A Trip to Target

I made a run to Target and to the Goodwill store this morning in search of cards cheap, repacked, oddly located, and otherwise weird.  My trip to Goodwill was disappointing -- literally the only aisle with any potential of holding cards was blocked off by workers reorganizing the shelves.  Oh well.

Thankfully, there is a Target about 2 blocks from the Goodwill, so I had to have a fix of unopened packs, etc.  Target let me scratch my itch, and it has given me enough to talk about for probably a week here.  I bought a quite a few things -- a 2014 Topps Rack Pack, a 2014 Topps Retail Blaster Box with the patch in it, a 2013 Panini Extra Edition box (and man is that another post entirely...), one of the repacks that has "one guaranteed autograph" included (along with three or four unopened packs of cards), and three of those $4 repack things -- all of which had an opened pack of 2012 Topps included.

To start with in this post, I have never been terribly lucky in pulling short printed cards or errors in my life.  I had one good one when I was a kid -- the 1979 Topps Rangers Bump Wills version (when Topps jumped the gun and put Wills on the Blue Jays based on an anticipated trade that never happened).

Today, though, I was luckier than I had been in a while.  Not necessarily with the repacks, mind you, but definitely with the 2014 Topps.  First, the very first thing I ripped when I opened the blaster box was the patch.  I was hoping for the 1975 Topps Robin Yount patch to add to my PC, but I didn't get it.  I did get a 1975 commemorative patch, though:

Not a bad start to the festivities.  Of course, it's available in trade but I do like this patch card.

I ripped through everything, and then I went back to try to figure out if I had any of those random "sparkle" short prints.  Either they are not as rare this year, or I got reasonably lucky, because lo and behold there one was:

It took me a couple of times looking through these cards to see that sparkle, so for us older guys who might need glasses, I figured I'd post it with the sparkle circled.

Finding this was a fun way to cap my morning of tearing packs and otherwise going on a "lottery hunt" with my purchases this morning.

Of course, it's up for trade too, but I have no idea what it is really "worth"....any thoughts?

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UPDATE:

I decided to list the Scherzer sparkle on eBay.  Check it out!

My First Internet Trade

I couldn't wait to leave the office and get home today, because I was pretty sure I would have a ton of cards coming to me through the mail today.  I was absolutely correct.  I had three envelopes waiting on me.  What did I have?  Let's walk through them.

1.  Complete set of Jays Potato Chips MSA Set:  I wrote a week ago about the Jays Potato Chips set put out in the Chicago and Milwaukee area in 1986.  That post led me to scour eBay for those disks, and I got a complete set for a grand total of $5.50 including shipping.  They are in great shape, and I am very pleased with this purchase.

2.  A 1990 Robin Yount Collect-A-Book:  An oddball item for my Robin Yount collection, this was another eBay purchase that also was not too expensive -- $1.50 including shipping.  It's a pretty common oddball item, to be fair, but I didn't have it and now I do.  Here it is:

3.  A 2014 Red Rain shiny Jean Segura parallel and a gold Carlos Gomez parallel:

These beauties were the ones I was most excited about because they came in a trade I made with ARPSmith from ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession.  A week and a half ago, he blogged about liking the mini-1989 die cut insert series that accompanies 2014 Topps this year and about how he liked the set enough to try to put it together.  Seeing as I had one I was willing to part with -- a Justin Verlander -- I left a comment saying to e-mail me to work something out.  

When he e-mailed me, he suggested that he send me these two excellent Brewers cards in trade for the Verlander.  I agreed quickly, and we did the trade.  Thanks, ARPSmith!  

Now, who wants next?