The Packening: the recap-ening

Thanks once again to the folks who made the time to attend my Packening live stream on Youtube last week!  I had a blast busting somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 retail packs and giving away a ton more.

On that note, I'll start with the giveaway's winners.  That's right, winners plural--just about everyone that showed up got some sort of prize!  Here's who they were and what they got:

Grand prize of 50 packs (equivalent of one order):  Chris of Nachos Grande
10 Dollar Store Topps packs from the Mid 2010s:  Paul of Scribbled Ink
10 junk wax packs:  Chris of The Collector and John of John's Big League Baseball Blog
5 2006 Topps hanger packs:  Fuji of the Chronicles of Fuji

Congrats to each of you and thanks for your support, as well as that of the other guys who hung out for a bit.  It was a great time and I hope to do something streamable in the future since everyone seemed to enjoy it.

And now what many of you are probably here for:  the results.  I'm currently cropping the live video since there's a lot of dead air for the first roughly 12 minutes.  Once that's done I'll likely embed the video here for your viewing pleasure, though if you're like me and prefer to just see the goods, look right below.  For what it's worth I didn't have time to show every single card, and I also skipped showing a good number of the packs because things ended up taking much longer than I had initially planned.

Anyway...

The two biggest hits were a 2007 Ultra Hitting Machines Materials jersey of Jim Thome and a 2014 Topps Update RC of Red Sox star Mookie Betts, easily the most valuable card in the bunch.  I've set aside the jersey for Paul as he's a Thome collector, and I'm keeping the Betts for now as it'll fit in nicely with my RC collection.  I'm just not the type to risk the usual eBay BS to try to cash in on it, and I especially don't get into grading, so I'll happily enjoy a top notch RC!

Next up is three scans' worth of Tigers.  Miggy was the PC guy I pulled the most, though in terms of trade bait he got a run for his money or was beaten by Ichiro and/or Kenji Johjima, a couple guys heading Fuji's way.  The Lineage Stand-Ups and Opening Day Stadium Lights inserts were definitely highlights.

Plenty more familiar faces here.  I filled in some gaps old and newer with some '91 Ultra guys and a trio of Ian Kinsler, including a shiny Heritage parallel.

Early 90s issues of blog favorites Tony Phillips and Mickey Tettleton were sights for my sore eyes (seriously, that was a lot of pack busting!), and I liked adding something new of former Tigers star Max Scherzer.

When it came to PC pulls nobody topped Junior Griffey, even if I only needed the last card in the bunch you see above--his 2015 Topps Archives base.  If only I knew one or more people that also collect Griffey....

Former blog namesake Curtis Granderson came up twice alongside Mr. Padre Tony Gwynn, former Wolverine Barry Larkin, Junior Ripken, and a (RC) of current blog namesake JV.  The Lineage Granderson and Ultra Gwynn were the only newbies here, but again, more trade bait is a good thing.

These last couple scans cover the remaining keepers for me.  Arrieta's card is a RC and might be decent trade bait if he can get its value back up a bit.  Johnson and Robinson are HOFers I was happy to keep.  And the Topps trio of Chipper, including the weird/fun Hot Button game card, will happily slot in with the others I've kept of him.

Last up is this bunch of star players from the Dollar Store Topps packs that, again, represent some good trade bait opportunities, especially when I dig into TCDB more.

Pretty much everything else is going into trade packages or my trade box sorted by team, with the exception of a decent stack of '89 Donruss and a larger one of 2006 Topps.  I figured I'd see if anyone who reads this needs some set-fillers, and eventually those can go on TCDB as well.

I realize this relatively short summary may make you think my return on $100 in retail packs was fairly light, but I think I got my money's worth of fun and trade bait with some bonus cards for myself.  And on that note I'd absolutely recommend picking up a few of these packages from Wal-Mart, with a suggestion of two to four to give you a nice variety and better chance of landing something good.  Fuji already mentioned he had a couple on the way and I hope others do and decide to show them off somehow because they're interesting to check out.

With that out of the way I'll be back to trade posts again next!

20 lbs of retail packs, live NOW

(I'm not kidding about the 20 lbs, either!)

