A Pretty Great Repack Box

After I returned my bike, I planned to just get something cheap to break the fiddy dollar bill I got in return so I could re-deposit half of it.  My first four packs of 2015 Topps weren’t very good though, and the dupes were already starting to pile up.  So I bit the bullet and grabbed pretty much the only other thing of interest to me that Target had: a $20, 20-pack (plus bonus) repack box that was almost completely devoid of junkwax.

Here’s the breakdown:

One 1991 Score

Three 2012 Panini Triple Play

One 2013 Bowman Platinum

Three 2014 Topps Series One 8-card blaster packs

Two 2014 Topps Series One 12-card retail packs

Four 2014 Topps Heritage

One 2014 Topps Heritage Jumbo rack pack (20 cards)

One 2014 Gypsy Queen

Three 2014 Topps Series Two 12-card retail packs

One 2014 Allen & Ginter

Bonus Item- Three loose 2014 Topps MLB Chipz

It sounds like a pretty lame bonus, but it turned out to be significantly better than expected.  Take a looksie, won’t you?

Poker chips are a somehow apt metaphor for pack-bustin’..

Turns out that gold-bordered glow-in-the-dark Tulo is actually pretty rare and reasonably valuable.  A run through the very few sold listings had them going for $5-20 a pop (with Jeters in $50 range), depending on the player.  The only two gold borders up for the bidding at the time were a Travis d’Arnaud Gold/Glow-in-the-Dark and Jose Reyes Gold/Blue, which sold for $13.01 and the opening bid of $9.99, respectively.  So this seemingly silly, innocuous bonus item was probably the hit of the box.  But this little repack had more going for it than just the bonus.  Much more, as you will see below.

Every once in a while, the gamble pays off..

Hit #1!  Yeah, there’s more on the way.

Flagship inserts..

Seein’ red..

Great name, one of only three Cubs, Bonifacio is #’ed 1282/2014, and Keppinger is 228/2014..

Topps Series One proved much more interesting than Series Two even without the sweet Zack Wheeler relic.  Better inserts, and the Target Red parallels aren’t something I see much of, even if there weren’t any huge stars.  Cosart, JD, and the series dos Hoz aren’t too bad though, and everyone is at least pictured (Cosart became a Marlin at the trade deadline) on teams that should trade easy enough.

Princert, Altuve base mini, Cuddyer SP, Choice RC..

GQ was meh, as it usually is.  But I never buy it anymore, so it was nice to find a pack in there.  It’s a meh that tastes a whole lot better when it costs $1 than when it costs $3.

Alen Hanson Top Prospects, Gary Brown base, Richie Shaffer chrome..

Bowman Platinum is the shiny version flipside to GQ’s old-timey style pointlessness, but it has been fairly forthcoming with the marginal prospect autographs & such for me, especially in 2012.  I don’t buy at full price anymore either, but it also makes for decent repack filler.

Mercifully, the only junkwax..

 

1991 Score wasn’t terrible, as junkwax goes.  A RC of a solid player who had nice, lengthy career that included a couple monster seasons and a stint with the Cubs & a couple late career Hall-of-Famers is the best you can really hope for in a pack like this.

Heritage base..

My resemblance to Holmberg is kinda uncanny..

The repack was heavily weighted towards Heritage, which is another product I’d never normally buy on its own, but am quite happy to get in numbers in a repack.  Despite my snarking to liven up the uneventful rack pack in my first post in ages over at APtbNL, that’s probably what ultimately made me decide to keep the repack while I was wandering around Target desperately trying to find something cheaper.  The McCutchen is fantastic.

Heritage inserts/SPs/parallels..

Outside of the red Yadi (my only complaint about this box is all the damn Cardinals inserts!), there wasn’t really anything all that special in there.  Just low level inserts & a trio of highly trade-able SPs.  I’d already pulled my hits before I got to them though, so it’s cool.

From the rack pack..

Quite possibly my only keeper from the entire box came out of the rack pack, so that helped too.

Captain Marvel Jr. insert and Giancarlo base mini..

Finally, main event time.  Allen & Ginter is consistently the best, most fun product Topps puts out every year (though 2014 had some legit competition for once, in the form of Finest and Stadium Club).  I’ve pulled a few hits & some rarer minis & other such nonsense (sea monkey card, flower card, World’s Biggest Mini SP) over the years, but the following, while not all that extraordinary, might still be my best pull to date.  Easily top-3.  Feast your eyes…

Kipnis Everdeen..

