A Feverish Spring Promo from Topps

I was really chomping at the bit to participate in the Spring Fever promo this season. Just when I thought I was going to miss out on the fun, I was able to wrangle a single pack from one of the fairly local card shops that were participating. The base checklist is solid, but the real draw for me is the possibility of pulling two of the autos, both players that don't show up in the base checklist. Greg Bird and Richie Shaffer are two of my favorite young players and I was hoping to pull one of them from this non-descript pack. 

It contained five cards plus a Wacky Packages sticker. Let's rip the plain silver mylar and see what's inside.

Three cards into the pack and I'm not thrilled. If only I was a Giants fan, I'd be pretty happy...

Things began to look up a bit with the Piscotty. He's a pretty decent young player with a lot of upside. It doesn't hurt that I was fortunate enough to meet him at the Triple A All-Star festivities in Durham a few seasons back.

Last card, no auto but at least I ended the pack with the NL MVP. I like this season's design quite a bit better than the last few. I refuse to scan the sticker, sorry. There is one more thing to share though...

Since I didn't pull this auto, I had to go out and bring one home from eBay. One down, one to go. Unfortunately, tracking down the Greg Bird is going to be a bit tougher, it's limited to only 50 copies and he's a Yankee, so demand is high. Won't stop me from trying though! 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!

Tales from FDR Sportscards Vol. 1 - The Surprise El Duque

A little over 15 years ago, I stumbled upon a small, local card shop that was literally right next door to where I worked. Once I discovered this, I ended up spending WAY too much time(and money) there. No matter if it was a lunch break, before work if I had a later shift, or after work if I was scheduled for an early half day, the odds were you'd find me there. I really miss this shop(though my wallet is happier that they have since closed). I have a ton of stories to eventually share about the random experiences there, so today I introduce the first in a series: Tales from FDR Sportscards.

On an August day, way back in 1998, I happened to be in the shop and saw that Bowman's Best had just arrived. At this time in m collecting career, I loved any and all things Bowman. I remember being sooo excited when I saw this box.

One of the things I loved about this shop was that Fran, the owner, always kept the product info sheets that the card companies sent out and put them in the boxes that were open for pack sales. It was always nice to have them to use as a reference. I would almost always read this over, in detail, before buying packs or boxes. I especially loved looking over the checklists to see which players I could pull if I cracked some packs. Though I liked the design, I didn't really remember seeing much on the checklist that made me overly excited, but I knew I was going to rip some open. So, I started with a few packs and began chatting baseball. Orlando Hernandez was in the midst of an exciting rookie season, so he quickly became the topic of our conversation. I remarked that I was disappointed that he wasn't on the Bowman's Best checklist(according to the product info sheet from Topps). Right about that time, I opened a pack and this was tucked away in the middle.

My jaw dropped and I stared at the 'El Duque' RC in disbelief. It was obvious that I had missed his name on the checklist somehow. I didn't say out loud that I had just pulled this card, but did ask to see the checklist again. Fran handed it to me and asked what was in the pack I just opened. I scanned the list down to card #183 and I swear that there was some other player's name there. I even asked Fran to look and she confirmed that Orlando Hernandez was not on the checklist that she had. I was so thrilled!!!

In years since, I've searched for any articles that talk about him being a late addition/substitution in that checklist and I can't find anything to that effect. To this day, I really love this card. At some point, I'm going to track down both the refractor and atomic refractor parallels without breaking the bank, but until then, I still have this: a card that I didn't think was supposed to exist, the surprise 'El Duque'! 

Does anyone else remember anything about this being a late substitution to the checklist? Thanks for reading and come back soon for more Tales from FDR Sportscards!