Repack Box Remorse - Volume 3

Aargh, not again!

A collector friend who buys so much retail he should own stock in the store recommended the $20 Championship repack boxes to me.  So the last time I was in my local Wal-Mart, there wasn't much of anything else interesting, so I caved and got one. 

The Box

When I got it home, I expected the concealed innards to contain packs of ubiquitous junk wax to contrast the newer stuff that was mounted in the windows. 

The visible packs

What I found was an even worse abomination than just junk wax.  Inside were several "bundles" of junk wax cards that had apparently been created by a previous buyer* who must have returned the box to the store.  They were five card groups of 1987 Topps, 1989 Donruss, 1990 Donruss, 1990 Fleer, 1991 Topps, 1991 Upper Deck, and 1995 Fleer sealed in what looks like penny sleeves closed with a shrink wrap heat sealer.

The inside "wrappers"

I thought it was just a cheesy way to repack old cards.  My friend says that these boxes are usually all more recent packs, so I knew I got screwed.   To make matters worse, I got DUPES in the bundles and a couple of the packs.  The OPC Premier pack only had five cards in it.

Dupes from bundles (top row) and real packs (bottom row)

Needless to say, this tarnishes my desire to ever buy any more repacks, especially from that store.  I'll have to check if their shrink wrap has logos on it normally.  This box was one of only two left along with one football box.  No use trying to return it now, since I opened everything.  More trade fodder at best....



* [Sensitive readers go back to the text now] Previous buyer = fucking douchebag.

2008 Topps Opening Day

Keeping this blog alive with another freebie insert I got with a trade. Can't complain about the star content of this pack. Gold foil lettering scans as black. These are very red....

Wrapped in this...

First up, Mr. No-Hitter...


Then Dice K. The red works OK for this one...

Next up, Johan Santana. Three horizontals in a row!..


Now Michael Young. He seems to be the guy I get in every couple packs...


Home town hero Brian Roberts...


And last, former Yankee, now Angel watching from home, Bobby Abreu...


Not a bad lineup even if this set is just the big names. They could package M&Ms on the team letters, like poke through pill packaging.

These are still very red....

2008 SP Rookie Edition football

Stopped by Target yesterday (on company time....sssssh!) and picked up a blaster of these. I had been to my local shop last weekend and had seen some of the base cards to this set in a monster box I was digging through. So I figured I'd try a blaster to see how much I liked them.

It's a nice looking set, but they repeated the "rookies in retro designs" concept from UD Timeline baseball. Blaster contained seven packs of six cards and a clear cello pack of six Legends (also in foil retro designs). Got my Bo Jackson for my player collection at least. The base cards are all horizontally oriented photos with the name, position and team info at 90° across one end (or the top depending on your point of view). In about half the packs, the first card had a bashed or layered corner.

For your enjoyment, the packaging and the best pack....

The box panel:


and the uncrumpled wrapper:

The base cards:

#92 Anquan Boldin - will he or won't he be traded?

#42 Derrick Johnson - not Brooks (formerly of Tampa) or Thomas (passed away 2000)

#64 Brian Urlacher - Kinda overrated, at least when I've seen him.

#77 Roddy White (back of card) - Teamed with Matt Ryan, did pretty well for the Falcons (and my fantasy team).

The Rookies:

#109 Jake Long (left) and #116 Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (right). Long is Howie's son, and Dom wins the Jarrod Saltalamacchia Nameplate Stitcher's Wristcramp award (NFL version). These cards are the "New SP design". Gold foil didn't scan so well.

Inserts and Legends appear in the 1993, '94, '95, and '96 SP designs.

Jury's still out on building this set. Even that will probably be only the base cards, since I'm a contrarian and don't care about rookies that much. But the horizontal design almost commits you to storing these in the eight pocket sheets (that they'll fall out of), but since the other info is at a right angle, it makes them a little awkward to really view as a whole. Maybe I'll browse EvilBay for a cheap base lot....

2009 Topps replacement packs

Continuing on the theme of jacked up 2009 Topps packs, I bought a blaster of the Wal-Mart black variations a couple weeks ago and found that they came up a little short. The box only contained nine regular packs and the Commemorative patch card. And the last two packs didn't have a total of eight cards in them. After I seperated the ToppsTown and the Attax cards, there were only four or five cards left. Another pack had a damaged card in it. The patch card was nice, a Ted Williams, but the box was a disappointment.

