Packs, packs, and more packs!

If there's one thing that I wasn't looking for at the most recent card show, it was unopened packs. Not to sound like a braggart or anything, but I've got maybe 25 or 30 different unopened packs, as well as half a dozen overproduction era boxes stashed away for a rainy day, all blog material of course, so there was absolutely no reason for me to pick up anymore... or so I thought!

Seeing as how this was one of the super mega giant shows, there were dealers there from near and far, many of whom hadn't set up there before. One of those first-timers was a guy who had an obscene amount of unopened packs, all of which were priced at either fifty cents or a dollar. He had sports, and he had non-sports, probably more of the latter than the former. There was plenty of "junk wax", but also plenty of newer things as well, from Dinosaurs Attack! to packs with Aaron Judge on the wrapper (sorry, I don't know what set those were from).

I didn't find this guy until I was about three hours in, and by then I was already more than a little weary, so much so that I almost didn't stop at his table, despite the impressive spread -- but there was no one else there, and after having been elbow to elbow with people for the previous couple of hours, the thought of being able to look through something without having another guy rubbing up on me was just too darn appealing to pass up. Even so, I wasn't planning on looking through everything, but that plan was tossed out the window after I found the above two packs of RockCards... then I knew that I wasn't going anywhere until I saw every single pack!

Until just recently I never realized how popular MusiCards were. I remember seeing somebody post something about them on Twitter a year or so ago, and then all of sudden they were all over the blogs. Wish I would've known some of these fans of the set when I was a kid, because back then I don't recall ever seeing anybody other than myself buying them. Since Gavin wanted one of the promo cards, I'll probably be opening these up sooner than later, that way he doesn't have to wait to long to get it.

It was kind of funny/eerie that I would find a pack of Tek World cards, as I had just been reading an old TV Guide the night before, a TV Guide that just happened to feature an interview with William Shatner about the upcoming premiere of Tek World. Kind of strange, huh?

These were gotten for, Matt. And I'm not showing them to be like "look how great I am because I bought something for somebody else", no I'm just showing them because they're part of the overall purchase, plus Matt already knows about them, so I'm not ruining any sort of surprise or anything. As I already told Matt on Twitter, I tried to get him some packs from the Power Rangers movie as well, but they felt like they were bricked, and I'm not about to take a chance on something that's likely already ruined. This guy had a bunch of Saga of the Dark Knight packs that appeared to be suffering from the same problem, which is too bad, because I would've bought all of those. [Note to Matt: I know I've already said it, but I will try to get these out to you sometime soon]

 

I'm pretty sure that I've never opened any 1992 Pro Set before, and I had no idea that Pro Set ever came in jumbo packs, so I kind of had to get this one... too bad it was the only one that he had!

I've seen some singles from this set before, but had never really thought about the actual set, meaning that I didn't know if it came in packs, or was just one of those sets that you'd buy as a whole... obviously they came in packs! I don't know if I actually needed these or not, but like some of the other stuff in this post, they'll at least make for some good blog fodder.

Initially I was going to be done with what you've already seen, but as I was wrapping up my search, the dealer came around the table with two handfuls of packs and started trying to find space for them. I was immediately drawn to one group of packs that he had in his hand, so before he could even start, I said "Can I please see those", to which he replied with a hearty "You sure can!".

These are what caught my eye! I hadn't seen a pack of these since I was probably eight or nine years old, and didn't really think that I ever would again. It's certainly not the greatest set ever, but seeing them again brought back a ton of nostalgia, so I had to have some. He had brought out like twenty packs, and I briefly thought about getting them all, but soon settled on ten. Still wonder if I should have gotten them all though?

I soon learned that some guy had pulled out a bunch of packs earlier, but didn't have enough money to pay for them, asked the dealer to hold them out and he would come back and pay for them, and as of a couple of hours later, still hadn't come back, so the dealer was putting the packs back out for sale... and I just so happened to be standing there when he decided to do so (things like that never happen to me)!

As a quick aside, asking a dealer at any kind of collectibles show to hold some stuff for you, and then not coming back to pay for it, is a prick move... so don't do it!

Oh, and there were more than just WrestleMania packs being put back out, this flaky buyer had obviously cherry picked the boxes, because there weren't any other examples of these packs when I went through the boxes -- so except for some of the WrestleMania packs, and a few from newer baseball sets that I didn't recognize, I ended up buying the rest of what was being put back out...

