Saturday, January 24, 2015

Carboard doesn't grow on a Dollar Tree

I got out some and hit a few stores yesterday.  Nothing too major, but my final stop was at a Dollar Tree.  If you've never been to one, I can't say you're missing a lot, but everything is $1 or less.  I can find some stuff there so I go back whenever I get the chance.  One thing they sell is various cards.  Some are newer Topps or Panini packs for $1 (usually only 5 cards in a pack), but what catches my eye is usually the repacks.  They are packs from the website CardsOne.  They have many cheap deals on their site, but I've never bought from them online.

In total I got 5 packs of cards for $5.  I can't tell if I got my money's worth, so I will show off some of them today.  Most of the packs had 30 cards in them, some had 20.  Mostly baseball, but a few random other sports.


I sorted thes by pack, but I forgot the order in which I opened them.  Oh well.  This pack had an odd mix of baseball.  Not that I needed more '90 Donruss but a Lou Whitaker card is always a win in my book.  The Alex Cintron card was cool to me at first glance.  I thought it was a minor league card.  Then I realized it was for a Major League set.  Horrible design for a MLB set.  The Chris Jones card beside it IS a minor league and looks better.  Its over ten years older too, so that makes the Fleer card that much worse.  The Wade Boggs cardis like a playing card.  Almost like the MLB Showdown cards, but its not the same set.  Not bad to have to my collection, I like him, so as long as I don't start collecting all his cards, this will be a good one to keep.


This was a mixed sport pack so these were the only 3 of the 30 not baseball.  Nothing too outstanding and none I need, but I admit I kind of like the Scott Burrell card.  The football card would look better if he didn't have an exposed gut.  Did I get $1 worth from the pack?  Ehh, I'll call it a draw, nothing I needed, but the Boggs card is cool.


The next pack starts with a SE card of Mark Portugal.  Say what you want about the Collector's Choice sets, but as a kid and even today I like this set.  It was cheap and had a fairly nice design.  I might seek out a few of the cards from the set one day.  EXPOS ALERT! GO CRAZY!  I notice a lot of bloggers like the Expos.  I can't say I'm in love with them, but do wish they were still in Montreal.  I don't recognize the name, but a shiny card has got to be worth something right?  Next to it is another shiny card from the same set.  Jay Bell was a Royals player for a bit, so I like this card.  I want to thin out cards of players on other teams, but this might be an exception.  Beside it is another Jay Bell I might keep.  For now at least, until I get some more of him in a KC uniform.


OOH, some old cards.  Floyd Bannister was also a former Royal, so this is a good one to have.  I'm torn on the design of this set, I may have liked it more if I collected it as a kid.  Next to it is how it was packaged- 3 John Tudor's in a row.  A few months ago this would be a good get, now I am thinning out my Red Sox collection so its not needed.  Though I think I will hold onto one for now at least.  I will say to me despite 3 of the same card, this pack was worth a buck.

A nice Orel Hershiser card to begin with.  With all the subsets and inserts Topps makes today, why can't they make one detailing every game of the World Series.  Shoot highlight every postseason game.  I'd rather see that then the same 4 people in every insert set.  The Bobby Castillo card made me smile because I can't tell if his glove is oversized or not.  It looks like it to me, but it could be the camera angle.  Next is Charlie Hough.  His 22nd year pitching when this card came out, unless you are Jamie Moyer, that's almost unheard of today.

I might keep the Miguel Tejada since he spent a short (very short) time in KC.  I also rooted for Oakland for a few years too, so it won't be a terrible thing to hold on to.  I forgot about the Chrome versions of the Victory cards, I didn't have many, so this was a nice one to see.  It was actually on top, so I decided to get the pack based on that alone.  The last card I never had a card from this set, so I liked it.  It is a nice basic design that I'll have to seek out now.

This also included some basketball cards.


I can't remember if this was the year Latrell choked his coach or not, I might have to look into that.  The Tim Hardaway card isn't bad, I even rooted for the Heat during that time frame.  The Sean Rooks card is... well, I have one now.  I hope not for long, but I don't know anyone interested in basketball cards not containing Lebron or Kobe or Jordan.  I tried selling a small box of them once for $5 on craigslist with no takers.  I only buy singles today.

This pack is worth the $1.  BUT WAIT!  TWO MORE BASKETBALL CARDS! A JORDAN ROO...


If I pulled a Jordan rookie, I would have taken a picture of it then immediately went to a card shop to trade it in or get cash.  Instead I got two cards I will keep.  I have always loved Reggie Miller.  One of the best 30 for 30 films in my opinion is Reggie Miller Vs. The New York Knicks.  Take time to watch it if you never have.  If you remember the games, it makes it so much better.  I have very few Reggie cards, but its Miller Time!  This was possibly my favorite pull of the day.  Next to it is a close second.  Another team I rooted for in the NBA in the 90's was the Charlotte Hornets.  Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning were another two I loved.  This will go into my very small binder of other sports (it also holds NASCAR and wrestling cards).  This pack alone might have been worth the $5 I paid.