This Jason Kipnis is the first auto I’ve pulled out of retail in seven years of buying Allen & Ginter packs & blasters, and it is a beaut.  The funny thing about this outstanding repack box is that I had just started carrying that Prosperity Bean TJ sent in my Nerd Week prize pack that very morning.  Maybe it’s legit, maybe I’m just a superstitious and cowardly lot, I dunno.  I’m mostly just happy to have pulled some nice stuff out of a repack after the disaster that was January’s Greatest Chase repack/turd.

Anyway, that pretty much wraps up this post.  Let me know if anything strikes your fancy, and thanks for stopping by.

More Collection Transactions

I decided I needed to make a few more moves.  The Prizm mini-master set, Sarita super collection, and a few other things are taking up my attention and I don’t see myself getting around to any of these things anytime soon.

• Dock Ellis, Felix Hernandez, Monte Irvin, Andrew McCutchen, Anquan Boldin, Kobe Bryant, and Lolo Jones are officially removed from the collection, though I may keep a little of the little I have of each of them.

• 2012 and 2013 Bowman Silver Ice, 2012 Golden Moments Die-Cuts, 2012 Finest Faces of the Franchise (most are still on COMC, they’ll be available for trade once I have them shipped), 2013 Topps Emerald parallels, and 2012 Topps football Mini Tall Boys are removed from Single Page Sensations.  A couple others are on the bubble.

• I added a page for miscellaneous collections.  This is just a place for the random stuff that doesn’t fit in my collection anywhere, but I like enough to keep anyway.  (Note: I may be willing to part with certain things from the miscellaneous page, so don’t be afraid to ask if you see something you like over there)

• Everything I removed from the Single Page Sensations page in this round of cuts that I’m not keeping are now on the trade bait page.  Everything I am keeping went to the miscellaneous collection page.

• The only additions I’m making are probably putting Starlin Castro back as a full, if super halfhearted, collection and strongly considering a Kerry Wood Single Page Sensation page.

• Have some nice cardboard goodness on the way out:

Shulkie sketch cards by two of my favorite artists via the Blowout forums..

Thanks for stopping by. 😉

Until our next…

Diamond Gallery #2: The Diamond Die-Cuts

As mentioned last time, my first Diamond Giveaway order (of four full 25-card orders total) arrived last Friday.  It was the free one, and contained most of my Diamond Die-Cuts. So here they are now.  Enjoy.

Shin-Soo Choo..

They are nice & shiny all over.  The only thing that could make them better is if they were in the much prettier blue or purple Walmart or Toys B Fun versions. They are great as is, but red doesn’t do it for me.  Give me the darker, cooler colors any day.

Andrew McCutchen..

The  diamond in the background glows almost as much as it shines.  This is especially true of the black diamond.  But we’ll get to that in due time.

Big Papi..

I ended up with most of what I was after, but I never was able to land Ernie Banks, and I’m still a little tweaked by that.

Dave Winfield..

There were way too damn many Yankees in this set, but it’s hard to argue with most of them.  Only Swisher and Teixeira are really debatable, and the latter only because he’s sucked in 2012.  Still, I’d have taken out both of them and either Maris or Munson and a few of the lesser Braves and added Johnny Bench, Joey Votto, and Matt Kemp, amongst others.

CarGo..

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with CarGo and the others that aren’t players I specifically collect or are otherwise spoken for.  Ya better bring it if you want one though.

Longo..

I’d like one of the few of these I still want or need in return (Ernie Banks, Carlos Marmol, Tyler Colvin, Jackie Robinson, and Reggie Jackson, amongst others I potentially accept).  In lieu of that, make a specific offer of something pretty darn nice.  I sunk way too much time into this and I’m not just going to accept any ol’ thang for these bad mamma-jammas.

Chris Sale..

Alexei..

These are the two White Sox I picked up for my dad’s little collection of things I pull or pick up cheap.  I miiiiiiiight be able to let one go if you have the ammo to deal, but I’m not moving both.

Adrian Beltre..

