I Prevailed With Retail!

My posting schedule is all jacked up.  The free time I had over the weekend was spent sitting in front of this screen, but not writing posts.  As if I needed any more incoming stock, I amassed another huge SportLots order.  Then Monday night I just wasn't feeling like doing anything.  So here we are.

I did manage to break the other three boxes of 2020 Heritage.  And I'm very pleased with the results.  Going in, I knew I would be missing out on box toppers, buybacks and a (long) shot at some of the parallels.  But I since I really only wanted a base set with a significant number of short prints, plus the regular inserts, what I got was very comparable to hobby boxes for about half the price.  (They're now $10 more.)

You saw last time that I lucked out on a relic in box one.  Went to the second box and by halfway through, I had pulled the same inserts.  That always annoys me.  Luckily, that trend only continued for four of them.  The Willie Mays' and NAPpy's were different.  So with that and card #1, I'm doing OK.   The short prints are everything after Yaddy's cool card at #400.  I sorted all my base into 100s, so they are separated.  Some decent names in the shorties to start.

Box three -  KABAM!  Not only did I pull another relic, but it was basically the best one I could have pulled - Stephen Strasburg! - and it was a gold (tan?) version numbered out of 99!  And all the inserts were different!  Suh-WEEET!  Vogelmonster sighting in the SPs.  Hoping for a dupe.  May have peaked after the third box.

So that has to be it, right?  Retail odds on hits are 50% at best - at least I always think so.  Au contraire!  It's a fabric trifecta!  And another crop of inserts.  These short prints look kinda familar, though.  Ha! Second Vogie has been captured!

I was fortunate enough to pull the Trout SP in the first box, along with Mr. Highlight insert this year, Rhys Hoskins.  Love the Robles with the rookie cup.  So that last crop of short prints is all dupes.

So, recapping the pulls:

Four nice stacks of base.  I skimmed through and didn't see any notations on the back for missing sigs, action poses, or errors.  Guess that's the retail disadvantage.  I'd rather go buy the ones I want anyway.  I'm halfway through sorting base and I am in fact short a few cards.  I'll have a list up on my site by the end of the week.

News Flashbacks - gonna need another one of the moon landing cards for my space binder, along with twins of the Mariner 9 on Mars and Lunar Rover.  Have an extra Nasdaq.

The duplicates ate into my Baseball Flashbacks and Then & Nows.  Have two of the Carew, and Stargell/Alonso, Fergie/Stras if anyone wants to swap.  Will also need pairs of the Palmer, Fisk and Torre inserts among these.

When I saw another Giants Seasons 1961 come out of a pack, I thought it was a double too, but nope!  These are cool, though they fudged the more clever name "Gigantic Seasons".

And finally, the part a lot of you are waiting for - a look at all the sweet mojoz together.  Those (silver?) chrome refractors are kinda cool, even though I loathe Chrome on retro sets.  The '71 design lends itself well to colors and shiny, I have to say.  These are all for trade except of course Strasburg.  I'm wishing that blue swatch is a World Series jersey.  It's probably just the blue alt button-down, but Dare To Dream.

I would have never imagined I would pull three relics from four retail boxes.  It's not quite like pulling All-Star caliber autographs, but as I've said, I'm very satisfied for what I got for basically the price of only two hobby boxes.  Hope you do as well as I did!  Let's trade!