Repack Sunday

Another week, another 30-card $1 repack from a dollar store. 

The cover card was this Sam LeCure rookie out of 2010 Topps. This was from right before I came back to collecting and despite being on a division rival, I've never heard of him.

A trio of catchers in gear. Funny how all of these photos could have been used on unlicensed cards aside from a small patch on Tucker Barnhart's sleeve. Amazing the difference a logo makes for a card. The Barnahrt doubles as the newest card in the pack, from 2016.

The oldest card in the pack was this 1981 Donruss Eddie Solomon. A few weeks ago this would have been an amazing pull for me with the Wrigley Ivy in the background. But since then, I received a bunch of Ivy cards from this set from Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop when he was clearing out some old sets. Solomon died in a card accident in 1986.

A pair of Hall of Famers, Carlton Fisk and Greg Maddux. The Upper Deck Black Diamond is a very nice card. Surprised to see something like that in a repack.

Speaking of something I don't in repacks very often, there was a Washington National. When these are filled with a bunch of junk wax, I'm much more likely to get Expos. 

Cliff Johnson and Dan Plesac join Maddux as former Cubs from the pack.

As for actual Cubs, Dave Smith is the only rep. A two-time All-Star with the Astros, Smith passed away after a heart attack in 2008.

Continuing the theme of tragic early deaths in this pack, I was still on my blogging hiatus when Roy Halladay passed away. I have a couple of Ivy cards for him, surprisingly from his Blue Jays days and not his Phillies time that have been in my draft folder for a couple of months now.

12/30 cards I found notable. Not too bad.

Two Random Rynos

In this weekly series, I show off two random Ryne Sandberg cards from my 600+ card PC. One will be from his playing days (pre-1998) and one since his retirement (1998-present).

Back to the randomness.

Playing Days:

The 1997 Score set had 551 cards. Back when there were 28 teams, the Cubs' 18 cards cards was about a card and half below equal allotment. The set had a couple of subsets (before they became separately numbered inserts) and today's Sandberg playing days card comes from the True Grit subset. This one must have been for the star players who didn't fit the Goin' Yard (power hitters) or Rock and Fire (pitchers) subsets. It is 15 cards and made up of guys like Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr, Barry Larkin, and Derek Jeter.

Post Retirement:

In 2013, the Cubs had four different card giveaways featuring Cubs of the past and present (at the time) using Topps designs. This card is from set 3, the only set I've managed to pick up. It has been a couple of years now, but a few more and it might be time to revisit this idea. The Cubs have a whole new cast of characters that have entered their lore with the recent World Series title. As of now, Anothony Rizzo is the only one with a solo card from the set still with the team. Albert Almora and Javier Baez appeared on card #81 as Future Stars with Jorge Soler. Heck, I'd settle for a full team set of the 25 or 40-man roster in any design.

April CSA Show Part 4 - The Rest

I've actually had all of these cards scanned for a while now but my regular weekend series interrupted the posts. This was by far the biggest purchase of the day and it all came from the same table. Get ready for a boatload of scans!

After my initial loop, I gravitated towards this dealer for a couple of reasons. Lots of base singles from recent sets. Lots of inserts from these sets. Cheap "hits" from yesteryear.

As I mentioned previously, the drawback was that there were no prices on the boxes of singles. Were they dime boxes? Quarter boxes? Sold by the pound?

I asked and the guy said, "It depends on the player." Huh.

He saw me pulling Cubs and said, "Bryant's would be $.50, Rizzos a quarter, most others a dime."

Also, the boxes were not in order other than each set was together. It was like the dealer opened boxes and boxes, pulled the inserts and stuffed all the base in a box.

I didn't need any Cubs base cards from Series 1, Heritage, Gypsy Queen or Opening Day from this year though all of those sets were there in spades. I always hesitate going through Donruss. I know I need it, but it is just so unappealing to me.

It drew me in anyway.

I don't know much about it or whether I even ended up with a complete set or not. I'll figure it out eventually.

Mixed in with all that base were these three variations. I don't know whether they were overlooked or if the dealer didn't really care because there were others in the box, too. Had I known which were the base and which were the variations, I probably would have grabbed more.

I turned the corner of the booth and found more boxes, but with stuff from last year.

More stuff I know little about and had no interest in, but picked up anyway. Four cards out of Panini Chronicles. The idea is sound, but I find the execution lacking a bit.

The next boxes over is where I found the "good stuff" hiding.

Topps Fire didn't excite me much either. I get the appeal, just not my thing. But Cubs are Cubs and I found nine base Cubs to add to my stack.

I think the above Wade Davis is the Blue Chip parallel?

And Flame parallels? I think the dealer had as hard a time telling the difference as I did. I probably put base Happ and Banks base cards back thinking I pulled them already with these parallels.

I think this Golden Grabs Anthony Rizzo is the base version but heck if I know. And the Jon Lester is a numbered parallel out of 299. I think that makes it Orange?

This card celebrates a Walk Off win for Kris Bryant and the Cubs and again, I think it is a base version. Because Fire had parallels for everything seemingly.

I only saw one Topps Gallery I needed. The others I had picked up as filler from an online order.

Lots and lots of Gold Label and all kinds of classes. I did a double take every time I pulled a player thinking I had pulled him already, but sure enough, the photo was different and it was a different class. I'm going to have to figure out which ones I still need here. I need to try that photo/scanner app to see if I can get better photos of these. The red streaks my scanner puts on shiny cards annoy me.

I also snagged the Andrew McCutchen for the Ivy Collection as he had not been represented yet. That's probably Gold Label's first appearance as well.

A trio of Topps Inception.

A pair of Topps Museum.

A pair of Tribute.

A quintet of Triple Threads including a numbered Amethyst parallel of El Mago.

This was a box topper out of Heritage? A three-card panel with Kershaw on the back. I guess there's one with Bryant on the back that I have to track down, too.

There were probably another 20 or so cards that I had pulled as trade bait in addition to the above. I handed the dealer my stack and waited for him to tally them up.

While he was doing that, I started looking through the inserts that he had pulled aside. These were marked $5 each. He quoted me $12 on the stack I handed him (what?!?) and said he would add the three above to make an even $20.

I talked to the guy a little bit and he told me about another smaller monthly show in my area as well. I'll definitely be hitting his booth up in the future. To pick up all of these different brands of singles, I probably would have ended up spending $20 just on shipping, let alone the cards themselves!

This table proved to me no matter how prepared I think I am for a card show, there's still so much I don't know. Time to get even more prepared for the July show!