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!

Buying a "dime box" of 1977 Topps off eBay

My wife had a friend in town this past weekend to help her with decorating a couple of rooms in our house in an inexpensive way.  I know -- inexpensive sounds crazy and unlikely, but it was inexpensive.

At any rate, I found myself in my basement in front of my computer sorting through baseball cards.  This is not unusual by any stretch of the imagination, as in my basement in front of my computer sorting through baseball cards is where I find myself usually on any day that ends in a "y" if I can help it.

As we baseball card scavengers are wont to do, I found myself sorting through eBay auctions and looking for a lot that had something different from the ordinary piles of auctions offering "vintage unopened packs of cards from at least 20 and up to 27 years ago!!!"  If I want those packs, I'll go local here and buy them at $5 a box.

As it happened, I found an auction offering over 7000 cards from the 1977 Topps set for a set price of $389 -- about a nickel a card.  For that price, it did not matter to me that these cards are not pristine, near-mint gems of cards.  Instead, it gave me a chance to rectify one of the worst mistakes of my years of baseball card collecting.

I was a 5-year-old kid in 1977, and I loved baseball.  We subscribed to Baseball Digest for me, we bought packs of baseball cards, and we watched as many games as they would show on over-the-air TV.  Back then, that number of games was something like 10 away games because everyone was scared that people would stay home and watch the game on TV rather than go to the game.  Perhaps that is true now in the world of Super HD TVs and season tickets for the worst seats running about $800 to $900 per seat...but then, it seemed unfair to me.

I had heard about plastic sheets to protect one's baseball cards in one of my Baseball Digest magazines.  We were pretty poor and couldn't afford to buy these plastic sheets, so instead my mom grabbed Mylar from where she worked -- really thick Mylar -- and we started sticking the Mylar ONTO THE CARDS.  Yup, ruined a ton of cards that I have kept to this day because, well, I couldn't find replacements.  Here's one of those abominations:

As if to make things worse, applying the Mylar to some cards ended up with some of them -- like this Brewers checklist -- getting trimmed.  You can see that on the top of this checklist.

To get back to my auction, though, I came across this huge lot of 1977 cards and stared and stared and stared.  I really wanted to pull the trigger on buying them, but at the same time the cost of nearly $400 was telling me not to do it.

Then, my wife came down into the basement to ask me for help doing something.  I showed her the auction. She told me, "buy them and consider them a Valentine's Day gift.  Besides, we haven't spent anything on decorating the house -- it was all on gift cards!"

So, now I have over 7000 1977 Topps to sort.  There are decent cards in this lot -- I mean, 15 Robin Younts should be enough alone for me, but then there are these:

The Carlton is one of fifteen copies.  And then there are these:

The Palmer is one of sixteen.

Now, this isn't a complete set -- no Dawson rookie, no Murphy rookie -- but it's a lot closer than I was, and these cards aren't covered in Mylar.

So, if you need a random 1977 Topps card, let me know.  I bet I have it and we can work something out.