A New Type of Repack

Until recently, I'd never set foot in the store Five Below. I'd heard of it before and was told they had some cool things but until recently never went in there. What I saw though was fantastic! If you've never been, it's pretty much a hip discount store with toys, games, snacks, candy, trinkets, etc all for five dollars or under (hence the name). I went in with very low expectations but found that I probably could've bought a number of things. I contained myself and walked out of there with two of these repack cubes for me and a bag full of orange Airheads for my wife.

I kid you not when I say that literally every single repack cube on the shelf (and there were about 18 or so) had a Mike Piazza card visible. Half of them had this exact card showing as well. Since this is an O-Pee-Chee card, I just had to grab this cube. I forget which one the other cube had. 

The front proclaimed several things, including cards from "each of the past five decades". That would mean cards from the 70s, right? Nope. The 1980 Indians card was the oldest card I could find in the lot. I'll take it though. Plus early 80s Topps like the Vukovich and the Parker are always fun finds as well.

Here's an interesting card. I've never heard of Brigham's but apparently it was a regional ice cream chain and also a brand of ice cream found in the New England area. In conjunction with Coca-Cola, they issued a 23-card Red Sox set that shared the 1982 Topps design. I'm not sure if these cards were available at the ice cream shops or at the store in the carton. Maybe someone out that way can enlighten me? Regardless, pretty interesting to find a regional oddball all these years later in a repack in southwest Ohio.

Some miscellaneous 80s cards including John Tudor and Walt Weiss, both of whom look very unimpressed.

Early 90s stuff. Meh.

Another promise of the repack was that it featured one "hall of fame card". Well, together with the Mike Piazza card I showed to start with, there's Alan Trammell and Craig Biggio. That brings the Hall of Fame total to five.

1991 Score. Not a bad selection of players here. Rickey brings the Hall of Fame total to six. 

More modern cards from the 2000s. The Luis Aparicio card has to be one of my favorites from the box.

Here's a few cool horizontal cards that I found. I was genuinely happy when I saw the Randy Johnson card from 2002 Upper Deck Vintage. I'm always on the lookout for cards from that set but I'm not to the point yet where I'd consider officially putting the set together. Also, the Johnson card puts me at nine "Hall of Fame cards" for the lot.

The repack box/cube/whatever also said there were two packs included. The 2018 Topps pack was the one shown and the other was a pack of 1991 O-Pee-Chee Premier.

Here's the contents of the O-Pee-Chee pack. Nothing too terribly exciting here. My keepers will probably be Orel Hershier, Mo Vaughn, Jeff Reardon, and Ivan Calderon. Dave Parker I already have somewhere.

And the contents of the Topps pack. I'll probably keep Amed Rosario, Cody Bellinger, Randal Grichuk, and the "Boston B-Boys" card. I'm honestly more happy with the O-Pee-Chee pack than I am this.

There's the contents of a repack from Five Below. I've got another one of these to bust into soon but maybe I'll hold that off until next month. 

Going Through the Archives - 2019 Edition

It's that time, Archives is out.

I'll admit, I didn't like last years product. The designs weren't exactly my favorites and I found the cards just sort of generally boring. Plus, there were unnecessary reprints and Sandlot cards. I didn't mind the Sandlot cards, just not my thing.

Anyway, this year Archives returns with 1958, 1975, and 1993. I grabbed two jumbo packs and a blaster. I'm not going to go through things pack by pack as that would take way too long. I will say that the jumbo packs had nearly the exact same collation. Nearly half of the second pack was dupes of the first one, with cards in the exact same order. That was the same issue with last year where the some packs from the blasters were nearly identical. Now, that could've been luck of the draw as I grabbed a pack from the back and the front but I doubt it. I came across one pack in the blaster that had several of the same cards in the same order from the jumbo packs. That's definitely something that needs to be improved on.

Anyway, collation issues aside, let's see what I got.

