Repack Bang or Bust #6

Today's edition of Repack Bang or Bust is, unfortunately a total bust. This was an 11-pack box from MJ Holdings I got at Walmart a few weeks ago. The box brags "Including one hobby pack in every box". 4 of the 11 packs were this.

2012 Triple Play. 

This was just an awful set. I did pull one of the generic relic cards but that hardly makes up for the 28 of the 72 cards this product represented in this box.

As I said, I don't like this set. The original Triple Play in the early 1990s was aimed at kids. I imagine that kids have even less interest in baseball cards today than they did then. And cards like this don't seem like they would draw kids back into the hobby.

Both of these examples would likely cause nightmares in impressionable youngsters. Especially the Strasburg card.

2007 Upper Deck Series 2

I guess Upper Deck was on its last legs in 2007. This dull offering was their flagship set.

Half of the 8 cards were of the horizontal orientation which I think looks worse than the vertical. I'd have been happy to have this pack when it was new, as 3 of the cards were Astros. But by now I already have those cards.

2015 Panini USA Stars & Stripes

It's always interesting to pull from a repack something I've never seen before.

Not a bad looking set. 150 cards of college baseball players. Some of the players I pulled have been drafted by major league teams, although Ober apparently hasn't. Two design problems. The large Stars & Stripes logo on the front makes it look like the player is straddling the logo on many of the cards I got. And why would you design a card back to have a large color photo just to repeat the front photo? As long as I collect cards I don't think I'll ever understand that.

This is a 150-card insert set featuring the same players, in the same order, as the base set, but with a different photograph. The card has the look and feel of Topps Chrome. 

2016 Babe Ruth Collection

I never saw this set live but it's been showing up in repacks since last summer. I've got about half of the 80-cards set now. There were two 5-card packs included in this box but there was only one I didn't have.

There were also two packs of this.

I opened them, looked at them and threw them away.

So, there turned out to be 27 cards of the 72 that I needed (needed being a very relative term when speaking of 2012 Triple Play). I usually like a repack to be around 50% productive to be satisfied. 

My 2016 Collecting Year in Review

I went into 2016 with a plan to buy fewer cards over all while focusing more on Phillies and Astros cards (current and past). I think I was successful. I purchased 2,876 cards in 2016, about a thousand fewer than in 2015. Of those, 530 were Phillies cards and 162 were Astros. 1,888 were 2016 cards so about one thousand cards were from prior years. Most of them were from repacks, although I did make some dents in prior years Phillies want lists. This is the oldest card I bought:

1952 Topps #149

I got it for $2 at a card show in February. It's one of ten oldest cards I own.

Here are some other interesting cards that I haven't featured in prior posts this year.

1962 Topps #135

I got this for $3.50 at the same card show as above. It's the oldest Babe Ruth card I have although still nowhere as old as during his career.

1985 Renata Galasso Pete Rose #40

That February card show also yielded 3 cards from this set. I consider this a big find.

1990 Topps Tiffany #479

Topps Tiffany cards weren't easy to get back in the day, and are still rare. This is the first one from 1990 that I've seen. I pulled it from a repack in November.

1990 Upper Deck Comic Ball #398

Upper Deck produced these Comic Ball cards, featuring Warner Bros. cartoon characters from 1990-1992. I don't remember seeing them for sale. I had cards from the other 2 years but this is the first one from 1990. All of them have come from repacks.

1991 Topps Stand-Ups #12

The weirdest thing I bought this year. I got it from eBay in February. From the scan it looked like a die-cut card. There was little information in the listing. It is a plastic container of candy. It has a sliding door on the bottom to get the candy out but someone had glued it shut. 25 year-old candy was not that tempting.

1992 Donruss Rookies #69

I got this 132-card set in March, mainly to get the 5 Phillies cards in it. It's a nice looking set but it must have been a poor year for rookies. Besides Pedro Martinez, the only other big rookie was Manny Ramirez (which I already had).

1992 O-Pee-Chee #244

1992 Topps Gold Winner #244

I bought the complete Phillies team cards for each of these sets on eBay, filling some big holes in my Phillies want lists.

2016 Donruss Promising Pros Materials 

I'm not a big fan of modern Donruss but Nola is supposed to be a big part of the Phillies future and this is a nice looking relic card.

2016 Panini Diamond Kings Rookie Signatures Bronze

But I did like Panani's Diamond King set. I got this on eBay. It's the most expensive single card I bought this year.

2016 Grandstand Reading Fightin' Phils #24

I also bought a couple of 2016 Phillies minor league sets. Does the front design look familiar to you?

2016 Topps Opening Day Printing Plate #159

I managed to pull a printing plate out of a retail pack of Topps Opening Day.

My 400th Mike Schmidt Card

My regular readers (you know who you are) should know that Mike Schmidt is my favorite player. I reached a minor threshold with my 400th Schmidt card. I don't have nearly that many cards of any other player. I've actually had this card since May but am only getting around now to scanning it.

The bad news is that the number of Mike Schmidt cards dropped dramatically in 2016. According to tradingcarddb.com, there were 204 Mike Schmidt cards last year, if you count base cards, inserts and parallel cards. This year there are only 19. And all but one of them are various Panini releases and parallels. The only non-Panini card this year is a Topps Tier One relic, serial numbered to 1. Fat chance I'll ever see that.

Anyway, here's my 400th Mike Schmidt card.

Panini Diamond Kings Heritage Collection

The Worst Relic Card Ever!

I've been working my way through various repack boxes I bought over the summer. In one box I came upon a pack of 2012 Panini Triple Play. This was the first year for this revived brand name. I reviewed it here. I can't say I really cared much for it.

I almost didn't open the pack, but, of course, I did. I didn't expect much and wasn't disappointed in the player selection. There were no Phillies, Astros or players I collect. But then there was this.

It's an anonymous baseball jersey snippet. No claims are made for the piece beyond calling it "Authentic". Being authentic doesn't mean it's from a major league player (or any player), or that it was used in a real game (or even attended a real game). My guess they bought a roll of fabric that's used to make jerseys.

And it's not even an insert. The last 6 cards of the 300-card set are these "Real Feel" cards. Each has a piece of baseball equipment on it, like a bat or base.

This set is clearly meant for kids. As I asked in my original review, will kids like this?  It's not hard to find on eBay an actual, game-worn jersey, of a player you care about, for much less than a blaster box of this product.

Players I Collect 2016 - Part 5

Continuing a series of posts of 2016 cards of Players I Collect. The last player was Ricky Henderson. Next up, Ichiro. He was still an active player in 2016, although this is to be his last season. Since he is extremely popular in the hobby, I don't expect to have to wait too many years before post-career cards start. There will probably Ichiro cards next year. I have 218 Ichiro cards in my collection, including 12 from this year.

Perhaps my least favorite, and most pointless, set of the year.

Panini managed to produce one of my least favorite and one of my favorite sets of the year.

The Phillies were so bad last year that I missed this game.

I'm a little disappointed this set doesn't have 3,000 cards in it.

Baseball cards can be so informative. For example, I didn't know that Terry Forster wore the same uniform number as Ichiro.

12 cards is enough for one post. Next up is Bo Jackson.