OPC stands for Oh, the Pitiful Collation

Finally broke my box of '17-18 O-Pee-Chee hockey over the weekend.

I did OK with inserts and high numbered specialty subset cards, but there was no "hit", which isn't as huge a disappointment to me as some (mostly since the "hit" would have been some kind of manu-patch anyway, and we've had enough of those for a while.)

But at the very least, I was hoping I would make substantial progress on my large base set list.  After my first round with this product, I still needed about 139 base cards out of the first 500.  Let's just say I didn't quite make it....

This was the last box in the trifecta I ordered from Charm City.  I'll post the Score later.

Broke them at my friend's house while dogsitting....

Everyone likes minis, right?  OK, I really don't, so these are trade bait.  The shiny black ones look cool, though...

Got some decent names in the regular ones too.  That Keller kid is in the flyer for the "extended rookie class" or whatever.  Someone will want him.

And got an Ovie for my Capitals collection.  Though I think I remember getting one of him before.  Hopefully it was one of the shiny ones.

More black shiny parallels.  More trade bait.  Bruins look neat on black cards.

 The "regular" shiny parallels.  Just more potential base card needs I didn't get - unless you want to trade me base for them!

The playing card inserts.  These are cool.  The regular ones are all trade bait except Laine (King of Clubs).  I've bought several of these as singles, so that dropped the percentage chances that I'd need them out of this box.  The shiny one is going out to be forwarded to a Flyers collector.

 

I think I have a list (or at least a number grid) of the Retros I need for this set.  These are the best part of this product, but a pain to complete.  Here's a quick look at what I got this time.  I probably should have bought a stack of these I saw at a show a while ago, but passed on them since I didn't yet know what I had.  Hopefully these turn out to be mostly needs.  One of them turned out to be a blank back variation. (Update: they were, in fact, mostly needs, thank goodness!)

Here's the front of the blank one.  Nice that it's a rookie and a goalie.  Who needs it?

OK, so out of this whole big honkin' stack of base cards, I was hoping to knock off at least about forty or fifty from my want list.  It's over 3½" high, so about 175 cards or so.  Fifty is less than a third.  I figure that's a fair expectation.  Am I wrong about this?

Now, the cards above #500 (of 600) consist of Rookies, which are always scarcer, Season Highlights, Team Checklist cards, and League Leaders.  So they're most likely mixed in separately or something.

Most of those I pulled were, in fact, on my list.  I got a few dupes that I remember - two regular checklists and a few others numbered 5xx.  So not too bad.  This is as I would think these would come out.

So then the rest of the base.

Here's what I got.

These aren't the big names out of the bunch.

This is the whole assortment that was on my list.

Are you ready?

I got six muth#$)(*&^ng cards.

SIX.

Out of about 175.

SIX.

SIX!!!!

Somebody please trade me some base cards from my list.  I have a HUGE stack of dupes.  I have two and three of some players.  Probably more now.  Trade me some for these before I burn them to cure my raging annoyance.