Beef, Beverages, Bologna, and Bargain Ball Cards

Picked up a $5 repack last Thursday night at a grocery store that I never go to.  Either a jersey or autograph was guaranteed in every pack.  I found a pack showing an insert that was on my want lists, and the rest didn't seem like it was all 1990 Pro Set.  So I said "Why not? I haven't opened anything since A&G."  Turns out it was a decent mix, but not real spectacular.  Though spoiler alert: I pulled a double auto!  

 

Never actually heard of this company before...

 

Here are the bulk of the contents in no particular order (since Blogger throws a group of images loaded at the same time in random order and it was such a pain to get pairs of images beside each other that I think I've done permanent damage to my vocal chords yelling at the screen when backspacing stopped working for no reason and the cursor jumps halfway down the page for no reason and.....never mind, just F&#* You HTML.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

       

Hey, whaddya know?  Priest Holmes!   Didn't need it though...

 

'85 Topps are just awkward.  I default to this way since that's how the photos are laid out.  But the backs are vertical and the names are on the wrong end...

This is the insert that was on the front.  Wasn't worth five bucks, but that's all I'm getting out of this pack.  Because....

USA Football??  These guys (weren't) old enough to sign their own contracts probably.  It's definitely up for trade (cheap!) if anyone is inclined.  So is the rest of the pack actually.  These will join the hundreds like them in my football hoard.

Selected Superfluous Series 2s

I am getting so lazy it's pathetic.  I took off Thursday and have had a four day weekend, but haven't posted a dang thing here since the 9th.  And I even have another installment of the Heritage pairs ready to go...

Anyway, I scanned in the leftovers from my double box break of Topps series 2 retail.  Have a good stack of base and these inserts available for trade.  I'm looking for the Decades Bests myself.

I would say "Elvis Hot Box!" at this point, but these actually accumulated between the two boxes.  Got the SP base, shiny Turkey, and blue Turkey.  Anyone a Rangers fan?

More blue stuff.  Parallel inserts are the most unnecessary and annoying thing about flagship in the last few years.  Reminds me of Panini Cooperstown.  They're basically inserts you can't add to your set.

Usually I hate shiny retro, but these aren't bad looking.  Still trade bait though.  I keep thinking this is Kershaw.  Who needs chromey Thor?

Chromey Thor to ugly WAR's.  Bleah.  I get the baseline stripe concept, but these look more like chalk drawings from the design meeting. 

The next chapter of the '85s included the most depressing card for a Washington fan - the newly transplanted Mr. Rendon.  The Rockies would have looked good in the '85 set, but the D'backs color scheme isn't even close.  What is that?  Mustard and relish on your snake sammich?

The All-Star '85s are exclusively AL East.  I've omitted certain things from all this that are already staged for delivery to particular people.  Hence the reason I'm not showing any of the twenty some Turkey Reds I got.

If there weren't six billion of these, and they were as plentiful in a box as the Turkeys, I might collect these.  But Topps doesn't roll like that any more.  They look pretty cool even though it seems all the hitters are standing in hockey rinks with the crowd behind the glass.  Of course, if I WAS collecting these, Trout would be the last one to show up in a pack...

Let me know what you need from these. No gamers out of my retail boxes, and no 2030 inserts, but I didn't really miss either one, especially for less than $70 a box.

Diving Into The Darkness

Quick post today to fill in the empty spot.  I'm a day or so behind my regular posting schedule, but it took me most of the evening yesterday and some this morning to clear my desk so I could start on these:

Four boxes of 2020 Heritage.  The Retail variety.  I checked the ratios of the regular insert cards between Hobby and Retail boxes, and they were exactly the same.  Quite low, I think, compared to a few years ago, but I have yet to research that in depth.  (Stay tuned).  But based on that comparison, I figured I'm only really after a base set and the normal inserts, so all I'm missing out on is the Greatest Moments box toppers and maybe a jersey card.  $55 each instead of $98 is worth the sacrifice.  So I ordered from my favorite vendor near Baltimore on Thursday afternoon, got the shipment notification before I left work that day, and they were waiting for me when I got home Friday.  (Editor's note - they're $59 now.  Six left in stock.  Steel City wants $72 each).

Before I got to open one of them last night, I had to wade through the huge pile of Redskins cards I had amassed since the summer.  I sorted all the 2000's into piles and then went through my Word document list that starts at 2009, and then on to my printed list for the older ones.  Then after confirming that I had checked them all off, I put them in their proper vinyl case.  This morning, I filed away all the duplicates that came out of the horde - seen below in the criss-crossed pile.

Those stacks are mostly dupes except for the hockey.

After the cataloging and filing was done, (sometimes this hobby is real work) I did manage to open one box.  It took me five packs in until I got an insert of any kind.  What I ended up with wasn't bad though.

