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.

$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.

Fairfield 7th Inning Stretch

I spent the day shopping for Christmas gifts with my wife. While at Target, I knew I wanted some kind of 'repack box,' but wasn't sure what to get. Ultimately, I decided that $14.99 was a better 'risk' than $19.99 (though I have no idea WHY it is I reached such a conclusion), and I put the "7th Inning Stretch" into the shopping cart. Here is what I was promised: One game-used or Autograph card, One Beckett graded card, One sealed boxed set of 20 cards or more, One major manufacturer sealed pack, One rare insert valued at $15 or higher, One authentic rookie card, and One superstar card of Pujols, A-Rod, Jeter $ more! Get it? SEVEN items... 7th Inning... Yeah, exactly.... So what did I get?

An envelope with cards in it (see below), a pack of 2007 Upper Deck Series Two, a 'box' of 1990 K-Mart Baseball Superstars, and a graded card:

The graded card is a Beckett Mint or better 10 2007 Tristar Prospects Plus Jarrod Parker (D-Backs). According to the 2009 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, this card doesn't warrant mentioning. Of course, that is because TriStar is not listed in the book. This will be given away at some point for sure:

In the white envelope, we find four cards. A 2006 UD Star Attractions game-used Tadahito Iguchi (White Sox). This is the "game-used or autograph" card. I am always looking to add to the stack of giveaway prizes for my various exploits, and this will make a nice addition. I also have a 2006 Topps "National Baseball Card Day" Topps David Wright (Mets). I don't know if this is the "rare insert" or the "Superstar card." I also had a 2008 UD Series 2 Matt Tolbert (Twins) rookie card. I presume this is the "authentic rookie card." Rounding out the envelope is a 2005 Fleer Showcase Roberto Clemente (Showcasing History). Maybe this is the "Superstar card" or this card is worth "$15 or higher." Uh, no, the SCoBBC says $1.50 at most:

That leaves the 2007 pack. Inside we find Chris Gomez (Orioles), Jason Schmidt (Dodgers), Jermaine Dye (White Sox), Carlos Silva (Twins), and Alfonso Soriano (Cubs). Boy, I'm glad I didn't play "Tribe or No Tribe" with this pack:

The K-Mart box is sealed. The cards are listed on the back, and there are no Indians to be had there. Well, that means that some lucky winner will walk away with a sealed box of K-Mart cards eventually (man, can I really say KMart cards and lucky in the same breath?).

My advice: Spend the extra five bucks and get a "real" repack box. Or buy a blaster. Or buy supper and a couple packs of cards. Or just eat the $20 with a drink of water. Just don't bother with the "7th Inning Stretch."

2007 Fleer

I'm not sure that A Pack a Day needs another contributor but they were kind enough to let me in so here I am. Some of you may know me from Capewood's Collections or Things Done to Cards. These cards came in a box of packs put out by Vintage Sports Cards, Inc. It contained 16 packs of cards and a separately packed autograph or relic card. So I've got enough fodder for this blog for a few weeks. I'm going to score each pack I open based on a complicated formula involving how many of the cards I didn't have, how many Phillies or Astros were in the pack, how many inserts, etc. I'm not going to explain it any farther than that.

Let's get started. This pack has 10 cards and was priced at $1.59. It says on the front "Pull Two RCs and One Rookie Sensation per pack, on average". The wrapper features Ken Griffey, Jr. on the front. The cards do not have any sort of coating or foil.

#347 Jose Diaz - One of the 2 rookie cards. Jose has two years in the majors, 2006 with the Royals and 2008 with the Rangers and has 7 and 2/3 innings under his belt. He doesn't appear to have played in 2007, even in the minors.

#63 Jose Lopez - 2 Joses in a row.

#163 Nomar Garciaparra - Ok, a player I collect and I didn't have the card.

#350 Dennis Sarfate - My second rookie. Dennis is on his third team in three years (Brewers, Astros, and Orioles). I don't remember any of the 8.3 innings with Houston He even won a game for the Astros.

#269 Aramis Ramirez
#286 Mike Lowell
#5 Ramon Ortiz

One note on the back of these cards. In the upper right is a large number, which at first look, seems to be the card number. No, this is the player's uniform number. The card number is in much smaller print on the upper left.

# 120 Bobby Abreu Fleer Mini Die Cuts - This is a parallel set. The cards are the same as the regular cards except that the white border is cut off.

#RS-BB Boof Bonser Fleer Rookie Sensations - The insert cards are finished like the base cards but the Fleer logo and the name of the insert set is in gold foil. Boof (Boof?) was a 1st round draft pick by the Giants in 2000. After three seasons (including 2008) with the Twins he is 18 and 24 with an ERA of 5.24.
#IZ-KG - Ken Griffey, Jr. - I'm not a set collector. Instead, in a set like this, I like to get a bunch of the base cards and at least one of each of the insert cards. The insert cards were pretty easy to get in this set since there were at least two insert cards in each pack. So I was happy to see this card since I didn't have any of this insert set.

