2007 Topps Chrome

These packs are all over the Target $1.59 boxes. If they sold them for $1.59 in the first place there might not have been so many lying around to be discounted. If I don't buy them, the poor things will end up in a repack box, so I rescued this one from that horrible fate.

218 Alex Rodriguez
277 Chase Wright RC
30 John Smoltz Xfractor
82 Melvin Mora

Yeah, John Smoltz Xfractor! The card looks like someone won a game of Yar's Revenge. Man, I hope someone gets that reference or I'm going to feel really old. A-Rod is A-Rod. Can't complain about getting one of his cards. The Melvin Mora card looks pretty good with the horozontal action shot and bright orange jersey. I didn't scan it because these chrome cards are impossible to scan. I got a rookie card, but it's of the guy who gave up 4 straight homers to the Red Sox in 2007. Eh, it's a rookie. People go nuts over Chrome rookies. Good pack right here. I need to go pull out the Atari 2600 now and shoot some Quotiles.

2008-09 Upper Deck Basketball

My household (okay, just me) is in full-on Hoops Mode at the moment, and despite my vow to myself that I would not be lured into collecting basketball cards and would just stick to one sport, I found myself buying my second basketball pack of the year last weekend. Last time it was Topps and this time it's Upper Deck. Much like the baseball packs (and presumably football), there are lots of cards crammed into a $2.99 pack. You also get the full bleed photos and nice photography that's sometimes lacking in other brands.

51 - Richard Hamilton (I wonder if Rip wears his scary mask to bed at night.)
46 - Marcus Camby (Camby actually played a career high 79 games last season. He's only played more than 66 games 3 times in his 10 year career.)
69 - Jermaine O'Neal (O'Neal has looked really good this season as a member of the Raptors, which makes me think he was dogging it for awhile in Indiana. Unfortunately for him, he rather gruesomely hurt his knee last night, though he was able to walk off the court under his own power. I once stood behind him in line at a snack cart at the Rose Festival in Portland when he was still a teenager.)
5 - Josh Smith (A still fairly under-the-radar shot-blocker and dunker who has improved his scoring every season he's been in the league.)

2 - Al Horford (He's young and promising, much like his team, the Hawks. The Hawks were, for a time, my second favorite team behind the Blazers. I thought Dominique Wilkins was amazing and I used to be able to see their games on TBS.)
44 - Kenyon Martin (Another oft-injured Nugget.)

63 - Shane Battier (Battier has managed to shake the Duke NBA curse and establish himself as a premier defensive stopper. I just wish he played in the East.)
81 - Jordan Farmar (Part of me dies inside every time I see a Laker uniform. The Lakers are officially stupid for not starting this guy in favor of Derek Fisher, however.)

168 - Bruce Bowen (Interesting photo.)

127 - Chris Paul (If I was starting a franchise and I could choose anyone in the league, Chris Paul would be my pick. If someone else got to choose first, then I'd go with Dwight Howard.)
116 - Nenad Kristic

158 - Martell Webster (Webster is a deadly 3-point shooter. He's still recovering from an injury he suffered in training camp. Last season he scored 24 points in one quarter against Utah, and pretty much everything positive against Utah makes you awesome in my book.)
171 - Robert Horry (One look at Horry's stats on the back makes one aware about just how terrible of a player he is. It just goes to show how much a few clutch baskets and reputation can keep a lousy player earning a decent salary.)
110 - Rashad McCants
169 - Manu Ginobili (Ginobili is receiving his Sixth Man Award, but you can see in his face that he'd rather start.)
113 - Bostjan Nachbar

U-19 - Gheorghe Muresan Ultimates (Uhh... okay. I don't even know what to say about this. This is part of the Target exclusive insert set mentioned on the wrapper.)

SQ-17 - LeBron James Starquest Common (And each one of these packs, I'm guessing, contains one of the shiny Starquest cards, like all the other sets.)