Actually pulled a gamer!  I can confirme that there are, in fact, Rangers in Heritage, because I got a Joey Gallo game-used.  Any Rangers fans still grumpy about the shunning in Series 1 can trade me for it.

The Clevinger is a Chrome and is for trade too.  I think I was the first comment on the Beckett post announcing the Chromification of A&G and Stadium Club.  I said retro sets and Chrome don't go together.  And I still say it.  Now the Stadium Club Chromes that were in the last couple year's packs were awesome.  I would go for those if they come out at more than four cards in a pack for less than $100 a box.  But I bet it won't happen that way.  Flagship Chrome has always been too pricey for my taste.

Anyway, I'm about to plow through the other three boxes.  Plus, I still really want to start showing what's in the Hoard of monster boxes, I just can't decide how best to do it.  So keep it here for that.

Hanging 'Round My Trade Bait Pile

Figured I should add scans of the trade bait from the two hanger boxes I got last week.  I really only netted one card from both hangers - a 1960's Decade's Best '69 Mets team.  Oh well, $20 for the cause I guess.

We'll start things off with the two Chrome Turkey Reds.  Nice to get Acuña for trade bait.  (That's Alt+164 on your number pad to make the ñ)  I can never understand the logic in chromifying older style cards.  Metallize 90's designs, not the vintage stuff.  Though I guess a lot of those used foil and mirrorboard all the time anyway.

Some very popular names in these turkeys, I mean, Turkey Reds.  I think these work better as oversize cards like they were originally.  The names are too hard to read when the frames are shrunk to regulation size.  A lot of these look like the photographer took the player out to a golf course with all the trees and unmarked grass.  Those aren't baselines, they're cart paths!  At least Altuve has a stadium behind him.

Ooh, big name Yankee on useless reprint set du jour.  Moving on....

A couple more '85s for those inclined to quest for them.  I think Topps was rooting for the Astros in the post season last year.

I didn't notice the "RHYS" in the background until scanning these.  Otherwise, I actually like the look of this series.  These are #4, 5, 12, and 30.  Which lead me to say "There are frikkin' thirty of these things?!!"  Bryce Harper's original Highlights set in 2017 Update was only 20.  Looks like all the guys since then (which I've completely ignored) have had 30.  Geez, these guys only play for like a year, how do they get 30 highlights in that short time?  Hype machine in full throttle, I guess.

Anyway, if you need any of these (and any from the previous post), hit me up.

NOW = Nationals Overall Winners

In what is my first venture into an actual purchase of Topps NOW! product, I got in on the Washington Nationals World Series set.  It showed up today.

They offered four different tiers of the set -

10 base cards* for $25,
the full 20 base cards for $50,
20 base cards and one autograph for $80,
and 20 base cards and all (six?) autographs for $...  Well, that one's not there any more.

Now that I look at them again, the 10 base cards are almost all different photos than the 20-card set.  That's annoying, unless they put out the ad before they finalized the cards.

The autographs consist of:
Scherzer
Soto
Corbin
Suzuki
Robles
Kendrick.

I thought I saw Strasburg on that list earlier, but maybe I'm wrong.

Would love to get Scherzer or Soto for their star power.  I liked Robles all season, and would definitely take Kendrick for what he did in the postseason.  And it's probably Fuji's influence, but Suzuki is hard not to root for either.  So that only means one thing - I'll probably get Corbin.

In the mailer, there is a little yellow card that basically says you only got the base set right now, the auto will come in a later shipment.  This was also in the listing on their website, so they were up front about it.

The set came in a cardboard sleeve and a two-piece deck box.

I laid all the base cards out on my kitchen table for this picture, and of course discovered that it's impossible to take photos of glossy items anywhere in my dang house and not get reflections or shadows.

These are extra glossy, and are made of nice decent stock - as they should be for 40¢ each.  The backs have a cool feature...

Topps logo holograms across the entire surface, a nice deluxe touch.  The back of the first card discusses the Nats facing the Astros and their four road victories.  An appropriate caption for the celebration picture on the front.

Unfortunately, they put that one on all twenty cards in the set.  You don't get individual blurbs for each player.  There is more specialized information on their regular flagship base cards than on these.  Points off for this shortcoming.

But there are some nice features on the fronts...

Cool championship logo in the top corner and a simple name, year and team line with the curly W below.

Good shot of Kendrick celebrating.  Could be his home run off the foul pole, but we can't be sure.

And I have no idea what "Baby Shark" Parra is doing to Rendon in this shot.  It's fitting that he's doing something goofy since he brought the most energy and lightheartedness to the dugout through the season and the Series.

Just have to wait a few months until the autograph shows up.  Keeping my fingers crossed!