We have a new card shop in town! I remember dad telling me about it a couple months back, that the local paper profiled the owner. Anyway, I had a chance to stop in a week or so ago. It’s a little sparse, and super tiny, but it seems like it might end up being one of the good ones. Better to get my Topps packs for mall sketch carding excursions from there than at retail anyway.
They didn’t have a lot to choose from outside of an unopened Panini Crusade box at $20 a pack or $120 to buy the box outright, all three series of the aforementioned 2013 Topps baseball at the same price as retail, and 2013 Topps Jumbo Football at $11.95 a pack. So I grabbed a football jumbo just because that’s a thing I can do now, which pleases me to an unhealthy degree, and this:
Ryno auto..
They had a small stack of them for $10 apiece. So worst case scenario, it isn’t legit and I’m only out $10. But if it’s real, while not a card, this takes care of my Ryno trifecta at least for the time being. I have his Topps & Fleer RCs and some early-2000s Donruss bat card. So yeah, I’m not getting his auto on a card for less than $30-40 if I’m lucky, so this old flyer thing will do. 🙂
And how did we do on the pack? Enh… Let’s take a look.
Base..
Some nice action photos scattered throughout. So good in fact I want to rant about the pointlessness of the photo variations, but it just boils down to this. Of the 50 variations, only a half-dozen or so have a noticeably better photo, so what is even the point???
Rookies..
Pulled a pretty solid group of rookies though. DeAndre, Gio, & Ertz are already making significant contributions, and I like Cordarrelle and Ball to start making bigger impacts next season. And Travis Frederick has a magnificent beard. Tremendous. Now howsabout dem inserts though?
Eric Decker 1000 Yard Club..
Nothing special, but I feel ’em on the design. The back has his stats from each game of the season and adds them up at the bottom.
Romo 4000 Yard Club..
The same but with QBs. Poor Romo, probably the single most simultaneously overrated and underrated quarterback to have ever played the game.
Hakeem the Not-Dream..
Dang, this Hakeem Nicks mini was so forgettable (looks nice enough though) I literally almost forgot to add it. Anyway, unless someone else would like to claim it, I suppose I will set it aside for BA Benny.
LOLTrent..
Excellent design (just needs a border of some kind, in my opinion), but, err… moving on.
DeMarcus Ware Legends in the Making..
This card is just classy as balls, and it might not even be the best looking insert in the pack.
Jim Kelly Gridiron Legends..
And that is because of this beaut of Hall of Famer Jim Kelly. Some real nice inserts in there.
Fred Jackson BCA parallel /399 + base..
With a 3:10 chance, I didn’t pull any hits. But I did get the this pink Breast Cancer Awareness parallel (according the back of the pack, camo and BCA both parallels fall 1:9 packs, or roughly one per box).
The back..
Not the best player, but I saw Sportscards from the Dollar Store likes the Bills, so maybe the best two cards in this pack and the rest of my Bills might finally have a destination in mind. We shall see.
Not bad overall, and I’m still just stoked to have an actual card shop again. I mean, there’s another place downtown that still has cards, but that hasn’t been their bread & butter in years. There’s also that infamous place at the mall I may have mentioned on rare occasion as having crazy overpriced stuff. But yeah, this is a very cool development.
That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by. Whatever I have to say, I’ll try to start saying it a little more often.
Until our next…
Life and Baseball Cards 