Fairfield Extreme Value repack

You've probably seen these:

It cost $11.98 before tax. The one I bought actually had 13 packs in it and since 2 of those were 36-card rack-packs, there were quite a few cards inside, 163, to be exact. That works out to about 7 cents/card. Was it worth it? In my opinion, yes. Your results may differ.

When I buy something like this I order the cards into 4 categories:

Category D: Cards I already have and don't want another one of. 40 cards (25%) fell into that category. These go right into the 2013 Summer Clearance Trade bin. So already I'm off to a good start, 75% of the cards are something I didn't toss immediately.

Category C: Cards I don't have but don't really want. These I scan and then toss into the trade bin. There were 90 of these (56%). So really 80% of the cards I'm not going to keep. But these at least got added to my scan collection and I've got a chance to turn the 80% into something I want through trades next summer.

Category B: Cards I don't have but plan to keep. These could be Phillies or Astros or Players I Collect. There could be a few duplicates. 18% (30) fell in this category.

Category A: Cards I don't have but I need for my reference collection. The Holy Grail of cards, in other words. There were 3 of these.

So here's some of the Category A-C cards and what packs they came out of.

1988 Fleer 15-card wax pack. In 1988, they really were wax-packs.  Not too much exciting here except for this.

There's not really anything that exciting about a 1988 Damon Berryhill/Jeff Montgomery card except it's a reference card I needed. There aren't many of these Major League Prospect cards in the set and the only one I had featured a Phillie. I try not to use Phillies cards for reference cards if I can help it. So this card really filled a hole for me.

1989 Fleer two 15-card wax packs. 30, not really exciting cards. But there were a few gems I didn't have.

 All three are Players I Collect. I actually don't have many cards from this set so many of them got added to my scan collection. Watch for them next summer.

2006 Topps 18-card rack-pack. In 2006, Topps was enclosing 3 'vintage' cards in these rack packs. 'Vintage', in this case, meaning, old Topps cards that no one wants. I got 2 1986 and 1 1989 card. As I said nobody wants these. I did pull this insert from the pack, which is a keeper.

2008 Topps 36-card repack. Not my favorite Topps set. Only one real keeper.

There were two inserts, both keepers.

2008 was a Presidential election year and Topps and Upper Deck included a lot of politician cards. There wasn't much (if any) of that this year.

2010 Upper Deck 36-card rack pack. No matter how you slice it, this was not a good set. The color was awful and the poses awkward (to avoid showing team logos without resorting to Photoshop). You may remember that Major League Baseball sued Upper Deck after Series 1 came out forcing UD to cancel Series 2. The basis of the suit? Upper Deck was using MLB logos without a license. Were they? You decide.

I got one of the reference cards from this pack.

I had two of these, one featuring a Phillie, the other an Astro. This card, once again, shows how lazy UD was in the final years. I think this is a nice card but note that Votto hit this home run in Cincinnati. How likely is it he was wearing an away uniform? The perfect card would have a photo of Votto actually hitting the home run described on the card. Does such a photo exist? Are you kidding me? Of course such a photo exists. Second best, Votto hitting a home run (or anything) at home. There were actually two cards from this insert set in the pack. The other one features Magglio Ordonez of the Tigers hitting a home run in Kansas City in a home uniform.

2011 Topps Chrome 4-card pack. I don't buy much Topps Chrome. I got lucky and pulled a refractor rookie card from the pack, although it's of someone I don't know.

2011 Topps Opening Day 7-card pack. I have most of this set but did get one Player I Collect that I didn't have.

2012 Topps Opening Day two 7-card packs. These cards are still on the shelf at the Target where I bought this box so I was surprised to see these. The only card I needed was this Blue variation. I don't know about you but I like these blue-bordered cards.