The Repack Well Went Dry

There's an old saying "going back to the well once too often" or something like that. Well, I picked up a repack at Walgreens a few months back as a reward to myself for going there and getting my flu shot. Of course, like most stores, the toys and card section had been completely pilfered and picked through. All I saw were some basic WWE figures that no one wanted, a few Star Wars funkos, and three repacks, two of which were the 75-card football bricks. There was only one of the 100-card baseball bricks there so I nabbed it.

I've been burned on repacks in the past and I've had some really good ones. It's been a while so let's see what this repack reveals.

Included with the 100-card brick was an unopened pack. Typically these are of the early 90s variety like Upper Deck or Donruss but surprisingly, this one had an unopened pack of 2019 Topps Opening Day. The seven cards you see above are the extent of the pack. Nothing groundbreaking but a few neat cards, most of which I'll keep. Full disclosure, this was the only pack of cards I opened in 2020.

With the actual contents of the repack, first up was this trio of 1988 Fleer. I'd say there was probably about a dozen card from this set in the actual stack, these were my three keepers. Danny Jackson finished second in the 1988 NL Cy Young voting in his first year with the Reds, going 23-8 with 15 complete games in just over 260 innings pitched. Yes, I said the Reds even though he's shown with the Royals.

A trio of random cards 80s cards. I'd say a good 90% of the repack was junk wax cards from the late 80s and early 90s, a lot of stuff that I didn't necessarily want or need in my collection. Not trying to sound picky but I'm just trying to keep the excess stuff at minimum. The Yankees team card I'll try to put towards a series about team cards I'm considering doing. 

Some 1990 Score cards featuring another Dave Stewart card. Stan Belinda was always a favorite of mine when I was a kid because of his funky sidearm delivery. 

These three cards have nothing in common aside from the fact I had nowhere else to put them in this post. I've always liked 1992 Upper Deck (maybe I'll put that monster of a set together at some point?) because of the fun team logos they had on the cards and the pictures were pretty cool too. 

As is the typical deal with these repacks, it's stated that one in four of these will include a hit. Well I was a little surprised when this showed up. Not that it's a big name or anything but it's an autograph card of former Reds prospect Jonathan Reynoso. He never cracked the bigs despite several years in the Reds system and the highest he got was 27 games with Double-A Pensacola in 2017.

So that's the content of a impulse buy of a repack as a present to myself for getting a flu shot last fall. Nothing ground breaking or super impressive. It does feel a bit like the well has run dry on these so it'll be a while before I go down the re-pack path again, at least from Walgreens.

 

Dime Box Digging From the Card Shop

About a week or so ago now, I mentioned I made a trip out to Maverick's in Dayton with my aunt. During my visit, I happened upon a rarity in card shops I visit, a dime box. Of course, I couldn't resist digging through it. 

I grabbed a bunch of these "Salute" inserts from 2018 Topps. Randy Johnson was the first one I came across and wasn't too enamored with it but then I came across more of them and nabbed the ones you see here. Plus, who can pass up cards like this for a dime!

Found two new Jim Thome cards to add to my Indians binder. 

A lot of the newer cards in the box were of the Bowman and Topps base card variety from 2018. That's not too say that those aren't nice cards but I'm not really a Bowman collector and I've already got a bunch of 2018 Topps. I was more on the lookout for cards like this. Random cards, like the Wil Myers Heritage Minors card or Jose Abreu in a throwback Sox uniform.

I also like finding cards like this from a time period that's pretty foreign to me at least in the world of card collecting. I always forget Zack Greinke started with the Royals and I think this might be my first Royals card of his. Barry Zito and Ben Sheets on a card together? Sure, ok. 

This may look like any standard Yoan Moncada card from 2018 Donruss on the front but there's something I didn't notice about it until I prepped these for scanning.

It's a blank back! I'm not sure what the odds were on the blank backs or even if these are classified as a parallel or short print, but regardless, it's cool.

I'm attracted to cool shiny cards like these when I find them in bargain bins. The Addison Russell card qualifies as a zero-year card since he never officially suited up for the A's before being swapped to the Cubs.

Late 80s Donruss Rated Rookies? Yes please.

Once I got past the mass of 2018 Topps and Bowman singles, there was really good stuff to be had. While I'm not actively building the set, I'll still grab some 1980 Topps singles just for the heck of it.

I'll also grab any random mid-80s cards that catch my eye. Honestly, how can you pass up any Mariners card with the old-school trident logo?

More random 80s. I might be able to use Julio Franco for my 1984 Topps set (which reminds me I really, really need to go through that and update what I need/have) otherwise, he'll find a home in the Indians binder.