From this...

to this...

to this

live on the screen of your choice!

Hit the Follow button on the right side of your window and then click here to come watch the packstravaganza and enter to win free stuff!  EDIT:  stream is now over, I may upload it at some point after I edit it.  Thanks to all who participated) Saint Matthew of Lesko demands it!

For those of you still here, here's the quick(-ish) breakdown of packs that came with my five 50-pack orders:

1988 Donruss 8
1988 Fleer 2
1988 Fleer (cello) 1
1988 Topps 2
1989 Bowman 1
1989 Donruss 14
1989 Topps 1
1990 Fleer 16
1990 Upper Deck 6
1991 Fleer 1
1991 Score 2
1991 Ultra 12
1991 Upper Deck 2
1992 Upper Deck 1
1993 Fun Pack 1
2006 Bazooka 2
2006 Razor Poker 1
2006 Topps S1&2 (hanger) 6
2006 Topps S1&2 (rack) 11
2006 Topps S2 (Wal-Mart) 1
2006 Topps Update 1
2006 Ultra 1
2006 Ultra (Dollar Store) 1
2006 Upper Deck S2 2
2006 Upper Deck S2 rack 1
2007 Bowman Heritage 5
2007 Topps (6 cards) 1
2007 TriStar Prospects Plus 1
2007 UD Masterpieces 2
2007 Ultra 1
2007 Ultra (Dollar Store) 4
2007 Upper Deck S1 (Dollar Store) 2
2007 Upper Deck S1 rack 1
2007 Upper Deck S2 1
2007 Upper Deck S2 (Dollar Store) 2
2008 Bowman 2
2008 Bowman Chrome 1
2008 Goudey 1
2008 Stadium Club 2
2008 Topps Opening Day 1
2008 Topps S1 6
2008 Upper Deck 1st Edition Update 2
2008 Upper Deck S1 1
2008 Upper Deck S1&2 2
2008 Upper Deck S2 2
2009 Topps A&G 4
2009 Topps S2 (Dollar Store) 1
2010 Topps Update 4
2011 Topps Lineage 5
2011 Topps Opening Day 3
2013 Topps S2 (Dollar Store) 2
2014 Topps S1 (Dollar Store) 7
2014 Topps S2 (Dollar Store) 4
2014 Topps Update (Dollar Store) 9
2015 Topps Archives (Dollar Store) 10
2015 Topps Hot Button 2
2015 Topps S1 (Dollar Store) 10
2015 Topps S2 (Dollar Store) 10
2016 Topps S1 (Dollar Store) 11
2016 Topps S2 (Dollar Store) 6
2017 Topps S1 (Dollar Store) 10
2017 Topps S2 (Dollar Store) 8
2017 Topps Update (Dollar Store) 9

Big fun announcement: streaming a pack break with a contest!

So here's a few things I haven't done in a while that I'll be doing all at once:  busting retail packs, streaming, and hosting a contest.  Here's what's up:  I've been following a thread on Blowout about a deal Wal-Mart's offering online only, 50 packs for $20 (free shipping if you spend $35+).  That's $0.40 per pack, friends. 

The packs you get seem to vary a ton, with some people complaining about low-end, junky stuff, and others getting some nicer more recent packs.  There seems to be a mix of dollar store packs (what's up, Doug?), repacks/blisters, and other random stuff.

Check out that thread to get a better idea of what's coming in these, though I swiped an image for reference:

So what does that have to do with me and you, readers?  Well, I'll tell you!

I've decided to try a few of these for myself, so I ordered four (200 packs worth!) and will be streaming ripping them live when they arrive next week (due on Tuesday, for now).  I'm sure most of what comes out of them will be heading to trade packages, so that should be exciting for many of you aside from just seeing someone open a ton of packs.

BUT, even more exciting...

I bought a FIFTH package of these just for contest purposes, and I'll be straight up giving it away during the stream!  All US residents who are following this here blog will be eligible and I'll random it off at the end of the stream to one lucky viewer.

