Why I Like Repacks Better

You must have seen these at WalMart. For $19.99 you get ten "Factory Sealed Packs Inside!". Plus that's not all. You thought "The Exorcist" was scary...try being saddled with "5 Bonus Triple Play Packs". If there isn't a more frightening sentence in the world, I'm not aware of it.

So why do I like these repacks better than buying boxes from my LCS? Mainly the cost...and what you get (or don't get). A few years back I managed to get a better (and higher paying) job. This allowed me to budget out more money for buying cards. So rather than just buying repacks or blasters, I was able to go to my LCS and buy hobby boxes. Granted they are not cheap because you are paying for the "hits". 

Casr in point. I bought a hobby box of 2016 Allen & Ginter. I think it was somewhere along the lines of $129. Not cheap. If I remember correctly there were 3 hits in the box. Two of the hits were marginal players and then there was this:

Why? 

Definitely not worth my $129. 

In a repack containing a pack of Allen & Ginter I pulled a Henry Rollins auto. Much better.

Another example is a box of 2017 Topps Archives. I believe I paid either $99 or $129 for that one. There were two autos in that box. Here was one of them.

WTF? Why? It's definitely cool to have your own baseball card, but put this as a base card in Allen & Ginter. Don't waste one of my hits for this.

Granted this was the other auto I got out of the box, but did Topps have to make up for it by giving me a crappy second one?

So back to this:

I bought one of these a few weeks ago. Although the thought of five more packs of Triple Play should scare me as much as The Exorcist, I bought the thing anyways. 

One of the packs inside was this:

2015 Panini Elite.

Not bad cards...not a set I would buy a box of though.

Although it did provide me with a nice double bat card. Even though the logos aren't here, it still is much better than the stinkers I showed earlier. This is not to say I'll never buy another hobby box again, but I seem to get better hits in the repacks...and for a much cheaper price.

Does this happen to anybody else or is it just my luck?

The Way Things Used To Be (Part II)

Here's a few more cards that I scanned with the price tags left on them from twenty or so years ago.

I have to admit, it's kind of fun being reminded what people were trying to get for these cards. Per the usual, all cards in this post were had for a dime each.

If you're going by Beckett prices (and I know that's very few of you, if any), this card has actually held it's price over the years.

You can bet this card was probably sought after (and overpaid for) back in the day.

How many went after Alex Rodriguez cards from Classic? I remember seeing lots of cards like these two at dealers tables back then.

I'm still plugging away at 1982 Donruss...

...and 1983 Donruss.

An oddball set I'm working on. 1986 Quaker Chewy Granola Bars.

1981 Fleer Ozzie Smith. A little off center and I wasn't sure if it was a set need or not. I will make a want list someday. I will.

There were four cards in this sleeve (which I got for a dime too), but I had to look them up to see what they were.

According to the Beckett website, these were called Donruss Previews and these cards were for hobby dealers to preview the 1993 Donruss set. Additionally, if you were a Donruss Club member (I wasn't), you were sent one of these cards. Apparently these cards still command a premium, because looking quickly I couldn't find any of the cards for sale for less than $10. I found one listing on Ebay for the Griffey and it was going for $25 plus shipping.

I used to have this card. I had to buy it again because I was sorting cards on the table some years back and I spilled a drink on it. Not just this card, though. It was a whole stack of 2006 Bowman Draft Picks. Has anybody else ever done something dumb like that? I can't be the only one. Or maybe I can.

Another "Look What I Got" post coming soon!

The Way Things Used To Be

A couple of days ago, I did some work at a store at the mall I used to go to when I was a teenager. Back then, (the mid to late 80's) the mall was always packed. I mean wall to wall packed. Walk a few feet and wait...walk a few feet and wait.

Fast forward thirty years. The mall is still there, (which is an amazing feat within itself) but other than the cashier, I was the only other person in the store. The entire time I was there (about a half-hour) nobody came in. I'm not sure anybody even walked by.

While I was leaving the mall it was obvious that the employees of all of the stores greatly outnumbered the customers, and the high majority of customers all seemed to have graduated high school decades ago. It's certainly not the way things used to be.

Like this 1992 Classic Draft Pick Brien Taylor Promo card apparently used to be $30.00. I wouldn't doubt if some people paid that much for this card back then too. Promo cards like these had ridiculous prices attached to them.

The going rate was ten bucks for this Pat Falloon promo.

The rest of the cards in this post are not from the 1991 Leaf set, but part of a twenty-six card preview set which I was not able to find much info about. Apparently you could find these in the 1991 Donruss factory sets. If I wrong and someone else knows more about these cards, don't be shy.

And they're not black and white...I scanned it that way by accident and I'm too lazy to rescan it.

Here's the back where you definitely can see the words "1991 Preview Card".

A nice looking Tim Wallach card, but a nasty looking top loader.

This was the only card in the bunch that didn't have a price on the front.

It did on the back though. Ten bucks.

For anybody who wasn't collecting back in the early 90's, promo cards were everywhere. It didn't even matter who was on the card, if it was a promo card it was selling for far more than many player's rookie cards.

Would you pay $10 for a Leo Gomez card? Would you pay $10 for a Leo Gomez anything?

This card used to be $18. Wow.

If I had bought all of these cards back in the early 90's it would have cost me $129.00.

In 2018 it cost me $1.

I'm glad it's not the way things used to be.

