2016 Topps Allen & Ginter Retail

Repack box pack time.

Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom:
141 Colin Rea

144 Matt Holliday
BL-11 Ted Williams Baseball Legends

142 Jake Arrieta Mini

310 Patrick Corbin (SP)

196 Josh Reddick

A short print, a full-size insert, and a mini. Not bad for my first pack of this stuff from last year.

2008 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects

I think this is the last of my old cheapie packs.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
BDP12 Chris Carter
BDP27 Evan Longoria

BDPP92 Jake Arrieta
BDPP82 Wellington Castillo
BDPP83 Mat Camel Chrome

BDP16 Nick Evans Chrome Refractor

BDP21 Micah Hoffpauir Gold


That was a pack with a little bit of everything, ain'a? A Gamel I didn't have yet, a refractor, and a superstar. I still like the '07 iteration of this product a little more, but this wasn't too shabby.

2009 Upper Deck Icons (Retail)

Another one of those packs that's been sitting around for almost four years.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
36 Edinson Volquez (Camo is not a good look for the Cincinnati Reds organization.)

99 Vernon Wells

1630 20th Anniversary Retrospective New England Patriots (Every time I clicked on Yahoo to check my email this week, there was a headline suggesting that I feel sorry for Tom Brady, Wes Welker, whoever will be replacing Wes Welker, and anyone living within 500 miles of Boston. What's up with that?)

97 Tim Lincecum

7 Alfonso Soriano

Grade: B-

2007 Upper Deck Series 1 Retail

First pack of the new year, a Target cheapie that had been lying around for some time.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
89 Neal Cotts

269 Tim Hudson
76 Jon Lester
217 Tyler Walker

360 Rickie Weeks

422 Geoff Blum
345 Nomar Garciaparra
CRTG38 Cal Ripken, Jr. / Tony Gwynn Heading to the Hall

Seven base cards.
Three guys with the same team in 2012: Hudson, Lester, Weeks
One playing with a different team in 2012: Blum
Three no longer in MLB: Cotts, Walker, Garciaparra

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 Stadium Club Retail

So... Target hit the secret number in my head that would get me to buy any more of this garbage. It's still overpriced by about a buck-and-a-half.

The fronts of the wrappers make a clear promise: "ONE ROOKIE CARD INSIDE!" I got four. Well, which one is it guys? With all these youngsters, let's check and see how many on the same team's roster for 2010.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
127 Blake DeWitt
Status: Starting second baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers

46 Fausto Carmona
Status: Starting pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, currently 4-1

148 Chris Perez
Status: Relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians

103 Nick Adenhart
Status: Sadly, deceased

117 Hernan Iribarren
Status: Playing for AAA Oklahoma City RedHawks (Texas)

Well, two out of five ain't bad.

Now, off to file these away in my impossible-to-complete drawer. Sigh.

2009 Bowman Retail

I guess I was just trying to be different when I picked up this pack. Everyone is either still talking about O-Pee-Chee (which I refuse to buy) or Allen & Ginter (which I would practically rob your mother for if given the opportunity), and somewhere in between fell a set like this. Anyway, there was no good reason for me shelling out $2.99 for this pack, but I did it anyway. Enjoy.

69 - Daisuke Matsuzaka (He's been pretty terrible this year, which is kind of surprising. I think he ended up on the DL.)

190 - Kosuke Fukudome

58 - James Shields (The enormous space for the autographs really ruins what is almost a pretty solid card design.)

BP45 - Wilson Ramos - Prospect

BW4 - Michel Enriquez - WBC (Apparently he was a member of Team Cuba)

173 - A.J. Pierzynski Gold (The requisite one-per-pack gold parallel.)

BCW7 - Gift Ngoepe WBC Chrome (There are two promised Chrome cards per pack, and both of mine in this pack happened to be WBC players that I've never heard of. I chose to single out this guy because his first name is Gift.)

BCW18 - Tao Bu WBC Chrome (Yeah, I know. I first read his name outloud as Tae Bo. You did it, too. Don't pretend like you didn't.)

108 - Jermaine Dye

212 - Fernando Perez (RC)

Bowman packs have always intrigued me, for some reason. I like the variety of cards you can get, but I think the sort of unfocused nature of this set (I got 5 base cards out of a 10 card pack, for example) makes it a difficult sell to the average person. I might buy another pack or two down the road. I could certainly think of worse things to spend cash on.

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.