Sound good?  I hope so!  I'm tentatively planning on doing this at 9pm this coming Tuesday and will try to lock that down when I can confirm.  In the meantime, will interested folks please drop a comment letting me know if that date/time works?  I'd love to get as many people involved as possible.  Tell me what you think!

Four 2015 Upper Deck football value packs

While at Meijer today picking up some other stuff I used some very timely rewards money to buy my first packs in quite a while:  a quartet of 2015 Upper Deck football retail value packs!  As many of you know I did UD's designs and college focus with this set so I was eagerly anticipating this release.  I'm showing these off with less than a week until the draft so it'll be fun to see how the guys I pull do come Thursday through Saturday.

I don't recall the exact price but these were something like $5.69, though I also got 10% off today, which was nice.  You get 32 cards with two of those guaranteed to be Heroes inserts of top-two QBs Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota; each has 10 different cards in their respective sets.  Vets in their college unis comprise #s 1-45 while the non-SPed rookies come in at 46-145.  Two levels of short-prints cover 146-215, followed by hobby and retail photo variations from 216-255.  As usual my main concern is the non-SPed rookies set, though if I can find a cheap 1-45 vets set I'll pick it up.

Here's a look at a base card front and back, both of which are essentially par for UD's course.  The Star Rookie logo's changed a bit throughout the years while the layout's been fairly static; if it works, don't break it!  As usual the photography is excellent and features great college action.

My one veteran pull from the four packs was RB legend Eric Dickerson, shown here with SMU; his card is #36.  My experience is that hobby boxes reverse the retail trend and skew way towards vets with a couple promised rookies; since my focus is on the latter, these retail packs are always the way to go, plus hobby boxes can get really expensive, even when there isn't a player like Winston to chase.

Out of four packs of 32 I ended up with 118 base cards, one of those being the Dickerson above.  From the regular Star Rookies group I pulled 88/100 with 29 doubles.  Those dupes all came in one pack and included a pair of dupe inserts and one new insert, so that tells you how collation goes with these.  I may try one or two more value packs if I find them, but it shouldn't be hard to track down the other 12 I need otherwise, hopefully along with the 1-45 set.

I picked nine of the biggest names to scan, and most of these guys figure to go very early.  As you can see I pulled both Winston and Mariota, and the best player I didn't get was USC's Leonard Williams.  Some of the other top names are unfortunately SPed (along with my Wolverines!) but I'm happy with the 100-card group available to me here.

I couldn't show off cards from this set without devoting some space to the cooler photography I enjoyed!

This is my group of Heroes inserts, coming in at 2:1 as mentioned.  In each case I got one of both players per pack so I'm guessing that's the standard, which is fine.  Because of the pack of dupes I got extras of Winston #5 and Mariota #7.  These are all available for trade though I'm setting aside the Mariotas for Kerry unless told otherwise.

My other two inserts were these purdy A Cut Above die-cuts (1:5 for rookies), both of outstanding players:  WVU WR Kevin White and Indiana RB Tevin Coleman, both of whom should be gone fairly early.  Naturally the White is heading to Morgantown to be reunited with Matt but the Coleman can be had by anyone who asks nicely.

I'm not posting a wantlist just let in case I decide to buy another pack or two, but if I do end up with one you'll see it here.  I'll also make my base doubles available soon to anyone who'd like to trade for them, though as usual I'll set aside cards for some of you based on school affiliation.

And of course this product gets my annual hearty endorsement.  Congrats to UD on another great college-themed set!

2014 Upper Deck football retail fat packs (x5)

Back on Sunday I showed off a break of a box of last year's 2013 Upper Deck football, which I was quite happy with.  Fast forward to today and I have some news that bookends that set.  For one thing, I recently grabbed a few more racks of 2012 UD football that were on sale, and if you'd like to see my wantlist, head right here; I also have lots to trade if you're still working on that set.

