e-Pack and Repack

Thursdays are my long day at the office. I'm typically there from around 8am-8:30pm. I know there are plenty of people that only work 12 hour shifts, so I'm not complaining, but I usually find a lot of my impulse buys are on these days simply because it helps me get through the day. Whether I open whatever I get during my break or save it until the end of my shift as an incentive, grabbing a little something to open definitely helps me get through the long day. Yesterday, right as I was going to leave the office, I noticed an email that detailed Upper Deck's new digital card app. When I heard about it, I sat in my car and created an account and immediately opened my daily free pack.

I know a lot of you out there don't consider these 'cards' and won't waste time with apps like this, but I really dig flipping through a new 'pack', especially when I'm not depending any money. I'm also intrigued by the concept that Upper Deck has come up with. This is like a hybrid of other digital trading card apps and the eTopps concept. Apparently, you can opt to have actual cards from your collection within the app sent to you. Here's pack number one.

I'm definitely going to add it to my daily digital trading card routine. After checking out the app, I felt the need to open some real packs. I needed to run an errand that would bring me near another Target that is not my normal local Target. When I stopped in, I found the first 100 card hockey repacks that I've seen in my area. I've seen the unopened pack varieties before, but never wanted to spend the 12 or 20 bucks to pick one up. When I saw this face card, I figured it was worth the 5 dollar gamble.

I cracked it open and ripped the pack open first.

I haven't collected hockey cards in a really long time, so I'll just dive in. Feel free to drop some knowledge on any of these.

I recognize Getzlaf only because I know some of you out there collect him.

Cammaleri is a current Devil, so therefore a favorite. Also pulled a rookie, but it have no idea if it's a 'true RC' or if that is even a real concept in the world of collecting hockey cards.

The final card of the pack at least sports the Devils logo. Based upon the wrapper, I think this may be a gold rush parallel? Not sure. Now on to the highlights of the 100 card block. It was heavy on 1990 Bowman and one of the '90's Parkhurst sets and overall, I found it to be a really enjoyable stack.

I'll start with two of the three Devils in the pack along with an awesome net minders card. I remember Ed Jovanovski when he was the first draft pick in the early '90's. When I see a Tie Domi, the first work that comes to mind is 'goon'. My only memories of seeing him on the ice involve him throwing fists. Lastly, a really cool award winners hologram of Dirk Graham.

Don't know any of these guys, but they're all pretty cool. I mean until I checked out the back of the upper right card, I thought the guy's name was Moose Jaw! Turns out it is a team checklist. At least I got a laugh out of it.

Now here's the star portion of the program. All told, two Hull, two Roy, a Messier, a Modano, and a Lemieux is a pretty strong showing.

These are two of my favorites of the whole pack. The Smirnov may have a boring pic, but I love the retro design. The LaBarbera is, by far, my favorite photo of the whole pack. That was a pretty good pack, but it turns out that I had the one out of four that included a hit.

I've got no idea who either of these guys is and I don't have particularly like the Blues, but a dual relic is still awesome! I'm not sure how many more hockey repacks I'll ever go for, but it sure was an entertaining repack. Thanks for reading!

A Second Visit to My Not-So-Local Card Shop

A few months ago, my family and I were spending a week in Myrtle Beach and I found a pretty decent card shop on a rainy day. I didn't have much time to browse it, so I knew it would be on my agenda when we went back recently for another week. During my last trip to Baseball 17, I spent my limited time flipping through dollar boxes and glancing at the cards in the showcases. This time around, I knew that I wanted to spend a good bit of time checking out the quarter boxes.

I'll start off with vintage minis and some Hostess goodness. I only had a few of these 1975 Topps minis before flipping through those boxes so I figured for a combined fifty cents, I couldn't leave these behind. The Hostess Reuschel has some white spots and is pretty badly miscut, but it is a vintage Hostess card for only a quarter, so into the stack it went.

You know if I was gonna pick up the Reuschel in that condition that I was thrilled to see this Garvey looking as good as it does. It still has most of the dotted line and is pretty clean otherwise. From The snacks of Hostess, I'll go back to breakfast. How could I possibly leave this Kellogg's card of Cookie Rojas in a quarter box? Not only is the guy's name 'Cookie', but check out those specs! To top all, this one is crack free.

I was pleasantly surprised to find some singles from a set I've been actively working on and one that will soon be added to my needs list. In some ways, I've been working on the 2002 Topps Post set since it was available in cereal boxes 13 years ago. I vividly remember going up and down the cereal aisle trying to find boxes that had the baseball card promotion on them. I would eat one box as quick as I could so that I could go back to the store and grab another box or two. All told, I was able to cross off five more cards(though I only scanned 4) from my Wantlist on this set. I was happy to find a couple of the 1992 Fleer Performer series from Citgo/7-11. I was unaware of this set before unearthing a few lots of them on Listia. These two additions put me at set-half-done. Therefore, I'll be updating my set needs list by adding this one in the near future.

I had to pick up this 1992 UD Denny's hologram, if for not her reason than nostalgia. I remember when holograms were the peak of cardboard technology. I've wanted that Mattingly Studio Heritage Series for a while now, so I was thrilled to dig this copy out and put it in my stack. Yes, that is a football card. It's the only one I rescued from those boxes. Why? Well, that shows none other than Deion Sanders playing baseball for Florida State.

I love this El Duque 'aces' card. This Pineda 'Rated Rookie' was a total surprise to me. The posed shot does a good job hiding that would have been a lack of logos. That A&G Johnny Damon card was an awesome find. It's only the second card I have that highlights his incredible two stolen base on one pitch play in he 2009 World Sereis against the Phillies. Good stuff.

I've had really good luck finding great deals on some of the top Japanese baseball players in this shop. That streak continued during this second trip. That is an E-motion insert from Nomo's rookie year. I remember that card being incredibly hard to find in the midst of Nomo-mania. The Playball is one of the few Matsui RC's that I own. I am slowly building my collection of National Trading Card Day issues and was quite happy to see this Matsui from 2004.

I'm going to end with three really interesting oddball issue that I really had no idea existed. This Cal Ripken Movie Gallery coupon-card is great. Like the remaining two cards, there was absolutely no way that I was going to leave something like this behind. I like the 'Cal Ripken' logo on the back.

Next up is this incredible 'What If' card. Best was one of the top Minor League Baseball card companies in the late '90's/early 2000's. I didn't realize this promo existed. It's pretty awesome to see one of the most talented pitchers of that time frame in an 'alternate reality' card. It's even better that the team he is shown on is the Orlando Rays. Kerry Wood certainly had the potential to be one of the best pitcher's of all time if injuries hadn't derailed his promising career.

Last up is another promo card. This time, it's from a company that I had never heard of and it shows a great pic of Juan Marichal signing some autographs for the fans. For both this card and the Wood, they are numbered out of 5. I think I'm going to have to see if I can track down a few of the other promo cards from these respective sets because these have got me curious.

This was definitely a fun and productive trip to the card shop. I'm glad that I found this place to help me make the most of another rainy day at the beach. Man, I need to find a local shop that's this good. Thanks for reading.