9-15 card show report: pack busted

I hit up my usual card show location in Taylor this afternoon since I had a bit of breathing room in my monthly budget and hadn't gone to a show for a bit.  Although I ended up spending under my average--around $64 today--I still ended up doing pretty well.  You can see the rest of my haul over on TMM this evening, and this post won't include a bunch of cheap but very useful trade bait cards headed elsewhere, but here's what I scored today:

Am I dumb for dropping $28 on these three packs?  I'd wanted to try the RA hockey pack ($9) since it has a couple Michigan guys I'm chasing and looks pretty good regardless.  Score '13 football jumbo ($9) was a repeat from last time, but my pack then was so good that I thought I'd give it another whirl, plus I'm still working on the set.  And although I remain annoyed with Topps and their anti-collector ways, I was curious enough about the '13 Topps set to grab a jumbo of that ($10) as well, hoping to find Denard Robinson, not to mention a hit.  Here's how I did with each:

RA proved to be the best of the trio:  not only did I pull Wolverine Max Pacioretty, I also landed a nice #d rookie and an autograph.  The two goalies will be heading north of the border in a trade, but if any Nash fans would like his base card I'll be happy to send that out.  The autograph is of the Sharks' John McCarthy, a Boston U alum.  Since he played college hockey he's ok in my book.  That's also available for trade for now, though I might try to sell it elsewhere before long.

This time I got nothing exciting in my Score jumbo pack, but I did knock eight more cards off the wantlist, so that was a positive development.  Two of them were even Calvin Johnsons, and regardless of my shunning of the Lions I'm happy to get anything of his I can.

I also landed five more Rookies, none of which I needed, (so they're up for grabs for you guys building sets, and as a reminder I still have a decent amount of base left!) and a couple uninteresting inserts:

Having seen the baseball edition of 2013 Topps, I pretty much knew what to expect from the football edition.  I pulled nine RCs (none of guys I wanted!) and thought I'd show those off:

I also ended up with seven inserts, only two of which appealed to me:  the Gold parallel (as usual) and the Mini, which continues to be fun.  I don't know if I'm going to chase this set, but for now, everything from the pack (included the base not scanned) is available.

Just because I spent most of my money on trade bait, packs, and Michigan PC stuff doesn't mean I didn't buy a couple Detroit cards, though!  A guy from whom I scored some trade bait had some interesting stuff for $1, $2, and $5, and from those I managed to find a Red Wing and Tiger to bring home:

Ray Sheppard 2012-13 ITG Motown Madness auto

I never have been able to explain why Sheppard was one of my favorite Wings, but it probably has something to do with the classic Sega NHL games (especially '93-'95) my brother and I would play for hours on end.  This is my first card from Motown Madness, which sounded like a fun idea as soon as I heard about it.  The guy had a pile of autographs from the set for just $2 each and Ray was the only one I found interesting, but I look forward to finding more.

Alan Trammell 2002 Stadium Club World Champion Relics bat

I usually don't like spending this much on relics at this stage of the game, but I had no problem throwing down $5 for this Trammell bat celebrating the '84 World Series win.  After all, he was the Series MVP, hitting .450 (9-for-20) with two HR and six RBI.  I have to say that Topps came up with some cool relic ideas back when they were the flavor of the month, and these further highlight the hole the company left when they ditched Stadium Club in favor of the crap we get today.  Anyway, I now own four Tram bat relics to go with a pair of autographs, and this one moves to the top of the relic heap.

Not bad, not bad at all.  Please head over to TMM for the rest of the day's recap.  As for this here blog, stay tuned for some more trade postin' and other features whenever I get around to them!