So I went on to the Topps site, (which is worth a whole seperate rant post elsewhere, but I digress...) and finally found their Customer Service page that said where to write to and what to send them in case of problems. I packed up the wrappers, the box flaps, my receipt (they take copies), the damaged card, and a letter explaining what I had found. I sent it off on the 15th of March.

Around the 24th or so, I got a white puffy envelope with a letter and a bundle inside:

The letter was dated the 19th and thanked me for purchasing their product. It listed several bullet items of information about sending cards for replacement.

Inside the bundle was two packs and a replacement for the damaged card in a toploader.


They were shielded on the outside with what looks to be the raw stock for Masterpieces cards. Pure white textured canvas panels, somewhat oversized. All of this was scotch taped together.


I had already traded for a replacement for the damaged card. So I opened the packs, hoping for a majority of singles I didn't already have. I got a CC and a Halladay among the base cards, and a gold parallel, plus Chipper and Josh Hamilton ToppsTowns. Not spectacular, but it'll do. I ended up with four cards that I needed for my set.


I was most impressed by the turnaround time. Topps Customer Relations may officially award themselves one bonus point for this case. They messed up a box, but made it right in a timely manner. This is the first time I've sent something back like this. I hope the future occasions are rare, and they all go like this one...

$6 Wal-Mart repack box - 2007 UD Masterpieces

Second pack from the Wal-Mart special. These came out of the pack in good condtion. I know these get a lot of screen time online, but this pack was an interesting mix to me. It's the New York pack!

#1 - Babe Ruth, Yankees. King of the Bronx Bombers.

#26 - Sandy Koufax, Dodgers. Brooklyn's Ace.

#11 Bucky Dent - Yankees. Newer Yank meeting a bigger crowd at the plate, like his counterpart above.

#40 - Mike Piazza, Dodgers. OK, technically not a New York card. But it's really a 2007 card of a Padre in a Dodger uniform who was a Met most of his career. Call it 6 degrees of NewYorkdom.

Fagetaboutit....

$6 Wal-Mart repack box - 2004 UD Diamond Coll.

Went into Wal-Mart for some supplies and stopped by the card aisle (well, ya can't just go in there and walk by it now, can you?). The only thing that appealed was this three pack rewrap box hanging on a peg hook. It had these UD Diamond Collections pasted on the back of a 2007 Topps Opening Day and a 2006 UD Masterpieces. Although heavily covered, the Masterpieces pack was an interesting mix too and will probably show up here in a few days. (Especially since there seems to be a drought of APAD posts lately.)

59 Jason Giambi - These would be nice cards if they hadn't been beaten up when the pack was turned and glued to the back of the others and sealed in the box. They're all a little wavy and this one took the worst of it. It ended up with roller marks and a couple angled notches in the side.

64 Bobby Abreu - (pre-Yankees). The last name above the "Diamond Collection" gets lost in these, I think. This one's nice with the red and bronze.

92 Colby Miller Freshman Class - Hasn't made it past AA ball yet. Spent 2008 with Marlins affiliates.

FG-IS Kaz Ishii GU - Imagine that! A jersey in a $6 repack retail box. A dinky little swatch, but nice looking card....

43 Hideo Nomo - Started with Dodgers, then went through four teams in four seasons until ending up back in LA.

77 Ichiro - Ichiro completes the "base cards of players whose names end in vowels" subset of this pack.

AS-HB Hank Blalock game card - I never know whether these are keeper cards or not. Usually I keep 'em and they stay in the dupe box forever.

Another nice design from Upper Deck. Too bad the Wal-Martization process beat 'em up so bad.