2008 Stadium Club or a day (or two) late and a dollar (or three) short

The downside to not giving in to one's primal collecting urges is that one misses out on being the 'early' bird when a new set of cards comes knocking. Such is the case for me. I had been putting off a trip to Wally World even though everything in my soul was telling me to go look for new cards. Well, I finally did today (Friday), and I'm now the 3rd, 4th, or maybe 10th person to post 2008 Topps Stadium Club's return to the limelight. Maybe next time I'll buy those 2008 Pop Stars cards (or whatever they are called) I saw instead...

Regardless, my apologies if anyone out there has seen more than enough of the latest Topps offering, but I bought the pack specifically to open on here, plus I love the rebirth of TSC:

The cards above are actually pictured in the reverse order they came out of the pack. Yeap, that means Carmona was the first card i saw when I opened the blister pack! A Triber right out of the gate, and dingle-dorf (that would be me) opts NOT to play 'Tribe-or-no-Tribe-opener' (TonTo, for short)! Figgers. Well, the first three cards are Carmona (Indians), Perez (Cardinals), and Adenhart (Angels). I love the full-card pictures and the retro TSC stripe running along the card near the bottom. Most of the pictures (in this pack anyway) seem to be in-game shots, which is helpful when trying to sell a set called "STADIUM CLUB." One would think the STADIUM part should be a no-brainer...

Posada (Yankees) and Lackey (Angels) finish out the five-card blister. Posada's card is the only one in this grouping that has a different picture on the back than a cropped version of the front image. I wonder why that is. Lackey's card is stamped with a "First Day Issue" award/star/thingy. I used to excited about those kinds of things, but then I realized they could put that stamp on any cards they choose, any time they choose. Who would really know the difference?

What struck me as funny as I was editing was that it appears Posada is telling Lackey to hold up his pitch... Yeah, I'm easily entertained like that....

I love the over-the-top view of Carmona's card. That is a great shot for pitchers. I realize this means that soon EVERY card maker will be using it, but until it is overdone, I like it.. I like it a lot.

2008/2009 Upper Deck McDonalds Hockey

So I was at Wally World today and I found a whole whack of blasters to choose from. Ranging in prices from $25 to $35. For 5 packs. I don't think so. Sometimes I hate Canada. *sigh*
So to satisfy my urge, I stopped at McDonalds for dinner. Not for the delicious cuisine, but rather hockey cards. 99 cents a pack. I got 3. Here they are. 3 cards per pack.
1st pack
Joe Thornton Superstar Spotlight insert
Henrik Zetterberg
Shane Doan

Pack 2
Saku Koivu
Henrik Zetterberg
Shane Doan......
WTF???


Pack 3
Tomas Kaberle
Henrik Zetterberg
Shane Doan
Mother-puss-bucket!!!

wow. Good luck trying to put this set together.....

2008 Topps Stadium Club retail

2008 Topps Stadium Club retail [$2.99 each x3] - I'm not saying this is a great product but then it may not be so bad, if you are somewhat of a 'true' collector as opposed to a box breaker hunting down hits like there is no tomorrow.

Pack One
#49 John Smoltz
#134 Wladimir Balentien - as I've read, it seems like there are two or three rookies in each pack. I'm sure however, most of the cards aren't likely first-year and/or true rookie cards.
#140 Max Scherzer

#BTA-BH Brad Hawpe Beam Team autograph
#117 Hernan Irribaren
David Wright filler

Pack two
#91 Jackie Robinson
#121 Matt Tolbert
#71 Grady Sizemore
#127 Blake DeWitt

#114 Michael Aubrey 1st Day Issue insert - I remember when the original parallel versions [back in the 1990s] were at least one per box or one every two boxes.
David Wright filler

Pack three
#86 Justin Morneau
#40 Eric Chavez
#95 Honus Wagner

#135 Jeff Niemann - serial #'d 778/999

#111 Ryan Tucker - 1st Day Issue insert
Checklist
David Wright filler

1987 Topps Who Framed Roger Rabbit

I got this pack at the card show last weekend, a seller had a mess of 'em for 10 cents a pop. It was voted as the card show pack to rip on my blog so you get to share in the experience. Was this pack worth the dime I paid for it? Only if there's a Jessica Rabbit card in there! This movie was perfect for a cartoon loving, girlie ogling teenager in 1987. There better be a Jessica Rabbit card in here or I'm going to kick myself for leaving the rest of those packs behind at the show. I actually hate buying random non-sports packs, I'd rather just get the set and be done with it. Let's open 'er up and show me that redhead!