Also, while I was out today I used more of my Meijer discount magic to score the last five racks of 2014 UD football in the minuscule card section there.  They were $4.99 a pop for 32 cards, which is pretty standard with them right now.  I'd been looking forward to busting these because of my love for Upper Deck and its gorgeous college-heavy flagship set.  Here's how I did:

Here's what the fronts look like.  I really, really like the design once again this year while at the same time appreciating how it's different from past releases.  The full bleed photos are typical UD A+ quality (more on that in a minute), and I love how they worked in the team colors in the name/team area.  Here I went with four QBs who may or may not go in the first round in a couple weeks; for my part I'm not sold on any of them as quality pros, including "Football Jesus but not an overrated preachy dumbass like Tebow" Johnny Manziel, who may find the transition to the NFL tough!

And here's the back of Bridgewater's card.  Once again, the vets take up #s 1-50 and are hobby exclusives while the non-SPed Star Rookies go from 51-150.  We get a good rundown of career stats and a brief writeup, both of which probably could have been larger if things were thought out better.

In addition to the group of QBs above, I made several custom subsets out of the rest that I like to call:

Super catches!

Players that are excited and/or happy to be here, you guys!

Players that eschew gravity like Matthew Stafford eschews non-stupid throwing motions

Players that just wanna give you a hug, you guys!

WOLVERINES!  Under the lights!

Hmmm...ummm...guy slowly being devoured by several octopi and guy literally carrying a Big Stick!

Those really do look great, don't they?  Speaking of the base set, how'd I do on collation?  Couldn't have been that great, right?  I mean I literally just grabbed the last five racks they had.  Even with upwards of 30 base cards times five packs and a 100-card set, I must need at least a couple to complete the set, naturally.

NOPE!

From these five racks I pulled exactly 100% of the base set, 47 doubles, and just one triple.  That's simply incredible, and my hat's off to UD for this perfect experience.  I'll note what's for trade below in a minute, and rest assured some of these are already set aside for those of you who collect college teams.

Finally, here's my inserts:

The Luck Heroes are Fat Pack exclusives and come two-per-pack.  Out of the set of 10 I pulled eight different ones, with dupes of #s 4 and 9, and was missing only #s 1 and 8.  Meanwhile, the Tomlinson as a '94 UD Tribute insert, which is done in the style of--you guessed it--1994 Upper Deck.

What's for trade?

All of the inserts above, including the dupes of Luck, plus these base cards:

52 55 61 64 66 67 71 76 77 80 81 82 83 84 85 91 92 93 96 97 99 105 106 107 108 116 117 120 121 122 123 126(x2) 127 129 131 135 140 141 142 144 146 150

Overall:

Go grab these if you see them!  I won't promise you'll have the same outstanding collation I did, but you can clearly see the potential is there.  I was happy that many of the better players weren't shuffled off to obscurity in SP land this year as I studiously ignore those.  When prices come down I'm sure the hobby boxes will be a nice deal too, though I said before I'm not quite as high on the Lettermen designs this year.  Anyway, I landed a complete set from retail packs plus some non-terrible inserts and plenty of dupes to trade, all for under $25 before my discounts.  Buy buy buy!

One more Topps Olympic blaster

After grabbing a fun blaster of 2014 Topps Olympic Team and yadda yadda yadda last weekend, I picked up one more at Meijer on Friday for my final February purchase.  I had 15% off, making the price a slightly more reasonable $18.70, and I thought it would be worth taking a stab at completing the set while also scoring more trade bait or stuff to sell.

I'll spoil the fun upfront by saying that the one I picked this time couldn't live up to last week's, though that's not a huge surprise since that one went so well for me.  I also didn't complete the set or pick up anything all that big, but I still enjoyed the break.  Here's how I did:

Inserts:

Eight more Bronze parallels.  I once again pulled that many in seven packs, so, so far so good.  Jones is probably the most well-known here and was a decent pull.

Silvers, Gold, and others.  This time I won the coin flip by pulling four Silvers instead of three.  By the way, that Deneen is a great shot from what was easily one of my favorite events this year!  My one Gold, Geopper, was the Bronze winner in the US sweep of men's slopestyle, which rocked.  The Olympic Heritage card celebrating the 2006 Turin games is my first from that set, while I pulled another "Games" card of Bronze-medalist luger Erin Hamlin.

The hit (just one this time!):

After the auto/three-color relic combo I pulled last time, this was a bit of a letdown for me, but still not terrible since it's not a plain white swatch.  Aaron is apparently quite accomplished in the sport, though hasn't participated in the Olympics.