1990 Michigan State Spartans All Time Greats

Between the Bipped boxes, the boatload of '94 Pacific, and these, I feel like I'm becoming the Duke of Bad Wax on this blog (chemgod is the king, of course).
For your viewing (or cringing) pleasure, here is a pack from one of two boxes I got from a friend. He paid $2 a box. 200 card set with eight cards to a pack. The wrapper is that stretchy plastic that you should almost cut instead of rip. Notable athletes include, Magic Johnson, Steve Garvey, Kirk Gibson, Rod Brind'Amour, Joe DeLamielleure, Gene Washington, Ron Saul, Eric Allen, Earl Morrall, Ron Perranoski, Bubba Smith, Morten Andersen, Sam Vincent and Billy Joe DuPree. Set includes all four sports, coaches, and combo cards. Still doesn't make it that collectible, even if you live in Michigan....

First, the box:


Now the pack:

Most packs consist of two-, three-, or four-card runs of consecutive numbers.

148 Sam Vincent (basketball) - Boston's first round pick (20th overall) in the 1985 NBA draft.

147 Dan McFall (hockey) - Had most goals by a defenseman in a season, 1983-84.

146 Ron Mason (hockey) - Coach who was entering his 12th season that year. Second winningest coach in NCAA history at that point.

145 Kelly Miller (hockey) - Taken in the 9th round of the NHL draft by the Rangers. Starred as a Washington capital.

11 Brad Van Pelt (football) - Five time Pro Bowler for the New York football Giants from 1976 to 1980.

12 Andre Rison (football) - Five time Pro Bowler (1 First team), drafted 22nd overall in 1989. Played for Falcons and Chiefs among others in 11 year career.

30 LeRoy Bolden (football) - Led MSU in rushing and scoring in 1953 and scoring in '54. Played two seasons with the Cleveland Browns, primarily as a kick returner.

29 Bill Simpson (football) - Free safety with the Buffalo bills for eight years.

Some other notable cards from the set:

Bubba is just a badass. Can you picture Garvey on the Rams and Gibson on the Lions?

Marble Mediocrity - 1994 Pacific

This is one of the repeating series that I keep seeing as I open 432 packs of this stuff. I went in on a case auction with a friend. Well, all I can say is it was on sale.


This pack isn't bad for the HOFer and star content. And if they don't stick together too bad, it isn't a bad pack. Let's rip it...

311 Orel Hershiser
339 Troy O'Leary
250 Gary Sheffield
371 Dave Winfield
384 Mike Lansing
397 Jeremy Burnitz
470 Jim Abbott
259 Craig Biggio
284 David Cone
323 Tim Wallach
348 Robin Yount
234 Alex Arias

I like Pacific, they're a little different than the rest. This set is a decent design. I like the backs with the portrait photo and the stats & logo under the ripped edge. The one thing I think needed work is the font used for the names. And some of the color combinations are hard to read. But I guess after opening as many packs as I have, anything would be hard to read....

Repack Box Remorse: Volume 2 - Stealth Edition

Stopped by my local K-Mart today on the way home to see if I could snag some Topps or UD series 2 blasters without diverting my route to Wal-Mart. Was pleased to see that they too have a card section, although it looked a little more neglected than at the other place. No series 2's in sight, but they did have a few leftover UD Super Star pack boxes. I am still trying to get the last couple of these bronze special editions, so I snagged one of those and an '08 Heritage seven-pack-plus-one. Turns out the bonus pack in the Heritage blasters from here is just four more cards. But that's for another possible post.

So I tear the (clear) shrink wrap off the Upper Deck box. Everything is fine so far....
Then I pulled out the block of cards - also shrink wrapped - still looks normal....

The block was bookended with two ad cards for using Starquest cards to earn prizes. I didn't remember the other SStar packs being like this, and for a minute I thought I got two of the inserts, but figured out that these were only ads. OK, a little weird, but not a problem. Until I looked at the cards in between....

A big stack of Upper Deck cards FROM 1994!! And a very repetitious stack at that! Every ten cards is a set of dupes or triples. Someone had to have reloaded this thing and taken it back. The bastards! Well at least the Super Star pack looks sealed....

Tore into it and....

WAAAAAHH! More Bips!

Needless to say, I'm headed back to the returns desk and now have to convince them that these are the wrong cards and that I didn't switch them.
If pack searchers deserve a good beating, then this qualifies the perpetrators for a bullethole.

UPDATE: The store took the box right back, and I checked out the other three that were left. Only one still had shrink wrap with the UD logo, so I took that one and gave the others to the girl at the service desk. I doubt they do anything unless one of the managers knows cards...