Kevin Seitzer will always be a Royal to me.  I've seen a few of his Brewers cards (I used to own a few), but he's always a Royal.  Definitely keeping in my collection.  Next to it is Gene Garber.  I haven't checked to see if I needed it, but since it's the only Royals card I pulled in 5 packs, I'm happy to have it.  Next to it is the Royal Killer- Tori Hunter.  I wanted him to sign with KC just so he wouldn't have to play against us.  It seemed every year for a few years he would play us on Opening Day and somehow find a way to beat us.  The card is really nice though so it deserved to be shown.  I only included David Hulse because the only game I went to as a kid, I got to see him play.  Nothing amazing, I just know I saw him play.  It might have been from the same year.

Another Lou Whitaker card.  I might have this one already, but how sad is it I got more Whitaker cards than I did of the ENTIRE KANSAS CITY ROYALS!  NOOOOOOO!  Not another 1991 Fleer card.  I have nightmares coming tonight.  Next to him is Larry Walker.  I never had this set, but if all the cards had designs like this one, I may chase it down.  That has to be a green screen doesn't it?

Finally is Blas Minor.  His name is Blas! How could I exclude him?  Plus its brownie points for being a 1994 Score card, one of my favorite sets.  Since this pack had a Royals card, and a Seitzer card, I'm happy with the $1 price.



More cards from that pack.  Nice LT card (maybe I shouldn't call him that, Lawrence Taylor might take offense).  I used to keep Willie Randolph cards, but I've moved on from him now.  So the only keeper in this is the Warren Moon card with a cameo by Derrick Thomas.  If I set goals, one would be to add more DT cards to my collection.


Let's blow by the rest of these.  1987 Topps is starting to reach 1991 Fleer levels to me.  I've gotten too many of them in the last year, but some decent ones at least to be included.  On the flip side, I am loving the Flair cards more each time I see them.


Not a bad set.  Don't need doubles though.  I'll keep one Paul Byrd for now since he was a Royal once.  I'll keep one Schilling since I used to collect him.  A bit disappointed those four cards were all in a row.  If that's not bad though- check this out.


4 IN A ROW!  I should glue this together and make a Detroit Tigers clock for someone.  Too bad they weren't Tim Wallach cards I know a guy who collects them.


I liked the 2001 Topps set.  This card was on the top, so I bought the pack hoping to find others, alas, I didn't.  The Stan Jefferson is the first update card I got from that set as a kid, so it does bring back memories.  A few years ago I bought the entire set just for the Greg Maddux rookie, so I don't need another Stan Jefferson card.  Bill Krueger looks scary in this picture, wonder if he has a brother named Freddy.  Bubblegum shots are always fun.  Hey, at least he wasn't spitting tobacco.


The final four I'll show.  Oversized Bowman, blech!  Though Jimmy Key is cool, so I guess its okay.  David Cone will slide into my Royals cards.  A nice addition.  The stickers were a nice touch too.  Finally is Wally Backman, I remember him most from RBI Baseball.


So that was the highlights of $5.  I guess I got my money's worth from it.  It would be nice to pull more early 2000's stuff or late 90's stuff sometimes though.

Thanks for reading and have a great night.

2 comments:

  1. I've opened a few of these Dollar Tree repacks. Good selection for an affordable price.

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  2. We don't have a Dollar Tree around, at least that I'm aware of. I just got a 10 pound box of mixed Basketball cards from Cardsone. It was 6 small boxes inside a bigger box, and I opened one of them yesterday, I only got 12 new cards, and all but one of the cards in the box were from the 1989-90 through 1994-95 seasons. All those seasons combined I think I'm only around 200 missing cards...total, from base sets. As such, I only got 12 new cards. (I have not processed the college cards yet, but some of them are probably new. One of the cards I got was an error, which is nice. It's a miscut card with part of another card. It's much wider due to the error but got beat up because of it. (Actually, most of the cards are beat up).

    I still have 5 boxes to go, but I am not in any rush to go through them. I probably won't do that again, but they do have some other stuff I'm interested in. If I were new to the hobby, it would have been a lot better. I was hoping to get some newer stuff, as my collection kind of tails off between 2005-06 and 2012-13, when I got back into it. I also got 12 copies of one card (1992-93 Hoops Chris Ford, Celtics coach) and I got multiple occurrences of multiple copies of the same card in a row, with 4 in a row being the most out of box #1.

    That is from the year before Sprewell choked Carlesimo. If you've ever listened to Carlesimo it's totally understandable, lol. That's 1996-97 Upper Deck, my favorite UD base set ever. The Hardaway card is from the same set.

    The Fleer Force cards have a tendency to fog up. Very frustrating. I did the box when it was new so I know they have not been mishandled, and they did it anyway. Nice scan, too. They don't generally scan well.

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