No Phillies, no Astros, no relic or auto cards, but an insert I didn't have and most of the base cards I didn't already have. So this pack rates a score of 14.

2003 Stadium Club Born In The USA Tino Martinez

This was the relic card in the box. I was excited to see this. I've been collecting this insert set since 2003. There are 50 cards in the set. I was under the mistaken idea that each card would represent a different state (50 cards, 50 states) but I was wrong. But I like the set anyway. I alread had 43 of the cards so the odds that this card would be one I didn't have weren't good, but surprise, it is one of the 7 I'm looking for. Cards from this set are fairly common on eBay but I've never seen the 7 I'm looking for. So this was a great bonus card. Nomar's card is another I'm looking for and its' on eBay right now. I'm holding off bidding until it gets a bit closer to the end.

Thanks for looking.

75-Card Loose/Repack Walgreen's

I was at a conference this week in Hot Springs, Ark, and one night I decided to walk next door to the Walgreen's beside the hotel where I was staying. There are two card shops in Hot Springs, but one is more about comics than ball cards and the other was too hard to find in the amount of time I had.

In any case, while traversing the aisles at Walgreens looking for snacks, I came across a loose-card repack of 75 baseball cards for $3.99, or maybe $2.99. Either way, I figured it would make for interesting fodder for Pack-a-Day.

There were a TON of 1987 Topps cards, and a pretty healthy selection of 1986 Topps.. Perhaps "healthy" is the wrong word. Most of the cards proved to be 'healthy' in the sense that there were a lot of the same brand/year, and not in the sense that they were GOOD for the average collector. Having said thatm though, there were a few gems in the package... Was it worth the money spent? Does it matter?


2006 National Pastime National Baseball Card Day - Nomar Garciaparra - Dodgers
1987 Topps - Tim Stoddard - Yankees
1987 Topps - Steve Bedrosian - Phillies
1989 Topps - Andy McGaffigan - Expos
1992 Bowman - Brook Fordyce - Mets
1990 Fleer - Jaime Navarro - Brewers
1983 Topps - Paul Splittorff - Royals
1987 Topps - Luis Quinones - Giants
1987 Topps - Mike Bielecki - Pirates
1987 Topps - Ruppert Jones - Angels
1987 Topps - Kirk Gibson - Tigers
1987 Topps - Danny Gladden - Giants
1987 Topps - Dennis Boyd - Red Sox
1987 Topps - Henry Cotto - Yankees
1987 Topps - Atlee Hammaker - Giants
1987 Topps - Gene Garber - Braves
1987 Topps - Mike Smithson - Twins
1991 Upper Deck - Manny Lee - Blue Jays
1994 Collector's Choice - Kevin McReynolds - Mets
1990 Upper Deck - Dave Dravecky - Giants
1991 Upper Deck - Paul O'Neill
1993 Topps Team Yankees - Bob Wickman - Yankees (DUH!)
1991 Score - Jerry Kutzler - White Sox
1995 Donruss - Bob Wolcott - Mariners
1991 Score - Troy Afenir - A's
1991 Score - Mike Rochford - Red Sox
1993 Upper Deck - Mark Whiten - Cardinals
1991 Upper Deck - Steve Olin - Indians (TRIBE!)
1989 Topps 1988 All-Star - Darryl Strawberry - Mets
1989 Topps 1988 All-Star - Terry Steinbach - A's
1989 Topps 1988 All-Star - Whitey Herzog - Cardinals
1991 Toys-R-Us Rookies - Kent Mercker - Braves
1991 Toys-R-Us Rookies - Randy Tomlin - Pirates
1991 Toys-R-Us Rookies - Brian McRae - Royals
2005 Fleer National Pastime - Magglio Ordonez - White Sox
2004 Fleer InScribed - Randy Johnson - Diamondbacks