I'll start with the 58s. One thing I never really did like about the original 1958 set is that the background is just a standard color. That's not to say I don't like the set in general, it's just not something I'm drawn to. Anyway, these are my favorites of the 58s included. I do like the fact that it's a healthy mix of retired greats and current stars. Pretty happy to get a Larry Doby card as well.

The only Reds card from either the blaster or jumbos, that being of Reds closer Raisel Iglesias. Even though the Reds playoff chances at this point are nearly shot, they've still improved a lot from the past few seasons. Iglesias this year has done his role well 26 saves out of 30 chances but his ERA needs some work at 4.16.

1975 is next. I love the color schemes of these cards, especially how bright the Andrelton Simmons card is. I do have a few 75s in my duplicate stack that are already earmarked for Night Owl.

Since I had more old school players than new players, I decided to split the 75s up. The backgrounds on these seem a bit off, especially the ones with in stadium photos. Maybe they were intentionally faded? Regardless, I still like them. Also, when was the last time you saw a Tigers pitcher Hal Newhouser card in a Topps product? Not only that, but he's shown with a bat.

The last set featured was 1993. I've always liked the 1993 Topps set as it's one of my favorites from childhood. I got several guys in Yount, Piazza, Brett, and Raines that definitely feel at home on a 1993 design. One minor nitpick is that maybe the Expos colors should be red and blue, other than that, I like these a lot.

Current guys. Carlos Santana seems really happy to be back in Cleveland after a one year sojourn to Philadelphia. They definitely hit the 1993 Draft Picks design perfectly with the Rowdy Tellez card.

Horizontal cards. Some good shots here. With the aforementioned collation issues, I think I would up with two or three of the Trea Turner card.

More Hall of Famers. With the 1993 cards, it seems as if cards of old-timerslike the Gehrig card have gone through the colorization process. To me, I think that definitely adds to the card. That also leads me into my two favorite cards I pulled...

First, we have this absolutely brilliant looking Johnny Mize card. Everything about this is great, the image, the background, the color of the picture, and the design fits perfectly. 

But my favorite base card I pulled is this truly magnificent looking Bobby Doerr card. It's a beautiful picture of Doerr admiring a hit but the background it was does it for me. This looks like a practice game of some kind on a makeshift field with the bleachers and the giant skyscraper in the background. Plus, Doerr himself looks like he's kind of jumping out of the picture. This to me just seems like something Norman Rockwell would've put together and it's absolutely stunning. Probably my pick for card of the year so far.

Now come the inserts. First these Future Star cards with Michael Kopech and Alex Rodriguez. This design was featured in 1994 Topps (a set I really enjoy). Nice to see that set get some recognition.

All-Star selection cards. I like these but I think they would fare better with some vintage stock.

Some more miscellaneous inserts. My "hit" of the break, if you want to call it that, is the Hunter Dozier blue parallel. The Kyle Hendricks card is a 1975 mini variety, and despite the Ichiro being a reprint, it makes sense as Topps is paying tribute to his career with these cards.

My favorite of the inserts though has to be these Topps Magazine cards. I never read any Topps Magazine as a kid but I'm discovering it now through old oddball cards from the magazine I'm getting in trades and through cards like this. I would like to go back and see if I can maybe find some old issues somewhere.

Overall, aside from the collation issues I mentioned, I really like this year Archives offering. It's a heck of a lot better than last year and I managed to pull two outright amazing base cards. While I did feel like a lost six bucks on a jumbo pack that was nearly all dupes, I'd say I definitely got a lot of fun and enjoyment out of this.

Topps Big League ... Target Acquired

So Topps Big League has been all the rage recently and I decided to bite and grab some from Target during a recent excursion. I could've honestly come up with a witty title for this as well but I think most of the good ones have been claimed already.

Last year's debut issue was nice but I thought some of the pictures were a little dark, as if they were taken on an overcast day or something. That's just me though. This year though, I really like the design. It kind of combines the 1965 Topps flag design with the 1987 Topps wood background. The team logos look tremendous on the flag, although if I had one nitpick, it'd be to use a different color flag on those logos with darker backgrounds (like the Braves logo).