2012 All-Star starter, future Hall of Famer?  After the unspectacular-yet-steady early years and lone monster contract season with the Dodgers and somewhat awful stretch with the Marinerds, he’s really turned it on since leaving the M’s and seems to be getting better with age.  The numbers are starting to look Hall of Fame quality for 3B.

Aramis..

Speaking of guys closing in on Hall of Fame numbers at the hot corner.  Aramis maybe isn’t aging quite as gracefully (or perhaps it’s just the Brewers relative irrelevance when not in the playoff hunt), but he’s still playing fairly decent up there in Milwaukee.  And if the Brew Crew completely fall out of playoff picture, look for Aramis to catch fire and look and make people take notice of his offensive prowess again.  It’s what he does, kinda.

Ichiro Suzuki..

To hell with that one name BS.  It doesn’t matter if how amazing someone is, this ain’t soccer!  And “Fred” ruined it for soccer anyway.

King Felix..

And now the pitching half of what was a two man team for most of the last few years, King Felix.

Vlad..

Why is this guy not in the majors right now?!  He had his worst season last and still hit .290!

David Wright..

One of two die-cuts likely bound for Long Fly Ball.  Don’t worry though Wright fans, because I have another on the way.  For the same reason I couldn’t get Ernie, I’m a little tweaked to still have the second David Wright.  I tried EVERYTHING to deal the second Wright for Ernie, but no matter how ridiculously lopsided in whoever the offers were going to’s favor, I got jack and diddly to show for it.

RickyRo Black Diamond #’ed 48/60

Check the black diamond’s dark, ominous glow.  This is what made this order free, and the other die-cut most likely bound for Long Fly Ball.

Starlin Castro..

Goin’ bigtime with the last two.  2011’s NL Hit (and error) King, Starlin Castro!

Ryno!

Finally, one of the only two die-cuts I actually hit myself (though I guess I only unlocked 34-ish cards total), Ryne Sandberg!  Although, come to think of it, I hit this and the Black Diamond Gaby Sanchez that eventually became RickyRo in just 30-some shots, so I actually did incredibly well, I guess.

That’s it for this one, sports fans.  The Diamond Giveaway (which I keep wanting to hash tag and not space…) is over, so please make your final selections and proceed to checkout.  Thank you for shopping your local Diamond Giveaway.

Until our next…

2 40%-off 2011 Topps Series 2 Blasters

From Walmart:

Blackout!

They look awesome, but it sucks how ridiculously condition sensitive these things are.

And the last of the non-keeper Blackouts.

Get ur shine on..

Duos & 60s. Not much to say about these..

The lone gold. Not that it matters much. Let’s have gold parallels look like 2012’s Gold Sparkles from now on please..

Perhaps you like kicking it old school (or hair on the edge of your scan)..

The only original back I pulled. You’d think I would’ve remembered to scan the back, but no. This one is reluctantly available..

Tradercracks claimed these already..

Tradercracks also claimed this..

McCutchen is available though. But be forewarned that the patch is slightly loose on it..

That is all.  Everything not claimed by Tradercracks is available.  Thanks for stopping by!

Spin the wheel, make the deal…

Flea Market Fail, Retail Mostly Win

The Big Hurt..

So yeah, if you heard on twitter, there was no flea market on Saturday, and apparently there won’t be one at all this month.  It’s okay though, I took my what basically amounted to my entire monthly card budget to Target and Walmart, and had the good fortune of it turning out fairly well.  We all know how hit-or-miss doing that can be, but it can turn out rather nicely at times too.  I picked up a 33%-off ($20 instead of $30) blaster of 2009 SP football (the only dud of the bunch) and a Heritage value box (should’ve doubled up on these) at Walmart, and the last two 3-pack value rack pack things of Gypsy Queen at Target.  So let’s see how it all turned out, shall we?

Just uh, pretend you didn’t read my tweets from Sunday afternoon.  They were spoiler city for this post.  We’ll start with the Heritage Value Box.

The value box bonus refractor. Classy design with rather subtle and subdued refractoring that perfectly highlights without being gaudy. End result: An excellent bonus card.

The only card of note from the Heritage hobby packs..

There weren’t even any SPs that I know of.  Nothing wrong with getting an insert of a legendary pitcher, but the design is snooze inducing, so without chromeyness or a hit (or some sort of super SP variation nonsense), Heritage tends to be… forgettable.  It’s cool though, the regular topps was on point.