The base:

Finally, I ended up with 27 new base cards I needed (out of 61, so not bad), putting me just 12 cards short of the set:  1 7 11 17 24 33 47 51 62 74 75 85.

I also now have these doubles to trade (as well as everything else I've pulled):  3 4 8 9 10 15 18 21 26 29 30 39 42 48 49 53 57 58 59 61 65 67 68 69 76 80 82 84 87 90 94 97 100.

If any of you would like to do any trading, please let me know!

2013 Topps Football Value Box

Over Black Friday weekend I took advantage of one of Meijer's infrequent 20% off deals to go along with Saturday's Santa Bucks promotion, which offered more discounts.  I haven't had a ton of luck with retail over my collecting career, and you all know I'm not a huge fan of Topps, but for the price (less than $15 after everything was said and done, original price $21.99), I thought I'd give one of these a try:

That's a very blurry phone picture of a 2013 Topps Football value box.  As it states, you get six packs of 2013 flagship, two hobbies of 2013 Platinum, and three OMG EXCLUSIVE!!!1!1 Refractors.  I'd seen some pretty good stuff come out of these on Blowout, plus I couldn't resist the urge to bust a few packs.

In the end, I didn't land anything all that exciting, but I think I got my $15-worth out of the eight packs and bonus cards:

The Wolverines:  a Chad Henne Jags base, and Brady appearing on the Pats' AFC East title card.  Keepers, obviously.

The inserts from flagship.  Nine from six packs was pretty good, I think, though I rolled my eyes at the Peyton double.  All are available.

From Platinum I pulled a couple base rookies, and these were the insert in each, apparently a thick Sapphire parallel.  Meh.

Finally, here's the EXCLUSIVE Refractors, which do look pretty nice.  I'd hoped to land the Denard Robinson, but at least I got a decent trio, even if it includes QB bust Geno Smith.  Ball just had a nice game against KC, and Lacy's had a pretty good year himself.  Again, all are available, especially if you can flip me the Denard.

Naturally I also have a bunch of Topps base available, so feel free to shoot me wantlists since I'm always happy to help.  Everything else besides the Wolverines is also up for grabs, as stated, and I'll surely be including a nice amount of stuff in future trade packages as well!

11/10 card show report: wait, that's it?!

I made the trip down to Taylor, MI, once again this afternoon for a card show, and if I expected it to be even more disappointing than usual, I wasn't disappointed!  The lack of quantity and quality is just apparent from the moment you walk in.

Still, it wasn't entirely fruitless.  I made two purchases for a ridiculously low total of just $25 (plus a bit more for some top-loaders, which are supplies and don't count towards my card spending).  The second haul can be seen over on TMM this evening; here's what I got for $5 from another dealer:

They're the six 2013 Score rookies I still needed, leaving me just 39 base cards short of the set (not taking into account the contents of a trade package yet to be posted!).  The guy basically quoted me $1 per card I needed, and since he had all six, I snagged them for his $5 price.  On a related note, I tried to package in a 2013 Topps Denard Robinson variation auto, hoping to bundle everything up for $15 or $20.  This guy's older, more clueless partner explained that "It books at $40, so I'm asking $24."  I don't know on what planet that card goes for $40, or even $24, but it sure ain't this one.  I think the highest eBay price I found was $10 or $12, and that was in the minority.  Congratulations, clueless card show seller, you're an idiot.  Anyway, it's great to have that rookie subset completed.

Since I spent so little at the show and had to stop at Meijer, where cards at 20% off this week (as well as around Black Friday again, fellow midwesterners!), I decided I'd finally get back into the retail pack game:

These three 2012 UD Football racks set me back just $9.58 on sale, which I thought was decent considering the number of cards I was getting.  Your highlights:

Up top you have Wolverine David Molk (I think I already have one or two of those) as well as young standout QBs Case Keenum and Russell Wilson.  Next you see four of my guaranteed six (two were dupes) inserts of Tim "Megabusting for Jesus" Tebow.  Finally, I landed a pair of SPs, both '93-style:  one of Arkansas WR Joe Adams and the other of former Oklahoma QB and Heisman-winner Jason White.  SP featured some cool designs back in the day so those are a nice touch.  And of course I love the college unis, which is why I skipped over everything else in the card aisle today.  I may put together the Star Rookie set, you never know!  The inserts and SPs are all available, though, as are any doubles I pulled if you have a wantlist handy.

