Wrapping Up the Card Shop Visit

Once again, my best laid plans didn't work out. I intended to write and publish this yesterday and to move on to a more serious topic today, but it didn't quite work out that way. So, I will finish up the recent trip to the card shop today and hope that by the time I get to my other planned post that I may have a little bit of the readership numbers back closer to my pre-absence numbers. Let's take a peek at a reminder of what is still left to highlight.

Here was the pic of the homemade repacks I picked up the other day. Let's start with the goods from the varied Bowman products in the middle row.

Leading off strong with some awesomely shiny inserts. Heck, in this neck of the woods, the Teams of Tomorrow featuring Dansby Swanson was worth the price I paid for all 25 repacks($5 plus tax) alone.

Next up, we have a few Draft/Dividends, a Brendan Rogers(perhaps destined for some ink if I can make it to Asheville once he's healthy), and a card that would have been pretty decent a few weeks back. That's a blue parallel of Raul Mondesi #/150. Aphid I pulled that and tried to move it prior to his suspension for PEDs, I probably could have gotten a decent return.

Shiny is a good way to start and end any bunch of highlights. I was pleasantly surprised to pull refractors of two of Tampa's better prospects at the moment. I may even get to warpath them both play in Durham someday. Pulling the Urias refractor and a base chrome of Benintendi wasn't too shabby either.

The remaining repacks were filled with various Base cards and inserts from this year's Donruss.

Team USA starts things off with a cameo from Mr. AL MVP. I'm totally digging the Power Alley reboots.

When I first saw the 1982 Donruss subset, I toyed with the idea of chasing the 50-card set. I quickly came to my senses and decided to pick up only a few of my favorite players instead. The Kershaw and Posey were two of the better ones that fell out of these packs. If anyone is trying to complete the set, let me know, I can probably help. Though I'm not a huge Daimond King fan like most, these were still standouts from the repacks.

Here is the real cream of the crop. I love the Grier parallel! It's just a bonus that it's #/299. The pink Arenado is probably the only Donruss card here that is going into my collection. Beyond that, the Swanson and the two Rays prospect refractors are the only other keepers. If anyone is interested in any of the other cards from this post, I'd be up for trading them. Just let me know. Thanks for reading.

New Blogging Year = New Local Card Shop

As I was doing my research and reflection before writing my one year anniversary post the other day, I really wanted year two to be a little more 'adventurous'. I'm not really sure what I mean by that just yet, but as New Year's Day approaches, I'll probably sit and write a blog goals list for the year to better define it. I decided that an easy way to be 'more adventurous' in the short term was to finally explore a card shop that I hadn't visited yet. This particular shop is in Danville, VA and though I live in NC it only took me about a 30 minute drive to get there. It is actually the most local shop that I am aware of. I knew it existed because they participate in most of the card company promos like Topps' Spring Fever and Panini's multiple holiday promos. I made the drive yesterday just to see what I've been missing. Overall, I'm glad I did!

I forgot to snap a photo of the store front, but I found this image online. It is a really small shop and is primarily focused on comics, but the trip was certainly worth it and I'll definitely be returning on a semi-regular basis. As I walked in the front door, there was a small table that had a rather large plastic storage bin, not unlike this:

It was filled with store made repacks! For a collector like me, it was heaven. Team bag after team bag was lined up in there. All four major sports were represented as were golf, soccer, MMA, and there were even a few non-sport. I loved that there are two 'face' cards to help me pick which ones I want and that there was so much variety, but the best part was the price. There was a small sign next to it stating that they were a quarter a piece or 5 for a dollar. I didn't pay attention to how many cards were in each, but I started searching and quickly began pulling ones that I needed to take home. When all was said and done, this is the pile I had.

That's 16. All but one were baseball(there was one football for good measure). I also picked up four MMA packs that I'm not going to show off here. I picked all of the ones in the box that had Chrome showing in an effort to help fill in my remaining set needs and found a few others that had face cards that were too good to pass up.

As I searched the rest of the shop, there was a decent selection of open packs and boxes available in baseball, football, basketball, WWE, and some non-sport. The prices were in line with what you probably see at most shops these days. They also had a decent selection of supplies. Unlike most shops, they didn't have multiple display cases lined with singles, but they did have a few boxes to flip through that were sorted by team and somewhat alphabetical. I picked a few cards from these boxes to round out the day's purchase. Here are the highlights of the repacks.