Let's Try This Again

I'm going to try to do some short "look what I got" posts to try to get back into blogging on a semi-regular basis (although I think I've said that multiple times already).

The card show that I attend just about every month (except for the summer months when they don't schedule any) is where I got all of these cards from. I've mentioned before that the guy that runs the show has a few tables up front where he just has dimeboxes. If I'm not pressed for time, I'll try to spend the majority of my stay there. All these cards were from the dimeboxes.

Leading off, we have a couple from 1985 Fleer...

...and a couple from 1981 Donruss. Neither of these sets are even close to being completed, so if I see it, I probably need it.

I picked up this card because at the time he was a Red Sox prospect. He's now with the Angels, having been traded at the trade deadline for Ian Kinsler.  He made his Major League debut last month.

Ditto for Michael Meyers. He's not with the Red Sox anymore either after being released in January. He has not signed with another team since then.

Cliff Floyd from the 1992 Upper Deck Top Prospects, a set that I've found the occasional single in repacks. Another one that's nowhere near complete, so the "if I see it, I get it" rule applies.

I scanned these in the top loaders so you could see what the price these were selling (or in these cases not selling) for.

Back in 1992 when I was collecting I remember all of the hoopla regarding Brien Taylor. Due to an injury, he became only one of three players selected first overall to never make the major leagues. The other two were Steve Chilcott (also because of injury) and Mark Appel (still in the Phillies organization, but decided to step away from baseball this February).

Sometimes you wonder what people are thinking. I'm assuming the 1/08 on this means January 2008. I don't think you were going to get $6 for this card in 1992, much less 2008.

Hope everybody's October started off well!

Where Does The Time Go?

Well, here we are again...several months since my last post. But I really do have some good reasons  excuses this time.

1.) I moved.

I didn't move to another town, but in June I moved into a bigger apartment. Yes, I also allowed the wife and dog to come along with me. This place also has a nice deck which allowed me to sort cards in the summer heat.

2.) There is an additional person living with us. My wife and I did not have a baby, however there is a baby living with us. She's been living with us for about a year and a half (which is since birth) and will be living with us for the foreseeable future. Needless to say my wife and I have been spending all our free time taking care of her. I used to be able to stay up all hours of the night but now 8:30 rolls around and I am out. So blogging (and reading blogs) has unfortunately taken a back seat.

So if during the past year you've contacted me and I didn't respond or you sent me something and I didn't acknowledge it, please accept my apologies. I promise I'm going to try to do better. I have a bunch of things to blog about (including a package I received today from Kerry from "Cards on Cards"...which surprisingly had my new address on the label).

I'll be doing my best to put up some more posts in the future...I'll just have to make sure I my wife and I get the little one in bed before 8:30.

Completed Set - 2008 Topps Update

I have not purchased many cards lately...and nothing from the 2018 releases. Instead I've been trying to go through the mountain of unsorted monster boxes that I have in my closet to see if I need any of these cards for my hundreds of unfinished sets.

Thanks to the generosity of a fellow blogger (and I can't remember which one because I think it's been a couple of years since I received them),  I can mark 2008 Topps Update as completed. 

This set was kind of unique for me since I never intentionally bought a pack of it. All the cards I either got from repacks, boxes of commons or from other bloggers. If you've read my blog on a regular basis (and I'm truly sorry if you do), you may have read posts where I mentioned buying boxes of 1500 commons from my LCS for 10 bucks. I bought a lot of these in 2008 and they were full of 2008 Topps Update. I'm pretty positive the Kershaw came out of one of these boxes, which means I got it for less then a penny. It also means I have a fair amount of dupes and probably could help someone out if they are trying to put this set together.

Did I Finish A Couple Of Sets?

Recently I received a nice package of cards from my want list from Tom from the blog "The Angels, In Order". He also included a note hoping I still needed these.

Since I am completely unorganized (even more so than usual now), I have to say I honestly don't know. My want lists are not updated but any generosity from a fellow blogger (and author of a blog I enjoy) is greatly appreciated.

He sent me twelve cards from 2007 Upper Deck. I know I still need quite a bit from that set.

I also received fourteen cards from 2009 Upper Deck.

 Lastly he sent me a couple of cards, which according to my want lists are the last ones I need.

First is the 1989 Donruss Nolan Ryan...

...and then a 1989 Score Jim Eppard.

So according to my wantlist I've now completed 1989 Donruss and 1989 Score, two junk wax sets that I should have finished off years ago. Now if I could only find them to verify that they truly are completed. (That's one of the many reasons I've decided to buy far less cards this year and focus on sorting through the thousands of cards I have sitting in monster boxes around the house.)

Thanks Tom for the cards and helping me finish a couple of sets!

2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th Set

Much like the 2003-04 Parkhurst Original Six Boston set that I've blogged about in the past, this Red Sox set released in 2001 was also five dollars a pack. At that point in my life, I really didn't have much money to spend on cards, so this was a treat as opposed to a regular purchase.

At a recent card show I found forty cards that I needed for the set. At a dime a piece I spent four dollars for all of them. Since the set is a hundred cards, I got almost half the set for less than a price of a pack.

I bought another pack of the Brighams Coca-Cola set in hopes of finding the Carl Yastrzemski card that I need. I was unsuccessful.

I also picked up a trio of 1985 O-Pee-Chee Red Sox. It wasn't until I did this post that I realized I bought two copies of the Jerry Remy.

We'll wrap this post up with three from 1983 Fleer.