teams in 14 seasons of the league last playing in 2010-11.

57 - Adam Deadmarsh - US nationality despite being born in Canada played for Team USA in World Cup of Hockey and the Olympics. Part of Avalanche team who won Stanley Cup in 1996 and had his name misspelled. Two concussions ended his career.

36 - Niklas Sundstorm - played his first 4 seasons with MODO (Swedish League) before spending 11 seasons in the NHL. He returned back to Sweden playing 7 more seasons with MODO again before retiring earlier this month.

118 - Sandis Ozolinsh - holds all-time NHL records of goals, assists, and points of a player from Latvia. Two-way player who can play defense and offense made All-Star team 7 times along a Stanley Cup title with Avalanche in 15 seasons with the league. Still playing to this day in KHL (Russian League)

Who's ready for New Year's Day hockey?

2008 Upper Deck Timeline Retail

I bought myself a box for Christmas, it arrived Christmas Eve, so I tore into it right away.

Only 6 cards per pack in the retail box, tougher to get those SPs higher numbers.

Here's a random pack.

#28 Derek Jeter

#46 Torii Hunter

#10 Chase Utley

#106 Clete Thomas

Pulled a Gold Parallel.

#5 Johan Santana

#290 Brain McCann

Meh, not too bad a pack.

The gold card saved it.

Still collecting this set if they're any traders out there.

2013-14 Panini Prestige Basketball

Christmas is a-comin', and with that comes one of the league's biggest showcases as we'll once again see five consecutive games on national TV on Christmas Day. I've finally been able to find some new NBA cards at the retail level, and here is Panini's latest Prestige offering.

44 - Tyler Zeller - The older of the Zeller brothers.

2 - Austin Rivers - Doc Rivers' son. This is one of the less inspiring back designs that Panini has put together in my opinion.

60 - Emeka Okafor - I've said this before, but I really like the Wizards uniforms these days. If I had to rank my favorite NBA teams in order, Washington would be high on my list these days, which is something I never thought possible.

84 - Kawhi Leonard - I'm really not a fan of the Los Team and El Team thing that the NBA does on occasion. I get why they are doing it, and I think that's great, but those jerseys make a mockery of the whole thing.

79 - Chris Kaman Bonus Shots Red - Speaking of mockeries, this former All-Star has fallen to the deep depths of the Lakers bench. His career could use a good jumpstart, but I'm not sure the running Kobe-less Lakers are the best place for that to happen. This is a "Bonus Shots" parallel, and typically Red has been a retail only color for Panini.

194 - Elias Harris - Harris is an undrafted free agent who was cut after playing just two games. For some reason there's no "Rookie Card" designation on the front.

152 - Kyrie Irving - Irving is one of the best young guards in the game right now. He went face to face with Damian Lillard recently, and let's just say that it was a thing to behold.

176 - Carrick Felix - Felix is a second round pick out of Arizone State who hasn't gotten much in the way of playing time yet. He has the hair, though.

133 - Al-Farouq Aminu - Here you can see the new Pelicans logo, but we'll have to wait a bit longer to see their new uniforms on a card.
 

190 - Jamaal Franklin - Another rookie to close out the pack.

2013-14 Panini NBA Stickers

Panini seems to desperately want an MLB license based on all of the baseball cards they've been putting out lately. I'm not sure that this would be the greatest thing in the world considering the sameness of everything Panini seems to do these days, but it would mean a long awaited return of Panini sticker albums to the summer sport. Here's a packet of the latest NBA version.

191 - Eric Gordon - Yep, that's right - it's a Pelicans logo.

259 - Harrison Barnes - Blogs seem to like this guy, and the Warriors in general.

324 - Anderson Varejao - I didn't get a glance at the sticker album, but it looks like there's some room for some horizontal stickers.

257 - Stephen Curry Foil - I'm not sure when it was decided that sticker albums required certain stickers to be made of foil, but here we are. Curry is one of the most exciting players in the game.

230 - Jeremy Lamb - I've got nothin' but love for the Thunder. Just kidding.

122 - Ramon Sessions - Charlotte is undergoing the final stages of their transformation into the Hornets 2.0, so here's a last glimpse at a uniform design they probably bought at Kmart.

175 - Marc Gasol - Now the best Gasol. I'm not much for Gasols, though.

1982 Fleer Stamps

If you grew up in the 80's, then you probably remember having to choose between Tonka's GoBots and Hasbro's Transformers.  Twenty-five years later it's pretty evident which one became more popular and which one sort of fizzled and disappeared.

But do you remember having to choose between Topps Stickers and Fleer Stamps?

I know I don't.  Over the years, I've seen these Fleer stamps here and there, but back in 1982 Topps stickers were the only option in my neighborhood.  And I spent a nice part of my allowance buying packs and filling up my album.

Nevertheless... I'm sure some collectors around the world were given a choice.  And since Topps produced sticker albums for almost a decade, while Fleer only produced stamps for two years... I'll go out on a limb and say that Fleer's stamps were our hobby's version of the GoBots.

So let's take a few seconds to refresh everyone's memory on the product.  There were 242 different stamps distributed in packs that had a suggested retail price of 25¢.  Fleer also sold stamp albums to house these stamps for 25¢.

Each pack contained one logo sticker and a strip of 10 stamps.  According to Beckett, there are 25 different stamp strips.  That means that a handful of these stamps were double printed like Rich Gossage, Steve Rogers, and Lou Whitaker.  These guys can be found on both strips #G1 and #G25.

Okay, let's get to my pack.  Here's the strip that I pulled:

Strip #G7

Each 10 stamp strip measures approximately 2.5" x 18", which makes each individual stamp around 2.5" x 1.8".  In other words... two stamps is about the size of your standard trading card.  Since my scanner isn't large enough to scan the whole strip, I broke it down into three separate parts.

#230 John Castino

#129 Matt Keough

#8 Bill Russell

Not a bad start.  First up... the 1979 AL Rookie of the Year, the 1980 AL Comeback Player of the Year, and the guy who has played the most games in Los Angeles Dodgers history.

#234 Damaso Garcia

#160 Steve Kemp

#41 Cesar Cedeno

#69 Bob Horner

Next up... a pair of all-stars from the Dominican Republic and a pair of  #1 draft picks.  Garcia represented the Blue Jays in 1984 and 1985 all-star games, while Cedeno made the team four different times with the Houston Astros during the 70's.  Kemp and Horner (who were also MLB all-stars) were the first players chosen in the 1976 and 1978 amateur drafts.

#200 Len Barker

#11 Tom Seaver

#132 Rollie Fingers

And finally... Fleer saved the best for last.  Two fellas enshrined in Cooperstown and the guy who threw the tenth official perfect game in MLB history.

I was hoping to pull strip #G16 that contains five hall of famers including one of my favorite players of all-time...Rickey Henderson.  But you can't win them all.  At least the logo sticker I pulled featured my favorite team:

The back of the sticker contains one of the thirty-two different puzzle pieces.  When assembled, it produces a picture of the 1981 MLB All-Star Game at Cleveland Stadium.  If you're interested in learning about these stickers, click here.

So... what do you think?  Are you more of a Topps Sticker Album kind of person?  Or a Fleer Stamp Album person?

Happy Sunday and sayonara!