Repack Hits and Short Prints

I am an unapologetic fan of the $20 repack box full of unopened packs and one relic or autograph hit of some kind.  It's the same price as a blaster box, but instead of 40 or 50 cards -- or even 24, like those World Cup cards -- you get somewhere around 200 to 250 cards.  Also, since the 100 cards plus an unopened pack for $4 option seems to be drying up at my local Targets, I end up going the more expensive route for a good pack rip.

My luck in these packs lately has been pretty good.  Of course, the packs inside will never have a hit -- all those are searched out well beforehand, whether by Fairfield's intrepid packers or the dealers from which Fairfield is buying.  Perhaps that is why these packs seem to be filled with short prints -- those come in packs that don't have relics, after all.

Since these have relics, let's look at the four that I have gotten in the various repacks I have bought recently:

None of them are relics that I want to keep, certainly -- two Yankees, a Red Sox player, and a Cub do not tickle my fancy.  They are all available if someone wants them.  If no one wants the Byrd, I'll probably add it to the View from the Skybox's A&G Relics Exchange.

To be fair, the relics are okay.  I'm not overwhelmed by them, certainly. Yet, these packs I get seem to have a lot of short prints, as I said above.  Let's start with 2013 Heritage Short Prints:

Trout black border

I think the scanner caused the trivia question to be exposed.

Cishek Venezuelan back

Billy Butler Refractor

Not too bad.  I think the Trout is the best of the lot, for obvious reasons, but these are not bad cards to get in a repack even if just one of them came.

I also got a couple of Allen & Ginter high numbers/short prints:

Swin Cash, 2012 A&G #339

John Kruk, 2013 A&G #333

Kevin Youkilis, 2013 A&G #329

And then there was the Pele "error":

Again, it's fun to pull these cards out of repack packs, if only because it seems that they come literally every pack or every other pack.  

Another card set that shows up regularly in these repacks are the Topps 2013 Series 2 cards.  You'd think I'd be sick of them after cracking a case -- and, yes, I have a little 2013 fatigue going -- but when you get a couple of those "sunglasses" short prints, it's not bad:

That's especially true when one of them is from one of the hottest hitters in major league baseball this year in Giancarlo Stanton.

Finally, there are mascots.  Anyone want these two ragamuffins?

To be fair, I jumped all over four Jumbo Packs of Archives this morning when I found them at another area Target.  Four jumbo packs yielded 72 cards for $24 -- about 30 cents each before tax -- but it felt much more expensive than that for some reason.  And, I didn't get any autographs or relics or anything there.

But if I can't get what I want, I can always count on the repacks to give me what I need.