Oddball from the Card Show

Sometimes, I think I'd rather be a type collector rather than being a player collector. I love seeing and having oddballs, regional cards, and random items almost as much as I love collecting Brewers cards.  Maybe in the future I'll go down that path.  

I'm a total sucker for oddballs. If you've ever gotten a trade package from me, you know I like to stuff those oddballs I have for your collection.  So, when I ran across an unopened box oddball at the card show, I had to get it.

The massive 2011 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards describes these as follows:

These 4-1/4" x 6" cards were something new. Printed on plastic, rather than paper, the player picture on the card is actually raised above the surface much like might be found on a relief map; a true 3-D baseball card.

At my local card show, I started talking to one of the guys who is a vendor there. Turned out he and I had graduated from college a year apart at the same school, though I didn't play the name game too much with him.  But, he sold me a completely unopened box of these 3-D Stars -- 24 packs in total -- for $5.  

I wasn't really familiar with this set before buying it, and one look at the checklist told me why:

No Brewers.  That explains a lot.  But it's a very good checklist for a 1985 set. Outside of perhaps a few guys (maybe Mike Boddicker -- who, in fairness, was coming off two seasons in which he went 16-8 for the World Series Champion 1983 Orioles and 20-11 and an AL ERA Title in 1984, or Dave Kingman) -- the checklist is fairly packed with stars and superstars.  

I have only opened a few of these so far -- I found my Gary Carter in the first few packs I opened -- and unsurprisingly they don't really scan all that well. But, here are a couple of examples.

Cal Ripken Jr.

Rickey Henderson

Darryl Strawberry

Boy, is that Strawberry scan an unflattering view.

Like I said, when it comes to oddballs, I just can't help myself sometimes.

I've also opened packs containing Jim Rice, Pete Rose, and Don Mattingly in addition to Carter.

So, anyone want one of these?

Repack Gold, Part 1

I envy people who catalog every pack as they open them.  Their level of organization is far beyond what I can muster.  Frankly, their level of patience is more than I can muster.  I like -- no, I need -- to open all the packs that I've bought, sort through them, see what I have, and pick out my favorites.  With this blog, I add the step of scanning in a bunch of cards from what I've opened to show off and write about.

By the time I get through step two of sorting, I've completely forgotten what cards came in which pack. And, I don't like organization so much that I have to put everything into spreadsheets.  At least not yet.  Perhaps that time will come, but I'm still sorting through all the cards (probably around 50,000 or so) that I had as a kid in the 1980s.

Anyway, that's a long introduction to the first of two posts to share what gold the $4 repacks held yesterday. There were some fantastic cards.  In fact, this entire post includes only Hall of Fame members (sorry, Mr. Clemens and Mr. Bonds! HA!).  These weren't the only HoF members I got -- just the ones I liked best.

First, two 1980 Topps cards that, while a little off center, have incredibly sharp corners (in particular for being repacks):

The Stargell is in such good shape with good, sharp corners that I actually commented out loud on it while sitting by myself in my basement/card room.  Both cards are ones I had as a kid, but these two are in much better shape than anything I had from 34 years ago myself.

Topps UK Minis are fairly common in the Fairfield repacks -- I always get some, and sometimes I even get a Mini Tiffany (like the Dion James one I passed along to the Chop Keeper in Idaho).  These five had two or three Nolan Ryans, three or four of Ryno trying to grow a mustache to look older, 5 Dale Murphys, 3 or 4 Wade Boggs, and 3 or 4 Roger Clemens, among others.

If you've read my nascent 1982 Topps Blog, you'll have heard the story about how much of a conspiracy freak Steve Carlton is these days (or at least was 15 years ago).  This is his 1987 Topps Traded set card, straight from the repack.

Cards from the late 1980s usually comprise at least 60% of the repack loose cards.  Fun oddballs like that Cap'n Crunch Robin Yount show up pretty regularly, though not with enough consistency to try to put the set together solely from the repacks.  Well, okay, you could do it, but you'll end up with a LOT of 1989 Topps commons to show for your efforts.

That said, this nice 1988 Fleer of Cal Ripken, Jr. just struck me as an attractive card of the Orioles Hall of Famer.  I have this set in a Gary Carter box, but I don't have many 1988 Fleer outside of that.

Finally, Mr. Barry Larkin.  This past week, I was talking by e-mail with a guy I met at the last card show I went to about a month ago, Von.  We have been discussing some trading, and I mentioned my lack of 1994 through 2007 Brewers (which, thanks to all of you has been filling up some lately!).  One of the things he said was, "It's strange but you don't see too many cards from that timeframe in the repacks."

Perhaps that avalanche is about to be unleashed.  This 1996 Topps Barry Larkin might have been the only 1996 Topps in the group, but there were also a few cards from a number of those 1994-2007 sets.  The tide might be turning, Von!