Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Adventures in Retail


I had the retail itch the other day and stopped by Target on the way home. I admit I get retail fever from time to time. I am glad I was running a pack busting fever on this particular day. I picked up a 3 packs of 2010 Topps Update. Here are the highlights of those packs:

Yes I got 3 Strasburgers in 3 packs. Since he's on like 20 different cards in Update series, the odds are stacked in the collector's favor. I know a lot of collector's are stressing over the #661 thing. I put it at the end of my base set. It's #'d 661 for reason. The Gold and the More Tales of the game kind of annoy me for some reason. I don't think I will be buying any more Update Series because I'm a few cards short of the set.
I also bought 2 of the value packs of Topps Chrome. Refractor's galore! I think this is the first time I have ever opened a pack of Topps Chrome. I was pretty lucky I think because I ended up with some sort of refractor in each pack! The Strasburg and Stanton Orange came from the same clear cellophane pack. The Arrieta came in the other. Jake brings me one step closer to the Orioles Orange Refractor Team set. The Manny card is my best refractor/x-fractor pull of the bunch. To my astonishment, the Escobar Gold Refractor is a 1 in 775 packs! I am seriously thinking about busting a Hobby box of this stuff because I've had such good luck. My birthday is coming up so maybe I should treat myself or maybe I should quit while I'm ahead. What do you think?
Not pictured are : Orange Refractors: Yadier Molina, Roy Oswalt, Jered Weaver. Refractors of Torii Hunter, Johnny Cueto. X-Fractors of Carlos Zambrano, Erick Aybar

So this time I beat the odds at retail. I guess every collector has his day some times.

5 comments:

  1. It's simple, I file my Topps sets: Opening Day, Base, Updates then all of the inserts. Simple, easy, direct, no muss, no fuss, no runs, no drips, no errors.

    I haven't pulled 661 yet this year but I do have the Bonds 661 from 2007 (I think) and it easily fit between 660 and UH-1.

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  2. would you be willing to trade that orange Stanton refractor?

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  3. I ended up putting the 661 Strasburg with the updates. It was easier then pulling out all the inserts and throwing it at the end of the base set.

    I have pulled THREE Manny xrefractors!

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  4. Nice Escobar & Others. I really like the way that chrome looks, but the ones I bought at Wal-Mart are really curved. Does that happen a lot?

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  5. Scott - Since I don't collect Opening Day or any of the inserts its easy for me to open up the box and put it at the end of the base set.

    Jimmy - I'm hanging onto that particular Strasburg for now.

    Nite Owl - I guess I don't have to put aside that particular Manny for you!

    Derek - From everything I've seen, both hobby and retail cards have a nice curve to them. I've just accepted that's the nature of the beast, no point in complaining about it. I've rememdied the situation by placing them underneath some heavy books for a few days.

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