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.

 

Retail Repack Adventures #19: The Return

I've been lacking for inspiration lately. So in order to get my creative juices flowing again, I went back and looked through some old posts for inspiration ... and I found it.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I had an ongoing series where I was reviewing repacks from Walgreens and Target. The series went dormant a while back but it was something everyone seemed to enjoy reading about, so I've decided to bring back the "Retail Repack Adventures" series.

The family and I stopped at the local Target today as they had a good sale on printers. I found some Heritage (of which I got three loose packs and a blaster) along with said printer. Once we got home and I got the printer set up, I thought the best way to test out the scanning function would be to dive into the repack.

This is one of those 50-card, 4-pack deals for $7.99. Let's see what's inside ...

Here's the "bonus prize", a blind bag of MLB TeenyMates that contains two figures and puzzle pieces of some sort. I didn't open it as I decided to save it for my six-year-old's Easter basket.

The 50-card mini box was about what I expected, lots of junk wax commons. However, I did manage to find a nice batch of keepers for my collection. First, here's some cards from the 90s. I like the black text on the green background of 1992 Fleer. The Mark McGwire Stadium Club card is a member's choice parallel card which is pretty neat. I don't mind 1990 Donruss all that much as there are far worse Donruss sets out there (1988 and 1989 for example). 

Some stuff from the 80s contingent that was contained within. Pretty decent selection here with some 87 Donruss, 86 Topps, a Roger Clemens All-Star card (on which he is named as a "right hand pitcher") and a pretty cool Wille Upshaw night card from 1989 Upper Deck.

Some mid-2000s cards. Nice action shot on the Chase Utley card.

More modern stuff here with three straight 2017 Topps Chrome cards of three really good players. I've said numerous times I'm not a buyer of Topps Chrome but should I find them in a bargain bin or a repack box, I won't complain.

Cool! A Freddie Freeman rookie card!

Another mix of some newer stuff, including P-Town Tom's favorite player, Dan Vogelbach. The Roberto Osuna card is my first Topps Finest card in who knows how long.

The hell? This isn't a basketball repack. This is one of three random basketball cards I found in the box and the only one I'll keep, probably. Basketball isn't really my thing but for now, I'll hang onto it.

Now, time for the four packs and I was actually pleasantly surprised by what they included. Three packs from 2018 and the requisite junk wax pack.

My favorites from the 2018 Topps Series 1 pack. Even though these card are a year old, they're still great. Probably my favorite Topps flagship design since 2012.

The Opening Day pack was only seven cards so I decided to scan them all.

Three highlights from the 1990 Upper Deck pack. I know I've already got the Barry Larkin card (probably three times over) but my favorite here is the Randy Bush card. It's him in the batting cage obviously before a game. I love how great the background is as well.

Finally, four cards from the Topps Big League pack. The John Smoltz card I know is one I don't have. Same with Victor Robles. The other two I think are dupes but I'll have to double check.

So, that's a 50-card, 4-pack repack from Target. Some decent stuff here to be honest and I liked that the packs were mostly 2018. I'm going to be getting back into the swing of things now that I feel re-inspired. Never thought inspiration would come from a repack.

Birthday Repacks

My birthday was last week, the 19th to be exact. So as a present to myself, I decided to try out some Walgreens repacks seeing that I haven't torn into one of them in a while. I won't break down each repack but I will cover some of the neater cards found within. I wonder if the new design on the box means a refresh of content?

The cover cards and both are 2018 Stadium Club. This is good because ... 1) I don't have much 2018 Stadium Club aside from the dime singles I picked up at the card show back in the fall and 2) Seeing 2018 cards right off the top should be a good sign, hopefully.

More 2018 cards! The Bowman design isn't bad this year to be honest.

The repacks had a plethora of 2016 Topps (probably 24 total between the two packs), these are the best cards from the stack. The more I see these cards, the more I think it's not one of Topps better efforts.

80s and 90s cards were prevalent too. How can you go wrong with cards of "The Cobra" and "Murph". 

I can always dig some 1987 Donruss. 

My favorite card from the literal gobs of 1988 Score that I found. This is just such a cool card.

A new card for my Dennis Eckersley collection that I'm pretty sure I don't already have. So weird to see him in a Cubs uniform.

Wait, early 80s cards in repacks? Unexpected but nice.

Vintage in repacks? Ok sure, why not? I can see a 1978 or a 1979 card winding up in repacks but a card from 1973? Hey I won't complain.