Of course, the allure of Big League is a "bargain priced" set but that's not to say that you won't find some gems. The photos on these cards are worthy of Stadium Club in my opinion. Also, the yellow cards come one per pack, much as they did last year.

Here's some cool horizontal cards as well. I can't get enough of Justin Verlander Astros cards.

With Big League being an in-season issue, there will be cards of players in new uniforms. This one will fall into the "short term stops" category with Jay Bruce having recently been shipped to the Phillies.

Here's another short-term stop and the main card I wanted from this set, especially when I saw that Matt Kemp was jettisoned from the Reds after only 20 games in favor of Nick Senzel. With the Reds, he hit .200/.210/.283 with only one home run and 5 RBIs.

More Reds cards. Scott Schebler was sent down to Triple-A when the Reds called up Nick Senzel and released the aforementioned Matt Kemp. Votto is slowly starting to come around and Jesse Winker has been a great as the everyday left fielder this year. 

Here's a bunch of dudes in old school style uniforms, which is one of my mini-collections. I think my favorite of these is Yonder Alonso in the mid-80s White Sox uniform.

I also got a fair amount of inserts. These are the two insert sets I really like. I didn't care much for the inserts with the caricatures. I set those into the trade box. The "Wall Climbers" set is really cool.

Since I bought a blaster, I got a bonus four-card pack of blue parallels.

Also, I managed to get one of these shiny parallels from both the blaster and the fat pack. The scanner doesn't do justice as to how cool these cards are.

All in all, I really really like this year's Big League offering. Lots of fun inserts, cool photography on the base cards, dudes in new uniforms, dudes in throwback uniforms, short-term stops, and more. I'll definitely be buying more of that.

2018 WWE Heritage Jumbo Pack

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, last week I was sick with a bad cough. While it still hasn't quite gone away completely, it's better to the point where I feel like can now function normally. I felt well enough last Saturday to drag myself out of bed and go with the family on our annual Target Halloween run. While we were there, I decided to treat myself to a few jumbo packs of baseball and wrestling Heritage. The baseball packs left a lot to be desired so I decided just to share the WWE Heritage pack, as honestly, these are the cards I was most excited about.

This year for WWE, Topps used the 1989 baseball design and, wow, it's works perfectly. For the Raw brand stars, the wave at the bottom is red, Smackdown blue, and NXT yellow. Baron Corbin is now the GM of the Raw show with Drew McIntryre holding the Raw tag titles with Dolph Ziggler. I was pretty happy to get the Ruby Riott RC as she's one of my favorites to watch.

The Smackdown contingent of the pack was far less interesting ... perennial lower-card star in Sin Cara, Peyton Royce who's one half of the "mean girls" duo The Iiconics with Bille Kay, and Tamina who is ... well, I'm not sure where she is right now.

Tag teams and stables get the horizontal card treatment. The Undisputed Era are by far the top group in NXT currently. Not pictured on the card though is Roderick Strong who, along with his tag team partner Kyle O'Reilly (far left) had a great run of matches with Mustache Mountain (Tyler Bate and Trent Seven) over the NXT tag titles this past summer. As far the the duo of Benjamin and Gable .... well, Benjamin is now a singles wrestler on the blue brand while Gable is over on Raw teaming with Bobby Roode.

There were four insert cards in the middle of the pack, a bronze parallel of Lana, a blue parallel of Tony Nese, a Randy Savage tribute card talking about his match at WrestleMania X, and a Bobby Roode card made in the style of the Topps Glossy rookies set.

Finally, there were four legends cards in the back of the pack. The design is very similar to the 1989 Topps Big cards. I like that they used the legends cards in a different design this time to differentiate them from the rest of the set.

While I didn't get any of the top stars in the pack, this was still a super fun pack to rip. The 1989 Topps design feels very natural, not like a baseball design was shoehorned into wrestling cards. I definitely recommend grabbing a few packs of this if you're out and about. You won't be disappointed.