I'm not familiar with this set at all, and I'm intentionally not looking it up, I want to be surprised! Five cards for a buck was a bit much, but since there was only one, I figured it was worth the chance.

Collector's Edge... YES!!!!!!

Check out that groovy reflection of my hands and phone! I'm not familiar with this set either, and these were the only packs that I second guessed myself on, so hopefully I won't hate the design.

And last but not least, a golden ticket! I wish that there would've been some more of these, but one pack was better than nothing... thanks flaky buyer!

So, not a bad haul, eh? I would've bought more had some of the packs been only $0.25, namely those of the New Kids on the Block and Rocketeer variety, but I really only wanted those for the stickers, and paying fifty cents for a sticker didn't seem like a very good deal. I'm sort of wondering now if I should've asked the guy if he'd sell them for a quarter a pack, provided I take them all? I guess if I ever see him again, and he still has the packs, I'll give it a go, as I don't think that it would be considered an insult to make such an offer.

I always see people say that they got something "for the price of a blaster", or a "blaster and a half", which is all fine and good, but I don't really know what the going rate of blaster is these days? $15? $20? If they are in that range, I guess I can say that I got these for the price of a blaster, because the 28 packs set me back $18. And I may not know how much a blaster costs, but I'm fairly certain that none of them come with 28 packs, so I think as far as buying packs goes, this turned out to be a pretty good purchase.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

Things

I've got a few things that I'd like to talk about, none of which would be worth doing individual posts for, so... looks like you're gonna be getting a bit of a potpourri today!

Thing #1:

I already shared this on Twitter, but since I know that everybody isn't on there, I'm gonna give it a quick show on here as well. I've mentioned the "copy/print/cards on the side" shop on here a few times before, it's the source for the packs in my "One Random Pack" series, of which I still have plenty of unopened packs (and a couple of cheap boxes) for -- but it's been awhile since I last stopped in there, so since I had to go through town last week, I decided I'd stop in and see if I could pick up a few more $0.25 packs.

I don't think that the bins are being added to anymore, so there wasn't anything too terribly exciting to choose from, but I did find a buck's worth, including what was my first ever soccer related purchase (it was the only pack in there). I've since found out that Vinnie Jones' (the actor) rookie card is the only real thing of interest that could come from that pack (fingers crossed).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of there with just these four packs...

Damn cheap boxes, they get me almost every single time I go in there! And I definitely wasn't looking for a box of Super Stars, but how was I supposed to pass up entire box of something for two dollars? The other two were $8 apiece, just in case you were wondering. I'll probably wait until winter to open them, I'm hoping they'll be able provide a little bit of joy during what is usually the most depressing time of the year for me.

Thing #2:

The last couple of weeks have seen me trying to put together a few RAK packages, which means that I've been looking through all of my card boxes, and of course inevitably that means that I will be coming across things that I didn't know I had, or things that I knew that I had, but had forgotten about.

This 1992 Action Packed gold Lou Boudreau falls into the category of not knowing that I had, I don't recall seeing it before, and I have no idea where it came from?

I've mentioned before about wanting, because we a share a birthday, to start a collection of his, a collection of the vintage variety. Now after seeing this card, which I think is pretty neat BTW, I'm starting to wonder if I'd enjoy collecting his newer cards as well? I wonder how many post-retirement cards he has?

Thing #3: Speaking of collections, I've been fortunate enough to have had three people, in as many weeks, inquire into what I collect. No longer having any want lists up on the blog has made my return emails to these generous souls much longer than they needed to be.

I took the want lists down earlier this year, primarily because they were terribly outdated, but also because I trying to dissuade people from sending anything. Don't get me wrong, I love getting mail (who doesn't?), and I'm very grateful for all of the things that have been sent my way since starting this blog -- but I knew that I wouldn't be going to as many shows this year (only one so far), which meant that I would have much less to send people in return (no one's going to want any of that overproduced wax at the top of the post). So since I'm not comfortable with receiving things, and then not reciprocating the kindness, well, that just gave me more reason to take down the lists.

These last couple of inquiries though have made me rethink my decision to remove the lists, so I will be adding some back to the blog, might take me a bit to do so, but at least people won't have to wonder anymore. My collecting interests continue to change, so these lists will probably be quite a bit different than before, but on the plus side, they'll probably contain a lot more cards that are of the easier to find variety, which I'm assuming will be a good thing.

Oh, and for the record, I did try to talk those three people out of sending anything, but I guess time will only tell if I was successful or not.