My favorites of the 1986 Donruss I found. I can't put a finger on it but there's something I really like about these cards. One of the cool things about most Donruss cards from the 80s, is that they use the team logo, which I always though added a neat touch.

I have to show the Reds cards that I got. The Rich Gale will be used for my 1984 set and the Score "Hot Rookie" Hal Morris is new to me as well.

Some newer cards. I can't believe that 2017 Topps will already be two years old this coming January when the 2019 cards hit. It's a design I definitely still like. 

Now on to the coolest cards of the repacks .... I did some research online and for the life of me couldn't find any information on this Nick Anderson character. It's neat to get a hit out of these but they're never really anything great.

What is this doing in a repack? It's a 2018 Topps Chrome 1983 Tribute of Giancarlo Stanton. I spent roughly zero dollars on Topps Chrome this year (as I do every year) but this is a really, really cool card.

And I also got these two Topps Chrome base cards. I must say that the 2018 design chromes up pretty nicely

So there we are, two repacks. When I opened these, the collation was pretty much the same and there were a lot of duplicates included, strangely enough in the exact same spot in each pack. While I did get some cool cards, these were largely a miss thanks to the sheer volume of junk wax cards. I did also get a pack of 1990 Upper Deck in each box, so there's that as well. I'll cover those in a future post.

Random Cards from Random Repacks

A long while back, the spring to be exact, I opened a whole bunch of 100-card repacks from the local Walgreens. I had every intent to share the findings in posts of their own, but now it's three months later and pictures of these cards have been haunting me ever since. So, instead of doing individual posts, here's some of the best from four random repacks.

Here's a 1983 O-Pee-Chee of Phil Niekro. I never really had an appreciation for O-Pee-Chee until I started reading card blogs. Now, whenever I get an OPC card, it instantly goes into the collection.

Paul Konerko is well know for being the first baseman for the White Sox for what seemed like forever but did you know he had a very brief stint with the Reds in 1998? Yep, the Dodgers sent him and Dennys Reyes to the Reds for Jeff Shaw on Independence Day 1998 and he appeared in 26 games as an outfielder and a corner utility man. After the season, the Reds sent him to the White Sox for Mike Cameron and the rest is history. I love cards like this that recognize a player having a brief stint with a team, especially ones that no one barely remembers them being with.

Oh, also, did I mention this is the Gold Medallion Edition of Fleer Ultra? That's pretty cool. 

Yay! 1981 Donruss! I always liked the design on these cards with the colored frame around the photo and the yellow team name on the lower right. The photos are also something else I enjoy on them. I definitely think between them and the debut issue of Fleer the same year, Donruss is the better overall product.

Here's a nice Warren Spahn card that was a cover card on one of the repacks. Also, bonus points on this for it showing him as a member of the Milwaukee Braves.

This isn't weird at all. I always think this is a Rockies card because the mascot takes up more of the card than the featured player but it's an Astros card of Brad Ausmus. You wouldn't know it though just by looking at it.

I'll take an Andrew Benintendi 2017 Topps card out of a repack, yes please! While this is just the regular version and not a variation, it really doesn't matter to me. While Benintendi isn't someone I've put on my player collection list, I don't mind adding a card of his here and there.

Some glossy Topps cards from the 80s. I love that Willie McCovey card with him in the old school Giants uniform and the fact that it says "captain" as his position.

Cards of Hall of Famers, mostly junk wax but the real standout here is the 1999 Topps Wade Boggs, the final year of Boggs' career. His sunset card would come the next season in the 2000 Topps set

It seems like every repack nowadays has a plethora of 2012 Topps, which is a set I really enjoy. I've mentioned previously, packs of 2012 Topps were the first packs I bought when I got back into collecting. The first two, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez are interesting as the Thome card is a sunset card (meaning his final card issued during his career) and Ramirez is a zero-year card (meaning a card issued of a player featuring him on a team with which he never played). Darvish and Cespedes were two of the bigger rookie names that season and both came out of the same pack. Finally, the the Ichiro card has a fantastic picture on it. 

Finally, a pretty trippy card of Javy Lopez, known primarily for being the Braves catcher during the dominant run of the 90s. I'd had no clue he played with the Orioles but looks like he played out the last few seasons of his career there. I don't think I've ever seen a Donruss Zenith card before but in person it's pretty neat.

In regards to repacks, I think I might be done with them for the short term, unless I decided to go for the 50-card, 4-pack variety at Target. I will say that I really enjoyed throwing the best cards from multiple repacks together instead of reviewing the repacks one by one and talking about filler cards.