And what's a dime box without oddballs? These pop-ups are from 1989 Donruss All-Stars. It's a 20-card set featuring the starters from each league and the two managers. I might need to find more of these.

Speaking of cards I need more of ... do you realize how long it's been since I've actually had one of these cards in my possession? Probably since these came out and I got rid of my original collection long, long ago. If you're not familiar, these cards are from Kraft and were found in packages of Kraft cheese slices. I know what you're thinking and no, they were not in the same wrapper as the cheese slice. These were found at the bottom of those multi-packs of cheese slices in the grocery store.

Here's what the backs look like. Honestly, it's easy to confuse the front and back sometimes but the card number helps. You'll notice the pull tab at the top as well. If you were to pull that, the player would pop out of the card and you'd get stats. I don't intend on pulling the tabs on any of these but I'm definitely going to try to find more of these.

All totaled, I dug out 35 cards from the dime box on just a quick rummage through it. That's 35 interesting cards I can now add to my collection. Just goes to show if you see a dime box, start digging ... you never know what you'll find.

A Monster of a Box

I'm not sure who Brandon is, nor am I sure how this grimy old bankers box became littered with holes and tears with a lid wrapped up in old packing tape. One thing is definitely for certain though, this box contains baseball cards .... and lots of them!

Over the course of a rainy Saturday night a few weeks ago, I decided to start the process of organizing this beast. Here's a quick picture I snapped about a quarter of the way through.

Just look at that. 

The majority of the box was baseball cards, probably about 95% of it. There was also some basketball, football, and a very small selection of hockey cards. When all was said and done, I'd estimate there to be about 3,800 cards in here as it filled up a 3,200 count monster box and nearly a row of another one.

I then went through everything again to decide what to keep and what to donate. I ended up filling up five grocery bags worth and dropped them off at the local Goodwill last week.

Here's the final product after two rounds of sorting and organizing ...

The right two rows are miscellaneous cards I kept from the box, roughly about 1,500 or so I'd say. The all black row is nothing but 1986 Topps. I think there's enough here to warrant starting a set but they still need to be sorted by number. The last row (left side) is another pile of cards from the remainder of the haul with the Ziploc bag in the back that will be going to a teacher friend of mine to be used as rewards for her students.

I'm now in the process of figuring out blog posts for all of this and taking the first round of pictures. More to come on this behemoth ...

Let the Digging Begin - Pt. 3

This is the final part of the shoeboxes I've been digging through. This will be all football as there was literally a ton of football cards between the two boxes. I picked out a few favorites to show here but most of the cards have already been earmarked for my ongoing "spring cleaning" donation.

There was a giant stack of 1991 Stadium Club cards, most of which were commons and sadly no Brett Favre rookie card. However, I did find a few notable names in the batch like these.

From the cool photography department, these are my favorites. Plus, how can you not love a card of a dude with one of the best football names ever in Tunch Ilkin

Here's something I didn't expect to find, an autographed card. The subject of this card is Lloyd Hill who was drafted in the sixth round of the 1994 Draft by the Chicago Bears. He never made it to the NFL proper but played a handful of seasons in the Arena Football League with the Houston Thunderbears (aka Texas Terror) and the New England Sea Wolves.

Random cards of random players. Three Hall of Famers in Biletnikoff, Bettis, and Andersen and a card of notorious draft bust Ryan Leaf. 

These were the most recent cards in the boxes. The Kurt Warner card is from the 2000 Topps football set while Kordell Stewart is from 2002 Topps. These cards remind of the giant shoebox full of football cards I bought at the community yard sales a few years back.

Whoever's cards these were must've been a fan of Vinny Testaverde as there were a bunch of his cards to be had. I remember him playing when I watch watching football games as a kid. I'm not actively collecting his cards but if I come across cards in bargain bins or finds like this, I'm apt to keep them.

The only two Bengals cards the boxes coughed up. I don't remember either one of these guys.

Here's a pair of 1991 Fleer Ultra cards. Not much to say about these really. Same design as the baseball set.

Finally, here are these cards from the 2000 Impact set. This was the only set that Impact issued and much like the Fleer Ultra cards from above, the design was the same for both the baseball and football sets. I always did kind of like these cards as I felt like the design was simple but yet fun, especially with the team colors for the borders. The photography on them was also pretty good.

That wraps up the first batch of stuff from the two shoeboxes. I've definitely found a few keepers and so far this hasn't been a complete bust like I feared. Now that those are out of the way, I can move on to this giant beat up behemoth of a banker's box:

Stay tuned, things are just getting good.

Let the Digging Begin Pt. 2

I'm back now with round 2 of the cards from the shoeboxes I went through. This will be quite the mixed bag of stuff.