Start it off with a much-needed mini, because I think I'm still in single digits on this set, unless this McCutchen gets me to 10.

A Frank Robinson card is ALWAYS a welcome addition to my collection. 60 Years of topps.

A diamond parallel of a star. No longer collecting this set (just Cubs and my other player collections), but Cruz is probably worth one of bigger players I am after, to the right trader.

topps60 > Peak Performance, I'm just sayin'. Fairly classy design. These are for trade..

Another cool insert for trade..

I also pulled two Diamond Giveaway cards from the packs, so I ended up with four instead of two.  That was nice.  Oddly, they were both the same as the two that came with it (’77 Reggie, ’50-something Jackie).  I ended up with an ’88 Tony Gwynn, an ’05 Reds team card, an early ’90s cards so forgettable I can’t even remember which of my three forgettable early ’90s cards was the one I got in this bunch, and a ’70 Don Young (Vintage Cubs!).

Other cards of note were base of Beltre and King Felix for myself, a Steve Carlton/CC Sabathia Diamond Duos, ToppsTown of Mauer, Markakis, Carlos Santana, and two David “I hit a game-winning home run with a broken freakin’ back!” Wright.  Oh, and this:

A jersey card of The Ace of the Angels staff! Weaver is 6-3 with an ERA in the low 2s and a WHIP below 1(!) so far this year. Bonus: It's a nice red swatch. None of that white or gray business here.

Great to pull a great player when you hit on a 1:96 pack card, that’s for sure.  He’ll be added to the For Trade page when I get around to it.

Now, for the dud blaster… Presenting 2009 SP Signature Edition Football:

Purple swatch is nice & all, but John David Booty is so very not worth the price of admission, even at 33%-off.

What can I say?  Even with a better hit, this wouldn’t have been very exciting.  There were Bears base, but this was just disappointing overall.  Why would anyone ever be willing to pay $30 for one of these, when the vast majority of them were most likely just as lame as this one, which stunk on ice at $20?  It was a mistake, plain & simple.  I would’ve been much better off going with a second Heritage value box, even if it turned out to not be any good itself.

Needless to say, only the Bears in the top row are keepers.  The other 57 cards in the blaster can’t be gotten rid of fast enough.

Putting the failure of the day behind us, let’s get to the main course and do us up some Gypsy Queen!

You saw one of my keepers up top.  Frank Thomas with the White Sox is an official player collection now.  I’ll take hits from anywhere he played, but base and inserts and such I’d prefer be of the White Sox variety.

Anyway, everyone always says “Since you’ve already seen the base on countless other blogs, we’ll just skip to the inserts and hits”. No, EVERYONE says this, so no one that doesn’t break down single packs shows the damn base at all (save for the occasional shortprint)!  So here are three more base cards (okay, Markakis is a shortprint).

Kyle Drabek RC, Andruw Jones in what has to be one of the least flattering pictures on a baseball card this year, and a Nick Markakis SP. The base isn't getting as much love as I expected, but it's got style and is anything but boring.

With that taken care of, now here are some inserts.  Was that so hard?

Pujols, Alexei, Rollie, McGee RC, and the Gypsy Queen back is Chris Carter.

I'm suckered in and collecting this set, so if you have any extras, the nine I have will be posted on the set wantlist page later, so you can see what I be needin'. Also, STARLIN!

It wasn’t all Hot Pockets and singing frogs with sombreros in Gypsy Queen land though.  The second of the two value rack pack things had about a half dozen damaged cards, the worst two being the best two cards I pulled from thing.

This is a Gypsy Queen-backed shortprint. Difficult to see, but the damage is visible on my oldass low-def monitor at least. The bottom of the left vertical edge is slightly raised on the front, as if someone tried sticking a finger nail in the edge or something.

Jackie Robinson Framed Paper #'ed 100/999. Then it got worse. The card came out of the pack with that little chunk below the words at the bottom ripped up and barely hanging onto the card. What the hell, pack searcher and/or lollygagging topps quality control person?! Like half of the inserts in this same rack having minor damage on *two* corners, and my short print and Aroldis Chapman base having far worse on one of theirs wasn't bad enough, let's screw up the two best cards too... Will be sending these back for replacements.