101 Poor Benny Crashes

The gum was fused pretty tight to this card, but when I placed it on the scanner I heard a crackley sound and it fell off after the scan. There must be crazy UV Gum Destroying Rays in that thing. I never trusted that green light.

Woohoo! First Jessica sighting! She's in a terrible car wreck while not wearing her seatbelt and will probably be a quadriplegic on card #102, but It's Jessica at least.

124 Good Morning, Toontown!

What the heck is wrong with the color on this card?? Did Topps send a photographer into a movie theater with a Polaroid to get the images for this set? Two straight cards with Jessica on it is good though, even if she is about the size of a thumbtack on both cards.

47 "Care For A Dip?!"

AAAAAAAHH!!! This scene was disturbing as hell. A cute little clown shoe getting disolved into sludge and WE GET TO WATCH HIS EXPRESSION THE WHOLE DAMN TIME IT'S MELTING. Robert Zemeckis is a sick, sick bastard. Even David Lynch wouldn't make you watch it's little eyes bug out. Ugh, next card.

115 Stand Up and Sneer!

Christopher Lloyd gets squished by a steamroller. Great scene, but there's no redheads in this picture.

Sticker 12

The eeeevil wolves straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon. I always liked the phycho wolf with the red and yellow swirly eyes.

1 132 Cards - 22 Stickers

Oh goody, the title card. This pack is careening downhill.

24 Whoops!!!

The film sprockets and black border are cool, but the color on these photos is terrible. Baby Herman is about to fall to his horrible bloody flaming death after swiping a cookie. CRIME DOES NOT PAY.

13 A Step In The Wrong Direction!

I need to buy this movie. This cartoon at the beginning is worth every penny. Roger is about to fall into the Volcano Hot oven, but just seeing the knives on the wall that will soon be flung at Roger's head is making me giggle. Oh, look at who's on the back!

Jessica! WOOHOOOOOO! My luck is changing!

35 The Main Attraction

You bet it is! I got my Jessica Rabbit card and it doesn't look horrible. Success! One more to go...

70 "Into The Dip, Rabbit!"

Whoops, Roger's in a pickle. Who's that guy in the shadows in the background? Is that Bob Hoskins? Has to be, I couldn't go through an entire pack without getting a card with Bob Hoskins on it. I need to watch this movie again now. Or at least parts of it.

2008 Topps Baseball Updates & Highlights Presents 2008 Topps Heritage High Numbers Series

Topps Heritage High Numbers is out, here's the first pack I opened. As you can see, I got lucky.

Yes, the wrapper actually does say 2008 Topps Baseball Updates & Highlights Presents 2008 Topps Heritage High Numbers Series and it does look pretentious as hell.

The gum is serial numbered now too. At least the wrapper is still an aphrodisiac.

Heritage:
646 Marco Scutaro
533 Johnny Gomes
622 John Baker
713 Seth McClung
HCC JD Jermaine Dye Clubhouse Collection jersey
Topps Updates & Highlights:
UH195 Chris Carter RC
UH300 CC Sabathia

What can I say? Jermaine Dye Jersey with stripe right off the bat. Not too shabby. The rest of the pack is a bit meh, but it's Heritage so who cares. After opening a few packs I am beginning to think that Topps put the Updates & Highlights cards in so there would be at least a fighting chance at pulling a star card out of any given pack. Well, that and forcing us to buy 25% more packs that is. There's a whole lot of rookies and bench players in the high numbers from what I've seen so far. Of course the original '59 set had some rookie pitcher from the Cardinals in it, some guy named Gibson. So, maybe rookies and scrubs ain't that bad. It's Heritage, so I don't have much of a choice now do I?