I'll start with basketball. I don't follow the NBA at all and honestly couldn't name five current NBA players. There was a lot of junk wax basketball that I'll probably end up donating. I might keep these two, not sure yet though. I will say that the Kevin McHale Fleer sticker is pretty cool.

Golf cards. I used to play golf and actually was on the high school junior varsity golf team for a few years. I never was good enough to make it to varsity. Back then, I used to watch golf on TV and knew who the top players on the tour were. I never made it a habit to collect golf cards though. I found them kinda boring to be honest. Anyone out there collect golf cards?

Something I do collect though is hockey. I feel bad as I hardly watched any hockey this season and now the playoff have started. I feel like I missed out. Anyway, I'm definitely planning on watching some playoff hockey. The card above is of Eddie Olczyk, who I'm sure most of you will recognize from the NHL on NBC broadcasts.

I talked about Upper Deck Vintage in the baseball portion but I had no idea there was Upper Deck Vintage hockey. Finding both Brett Hull and Patrick Roy cards were an unexpected surprise.

Here's another interesting pair, these 1998-99 UD Choice "preview" cards. I'm not sure what the deal is with these but, according to the checklist on TCDB, it looks like maybe that only odd numbered were issued. 

Upper Deck Victory always felt very basic and mundane to me. I suppose that was the point? Just a simple, basic set for the set builders. I like the base cards here, especially the Patrik Elias.

Rounding out this mixed bag of oddities are these cards from the WCW Nitro trading card game. I had no idea these even existed, let alone there was a trading card game featuring WCW stars. The wrestlers featured on here are Ernest "The Cat" Miller and Berlyn. Judging by that, I'd say these are probably from the fall of 1999.

So there's a weird little mixed bag of cards. I'm still going through the mountain of football cards and hope to have a post up on those soon.

Let the Digging Begin

Remember the massive, huge mega haul that my mom dropped on me a while back? Well, I finally have some time to start going through it. I started with the most manageable items, two small shoeboxes.

I figured the easiest way would be to sort by sport and then go from there. Here's how it looked after one box. There was football (and a lot of it) with baseball and basketball. I didn't take a picture after the final sort but I ended up with a bunch of other random cards as well. Anyway, I'll focus on some of the baseball keepers here.

Starting off is some 2002 Upper Deck Vintage. I always liked these cards and at one time, way back when, I actually had the whole set. It's rare that I come across these in the wild but anytime I see these, I must keep them

This card is a curiosity. I didn't know that Post Cereal (with the help of Topps) was still producing cards in the early 2000s. Looking up Post Cereal cards on TCDB, it appears that this was the return set as they had previously stopped in 1995. In 2001, there was also a 8-card set featuring members of the 500-HR club. Post and Topps would keep going until 2003 when the last set was issued.

It's an unwritten rule that there must be early 90s stuff in any collection I acquire. I don't have a lot of 1992 Score so I'll gladly take these.

So far, I'm finding stuff in here I wasn't expecting. I was planning on a lot of late 80s/early 90s cards from Topps, Fleer, Donruss, etc. Not cards from the 2001 Sunoco set. Between these 4 and the Indians one I got in a trade from Julie a few months ago, I stand at 5 of the 12 cards in the set, so just about halfway.

I was always a fan of the 1994 Pinnacle set with the great photography and the minimalist design. Heck, I think some of those early Pinnacle sets were great. The picture on the Devon White card is just awesome.

1992 Fleer was never really one of my favorites but with these four, I might slowly be warming up to it. One thing I always did like about the set was the use of the full team logo at the top of the players' name. 

I always thought Jeff Shaw was a underrated as a reliever, especially when he was with the Reds in the late 90s. He formed a two-headed monster of the back-end of the Reds pen in 1996 at the set-up man to closer Jeff Brantley. He took over the closer role when Brantley was out with various injuries in 1997.

Some more early Pinnacle cards. I always liked the black borders on these.

Yes, those are Upper Deck MVP cards that I found. Like I said earlier, the more I dig in there, the better it gets.

I remember Fleer Tradition cards from when I was working in the baseball card shop. I always thought they were pretty neat. 

And finally, some Topps from the 2001 set (another set I like) and 2002 Opening Day. I'm still not sure how I feel about 2002 Topps design.

Digging through these boxes and pulling out all these cards hit all the sweet spots for me ... cards from my youth? Check. Cards I always liked and forgot about? Check. Weird oddball cards? Check. And another thing, writing about these cards was plain and simply fun. And really, you can't ask for a whole lot more than that.

As for the rest of the non-baseball stuff, that's coming up in part 2 shortly.