Thing #4:

I found a piece of coal last week! I'm sure that this isn't all that exciting to anyone but me, but it's still a thing that happened, so it makes into the "Things" post. This part of the state used to be a big coal mining area, so one might expect to find some coal here and there, but I've spent an awful lot of time out in the woods over the course of the last 4 1/2 years, and have never seen any coal! The most surprising thing was that I found it right next to the house, and it hadn't been there the day before. We did have a thunderstorm roll through the night before, the heavy rain from which was responsible for exposing just enough of it for me to notice a black edge protruding from the ground the the following day. Like I said, it's probably not very interesting to you, but I thought it was kind of neat.

Thing #5: Did you see last week's "COMC Shuffle" post? No? That's the problem, nobody else seems to be reading them either. Those posts have become my lowest viewed, and often receive the fewest comments, heck, posts about videos from the thrift store are more popular then the Shuffle posts. I thought folks would like the variety, especially since the items are being chosen by a randomizer, but it would appear that I was wrong. I will continue to do them until the COMC folder runs dry, but I won't be bringing it back once I get this year's COMC hoard, I'll just have to figure out another way to show that stuff on the blog.

Thing #6: In other COMC news, I added $10 to my account the other day. Now I'm sure that everybody's like "And? People add money to their account all the time!", and this is true, but I haven't added any money to my account since the Challenges started, which was like 5 or 6 years ago. I have spent a lot of time doing the Challenges since they opened, and have earned quite a bit of credit for doing so, at least up until late last year. The appeal seems to have worn off, and I just haven't wanted to waste all of my free time doing them, as a result, there's been a lot less money/credit in my account to play with. This hasn't been much of a problem though as there hasn't been a lot of cards that I'm interested in being added to the site, and where this, they're usually priced at 10-25 times more than they should be. Then July showed up, and everybody seems to be adding all this great, and reasonably priced, stuff to the site... and guess who has next to know credit left?

I've been trying to do some Challenges again, but the times that they've been open haven't been conducive to me doing them. A couple of cards that I really wanted were on sale the other day, and priced much lower than they should've been, so since my hobby spending stayed under budget last month, I had a few extra bucks this month, hence the $10 being added to my account (that felt so weird to do). Although, between this, the boxes that I led the post off with, and my trip to Goodwill and Hobby Lobby the week before, I am now pretty much tapped out for the rest of the month -- save for a few bucks to mail out a package or two.

Thing #7:

I won a small item on eBay last month, an item that was going to be coming from Israel, meaning that I would likely be getting a most interesting looking piece of mail, and I did! Obviously I've covered up the juicy parts, but that doesn't take away from the overall appeal. As for the item, you'll have to wait to see that, as it's destined for a future blog post -- a really long, and difficult to write, future blog post.

Thing #8: Anybody who's familiar with the blogs should know that there are some very talented folks out there when it comes to making customs. I have admired all of these talented individuals for many years now, and have longed for the day when I could try my hand at making customs, well, I'm happy to report that the long awaited day seems to have come.

Since I didn't know if I would be sticking with it, I wasn't about to shell out a bunch of dough for Photoshop, but I will spring for a free download! I recently found out about an editing program called GIMP (I'm sure that I'm the last to find out about it), which from what I've been able to gather, is like a poor man's Photoshop. Computers have never been my thing, because of that, I wondered initially if I would ever even be able to figure out how to use it -- but after watching a few tutorials on YouTube, and just messing around with it for a bit, I was very pleased to find that I was kind of actually understanding what was going on. And while I still have much to learn, I'm slightly excited to see what the future might bring, at least as far making customs goes.

Thing #9:

I am a fairly healthy eater, at least by American standards, and have been for quite awhile now. However, in recent years I seem to have developed a bit of a vice come summertime, that being popsicles! My want for them tends to show up right around the time that the weather starts warming up, although it doesn't seem to last until the warm weather begins to fade, I just seem to get tired of all of the extra, and honestly, unnecessary, sugar. For example, as of this writing, my "vice" has already come and gone, and there is still plenty of summer heat to be had, at least around these parts.

Anyways, some of the popsicles still come with jokes, most of which are wonderfully cheesy. Every year one or two seem to stand out from the rest, with the one above being my favorite from this past summers crop, so I figured why not share it with everyone else!

Any guesses yet? I'll give you another second to think about it before revealing the answer...
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Good show! Not only was the joke clever, but finding it on a cherry flavored popsicle made it just that much better. And for anyone who may be wondering, the answer is yes, I will be keeping it.


Thing #10: Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page :)