1991 Studio

I'll keep it brief and bulleted today:

• Repack blister pack.
• Got momentarily excited when I saw this wrapper before purchasing.
• Thought it was going to be a Stadium Club pack.
• Was disappointed.
• Thought '91 Studio wasn't really THAT bad if it was the set I was thinking it was.
• Opened it up and found this...
  

116 - Randy Johnson (Hobbies & Interests include watching David Letterman. Facts on the back are in lieu of stats on the back and are reprinted in bold print without permission of Leaf, Inc.)

246 - Atlee Hammaker (Favorite TV show is Andy Griffith. This guy looks like a shop teacher.)
186 - Jose Offerman (Heroes: Alfredo Griffin and Tony Fernandez. Did Offerman ever play for the Jays?)

130 - Bobby Witt (Favorite TV show is The Three Stooges... is a fan of all the Boston teams. Hooray Boston Teams! This is the face he makes when he watches The Boston Teams.)
70 - Kurt Stillwell (Collects fishing lures. Can't make this stuff up. Well, I probably could, but if you dare challenge me I will find out where you live and mail you this card.)
10 - David Segui (His hero is Frank Howard. His Hobbies & Interests were boring.)

79 - Greg Vaughn (Greg enjoys collecting pogs. I may or may not have fabricated this one a bit.)

19 - Jeff Reardon (Watches Miami Vice on TV. Still.)

228 - Don Slaught (Watches L.A. Law and The Rockford Files. Still.)
168 - Hal Morris (Favorite TV show is Masterpiece Theatre. Hal has totally moved on to Antiques Roadshow now.)
22-23-24 - Rod Carew Puzzle Pieces

This is definitely not the set I was thinking of. I was thinking of the slightly less nauseating but still crummy '92 set.

2008 Topps Stadium Club Baseball's Triumphant Return

I trying to turn last week's Masterpieces Football debacle into a learning experience by purchasing two packs of a new product. Shopping with the fiancee makes me feel less guilt for buying packs of cards. She gets card stock to be used for making programs, and I get Stadium Club.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
91 Jackie Robinson (There's no better start to a pack than that. I'm wondering, however, why Topps failed to make this card number 42. The photo on the frony is poetic, with Jackie sauntering up to the plate, confident enough to shoot a knowing smile to a friend.)

121 Matt Tolbert RC (Is this my one rookie per pack?)

71 Grady Sizemore (Full bleed home run trot.)

119 Jed Lowrie Photographer's Proof RC (52/99) (Hit of the pack, these are seeded one in sixty packs, according to the wrapper above. Help me out here, is this guy coveted by Red Sox fans?)

12 Miguel Tejada First Day Issue

Grade: A-
Excellent pack with a perfect balance of rookies, stars, and people your great aunt Phyllis, who spends her weekends in search of below-the-radar craft fairs, has heard of. The only improvement that I could see this set making would be for Topps to include a different photo for the back inset picture. This looked chintzy in the 2007 base set, and it still does today.

If Stadium Club doesn't impress you, I've got stickers!

2008 Upper Deck Timeline

I'm going to drop some weirdness on you guys tomorrow, so here's a nice, safe baseball pack . Well, not so safe, this pack has six short prints (on average). So how can there possibly be 6 short prints per pack? When there are 335 short prints in the set, that's how! This junk is a masochistic set builder's wet dream. So what I'm saying basically is I dig it. I did a primer on the set here, I'll go through each card in the pack as a refresher course. There will be a quiz.

35 Roy Halladay

This is the base card. There are usually two in every hobby pack and 3 to 5 in a retail pack. There are only 50 cards in the non-short printed base set compared to over three hundred short prints. I foresee lots of doubles in my future.

99 Jonathan Albaladejo RC

These are still base design cards but they are only one per pack instead of two. Normally the second card will be a veteran base card, but this pack is special. One thing I just noticed is that the back of the base cards do not have the player's name anywhere. That's not good when you've flipped the card over to type out the card number and need to check to see how to spell Albaladejo.

