Taking one for the team

Ever wonder what's in a hot pack on eBay? I may be one of the few and buying one of these packs is also giving the pack searchers fodder for continuing to do so.

However, I just wanted to see. I just wanted to take a shot.

I bought a 'hot pack' of SP Authentic on eBay a few weeks ago. There are five cards in the pack. I actually liked the base cards I got.

I got two Yankees, a soon-to-be Yankee and NiCole Hamels (not scanned).The auto is not really that exciting. Josh Anderson of the Tigers, except he got traded to the Royals last season. He batted .240 last year in 118 games with a home run and 25 RBIs. He also had 25 stolen bases.

That'll teach me to buy hot packs off eBay.

I opened my Christmas loose packs

I got 4 retail T206 packs and 2 SP Authentic Hobby packs in my stocking. I opened them pretty quickly, but just didn't get to scanning and posting until now.

There were hits in both sets of packs which was pretty cool, however neither of the hits really interest me.

First the T206:

Honus Wagner NNO SP (should slab it and list it for $5,000,000 on eBay)

Jason Varitek (clown back, I mean Polar Bear)

Chipper Jones Old Mill relic card

The 2009 SP Authentic:

Derek Jeter base card

Alfonso Soriano Future Watch Flashbacks #033/495

Phil Coke By The Letter Auto letter "T" (Spells "SP Authentic" which is pretty f-ing dumb)



So there you have it. Some fun stuff to see when you open the packs, but just trade bait at the end of the day.

Prices for the case break will be up tomorrow hopefully. Just waiting on one more quote, but so far Blowout looks to have the best price (as usual).

2009 SP Authentic Packs

The other day I was randomly looking for local card shops online to see if by some chance I missed one somewhere. Apparently I missed one that according to mapquest's directions was 3 minutes and one block from Trader Joe's where I get my groceries. Today I decided to stop in the shop and see what it was about.

The outside of the store would give you no clue that they even sold any kind of sports cards, it was all video games, movies, etc. in their store window. I parked anyway and figured if it was a bust I'd still have a story for all of you to be tortured through. The cards were in the back, in one single case. They had a case full of game used cards and auto stuff, all separated by team and all insanely overpriced. Two that I remember were a Spectrum Pujols jersey for $25 (single white swatch), and a Halladay single blue swatch for $20. I saw a Nolan Ryan auto, which to me was the most reasonably priced card at $120. Packs were varied from years, including 2008 UD Series 1 for $6.99 a pack, 2006 Topps Chrome for $6.99 a pack, 206 $7.99 a pack, and SP Authentic $7.99 a pack. There were others but I don't remember the prices, but they had Bowman Heritage, some Topps, etc.

I decided to spend a little bit of the cash on SP Authentic because I had already seen packs of everything else there. I am not disappointed in my choice, nor am I upset about getting ripped off for two reasons:

1.


2.

I didn't scan anything but the hits because the cards have been done, and they are boring to look at anyway. Yeah, so maybe I'm on a hot streak. If that is the case I sure hope someone in my family picked up a box of something for me to break Christmas morning.

(Note: Markakis card is on hold until I speak to beardy, and Griffey Jr. I am probably keeping unless someone has something super freakin' awesome.)

2009 SP Authentic Blaster Review

I went to Target yesterday with every hope they had a blaster of SP because I am bored with everything else. At first glance I saw nothing at all, then after rummaging I saw 3 blasters on the bottom shelf and opted for the first one I saw. I would have loved to have bought all 3 but it's just not realistic nor would it be productive considering that buying a hobby box and skipping it altogether would make more sense.

Nothing exciting about the design, nothing groundbreaking in terms of photography or composition of player image and borders/background. You get 8 packs per box, and 5 cards per pack. There were no doubles, 1 cheesy 20th anniversary card, and 2 inserts. I really like the inserts, you will see why I am a big fan of one of them for obvious reasons in the scan, and the other is a good player as well. I will ruin it for you and tell you I did not get any of the guys I collect as far as base cards go. (Maybe another blaster isn't a terrible idea after all.) I only got 1 card about #100, which was Michael Young.

Rather than bore you with words, I scanned each pack in the order I opened them so you can see how the pack breaks went. I also scanned the back of one base card and both inserts so you can get an idea what they are like.










I make no claims to be a set builder, but this seems like an easy one to build every year with a limited base set and usually no short prints. I am looking forward to getting some Pujols cards from this set, and the other guys I collect. I may just pick up the cards individually online, or try and trade for them rather than buy more blasters. The local hobby shop is too expensive to go for a few hobby packs or (gasp) a hobby box.