As I mentioned, please check out TMM for the bulk of today's card show haul.

2013 Score Football rack packs (x4)

I've been searching high and low for 2013 Upper Deck football packs at my various local Meijers, and while I haven't found them yet, I did turn up some racks of 2013 Score today instead.  From what I'd seen get pulled from these, they were worth a flier, so I nabbed four of them for $4.99 each.

Score promises 52 cards in each pack, which appeals to the set-builder in me, though to be fair, a ton of those are rookies.  Here's the pair of Wolverines I picked so I can show off vertical and horizontal fronts:

I like the design again this year (as usual), which actually incorporates foil for the first time in a while--that can be found in the bottom score logo and designs around that part of the card, though it comes up darker in the scans.  I don't love how the name/position/team/logo bars come out when oriented vertically on horizontal cards because they just look dumb, and I also think they take up too much real estate overall, but those nits aside I think Score did well here.

Here's a look at a card back.  Quite a few look like this due to players having been in the league for quite a while, but kudos to Score for getting every year on there.  On cards where space isn't at quite so much of a premium, the card numbers appear in horizontal ovals.

One thing I tend to love about Score is that the way they arrange their sets, and as is standard, teams are grouped and sorted alphabetically, starting with the Cardinals.  This year, they incorporated a few subsets, two of which used to be (lame) inserts:   "Franchise" and "Future Franchise."  "Airmail" shows off top QBs while "Road to the Super Bowl" focuses on last season's champs.  Cards 1-220 are normal base, the Airmails fall 221-252, Road to the Super Bowl 253-266, Franchise 267-298, and Future Franchise 299-330.  Again, I love how these are grouped instead of strewn about the set all willy-nilly (TOPPS).

This year's set features some truly outstanding photography.  Topps usually seems to have some nice enough photos, but these are just crazy good--look at that action!  This is where the horizontal cards especially shine, and shots like those are enough to overcome the terrible layout of the components next to them.

I pulled 13 "regular" rookies, and you see the first nine here.  As is traditional, these are card #s 331-440, making for a huge rookie set.  Every image appears to be a close-up shot of a player in his (airbrushed) college unis, and while the lack of logos is a downer, the throwback to Score's old rookie design is a plus.

I included the back of Fisher's rookie here, plus the other four normal rookies, a pair of Blue parallels, and the two other inserts I pulled, "Hot Rookies."  I don't understand why inserts have the "RC" logo on them, but if someone wants to believe that's what they are, more power to them.  I didn't really care about the relative dearth of inserts here because I appreciate the base set more, and Score's inserts have traditionally been pretty low-end anyway.

Out of my four packs, I pulled 161 base cards of the first 330, plus an additional 13 rookies, for a total of about 40% of the set--not too bad from four racks.  I also ended up with 31 dupes, which isn't awesome, but not quite Topps bad either.  I'm thinking I may grab a few more of these, maybe if I can wait until Meijer has cards 20% off again.  I would like to finish up the set, though I'm sure I'll take my time with the rookies as they surely won't come cheap.  You know I'll want to grab Denard Robinson's soon, though!

Here's a quick summary of what I thought was good and bad:
+ Pros:  GREAT photos, pretty good design, nice backs, solid player selection, very few lame inserts, set grouped by team and subsets, pretty good value.
- Cons:  Horizontal design is weird, bottom/right portion of card takes up too much space, TOO MANY ROOKIES.

The four inserts are available for trades as well as my dupes, some of which will head out in future trade packages.  Don't forget I may have more in the future as well!  If you're working on this set now, though, please feel free to shoot me a wantlist.

While I'm talking about Score, I also picked up some 2008 clearance racks in the last couple of weeks and you can find my current wantlist on the football wantlist page.  I also have a TON of extras from those and would love to trade!