130 Tyler Clippard 1992 Upper Deck Minors

This isn't a variation card, it's part of the base set short printed to one per pack and given a retro design. The retro cards are the best thing about this set and it's nice that there are about 5 of them per hobby pack.

YSL5133 Don Mattingly Yankee Stadium Tedium

ARGH. The only thing worse than these annoying cards is when it take the place of a short print. It it wasn't Donnie I'd set the damn thing on fire.

61 Chin-Lung Hu Gold Parallel

Base cards have a parallel version with gold ink and foil instead of silver. I think they look better than the silver sersion to be honest. If I get loopy enough to actually try to build a base set (I'm not quite crazy enough to build a complete set yet) I'm pretty sure I'll go colorblind when it comes to gold and silver as far as my set goes.

171 J.R. Towles 1994 All Time Heroes

This is a nifty looking set but pulling the design in a new pack only makes me want to find a box of the original '94 cards. Any set with floating heads is a good set.

200 Micah Hoffpauer 1995 Premier Top Prospects

In the last post I wrote about this stuff, I mocked upper Deck for getting the foil and ink colors wrong. Now I'm thinking I screwed up and the design is supposed to be based on a minor league set unstead of '95 SP. Either way it's ugly and the die cut is unneccesary. This card has roller marks on it too.

279 Ian Kennedy RC 2004 Timeless Teams

This pack should have gone to a Yankee fan... If I could build any of these subsets it would be this one. At 100 cards at one per pack, it would be a bit tricky, but worth it. The design looks great and the back has a photo of the player's home stadium. I love it now, but in 2004 I despised the set and refused to buy any of it. Why? No Braves among the "Timeless Teams".

This is a pretty gimmicky set, but I love the retro (dear Lord is 1992 really retro?). I wish I could get a freaking Brave short print, all I've managed to get so far is a Brent Lillibridge base rookie. There are retail packs of this stuff too but the main difference between retail and hobby is there are a LOT more base cards in the retail set. If just you want to get cards 1-50 and complete the short set, then retail is fine, but this is one of those products where Hobby wax is really the way to go.

Leader of the Pack: 1993 Upper Deck Series 2

Here's another 1993 UD S2 pack from Night Owl Cards.

Time to play Leader of the Pack!

#810 Joe Boever: Player 2/5, Photo 2/5: they should used this photo for Eckersley's card, since Boever's head is blocking the "D" so the card just says "Upper Eck", At the Time 1/5, nobody wanted a Boever card, and no intangibles. Total = 5/20

#773 Trevor Hoffman: WHOA! Player 5/5, Photo 3/5 for a nice grunty closeup on the back, At the Time Hoffman was an unknown rookie 2/5, and Intangibles 4/5. He gets credit both for being on the first-year Marlins and for going on to have a HOF career. Pretty sweet card to pull. Total = 14/20



#809 Dave Burba: Player 3/5, Photo 2/5: well I'll be damned--he's blocking the "D" in "Deck" too! At the time 1/5 and no intangibles. Total = 6/20

#811 Jeremy Hernandez: Player 2/5, Photo 4/5 for excellent color uniformity, At the Time 1/5 and no intangibles. Total = 7/20

#633 Tom Bolton: Player 2/5, Photo 2/5: HE'S BLOCKING THE "D" TOO!! At the Time 1/5 and no intangibles. Total = 5/20

#728 Tracy Woodson: Player 2/5, Photo 2/5: the photo on the back is totally worthless. At the Time 1/5. Intangibles 3/5 for getting a photo with his wearing the green Cardinals cap. Total = 8/20

#695 Greg Swindell: Player 3/5, Photo 3/5 for a nice horizontal shot, At the Time 3/5 for one of the better big-league starters, and no intangibles. Total = 9/20

#701 Steve Bedrosian: Player 4/5, Photo 4/5: holy crap, you can't see his face on the front, but it's just an awesome shot, At the Time 2/5, no intangibles. Total = 10/20