Fortunately, there was a saving grace with the Gypsy Queen.  Behold!

The Man!

There was a lot of good in this little binge, and plenty of bad, but it can’t be denied… Retail has it’s occasional moments.  A lot of my better hits seem to have come from retail, and this… well this card is right up there amongst the best of them, team allegiances or not.

That being said, ol’ Stan here is going to be available, seeing as how I am a Cubs fan and have no love for that whiny team from St. Louis, but I’m not in any rush to get rid of him.  You’ll maybe want to set about blowing me away if you’d like to add Mr. Musial to your collection. 😉

So there you go, my latest binge.  I think I would’ve preferred taking another $25 to the flea market, but aside from the SP and what should be replaceable damaged cards, I am exceedingly pleased with the Heritage value box and Gypsy Queen, and it only amounted to $10 more.  We’ll just call SP a $20 learning experience and try to be smarter in the future.

And this overly long post is finished!  Sorry it’d been a couple days without posting by the way.  My sleep got JACKED UP by a linebacker that goes by the name Ray Insomnia.

EDIT: Forgot the Gypsy Queen inserts, and the sign off!  Here you go:

How could I have forgotten these funderfulriffic cards?! These are the undamaged inserts. I am definitely collecting the Sticky Fingers set entirely because the design is so utterly perfect. Just now noticed the spider motif on the Wall Climbers too! I was going to collect it, but probably not now because I'm so utterly terrified of spiders. Admittedly, that is a terrible excuse, because bees are actually the thing I had a traumatic incident with in my youth (one somehow got in my shirt and stung me on the back several times DURING a little league game). My dad lost a toe to a Brown Recluse bite though, so my spider fear isn't misplaced though. Ah, screw it, I'm not collecting either one. Crap.

Now that’s a wrap.  I’ll post up the two insert sets I will be collecting later on tonight.  Thanks, as ever, for stopping by!

Also, I got my new computer, baby!

Shalrie, Shalrie…♫

Since my Shalrie Joseph jersey card has just found itself a soon-to-be new home at The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame, I have an excuse to post it, along with a few other nice cards I pulled all by my lil ‘ol self.

Griffey is the only keeper.

I guess the golf auto counts as a pull.  It was the guaranteed auto from a 5 golf packs and an auto thing.  And a good one at that.

Here's the not-especially-committal back of the Shalrie Joseph swatch of somethin' or other. The swatch feels like the trim on the shorts I'm wearing.

Shalrie was almost a keeper, but it’s cool.  I will track another down someday if I feel the need.  That said, I’m not without soccer swatches of great midfielders even after Shalrie goes on his way.

That… was a tease. 😉

eBay Winnin’s 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold

Here’s some more pretty pictures of stuff I won on eBay, and almost all of it is up for trade.

Oh yes, it’s time for trade bait.  A whole mess of Bowman Baseball up for the tradin’.

Game Used goodies...

Jesus Delgado, Brent Lillibridge, Max Ramirez, Jeff Niemann, Matt LaPorta, Ramiro Pena, Brian Bocock game-used base (#ed to /135-ish, don’t remember for certain off the top of me head), Andrew McCutchen

Contemplating keeping the last two, but make an offer if you want ’em.  I’m willing to deal, for the time being anyway.

Maybin Mania!

Cueto’s going to JD’s Daddy, but the Maybins are available…

Random dudes are random

Longoria RC, Brian Barton, & Melky Cabrera and Scott Van Slyke Gold Parallels

Huzzah!

I guess I got case break leftovers or something...

A Porcello will also be going to JD’s Daddy, but everything else is available.

Shinies

Gallardo is another one going to JD’s Daddy, but the rest are available. Zach Jevne is #ed to /500 and Michael Bourn & Hank Blalock are #ed to… something. /250 maybe?  Cannot remember, don’t have ’em handy to check.

Finally, the autos...

I think Pie is with the Orioles now (poor fella), so if there is an O’s fan that wants it, I can give it up.  And the Phillies dude is Jason Knapp.

There ya go.  Aside from the three (Gallardo, Cueto, & one of the Porcellos) going to JD’s Daddy over at JD’s Wild Cardz, all are available until further notice.  Peace.

Does it sound wrong when I say besos?