1989 Bazooka Shining Star Starter Set - Vince Coleman - Cardinals
1989 Bazooka Shining Star Starter Set - Walt Weiss - A's
1989 Bazooka Shining Star Starter Set - Gregg Jefferies - Mets
1985 Topps - Terry Kennedy - Padres
1985 Topps - Dave Collins - Blue Jays
1989 Donruss - Mike Schooler - Mariners
1989 Donruss - Dennis Rasmussen - Padres
1991 Stadium Club - Lance Dickson - Cubs
1991 Upper Deck - Jeff Russell - Rangers
1992 Upper Deck - Ken Caminiti - Astros
1996 Fleer E-XL - Ken Hill - Rangers
1992 Pinnacle Shades - Chuck Knoblauch - Twins
1987 Topps - Terry Forster - Angels
1992 Upper Deck - Mickey Morandini - Phillies
1994 Upper Deck - Glenn Williams - Braves
1987 Donruss - Darrell Porter - Rangers
1992 Upper Deck - Gary Thurman - Royals
1993 Fleer Ultra - Willie McGee - Giants
1994 Fleer - Norberto Martin - White Sox
1991 Donruss - Mark Lewis - Indians (TRIBE!)
1991 Donruss - Mark Lewis - Indians (TRIBE!) - Wait, TWO of them? Deja Vu...
1986 Topps - Tony Bernazard - Indians (TRIBE!)
1986 Topps - Kevin Gross - Phillies
1988 Topps - Fernando Valenzuela - Dodgers
1986 Topps - Gary Woods - Cubs
1986 Topps - Tim Wallach - Expos
1991 Topps - Lee Guetterman - Yankees
1992 Donruss - Darrin Chapin - Yankees


1991 Score - Brady Anderson - Orioles
1987 Topps - Tony Gwynn - Padres
1987 Topps - Joe Carter - Indians (TRIBE!)
1989 Star - Al Silverstein - Blue Jays
2005 Fleer - Ryan Freel - Reds
2005 Fleer - Tomo Ohka - Nationals
1990 Ames All Stars - George Bell - Blue Jays
1990 Ames All Stars - Kirk Gibson - Dodgers
1990 Star - Tom Marsh - Phillies
1986 Topps - Harry Spilman - Astros
1986 Topps - Joe Nolan - Orioles
1986 Topps - Dan Schatzeder - Expos
1989 Donruss MVP - George Brett - Royals

Repack Box Remorse: Chapter 3

Still trudging through this Wal-Mart $20 special. Here's one I actually kinda liked. Especially the blue refractor. I'm not much for Chromes in general, but the blue looks OK. Here we go, this is a quick one. 55 Travis Hafner - Nice photo for a horizontal. 73 Jeremy Bonderman - This guy sounds like he should play hockey...? GN265 Delmon Young Generation Now - I thought these were a waste in the football set, and still think so with these. They book for way too much IMHO. 212 David Eckstein Blue Refractor - Now that's more like it. Nice looking card. And a guy that plays on pure heart as a bonus. Too bad it's outdated team-wise. These should make decent trade bait at some point at the very least. I would never buy these at retail by themselves. Four cards for what, three bucks? I'll pass and get 'em on the secondary market if I ever wanted them.

Repack Box Remorse: Chapter 2

Here's one of the more modern inclusions in that $20 repack box I was suckered into bought. 2005 Fleer Patchworks is another example of those star sets which are designed for the memorabilia versions. And that makes the base cards only an afterthought. They look to me to be the forefathers of this year's Spectrum set, with the swooping color backgrounds. The little ball logo in the lower center marks where the swatch should be. Some of the player photos look like they're chasing that little ball. It's a sort of subliminal hint that this set is chasing respectability. I guess it never caught it, because the company is now officially gone. Too bad, I kinda liked Fleer. They were the evolutionary bridge between Topps basic colors & retro styles and Upper Deck's more sophisticated graphic themes. Let's see who we have:

20 Jack Wilson - Sounds like Hack, but doesn't quite hit like him...

44 Richie Sexson - Hey, careful, it's a family show...

25 Alfonso Soriano - Didn't really know him until he came to the Nats

13 Jose Vidro - Neither did Jose...

8 Frank "Big Hurt" Thomas - Hope he's not done.

Repack Box Remorse: Chapter 1

Was looking at blaster boxes at my local Wal-Mart (one of two in the area) and couldn't find any Upper Deck or Heritage, so to fill my hankerin' for some rectangular cardboard, I picked up a box of 16 mixed packs for $19.95 plus a Bonus Item. Bonus Items could be keychains, wristbands, cards or other odd items. After reading about so many of these repack boxes turning out to be worthless, I should have turned and run out the door. But no, a pack of 2005 UD All-Star Classics was looking back at me. This is a set I have been curious about since I saw this post. There were a couple other moderately interesting packs showing in the other three windows, so I got it.

Needless to say, the rest of what was inside was rather disappointing. I am not going to post everything at once, but will show them in subsequent posts. As an intro, here is the first one, a Tristar Uncover The Babe pack. I stole the wrapper image from --David.

Inside I got these:

1984 Steve Carlton - OK, HOF pitcher, semi-vintage card...
1984 Garry Templeton - Some corner damage. Makes you wonder where they get these.
1986 Jerry Hairston
1987 John Moses - who?
1990 Leaf Dante Bichette
and the last card shown is the Bonus Item - Royal Rookies auto of Pirates prospect Aron Weston.

At least it wasn't a wristband.