#531 Frank Bolick: Player 1/5, Photo 1/5: face obscured on both the front AND back photos, At the Time 1/5 and no intangibles. Total = 3/20

#608 Kirk McCaskill: Player 3/5, Photo 4/5 for a good clear action shot on the front and a nice head shot on the back, At the Time 1/5 and no intangibles. Did I mention that he is also blocking the "D"? Total = 8/20

#542 Felix Jose: Player 2/5, Photo 4/5: Great horizontal closeup on the front and action shot on the back, At thie Time he was a bit of a rising star 3/5, and no intangibles. He's blocking the "D" too. Total = 9/20



#574 Rafael Palmeiro: Player 5/5, Photo 1/5: his face is blocked on the front, and he's making an error on the back. Awesome. At the Time he was a pretty big star 4/5 and no intangibles. Total = 10/20

#434 Marc Newfield: Player 2/5, Photo 4/5 very nice closeup, At the Time he was a nice prospect 3/5, and the special full-bleed card makes gives this 2/5 intangible points. Total = 11/20

#470 Bernie Williams Inside the Numbers: Player 4/5, photo 4/5 for a pretty nice action shot, At the Time he was a promising young player 3/5, and 2/5 intangibles for the insert. Total = 13/20



#466 Geronimo Pena Inside the Numbers: Player 2/5, photo 2/5 for a hunched-over shot, At the Time he'd had a few good partial years for the Cardinals and seemed like he might become a star 3/5, and 2/5 for intangibles. Total = 9/20

Not a great pack, but Bernie Williams takes it with his 13/20. Trevor Hoffman takes it with his 14/20.

Email me at 78topps at gmail dot com if you want to trade for these cards.

1990 Topps Big Series 1

I promised you guys this pack rip last night, but I have less than no time to write it up right now. So here's what I'm gonna do. You know how often games are better on TV with the sound muted? Like ones called by Tim McCarver or Joe Morgan? You're getting the sound muted. I'm just going to post the images of the cards and let you appreciate them for themselves. I made a snap decision on whether the front or the back was cooler, I hope you like my choices.









Ok, a little commentary. The John Smiley cartoon is utterly fantastic. We finally know what makes John Smiley smile.

1990 Topps Big Series Two

I went to a card show today and picked up some horrifically bad junk wax out of a 10 for a dollar box. They had stuff like 1989 Donruss, 100 Fleer and 1990 Topps football but I didn't get any of that. That's mainly because the packs were all OPEN. Every dang one except for the poly or cello packs (and even a few of them too) were open. I'm not buying an open pack of 1989 Donruss even for a penny because I know damn well WHY they are open. Instead I got a few unopened non-sports packs and two tightly sealed cello packs of Topps Big. Here's the 1990 series two pack, I'll open up the series one pack tomorrow.

197 Eric Anthony
162 Frank Viola
118 Terry Steinbach
203 Ozzie Smith
153 George Bell
146 Craig Worthington
120 MARK LEMKE
209 Bob Geren

Aw yeah, a Lemmer! Screw everything else, that card is the pinnacle of my card show experience. See kids, this is why you don't buy opened packs. If soemone had searched them, they would surely have snatched the Lemke up and replaced it with some worthless junk like Barry Bonds. This is a really bizarre looking set though. This originally started off as a tribute to 1956 Topps, but in its third (and last) set the design started to go really crazy. Of course if you were to go back in time and hand these cards to a kid in 1956 and tell them that this was a card form 1990They'd probably think that was about right and then ask you for a ride in your flying car. The pack itself isn't half bad. There's one certified Legend (Lemke), a Hall of Famer in Ozzie, two certified stars in Viola and Bell and I guess Steinbach was a decent player. The rest, meh.But 5 of 8 cards are decent so it's less than half bad. The cartoons on the back are stellar as usual, featuring mostly minor league highlights with a couple of bad puns thrown in. George Bell's cartoon caught my eye though

because it looks awfully similar to a card I just got from Treasure Never Buried.