These two made the Chrome packs worth it all on their own. The Bautista is the green refractor which is #/99 and the Konerko is the regular refractor of his farewell card. Beyond these, I found a few cards that are already set aside for trade partners and a prism refractor of MadBum too. Additionally, I found 15 cards to cross off my set checklist.

This Kiermaier 'Cracked Ice' card was on the face of one of the packs and I could not pass it by. I've said it before, but he was one of the most exciting players that I had the fortune to watch in Durham!

I picked up a prospect pack because the Adames and Garcia were the face cards and I thought they'd be good additions. Perhaps, if things work out, they'll one day look good with in person autos on them.

That wasn't all the prospect pack had to offer though. This trio was sandwiched in the middle. There were another two guys that I might potentially see come through Durham with the BoSox and Yankees Triple A teams and Kolek played in Greensboro(which is not too far a drive from me either) this past season. The design of these just seems to scream 'sign here"!

The best pack of the trip contained these two oddly sized and shaped cards from A&G. I am not exactly sure what these are(and haven't done the research to find out) but it's cool to add another Josh Hamilton even if I don't actively pursue that collection anymore. These were surrounded by the following cards which blew me away.

The Sano and the Vargas were the cards showing on this particular pack. How it was still sitting in the bin is beyond me. Honestly, it could have been almost anyone from Bowman Sterling and I would have picked it up just to add some more singles from that brand. As if the pack wasn't good enough, I found that sparkly, Bowman throwback insert of Kyle Schwarber tucked in there as well! All for the low, low price of twenty cents!

Here's the final lowdown on these repacks: they are AWESOME, and worth the drive alone. Each pack ended up containing 10 cards which essentially made this bin somewhat of a dime box! Heck, after all was said and done, I ended up adding 20 team bags to my supply reserves that will eventually make their way to many of your mailboxes. Add to that, I love the unknown/surprise aspect of the repack format and it made for a great new adventure!

A Football Repack for a Change

I don't usually go for football repacks. There's just way more for me to enjoy in the randomness of the baseball ones. However, I always take a look at the card showing on each one I see. When I saw that Odell Beckham Jr staring back at me from the front of this repack hanging on a hook at my local Walgreens, I couldn't pass it up.

I'll start with some guys that I kinda liked back when they were still playing. I've never been a Giants fan, but I dug the way Strahan played the game. Herschel Walker was one of he best running backs in the league when I first started watching games. Randy Moss was one heck of an exciting player in the early years of his career. I remember tuning in to Sportscenter to see what incredible plays he made each Sunday in his rookie season.

Next up, two Broncos for the collection. I loved Simon Fletcher in his heyday. He and Karl Mecklenburg were the anchors of the defense in the mid to late '80's. The Moreno makes me a bit sad. He was finally able to put it all together in 2013 and helped Denver reach the Super Bowl...we won't talk about how that went though. Ever since, he has spent way more time on the sidelines than on the field which is unfortunate. Lastly, that's a great action shot of Steve Smith while he was still with Carolina.

Here are the goods, the rookies! Of course, that first one is the repack face card and the reason I bought this thing in the first place. I kinda like the Turkey Red set from last season, nice to have such a great RC from the set. Plus, it's only my second ODB rookie. The other is from the Bowman set, so this one blows that out of the water if for no other reason than it actually shows him in his NFL uniform. As I flipped through, I was surprised to find the Matt Ryan in the stack. This comes from a time when I wasn't buying any football cards at all. It's a welcome addition of a great QB. Lastly, I was really surprised to see that Marvin Harrison RC in the middle of the pile. I collected quite a bit back in 1996 when this one came out, but this is new to me.

The unopened pack in there has stayed that way, for now. It is a 1991 Score pack. I've got so much of that sitting in a 5000 ct. box, I figured I could get away with leaving it sealed for the time being. My final impression of the repack is that it was a really good value. I would have been happy even if the only 'keeper' was the Beckham, but getting the Ryan and Harrison RCs, a few Broncos, and some cardboard reminders of a few good players from my childhood made it great! Thanks for reading.