In my pre-blogging days -- a time when I suppose I didn't truly love and appreciate the hobby as much I should have, and as much as I do now -- I came across something interesting at my local card shop.
Underneath the counter that displayed all the current year's blasters and boxes were plain, white 400-count boxes with the word "Baseball" or "Football" scrawled across the box top. The sign that accompanied the drab-looking cardboard bricks read "$5.00: 400 ass't cards plus one auto/relic card."
Trying to play it cool one day, Pre-Blogger Me asked the portly shop owner, "Hey, anything good in these boxes or, you know...?"
His response: "Nah, just stuff for the kids."
And since I was Chrome crazy and only interested in big ticket stuff at that time, I didn't give these boxes another thought. After all, why would I want to waste five bucks on a box full of junk wax?
Well, fast forward to AB (After Blogging) Time, and my whole perspective on the hobby has changed -- for the better, of course. [Ed. Note: Thank you, fellow bloggers. Thank you!] But it wasn't til the past week or so that I actually remembered these boxes. Since they're well below eye level, they don't jump out at you when you are walking about the store.
But, I guess all the great posts and recaps of various pharmacy and box store "repacks" provided by my favorite bloggers jogged my mind. And I haven't stopped thinking about those 400-count boxes and the possibilities that existed within. Shoot, for about the same price as the repacks at Target or Walgreens, I would be getting 4x the cards. And a guaranteed auto or relic card, to boot.
So it was recently that I finally got back to my local card store and got my mitts on one of those grab-boxes. It was a long overdue purchase, but one that I finally made good on.
What I discovered was an array of cards that Pre-Blogger Me and AB Me both would appreciate.
The oldest specimens hailed from the 1980 Topps set while the most recent were from 2011 Topps (flagship and Chrome). In between, however, was just about everything you could've wanted in a repack assortment. Or, at least I thought so. Sure, lots of junk wax, but lots of more recent and interesting stuff, too.
And, besides, I like junk wax, dammit!
I found plenty of cards for my player collections. I pulled a good number of Mets cards -- 23 of them to be exact. And lots of other neat little odds and ends that Pre-Blogger Me probably would've disregarded.
Oh, and the relic or auto card? Well that surprise was kind of ruined, I guess, since you probably already surmised -- and accurately so -- that the Joe Mauer card at the top of the post was my hit. I could've done a whole lot worse than that I think.
Anyhow, I have plenty of fodder for posts over the next few days. I'd like to share some of my finds from the box, naturally. I'm not only excited about the cards that I've added to my collection, but also some that I think would find nice homes in the collections of a few of my blogger pals.
Okay, that's a wrap for now. But, I'll be blogging to ya again soon with some of my new favorites!
MK
No comments:
Post a Comment