Going Through the Archives - 2018 Edition

Archives is out!!!!!!!!

Hallejuah!!!!

These were some elusive little creatures to find. I went to the Target by work on the release day, nothing there, then the next day I went to the Target by the house after my son's kindergarten screening, and nothing there. Finally, Friday night they showed up as in-stock at the awesome Target on the way home so I stopped there, at 10:45 at night mind you, and stocked up. I grabbed two blasters and three fat packs. I had two coupons from my Series 1 blaster I used plus just over $30 in gift cards that got me a good deal on them.

I started with the blasters first. As usual, the first card of the first pack I opened and it's Yasiel Puig.

Archives this year is based on the 1959, 1977, and 1981 designs. Sure, they're not exact replicas but they're close enough for me. I always love the inclusion of retired stars in Archives, especially those such as Bert Blyleven and Warren Spahn. Even better, Spahn is listed as a member of the Milwaukee Braves.

I got the two vaunted rookies every is probably after, Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. Is is just me or did the Ohtani-mania craze die down fairly quickly after he got hurt. There's also an Ohtani variation of him swinging a bat going around.

Two more 59s, and I'm curious as to why they chose the color pink for these two. I feel like Honus Wagner only pops up in Archives. As far as variations go, there are two different types ... one is a no autograph variation (which speaks for itself) and the other is in the backs. There are white back and grey backs called "Venezuelan backs".

Moving on to the 77s. One gripe I have about these is that, in the case of Bruce Sutter, the facsimile autograph is nearly obscured completely by the darkness of the background. This happened with a few other cards as well. 

The Jeter is another case where the autograph is pretty much unable to be read. However, I think these are probably my favorite design of the bunch. Variations on this theme include only a non-autograph variation.

One blaster yielded me this gray parallel of Travis D'Arnaud. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Now the 1981s. The 1981 set is something I feel that gets often overlooked or forgotten about. Personally, I think it's a pretty neat set and Archives did it well. Nice to see Edgar Martinez show up in newer cards. There's also a variation of the Ernie Banks card floating around.

I didn't get any of the variations of the 1981 (which include a different Clemente card and cards with the old style Topps logo) but I did get a nice batch of awesome players like Trout, Carew, and Clemente.

I got a good batch of Reds and Indians cards but my favorite of the Reds ones has to be the Barry Larkin card. 

Some Indians cards including catching prospect Francisco Meija and Jose Ramirez who is on an absolute tear right now.

Inserts I think is really where Archives struggled this year. I know the Hank Aaron "turn back the clock" card isn't really an insert, it sort of fell in there when I took the picture. I enjoy "The Sandlot" as much as the next person and having cards in there using the 1962 design is neat but they just don't do it for me. I've got two Sandlot cards, and they're already earmarked for my next package to Dimebox Nick.

My favorites of the inserts are the Future Stars cards. I could've done without a "Rookie History" insert reprint set though, considering just a year or two ago we got "Berger's Best" reprints in flagship which featured some of the same cards. 

Moving on to the fat packs now. One thing about these is that I really like the pack design. One thing I  didn't like is the fact I got a lot of duplicates. However, I did find a number of cool cards I didn't get in the blasters.

Getting cards of Ichiro is something that makes me really happy.

Three people here in Ozzie, Cozart, and Correa that I like to collect. My favorite though has to be the Early Wynn card. Have a look at that background will you!

Two more Reds, both new and old.

The Coming Attraction inserts are really the best insert set in Archives this year.

Finally, I'll close this with my two favorite cards I got from my haul. First, David Ortiz as a member of the Twins!

And this .... Ronald Acuna Jr. who has just absolutely terrorized the National League recently with his incredible hitting and the lead-off home run streak. 

So, that's it for Archives this year. Was it great this year? Not really. I liked 2016 and 2017 a lot better. I think I would've liked it better if they'd chosen something other than 1959 and maybe continued on with the 90s sets and used 1993 as the past few years where it was 1991, then 1992.