If Porky just had a newspaper to read, he wouldn't be so bored!

2008 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Rack Pack

I was perusing the card aisle of the local Target the other day when I noticed that 2008 O-Pee-Chee hockey had been released. I figured I'd pick up a couple of packs, 6 cards each with a price tag of $2.99. I was about to leave when I noticed they had 38 card rack packs for $4.99. I tend to be a set collector and don't care much about chasing insert cards, so it wasn't hard for me to choose between 12 cards for $6 or 38 cards for $5.

First Half

SH-12 - Mats Sundin - Toronto Maple Leafs - Season Highlights - Insert card right off the bat. This was actually showing through the back of the wrapper. I thought maybe there was one insert per rack pack, but I picked up another one yesterday and it was insert-free. I wonder which team he will land with when he eventually signs?

#101 - Zbynek Michalek - Phoenix Coyotes

#379 - Rick DiPietro - New York Islanders

#270 - Drew Stafford - Buffalo Sabres

#414 - Nick Tarnasky - Tampa Bay Lightning

#489 - Alex Tanguay - Montreal Canadiens

#112 - Tuukka Rask - Boston Bruins

#415 - Brian Campbell - Chicago Blackhawks - I really like how the team colors were incorporated into the borders of the card, but in cases such as this where the photo does not depict the player with his current team, it looks just plain ugly.

#251 - Pavel Datsyuk - Detroit Red Wings

#186 - Craig MacDonald - Tampa Bay Lightning

#460 - Barret Jackman - St. Louis Blues

#307 - Patrick O'Sullivan - Los Angeles Kings

#292 - Jordan Leopold - Colorado Avalanche

#24 - Braydon Coburn - Philadelphia Flyers - A young defensive star who was drafted 8th overall in the 2003 entry draft by the Atlanta Thrashers. They traded him to the Flyers for Alexei Zhitnik just before he really blossomed. I bet they wish they could undo that trade...

#387 - Scott Hannan - Colorado Avalanche

#163 - Jason Chimera - Columbus Blue Jackets

#343 - Jeff Tambellini - New York Islanders

#65 - Nathan Horton - Florida Panthers

#274 - Ryan Smyth - Colorado Avalanche

Second Half

#584 - Wayne Gretzky - Edmonton Oilers - Legends - Sweet! As far as I can tell, cards 1 - 500 in the set are standard cards, and cards 501 - 600 are comprised of Legends cards, League Leaders, etc. I'm not sure if cards 501 - 600 are short-printed though, does anyone know?

#409 - Jochen Hecht - Buffalo Sabres

#140 - Brendan Witt - New York Islanders

#165 - Henrik Tallinder - Buffalo Sabres

#27 - Niklas Backstrom - Minnesota Wild

#166 - Matt Stajan - Toronto Maple Leafs

#276 - David Krejci - Boston Bruins - David is one of a few up-and-coming young stars that have actually made the Bruins relevant again this year...

#216 - Peter Budaj - Colorado Avalanche

#157 - Chris Drury - New York Rangers

#167 - Marc Savard - Boston Bruins - Here's an card where the team colors in the border really stand out and make for a great look.

#480 - Radek Bonk - Nashville Predators - Full career stats, I love it!

#337 - Lukas Krajicek - Vancouver Canucks

#10 - Cory Murphy - Florida Panthers

#233 - Kris Russell - Columbus Blue Jackets

#243 - Ilya Bryzgalov - Phoenix Coyotes

#457 - Vaclav Prospal - Tampa Bay Lightning

#294 - Erik Cole - Edmonton Oilers

#249 - Andrew Raycroft - Colorado Avalanche

#234 - Jason LaBarbera - Los Angeles Kings

Pretty decent stuff overall, I'll be buying some more of this. Plus, I found out after buying the rack pack that hobby packs contain a one-per-pack parallel of the base set on the 1979 O-Pee-Chee design (Gretzky's rookie year).