So there’s this card shop over in the next county from Shlabotsylvania and they sell monster boxes of base cards for $20. I was over at that store a couple of weeks ago so I decided to give one of these boxes a try… I figured it’d be fun, and as they say “It’s less than the price of a blaster!”
I certainly got my $20’s worth out of the deal… I got a number of base cards that I needed, I got some oddballs and inserts, I got some cards my trading buddies need and (not to be overlooked) I also got a slightly used monster box.
Part of the idea of this was to more or less replace impulse card purchases at the local big box store. I can usually be pretty good about pacing myself, so I intended to keep the monster box on the side and maybe grab a large handful of cards when the urge for ‘new cards’ strikes.
That was the plan, and it probably would’ve worked out that way if I knew in advance what was in the box… but curiosity got the better of me, and once I started to discover some fun stuff in the box I wanted to see what else there was and I ended up going through the entire box over the course of that weekend. I’m still working out the “need ‘m, got ‘m” situations, but all of the fun stuff has been found… and I’ll share the highlights here.
I never pulled one of these faux Transogram cards out of packs of 2018 Topps Heritage, but now I have one. Would’ve been nicer if it was someone I collected, but this works as a placeholder I suppose.
I’m very much not into ‘Fauxbacco’ sets like Gypsy Queen or Allen & Ginter, but I remember being very intrigued by the “History Of Flight” insert set from 2019 Ginter. At the time I’d intended to chase this insert set, but of course it didn’t work out that way. Five years later I have my first two cards from the set and I’m not sure if I still want to chase it.
I had no freakin’ clue what these cards were. They’re something called L.O.L. Surprise, which means nothing to me.
Because I’m verrrrrrrry slowly working on completing the 1976 SSPC set I got VERY excited when I saw the back of a 1976 SSPC card while thumbing through some cards, but unfortunately the two SSPC cards in my box are ones I already have. This is the Cubs’ Jim Tyrone and Bucky Dent from his days with the White Sox, before he earned his F’ing middle name.
I pulled this 1977 card of Fran Healy and, because I’ve been trained over the years to do so when I see a 1977 Yankees card, I immediately flipped it over to look at the card number. It’s card #3, which means it’s not 1977 Topps, it’s a 1977 Burger King Yankees card. The shape is a little rough and I don’t generally chase Burger King cards which are more or less identical to the Topps counterpart, but when they fall in my lap, well..
Even though it was supposed to be a box of baseball cards, I got a fair amount of basketball and football cards including a couple of semi-vintage cards like this 1981 Topps Terry Bradshaw Super Action Card. Unfortunately it isn’t one I needed for my Steelers team set, but it’s still worth showing off.
There were a few cards from the 1991-92 ProCards Tomorrow’s Heroes set. The Reading Phillies hold a special place in my heart because they were the home team for the first minor league game I’d ever gone to (I was 17 at the time), so Cliff Brantley goes into my collection.
I got a number of cards from this 1994 Columbus Clippers Police set. Most of them (like Sterling Hitchcock on the left) are novel but not terribly interesting. The Billy Masse card featuring his glove is just plain weird.
I got an unlicensed relic insert for Cardinals one-time-prospect and injured All-Star Alex Reyes. Not terribly exciting in and of itself but given that this was supposed to be a box full of base cards any inserts caught my attention.
I remember how people were going nuts over these 2018 Topps Archives inserts featuring the characters from The Sandlot. I’ve still never seen the movie (doesn’t seem like I’d enjoy it from what I’ve seen), but I do know that Wendy Peffercorn was a fairly hot pull in 2018.
Wrapping up with a nice 2018 Heritage “Baseball Flashbacks” card to commemorate Jim Palmer’s 1969 no-hitter.
I’ll definitely buy another one of these boxes when I’m over near that card shop again, but maybe next time I can show a bit more restraint in how quickly I go through it.